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by Keppie

Top 5 Exercises for Coming Up With Great Song Lyric Ideas—#1: Sense Writing.

In this series, I’ll go through my all-time Top 5 Exercises for generating lyric ideas, whether I’ve got a song idea going already or not. 

These exercises don’t require inspiration. They mostly require 10 minutes and a pen. Just like anything in life, you can get better at writing great lyrics with practice. I hope these exercises give you something to practice with. 

  1. Sense Writing

Sense Writing is a timed, 10-minute prose-writing exercise that I learned from Pat Pattison, and is beloved by a cavalry of incredible songwriters, including Gillian Welch, John Mayer, and Liz Longley.

Here’s How it Works.

  1. Find a random prompt. At the beginning, using an ‘object’ prompt is best (something tangible you can see/feel/hold/touch). You can find random prompts on any day in these spots:

You can also collect prompts yourself, by simply coming up with a long list of objects (ie things) that you can draw on whenever you sit down to write. The key here—at the beginning of your Sense Writing journey—is randomness. The prompt must be something unexpected.

  1. Set a timer for 10 minutes, and write continuously. Don’t edit yourself or censor your writing. You’ve got to let the rusty water run to get to the clear stuff. This exercise isn’t lyric writing per se; it’s exploration. It’s a walk in the woods. Don’t worry about how good your shoes look. Look around and see what’s on the path instead, without judgment.

A few tips.

Do not try to write lyrics in this phase. No rhyming. No rhythmic meter. It will slow you, and put handcuffs on your ability to truly explore what arises.

Don’t write for longer than 10 minutes. It’s really easy (and common at the beginning) to get into ‘flow’ around minute 8, to hear the timer go off, and to think, “Oh I’m in it now; I’ll just keep going”. Don’t. You won’t get stronger unless you keep that 10-minute wall to push against. What you will find, if you stick to 10 minutes, is that you get faster at hitting flow. 

You will also find the exercise more sustainable over the long term. If you let it spiral out to 20 minutes, it becomes a ‘20-minute exercise,’ which is infinitely harder to convince yourself to do on a regular basis than a 10-minute exercise!

  1. Stay Sense-bound. This is the most crucial part of Sense Writing—this is what we’re really here for. 

The most important limitation on this type of writing is that you are deliberately trying to use all of your senses to paint a vivid picture of whatever scene, situation, event, or memory arises. Sometimes your writing will start out as a series of fleeting associations with the prompt—this is you pushing the jenga pieces of your mind, until you find one that moves a little more easily, then going deeper into that one. 

When you find one that moves, your aim to is be descriptive with all of the senses:

SIGHT SOUND SMELL TASTE TOUCH

Make sure you move around the senses, touching on all of them through your writing.

A few tips.

Try starting a few Sense Writes in the week with a sense other than sight or sound. Those are our dominant senses, and starting with the other senses pushes our mind and memories into different places.

Turn the dial up on the level of detail you go into. Instead of ‘the kitchen smelled like dinner cooking’, keep going. Fill it with the specifics: “the kitchen smelled of dinner cooking: rosemary, thyme, and a pinch of chilli.”

There are two other ‘senses’ that we can tap into as well: the ‘inside body’ sense (which is the physical sensations happening inside our body), and the ‘movement’ sense (where describe the way people and objects move in space). For more detail on these senses, check out this video. 

Sense Writing works best if you do it every day for at least 2 weeks (and then, at least 3 times a week for…ever 🙂 ). 

Examples of Sense Writing

Here’s one I did recently, with notations on the different senses:

Prompt: WHISTLE

I was 8 years old – beach holiday in the australian summer – sleeping with sand in my toes, crusting in my hair, and behind ears (touch). The salt of the sea, warm and moist in the air (touch and smell). The evening buzzing and alive with the rhythmic pulse of cicadas, together creating a screeching high pitched whistle that filled the air…(sound)

That afternoon, I learned to wolf whistle. Two fingers of each hand shoved into my mouth (visual, touch, inside body) – the tongue has to be curled back like Elvis’ hair (visual), then blow. At first, spit dribbling down my chin, and hot air just wheezing out (touch, sound). And then a short sharp sound. My heart racing, thumping against the cage of my ribs (inside body) – some kind of possibility opening up. I could taste the seaweed of the beach on my fingers and the spit glossing my lips (taste), as the sound sharpened, until finally shooting out as the loudest most ear rattling sound – a wolf whistle! (sound)

The sheer power of being 8 years old and able to create that sound! The sound waves hurtling past my lips and crashing through glass, sweeping out onto the street (movement) and joining those damn cicadas…as the indigo twilight started to wash its ink over the day, turning the street gray, the blanket of the sky sweeping closed (visual), but the sound of those cicadas still droning into the salty night…(sound)

How to Use Sense Writing to Write Lyrics

  1. Keep the best lines for later. Mine your writing for gold nuggets—lines, phrases, or even words that are interesting and evocative. Put them into a list:

sleeping with sand in my toes

The salt of the sea

The evening buzzing and alive

curled back like Elvis’ hair

thumping against the cage of my ribs

hurtling past my lips and crashing through glass

sweeping out onto the street

indigo twilight

wash its ink over the day

turning the street gray

blanket of the sky

Here’s the secret:

I can use any of these lines in any song I like. It doesn’t have to be a song about learning to wolf whistle. Or even a song about childhood (though I like that idea…more on that in a moment). But there are some lovely descriptions here of a summer evening that I could use for any song at all. 

In fact, sometimes keeping this list of lines in a doc without the prompt, then leaving them alone for a few weeks can help detach the lines from their original context, and allows me to use them for absolutely anything. What I find is that a few weeks later, I might read a line like ‘sweeping out onto the street’ and it will attach to an idea that I have been wanting to write about…so I might get something like:

In fading moments of indigo twilight

We are wrapped in the blanket of the sky

And spilling out onto the street

You are I are a bottle of wine

  1. Writing to find out what we are writing about. One of the primary benefits of Sense Writing is that our subconscious comes out to play. We can’t help it. Our brains are meaning-makers. The most seemingly random prompt almost always associates with a memory, scene, or situation that has an emotional imprint on us—and this is the stuff of song. 

In my example above, the line that really stands out to me is: “The sheer power of being 8 years old and able to create that sound!” To me this is a short story about finding a voice as a young kid, which is also a story about feeling powerless. About needing voice. About needing to make a sound loud enough to be heard. There’s something in there worth exploring. 

  1. Use it to write a section idea. I use Sense Writing when I have a song on the go, and specifically when I know what I want a section of lyric to be about (or how I want it to function in the song), but I don’t actually have lyrics for it yet.

Let me give you an example. I was working on an album project for Penguin Random House audio, writing an album of songs about motherhood. With the particular song I was working on at the time, I knew what I wanted the song to be about: the early stages of being mostly confined at home with a tiny infant. 

I also had a title—Cocoon—and a Song Map: an outline of where the song starts, develops, and how it would finish. 

Here’s the outline for Verse 1: 

The outside world has never looked so beautiful. But I can’t go out. I’m stuck inside, wrapped up in this cocoon. 

Here is a part of the Sense Write I did based on that idea (the prompt I gave myself was: “summer day”):

The sky outside so wide and blue, is sparkling, twinkling, glittering, a giant blue ocean whose tide is pulling on us, like a sapphire in the crown of cosmic gods

But the sky and the sun can both go away because we’re not going outside today, we don’t need to go outside today…

Here is the lyric to Verse 1:

The sky outside’s a sapphire sea

Whose tide is pulling me out

But the sun and sky and ocean too

Will all just have to wait

Because I’m not going outside today

I’m happy alone with you

Wrapped up here inside this cocoon

You can hear it set to music here. 

  1. Clearing the decks. The final way I use Sense Writing as a lyric writer is simply as a daily writing practice. A way to start my day, to put my mind into gear, to power up my songwriter brain, so that I am more primed to notice: notice details, pay attention to senses, become aware of how one thing connects to another. Even if I use nothing from a particular Sense Write in a song’s lyrics, it is always worth it.

Why Sense Writing?

Sense Writing trains you to turn ideas into imagery, and imagery is the most powerful way to connect with the minds and hearts of someone else.

As Leonard Cohen said: “We seem to be able to relate to detail. We seem to have an appetite for it. It seems our days are made of details, and if you can get the sense of another person’s day in details, your own day of details is summoned in your mind in some way rather than just a general line like “the days went by” (from Songwriters on Songwriting, ed. Paul Zollo).

Pair this article with:

120 Sense Writing Prompts

Examples of Sense Writing

The Best Method for Writing a Good Song

Learn More
by Keppie

How to put your inner critic in its place

And do your creative work in 2023

As writers, creators, artists, and musicians, we all have the same ugly little inner voices that try to sabotage us from doing our work. They come in different flavors: You’re not good enough. You have nothing important to say. This is boring. Ssssleep is sooooo much better than thissss (hear that in translated Parseltongue, please).

It’s what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance.

Julia Cameron calls it the Censor.

I call it: The Little Arsehole.

Here is the tricky thing though—there is another little voice in there, the Inner Guide, that is getting caught up in the machinations of the Little Arsehole. It’s a helpful voice. A voice that wants you to succeed, to get better, to discover the jewels of your craft. But it’s not obnoxious like the Little Arsehole so it doesn’t speak so loudly.

The first work that we need to do is to be able to differentiate between these two voices. And really, it’s easy when you know how to tell the difference.

And here it is.

The Little Arsehole has one goal: to make you stop.

So its messages always end the same way:

“You’re not good enough—you should just stop now before you embarrass yourself.”

“There is nothing in here that has not already been said better than you could ever say it—stop now and do something else. Go buy stuff for your kids on Amazon.”

Stop. Stop. Stop.

The Inner Guide has a totally different goal: to make you try harder, and do better.

It sounds more like this:

“That line is a little cliched—what else have you got?”

“There’s not enough contrast between these sections—what can you do to make it pop more?”

“This feels meandering. You haven’t found the hook yet. Keep looking.”

Keep looking. Keep going. Try harder. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Keep going.

Can you see the difference? One says stop. The other says keep going.

So what to do about that pesky Little Arsehole, because the truth is, it’s not really ever going to disappear. It’s part of you. And like silly putty, the harder you push it, the more rigid and strong it becomes.

So here is the revelation. You put that Little Arsehole in its place by treating it gently, sweetly, kindly. Why? Because it’s actually there to help you. It’s a vestigial feature of our evolutionary biology, designed to prevent us from standing out from the crowd—lions will eat you if you are the lone little deer wearing a pink tutu on the savannah. 

The Arsehole is really fear, whose tactic is protection. But there’s no lions, not in the sense that they can really hurt you. So we don’t really need that voice to be so loud and obnoxious when all we are trying to do is make art, do something creative and beautiful and weird. 

Here is the 3-step method for putting the Little Arsehole in its place:

Step 1: Identify.

Pay attention to those voices, and practice identifying the Arsehole (“stop”) versus the Guide (“try harder”). Once you’ve recognised it for what it is, you can stop identifying with it. 

Step 2: Treat it kindly.

Remember, if you get angry or frustrated with ‘fear’, it will perceive threat and double down. Here are some things I say to it:

“Oh hi! There you are again. Thanks for trying to protect me, that’s sweet of you to care so much. But in this moment, your services are not required. See? No lions! But please stick around for some other moment where I will almost certainly need you.”

Shorthand: “Thank you – but not right now.”

Side note:

I know this sounds a bit cute, but honestly, if you recognise it as a protective function that is truly trying to serve you, just in a misguided way—and, you treat it (which is to say, yourself) with respect and gratitude—it will stop popping up in unnecessary moments. And! You get the added benefit of training it to be more attuned to situations where it might actually come in handy.

Step 3: Put it in its place.

Which is to say, in the corner with a lollipop and an iPad. We are not trying to belittle it, just to remind it that now is not the time. 

Once the Little Arsehole is quiet and distracted, the Inner Guide gets more of a fighting chance of being heard, which is notoriously difficult. So many of my students ask how they can tell when a song is done, or even how to know what they need to change when they’ve created a first draft. The answer lies in your ability to hear the Inner Guide, to pay attention to it, and to dial it up. Its advice and guidance get better and clearer the more work you do. Its quality is a function of quantity. 

So get the lollipop jar ready, and go do your work. 

Want to kickstart your songwriting in 2023? Join us for the…

by Keppie

New online course: The Art of Co-Writing & Collaboration

We have just released (as in, literally JUST published) our second online mini course: The Art of Co-Writing and Collaboration.

The course is a tour through the co-writing process, divided into 3 sections: Preparation, Process, and Professional Practice.

We’ve brought together our best insights into successful collaborations from over 20 years in a variety of co-writing and collaborative experiences.

The course is half price until Dec 18 2022.

You can find out more and watch some of the content for free here.

Enjoy, and if you find it helpful, please leave it kind reviews!

Much warmth, and happy writing,

Keppie

by Keppie

Why the title of your song is so important

When we are talking about ‘ideas’ in songs, it’s helpful to draw this distinction:

There is the ‘big idea’ – the broad story, experience, or concept we want to write about.

What Jimmy Webb is talking about here is when the BIG IDEA becomes a SONG IDEA. What’s the difference?

A SONG IDEA isn’t just what we have to say; it’s HOW we are going to say it.

It’s the specific angle we are going to approach it from. It’s not the house of the song; it’s the door we are going to walk through to get into it.

A big idea becomes a SONG IDEA when we give it a TITLE.

Deciding on a title gives you direction; it helps your song have an anchor, or a central point of gravity, and then indicates to you what lines and ideas you have already sketched really serve THIS SONG, and which lines were simply the stepping stones to get you there, but really need to now be edited out.

Every line of lyric in your song should ultimately clearly serve to set up the HOOK/TITLE.

Examples

Look at Ed Sheeran’s song ‘First Times’.

Let’s pick out a few Verse lines, and see how they clearly connect back to the hook:

I thought it’d feel different playing Wembley —>
I can’t wait to make a million more first times
Then we start talking the way that we do —>
I can’t wait to make a million more first times
This four little words, down on one knee —>
I can’t wait to make a million more first times

Have a listen to Taylor Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero’. Links to an external site. Let’s do the same thing with Verse lyrics and the hook:

I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser —>
It’s me
Hi!
I’m the problem, it’s me

Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I’m a monster on the hill —>
It’s me
Hi!
I’m the problem, it’s me

The best advice I ever received

“Find the title at your earliest possible convenience.”

This advice came from Pat Pattison, author of Writing Better Lyrics. This was drummed into me again, and again, and it’s something I think about at every moment in a song’s development. You don’t need to START with a title, but be constantly on the lookout for it! By turning that searchlight on in your brain, titles will start popping out at you, inviting you into the house of the song, but showing you the special entry that is going to give your song a strong centre.

Check out our upcoming Live Workshops, and Online Courses here:

Learn More
by Keppie

Songwriting Tip: Quick Start to Using Modes

There’s more to life than the major key and the minor key.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few weeks, listening to Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s new song, Unholy, which was topping the global charts (until Taylor Swift released Midnights a week or so ago). 

I wrote in a previous post about one of the things that makes this song so unique—it is written in a very uncommon mode: Phrygian.

For a more in-depth look at Phrygian, and how to write a song in Phrygian, check out this video from our channel:

There are broadly 2 categories of modes—the modes that are actually fairly common, and the modes that aren’t.

Common modes are Mixolydian and Dorian.

You hear Mixolydian everywhere. It is highly idiomatic of certain genres—RnB, soul, gospel; and also bluegrass, country rock, and rock n roll.

You can hear it in action in the Verses of Ray LaMontagne’s ‘Beg, Steal, or Borrow’; in Brandi Carlile’s heart-rending ‘The Joke’; in The Eagles’ ‘Seven Bridges Road’; and shining in the Chorus of Beyonce’s ‘Spirit’.

For more on Mixo, and chord progressions in Mixo, check out this video on the channel:

The natural 6 injects some brightness into the darker palette of a minor key. It’s the swirling yellow star in a Van Gogh indigo night sky.

Dorian is idiomatic to lots of Celtic music traditions, but is also much loved in funk, dance, and pop.

Check out Dorian in Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky‘; in ‘Evil Ways’ by Santana; and Chris Isaak’s classic ‘Wicked Game‘.

For a deeper look at Dorian and Dorian chord progressions, check out this video on the channel:

The uncommon modes.

Which leaves us with the less-used modes, such as Phrygian, Lydian, and Locrian.

LYDIAN

Lydian is a major scale with a #4. It gives a song or section a slightly ethereal, untether feeling. It is much loved and used in film composition, when a composer wants to create a sense of magic, wonder, or lightness. Something drifting off into the sky.

For some Lydian immersion, check out the Verses in Sting’s ‘When We Dance’; and Elliott Smith’s ‘Waltz #1’.

PHRYGIAN

Ignoring Locrian (sorry Locrian!) for the time being, it brings us back to Phrygian! Our dark minor mode made inky black by that brooding b2 note…

For some more listening in Phrygian to get your dark juices flowing, you can also check out ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane; and ‘New Person, Same Old Mistakes’, by Tame Impala.

by Keppie

What I’m listening to and why.

I got a phone call from my friend Benny the other night (Benny, who I make videos with on all things songwriting). He was very excited: “Kep! You have got to listen to the new Sam Smith song! It’s in…Phrygian!”

What the hell is Phrygian, and why is this so exciting?

Well, music nerds, Phrygian is a mode, which means it’s a scale that is not your average minor scale or major scale. This particular mode is a minor scale, yes, but it has a crucial note that gives it its own special dark sauce: it has a b2.

For a more in-depth look at Phrygian (and also the wild extra note that makes the Chorus pop), check out this video on the channel:

The b2 note in the scale makes it very dark, and also totally unique among the songs on the charts right now.

In fact, it makes it unique amongst almost all Top 100 songs from the past decade or more.

But why should we care what’s on the charts? Well, I have it on very good advice (John Mayer told me this himself…) that a very good practice as a songwriter is to listen to the Top 10 on any day, without judgments of good and bad, but instead with this question in mind:

Why do millions of people love this?

And secondly: Can I use that thing in my own way (regardless of whether I happen to ‘like’ this particular song? Which, incidentally in this case, I very much do).

The video above gives some tips in the second half about ways you can take the musical concepts that make this song a standout, and apply them to your own song, without ripping it off.

For another example of how to take a cool musical idea you hear in a song, and apply it to your own songwriting, you can check out this video from the archive, on adapting this beautiful neo-soul progression.

And for a more structured and in-depth guide to taking a music idea, and turning into a full song, with step by step tools, techniques, and strategies, check out our brand spanking new Online Mini Course: The Songwriting Process Start to Finish!

MORE INFO

Enjoy!

by Keppie

How to write a COMPLETE SONG from just 2 NOTES!

In this video, we look at how you can take just two notes, and through a series of practical steps and creative choices, transform those two notes into complete song. Packed with tools, techniques and practical steps for you to follow, this breakdown of a professional songwriting process can be learnt and applied by songwriters of all levels.

Our brand new online course – THE SONGWRITING PROCESS: Start to Finish

Available here:

by Keppie

Your 7 SONGWRITING SUPERPOWERS and how to write great lyrics with them!

What if we have 7 senses instead of 5 … and what if they are actually our songwriting superpowers!

Sense Writing is one of the most powerful and effective ways to begin the songwriting process and in this video we look at how you can utilise the senses to create strong imagery and killer lyrics!

Our brand new online course – THE SONGWRITING PROCESS: Start to Finish – available here:

by Keppie

What John Mayer taught me, personally.

In 2008, I had the unbelievably good fortune to spend a whole week with John Mayer, talking about songs, and finally being in the studio with him. The things I learned still come up almost daily. I was recently asked about it, so I thought I would post my journal notes from that time here. (Note: John ended up producing a song of mine, Waiting for the Avalanche, which is at the bottom of this post, or you can hear it here). Enjoy!

Let’s take a trip back to…OCTOBER 2008

This week, I’m one of a group of ten singer-songwriters who are lucky enough to spend a few intensive evenings with John Mayer. I wanted to write a few thoughts, reactions, and anecdotes from the sessions, as a way for me to process the experience and information, as well as sharing the experience with other people. I know I’m in a position that about 4000 other people in the immediate vicinity would sell limbs to be in, so I thought I’d share a bit of it as faithfully as I can. Obviously the things I remember most are the things that resonate with me currently. A few of his stories and points I will obviously be paraphrasing, and they might already be infused with my own perspective.

Firstly, John Mayer is great.

Cool in the best, nerdiest way, which is to say that he was totally present with us in the room. There was nowhere else that his mind was other than completely focused on us and our songs. He had also spent the day checking out our Myspace pages, googling us, listening to our music, and seeing what we were up to.

Habits of success.

I think this was the first symptom of a habit that is most likely one shared by successful people: being prepared, doing your research, and knowing your audience – whatever it is. Throughout the evening, it was obvious that this permeates his whole mode of existing. He has an incredibly broad vocabulary on popular music over the past 40 years. He referenced artists, bands and songs, could play most of what he was referencing, and was obviously literate in it, not in an academic way, but in the way of someone who has a ‘sticky curiosity’ – a genuine interest that is aggressive and passionate. He makes it his business to know EVERYDAY what is in the Top 20 – not to imitate by any means, but to know what the trends are. To know what people are listening to, no matter what you think of it. Ultimately you’ll have your tastes and preferences, whatever they are, but a good exercise as a musician and songwriter is to listen to everything (especially the popular stuff) and think to yourself: ‘What is one thing that is good about this? What’s one thing that’s bad?’

His Berklee backstory.

He talked a little about his experience studying music at Berklee. Initially he arrived in the Fall of ’97 as a guitar player, wanting to be ‘the best guitar player’. In the break between Fall and Spring that year, he did some serious thinking about exactly he wanted as a musician – what did he need to SAY and DO as a musician, above everything else? Maybe unsurprisingly, it was not wanting to be a guitar wanker (my paraphrasing there). He recalled having a very distinct and transformative realization that he literally referred to as an ‘epiphany’: that he essentially wanted to be ‘listenable’. He wanted as many people as possible to listen to his music. He then spent the Spring semester not so much in the classroom, but rather in his dorm room, writing songs and recording them. At which point the rest is history (somewhat). He had got what he needed out of that experience, and then left to pursue it.

On studying music.

He was incredibly positive and affirming about being knowledgeable about the technicalities of music – at the same time as being obviously very intuitive and knowing how and when to ‘turn it off’. The point of study is to develop instincts that become like muscle memory. But that it is brilliant to be able to ‘reverse engineer’ songs; ie, being able to identify the ‘DNA’ of songs so that when you hear something you like, knowing how to do it yourself.

On a technical point though, he also encouraged caution about doing things musically just because you can, now that you know about it. Musical ‘events’ in a song should serve a purpose and function. If they don’t, then sometimes you risk doing things that come off as being showy, and alienate listeners. Ultimately, the majority of people don’t know what that chord is, they just know how they feel when they hear it. So if it is a musical moment in the song, save it for when you are actually making a point!

A quick to let you know we’ve JUST RELEASED our first online mini course! Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods.

John Mayer as ‘critic’.

Which brings me to another point. I was feeling a combination of trepidation and curiosity about how he would fare in the role of ‘critic’ of other people’s songs. Part of me wondered whether people who do something at such a level of proficiency just have an innate intuition about it, but not necessarily the diagnostic capacities that make for a good teacher.

The answer in this case was pretty clear. His experience gives him a pretty powerful insight into other people’s writing, and he was able to see into the anatomy of our songs with the expertise of a surgeon. He approached each not from any formulaic idea of songs, but first understood what was the character of each artist and song, and worked from there. Rather than going into laborious detail about that, I thought I’d write a few of the main points that I learned that I related to my own writing:

  • The chorus is the most important part of your song. If it has no chorus, then there has to be some main idea, main image, that should have neon lights around it that lets a listener know that it is the bit they should walk away singing in their head.
  • A song title is your best friend. It will define the chorus or hook, and is the point of the whole song. The title is the gold nugget you’re looking for at the first available moment. You can even work backwards: if you’ve got a great title, and you find a way to sing it that feels good, then you’ve got a chorus. Once you’ve got a chorus, you’ve almost got a song. Also, a song’s title should make you want to listen to that song. If someone picked up your CD in a shop and looked at the back, would they want to hear the songs?
  • Phonetics. The way a song feels in your mouth should be natural. It shouldn’t require aural aerobics to get the words out. Some of the best songs are great because of how good it is to just hear the sounds of the words – and how satisfying it is to sing along. The extension of this is that ideally the way to write a song is doing music, melody, and lyrics as an entwined process, so that you’re not ultimately twisting one to comply with the other.
  • A song is 3 things: lyrics, melody (which includes harmony), and pulse (or rhythm). If all three of those are strong, then your song has the potential to be a hit.
  • Oats and marshmallows. There are words and images that convey detail, emotion, and power (the ‘marshmallows’ in the cereal box). Then there are others, that we’ve all heard a million times, that are blunt and dry (the ‘oats’). People like the marshmallows. Find and use ways to say things that are evocative and personal.
  • Be patient and cautious with melody. Once you open your mouth and start singing an idea, it’s very hard to ever sing anything else over a rhythm part you’ve laid down. Take a few extra moments to just listen to any music you’ve written before committing to a melody.
  • Listening from a distance. Listen to songs you’ve written as if they just came onto the radio – as if you hadn’t written it. Is it something you’d want to keep listening to?
  • Leaving a trail of treats. Songs are essentially a series of ‘events’, whether that event is lyrical, or it’s drums coming in or dropping out at key moments, or it’s vocal harmonies, or it’s the subtle way you change the chorus at the end, or it’s the way the melody lifts in verse 2. These ‘event’s are like a trail of treats for a listener throughout a song. And you don’t have to deliver the treats all at once at the front end, but pick key moments for them.
  • Thanks for listening. John mentioned a technique that he uses to keep people listening til the very end, which is essentially to always do something slightly different at the end of a song that a listener wouldn’t have expected. It gives them a reason to keep listening to the end, and also a reason to listen to the whole song again.

Final notes…

One very awesome thing about being in an intimate session with someone I know at an intellectual level has success that has brought him fame and celebrity and all that extra stuff, is being aware that he is just a dude, doing his thing, doing it really well, and has made some good decisions. At a sort of ‘dharmic’ level (if you’ll let me go there for a moment), I appreciate the spirit of someone who inspires people to broaden their own imagination about themselves and their possibilities. He genuinely made us feel like there is an achievable bridge that links what we’re doing now to the vast world of possibility in music. That’s cool, in my books.

————–

We recorded my tune, produced by John Mayer himself, last Thursday. It was one of the smoothest, hassle-free, to the point, snag-less recordings I’ve ever done. It was a testament to the process that this whole experience was meant to demonstrate: that if you have a good song, and a concept for production, then you can produce something beautiful without much complication.

(Also having the head of the songwriting department at Berklee write a full string quartet arrangement overnight, and then having the Boston String Quartet play on your recording helps a little).

John was great as a producer, by the way. My song, of the three that were recorded by three different songwriters, required the least technical detail or instruction or tweaking, being the most acoustic. But that was also very much part of good production, and being a good producer. As a producer, the stuff that John wanted to maintain was the subtle way my voice cracks, the hesitation in certain parts that is so much what the song is about in essence. The concept from the beginning was that the tune should be organic and acoustic, played without a click track, the time pushing and pulling with the lyric and the feeling of the song. With the string quartet, the idea was that they would have to play with the feeling of the song rather than playing to a click.

One of the most important technical things I learnt from him was that when you are recording a song, you need to maintain the melody in its purest, ‘dumbest’ form. The point of a record, other than being beautiful and listenable (and of course, and expression of your musical identity), is to communicate clearly, and from that clarity also generate familiarity for listeners. There is a temptation (that I was subconsciously caving into) to vary and embellish the melody and delivery of a song, particularly after having sung it 4 or 5 times. John noticed, and when I sung just the melody in its simplest form, the song truly started to sound like a record rather than the ‘late night acoustic lounge’ version.

The whole experience, as well as watching him produce two other completely different tracks, was exceptional. As a producer, as well as a musician — and most importantly, as a person, he is direct, on the level, inclusive, open-minded, humble, smart as hell, generous, sensitive, and hilarious. Even when he played and sang on two tracks, he was never gratuitous. He was gracious enough to actually lend his guitar and voice for these tracks, but made sure everything he did was in the service of the song, and not just sort of a ‘Ladies and gentlemen — John Mayer!’ kind of moment.

All twelve of us went into this not totally knowing what to expect, and not knowing who he was as a person. I think we pretty unanimously think the world of him, which says a lot about a person. He was a true demonstration that success and fame don’t give you license to be a dickhead. And when it comes down to it, it’s pretty simple and logical. As John put it himself, when you’ve worked with the full spectrum of talented people, and you see the effect of people who are selfish and mean, as opposed to those who are talented, generous and kind, there is no reason to not be that way. Amen.

You can check out my song, “Waiting for the Avalanche”, produced by Mayer here:

by Keppie

The most unusual thing about the Sam Smith song ‘Unholy’

What is it about this song UNHOLY from Sam Smith and Kim Petras? Is it the melody, the scale choices, the chords, the subject matter, the arrangement? Well, it’s all of these things and more! Check out the new video on the YouTube channel for our take on the most distinct elements of this song that make it stand out from everything else on the charts.

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