The Steel Guitar Forum

My apologies if this is the wrong place to ask, But how many of you write your own songs and perform and or record em? would you all be open to discussing songwriting here or am I way off base? The thing is, I know you people know alot about music theory and about country music, so i know you'd have some valuable insight into a problem I am having. b0b feel free to move or delete if this aint the place for this

anyway my problem is this:
like 12 bar blues, most country songs follow a failry rigid and predictable pattern. I am having great difficulty writing stuff within the confines of those patterns even tho many of my all time favorite songs follow it . When I do try and write within that framework it feels more like a parody of a country song than something original that I feel truly. When I ignore that framework and just let whatever comes come, I end up with good songs, but they are all kinda downtempo mopey singer songwriter stuff. I wanna pen some Buck Owens type stompers to balance that out a little and because thats the music I wanna hear when I see a band, not some moping shoegazer with an acoustic. how do i break myself out of this box , or maybe the better question is how do I put myself into THAT box?
any and all advice appreciated....

Ben, having heard recordings of your so-called "mopey" songs, I think they're really good!

But I do understand the fear that a whole set of slow tunes wouldn't go over as well in a live setting. Even that's not a hard rule, though. Elliot Smith did well for himself...

If you're determined to force yourself in a new direction and write some uptempo things, for starters, you might try writing to a click-track, drum machine, or drummer that's playing at a quick tempo.

As for the playing within the boundaries and "structure" of country music, I really think you should feel free to use what you like and discard what you don't. The odd chord or bridge section can really set a song apart from the crowd. I know you to be an artist, so IMHO, you should embrace a little growth and innovation, and not just mimicry.

Ben,I just sat down last week and wrote my first tune.Here's my question,do you write the song first and then put together a melody or do you come up with a melody first and then try to fit words inside the frame of the melody ? I tried the first one,words first,but last night I tried to put a melody with my words and almost immediately I realized that some of the words were not in time with the melody.
I realize that all songs sound lame when you read them with out music,but when you throw in a crying steel and a good walking bass line it can make the hair stand up on you neck ,because it sounds so good.So who knows the method to this madness.

There are a couple examples of recent songs I've written on my blog: http://b0bletter.blogspot.com

Aside from that, most of my tunes are instrumentals. My Quasar Steel Guitar includes 5 original steel instrumentals.

I'm not really a commercial songwriter, but I have written quite a few tunes over the years. They tend to lean to country, bluegrass, rockabilly, blues, and guitar-instrumental, but occasionally something else pops out. Some of my bands have played some of these. One of these days I'll probably write a bunch more and formally publish my tunes, but I have other fish to fry right now.

Ben,
Try using a capo if you haven't already. Sometimes you can get inspired by something as simple as this. Because the sound is somewhat different, you may come up with different ideas.

I am, though my song writing is dwarfed by
the singer in my present bands talents.

But here are two of mine.
This one written from a idea of Billy Henderson.
He told of this little place near him and wanted a song about it.
10 miles east of jones

And this one from something Laney Hicks said
over my head on the ISGC escalator.
Though there was a good song there.
Wish I could hear her singing it, Connie Smith style!

Just What We Say

These are both country styler and have steel,
but I write in other forms too.

Ben, I use to write with Donn Tankersley who pinned (Slide off your satin sheets) and have hung with a lot of other writers. As much as I can figure out is, there is no set pattern to writing. I try to write a story about an idea and study it, verse's, line's, anything I can think of that pertains to my Idea.
I try to get a song put together as soon as possible about the Idea, no matter how awfull it may sound you have something to build a good song from. A lot of times I have to just put it on the back burner and get back to it later.
The problem I have is I can come up with some great Idea's,
write a verse and maybe the chrous and can't seem to finish it.
Sometime's I think its good to have a co-writer but its so hard to find some one you feel comfortable with. Curly Putman told me one time to write from your heart, what ever it is, if you like it ,thats what matter's most. and most of all do it because you love it and not because you think you have to.

I work full time as composer in residence/ Sound designer for a Gaming company.
I guess I’m lucky in that the design of the game kinda dictates the themes… so I start with a set brief… and work from there.
Quite often it comes to me when sitting in gridlocked traffic… and starts as a riff or a melody…which I then hum until I can open up the studio and put a skeleton together… I also have to say that 75% of what I write is garbage, and knowing it is garbage and being prepared to scrap it is a big part of being a composer… also being told by one’s colleagues it is the “wrong” piece and being prepared to let it go and start again without letting my feelings get hurt is important in this game…

Thinking about how I would write if needed to write for the sake of writing, and I had no hard-core deadlines… I guess I would start with an emotional payload.
Something that happened to me that made me feel a certain way.
I’d build my chorus around that after I had found a way to express that emotion simply and with an economy of words… the girl who makes my sandwiches needs to be able to hum this sucker after a couple of listens on the radio (running quietly in the background at her shop) … and feel that it also relates to her life in some way…
My verses would explain simply, why and how I got this way
My middle eight or bridge (if I used one) might give another angle on the story .

If putting it to an up-tempo beat is proving difficult.. maybe the answer lies in loops… set up a simple drum loop at the tempo you would like the song to run at, pick up a guitar and jam until something catchy hits you… I use this stuff when writer’s block hits me…sometimes a great beat can get the creative juices flowing… I often find myself three days into a piece with a result that I didn’t know I had in me( I have written house music for an English company, and I hate “techno/trance/doof” with a passion).
A lot of Country music uses fast tempos and still tells sad stories… There are a lot of very experienced folks on this forum, some have worked with the biggest stars in the industry, and maybe they can shed some light on your dilemma… I’m just a sideman who accidentally stumbled into a bunch of folks prepared to swallow his bulldust and bluster…hope this at least helps a bit.

Ben,
Here are a few thoughts that you can take or throw away. It might get a little long. Let me apologize in advance. But your questions trigger quite a few thoughts in me. Maybe you will find something useful here.

When writing, I usually find a chord progression and some rhythmic strum that is just fun to get lost in. Then words just start popping into my head right along with a melody—usually starting with a key line that becomes the hook and the song title. The rest of the song just rushes out of me. But that is only the start. Then you spend hours and days polishing and perfecting every little thing about the lyrics. There’s inspiration. But there’s a lot of work as well.

Before I ever went to Nashville to look around in 1979, I think I finished about every song I ever started. (I’d been writing songs since I learned my first guitar chords in 5th- or 6th-grade.) After going to Nashville, and then deciding in 1980 to take songwriting seriously, I couldn’t finish even one song. I would get the hook and the first verse or chorus, then I would start critiquing and trying to decide where I should take it. I didn’t have the skills to finish anything . . . once I started analyzing what I was doing.

At that time, I tended to write songs all at about the same slow pace and most all with sad themes. After several trips to Nashville, I set a goal for myself: to try to write positive songs at least 50% of the time. I didn’t want to be self-pitying or to promote alcoholism—which did my mother in. Now, even my sad songs have an embedded expression of hope and perseverance. They all seem to capture the values that are in my head and in my heart. But few are really “personal” these days. They are more like gifts that pop out from my observations of life. Afterwards I analyze what sparked them. The saddest song I’ve written, I was smiling like a coyote while I wrote it! It wasn’t contrived. But I was channeling it, I guess.

I wrote my first “real” song—the first song that I was happy with and that met my expectations for myself—in 1993. Thirteen years after I started working at writing songs. (I chose not to move to Nashville permanently, and that certainly slowed the process down.) I started that first real song in Montana—first verse and chorus—as I was leaving to visit a friend in Hawai’i. Then I balked at the chorus, since it came out laced with “nots” and negatives. I wrote the second verse in Portland, Oregon at my sister’s house. I solved the negatives in the chorus while playing a ukulele at my friend’s place in Hawai’i—found a way to state a sad personal situation in a way that was not laced with negatives—and then I added the bridge. And I wrote the third verse on a napkin on the flight back to Portland. Since then, I have never had a problem finishing a song or writing a song that I didn’t find merit in. They don’t feel contrived. It just took time and practice to be able to reach that point. Now I can critique and observe myself while writing and not lose the song.

I rarely perform any of my songs for friends or family. Instead, I play recordings. Since I have never been in a band, arranging drum parts is often the most time consuming and difficult for me. Still, I hear an arrangement in my head, and so I hate singing a song solo. Hence, once I get the song to an arranged and rough-demo recording, I almost never play it live again—even for myself. Instead, I write new songs to occupy that part of my life—playing guitar. If I don’t record demos for a long time, I don’t write many new songs.

To break the monotonous tempo that plagued all my early songs, I got a cheap Drumatix with its electronic clicks. Now this is not a problem. I rarely write a country song with a straight beat. I grew up in Montana listening to a lot of 60s Motown R&B hits, and I have to have some rhythm and syncopation to get inspired. Again, it’s the chord progression and some new rhythmic strum pattern that triggers a new song for me. Also, after spending time in Nashville, I spent a lot of time learning how to tell a story in a song . . . without necessarily being obvious about it.

I no longer keep a songbook in which I write down potential song titles or song ideas. But that was a key stage that I went through. Now things float around inside me, and they pop out later quite unexpectedly. I don’t worry about writer’s block. You need to time to fill up again, after a couple of songs have come out. Besides, I am not doing this for a living anyway. Might be different then.

Also, I see a pattern in my writing. My best songs come in pairs, and the second one is better than the first. I don’t wait around for those pairs. But when a really good song comes out, I walk around with a smile for a few days . . . cause I know something special is going to happen!

One last thing. When I first went to Nashville, my songs were not very Nashville at all. But there was no way I was going to LA. My experience in Nashville has been nothing but positive, as a songwriter. People are so friendly and willing to help you, if you are a songwriter. In the publishing houses that I visited in 1979, I had long conversations with house writers like Gary Harrison (Strawberry Wine) and Van Stephenson (deceased, from Blackhawk). And Sylvia was one of the nicest secretaries I had ever met. And the prettiest! Watching the charts once I got back to Montana, every one of these guys (and Sylvia) had a top 10 hit within the next 6 months. Everyone of them was very generous to me – just a guy off the street.

Another time and another trip, a friend introduced me to Kix Brooks in a bar, and Kix invited me up to Tree Publishing where he worked. Never did get up there at that time. Big mistake.

Hal

I've been writing songs from almost when I first learned to play the guitar. Some rock, pop, country and novelty songs. I even have tapes from the early days. Needless to say the sound quality sucks early on. I was fortunate to have a reel to reel in those days, and it was plop the cheap mike somewhere and have at it.

The songs came to me usually words and music at the same time, tho not necessarily complete. It's almost like setting back and let it come to me; like its already out there and I just need to tune into it. The songwriter Don Helms said, "I don't write 'em, I just write 'em down." That's the way I feel about many of them.

I wrote a song called "Lord, Bless This Harvest" a year and a half ago for inclusion on an album I co-produced with Winifred Hoffman, a local singer of predominantly religious music. When she heard the 'steel' part of the track, she refused to 'mess up a good song with all those words' and it went on her album as an instrumental. The song is actually more of a hymn and that was my intention. I have since written a song called "Tell Me 'Bout Her Babies Before I Go" which relates to an estranged relationship between father and daughter. This is something I have personally experienced and it will be included on an album of mine in the near future. The chord progression on that one is awesome. Real Dicky Overbey stuff. I've written numerous others, but nothing I'd necessarily want include on an album and that is one of my personal criteria. Do I want to share this thing with the world?? Or should it better be left on the back porch for now?? I guess I'm real picky!!
PRR

yes, a songwriter..but so far none of my songs have hit #1, #10,#100,#1000..# anything

but, none the less..I qualify as a songwriter...

so it seems...

t

Yes; songwriter,singer, steel guitarist. I wrote the title cut on the,PLAYIN THE FIRE OU OF IT ALBUM, and the title cut on my latest CD, TONY'S TOUCH. As far as big hits, no, but I like trying. Gives me something to do.

Start with a "hook", which is a catchy phrase that everyone can remember and relate to. Write the story around the hook.
When I was writing a lot, I carried a pad and pen to write down ideas (hooks) when I heard someone say it.

I've written lots of instrumental stuff over the decades, but only a couple "songs". Not being a singer (other than very safe low harmony lines, and only rarely) I've never had the inclination to write - and I'd never be able to croak out melody lines anyway.

Sometimes I write, and for me it is a creative/expressive outlet. I think that the steel players on the Forum should all try to write more. There are literally thousands of songs out there, but who knows someone on here might come up with that one real great super song.

Some people are gifted at writing, and I have actually known some people who can write well but cannot perform nor can they sing. One person I know and won't mention his name here, he's a great guy, can't sing hardly at all and knows very little on the guitar, but man the guy has written hundreds of songs and has had several of them recorded by other singers/groups. No million seller yet, but he's turned several heads in Nashville and elsewhere. I think if his material ever got to the right individual he would become famous for his writing.

My advice is for you and others on here to pursue this avenue.

May GOD bless!

Terry Wood

I still write songs and get them published. I was lucky to have three songs charted and one placed in The Country Music Hall of Fame. I wrote one last night too!

"The Muses: Greek ??????, Mousai: from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "think", from which mind and mental are also derived.
The muses are nine goddesses or spiritual guides who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance. They have served as aids to an author of prose, too, sometimes represented as the true speaker, for whom an author is only a mouthpiece." (Wikipedia)

Many poets and songwriters have personified inspiration as the singular "muse", a beautiful feminine spirit who visits you with wonderful ideas that eventually become song. You are merely a vessel through which the ideas are organized and transmitted. She can also be a harsh mistress. Try not to look too closely at the muse, or she'll fly away. And if she does, do not chase her. She will come back of her own accord. You can only be who you are; anything else will sound contrived. Do not fight your natural style. It will keep battling you until you finally yield to it.

Or you can go to Nashville and write in a cubicle from 9 to 5. The people who toil in such places can show you how to come up with every conceivable style, the result of which can be heard on country radio today. You might even get rich, but your true self will be making you miserable by reminding you that you are abusing the muse. Such writing is in essence a pinning down and raping of the muse. Her gift in return is a series of dreadful songs.

I've written many songs in the past 20 years, with some of them being featured in movies, television, radio and stage plays. I've been letting the muse fly around outside my grasp for about a year and a half now. It's the longest time I've gone without writing. But I still refuse to force it. She will come back. She always does. You must not try to keep her on a leash. The proper treatment of the muse is more important than possessing a notebook full of ideas that go nowhere. Through the guidance of the muse your ideas will be natural and fully-formed.

On my link below, you can access four of my original songs. They are from my latest solo album, Stronger Man. I cannot judge the quality of the writing; that's someone else's job. But I can say that I do not remember writing any of these songs. I have an idea of the time frame calendar-wise, but no recollection of how and why they came to me. I'm not superstitious or airy-fairy in any kind of way, but belief in the power and guidance of the muse has never let me down.

I carry a little digital dictaphone in my bag in case
I get a theme or hook while driving or just out and about.

It is good to put chords to the hook early, but not mandatory.
but I still tend to write the text of the story 1st,
then massage verse 1 into the best melody,
in relation to the hook
then after that is down,
massge v2 and v3 into the 1sts feel.

If ya got the poetry down, the rest is smoothing things out.
Write 4-8 times beyond what you need and then edit back.
it will ge the majority of ideas in front of you
and give you a better view of the total story possibility.
Protagonist, antagonist, setting, theme, transformation,
and finally resolution.

It's said Short Stories are harder than long forms.
Well a great song is the ULTIMATE short story form.

I've played music most of my life but I never got around to writing a song until I was 60. All of a sudden,songs started pouring out and much to my surprise,most were western.

I wrote"Gotta' Keep 'Em Movin'" while driving to a gig. It is the last song on our new Billy Mata cd "The Domino Effect" and the whole band sang on it. I think it is #2 this month on "Swingin' West". A big thanks to Mike Gross.

remember that many of your "all time favorite songs" were written by folks who spent a lot of time writing, and probably wrote several hundred songs not nearly as good as the ones you know about. The more you write the more likely you are to write something "good"...

and sometimes writing within a "restrictive" form can actually spur creativity... lyrically if not melodically...

as far as originality...remember:"there are really only three country songs, and two of them are Great Speckled Bird"

I've been writing songs since the 60's. Recorded some locally but that is all. Someone asked what comes first the melody or the words? Mine usually come about the same time. Some I have to work at and some come in 10 minutes. Can't say why. Here is one I wrote about 1984. The quality is pretty bad but it can still be heard.

The steel player is Frank Crawley. Frank and Bobbe Seymour were in the service together and were friends until Frank passed away. If you have a copy of Seymours "No Peddlers Allowed" Frank is pictured inside the front with Bobbe. Frank is playing the Strat.

http://www.thecountryfeverband.com/songs/reflect.mp3 Reflections of Love

Remember how long ago I wrote this and please be kind.....

I've been writing songs since the 60's, but the inspiration comes and goes. Some times I'll go for years without writing anything and then write a dozen in a couple of days. Only my friends have heard them. I've recorded them multi-tracked and sent them CD copies, and also brought them out at jam sessions. But since I moved from Birmingham (England) to San Francisco, I only get to visit my friends about once a year.

I wrote a lot of kids songs for my two daughters about 20 years ago, but they're grown up now. Every so often I'll pull out the Rumpadump song, whose only words are rumpadump dumpdump rumpadump dump rumpadump rumpadump rumpadum rump..... Be careful, someday I might post it on the Forum. That's a threat !

Ben Jones wrote:anyway my problem is this:
like 12 bar blues, most country songs follow a failry rigid and predictable pattern. I am having great difficulty writing stuff within the confines of those patterns even tho many of my all time favorite songs follow it . When I do try and write within that framework it feels more like a parody of a country song than something original that I feel truly. When I ignore that framework and just let whatever comes come, I end up with good songs, but they are all kinda downtempo mopey singer songwriter stuff. I wanna pen some Buck Owens type stompers to balance that out a little and because thats the music I wanna hear when I see a band, not some moping shoegazer with an acoustic. how do i break myself out of this box , or maybe the better question is how do I put myself into THAT box?
any and all advice appreciated....

My advice... don't. Your "box" is your unique identity, your own music. The main songwriter in my band[sup]1[/sup] (John Reese) writes songs with odd numbers of bars, wierd temporary modulations, all sorts of stuff. It's just the way the songs flow out of him. With a band that rehearses and knows his music, the songs sound "normal" to most listeners.

Find some good musician friends who can follow your vision, and you'll find that performing your "unpredictable" music can be one of life's most satisfying experiences.

[sup]1[/sup] http://openheartsmusic.com/lyrics/index.html