songwriting for publishing vs. pleasure
...opic. The class The Craft of Songwriting (syllabus attached), is being taught at the **** school of music business on _______(date and time)__. The professor, ****, allowed me to sit in on two of his classes and participate along with his students. During the first class, we conducted an exercise called Visualizing a hit (attached). This exercise was designed to help writers craft lyrics and get inside the minds of the characters that they created in their songs. The second class I attended was a critiquing session. Each student was asked to bring in an original song and play a recorded copy or perform it for the class. After each song, the song was critiqued in an open forum and feedback was provided to the writer. Class 1 Exercise: Visualizing a Hit During class, Professor **** explained the exercise and then asked each student in the class to visualize. After the visualization phase, the students were asked to write down some thought and feelings of what they visualized. Then, each student was asked to share his/her experience. To summarize this exercise that is attached to the back of this paper, each student was asked to choose an artist who they wished would record one of their original songs. The student’s were asked to close their eyes and actually visualize a stage in front of a huge crowd. Professor **** set up a scenario and provided guided imagery with much detail in order to draw out a lot of thought from each student. The student’s were asked to imagine the announcer introduce your “dream artist” who would be performing his/her number one hit – your song. The students were asked to imagine every detail including: the performer’s clothes, the musical accompaniment, the title, and the lyrics. The exercise continued and instructed the each student to imagine a backstage conversation with the performer and to pay attention to what was said about the song and the performance. The point of this exercise was for the writers to use visualization and imagery skills to help them analyze the characters that they create in their songs. The exercise also helps them form lyrics around the song characters’ images that they visualized. Some notes that I took from the students’ discussion: (It’s important to know that the majority of students in this class are music majors, not business majors. Although I believe that business students can enroll in this course, it is geared towards musicians). One student’s visualized an elobrate broadway show. This particular student was a music theory composition major and wishes to have a career writing music for Broadway shows and musicals. As a result of the student’s desired career, he stated that were is no single performer that he wanted to perform his hit song. Instead, he tried to describe a whole cast of performers. He elobrated on a playhouse and its audience. He commented that he couldn’t stop thinking thinking that the show had something to do with pirates (he said that this kept popping into his head – it was actually pretty funny). The student went on to explain that the music he was thinking was rich with musical hooks and very uptempo. Another student commented that this catchy jingles, radip music with lots of hooks might explain why a pirate musical kept popping into his head. The class then went into a discussion about what they might imagine a stereotypical pirate life might sound like and how one would write music to it. Another student (a jazz studies major), said that Duke Ellington wouold be performing his hit song. He described a small, jazz club like venue. Then, he commented that with jazz, unlike other types of songs, the performer is expected to improve much of the song. He explained that a jazz song might consist of the initial melody (the “head” as he called it), the chord structure, and the tempo. The rest of the song is largely imporvational solos that are performed by each member of the group or jazz combo. This led the class into a discussion about what makes a good jazz song and how that is different than other types of more structured songs. Class 2 On my second visit to Profssor ****’s class, the class and I participated in a critiquing exercise. Each student was asked to bring in an original song and play a recorded copy or perform it for the class. After each song, the song was critiqued in an open forum and feedback was provided to the writer. Some notes that I took from the discussion: One student brought a guitar and played a song that he wrote for his girlfriend. The song was called “Pam, Pam you’ve got a Nice Ham” and was somewhat of a comical song that was not meant to be taken too seriously. The song was upbeat and kind of bluegrass/folky. The writer said that he was not intending to write a hit song and that he knew that this song would not be popular. Another student stated that it was more of “a campfire song”; the class agreed. Professor **** asked the question, “who do we write songs for?” The class had many varied answers to this question. Many students said that you have to write it for yourself. **** then pointed out that professional songwriters typically try to get into the minds of other people and write songs for them (an opposed to yourself) so they would be more popular. I found in interesting that the music majors were more focused on writing “good” songs as opposed to successful ones that would generate income. As the focus of this class was on “the craft” as opposed to the business side of music, the students’ focus on quality is logical; these are music students students not business students. The Process of Songwriting How did I research this? For this portion of my project, I contacted Mr. ****, the **** coordinator of the Nashville Songwriters Asociation International (NSAI). I told Mr. **** about the music class I was in and my upcoming project. He suggested that I come and participate in one of their monthly meetings as a co-coordinator. The **** chapter of NSAI meets on the last Monday of every month at **** University, room 204. Each meeting lasts three hours and typically starts with an information/idea sharing session, then they typicall do an exercise that is focused on writing successful songs. Notice, that the NSAI exercises have a bit of a different focus than Professor ****’s exercises do. NSAI tends to focus on topics like “how to write a popular song” not “how to write a better song.” The last part of the meeting is dedicated to critiquing others’ original songs and providing constructive feedback. On March 28th, I attended the NSAI meeting. Because I have a psychology background, Mr. **** asked if I would give I gave a short presentation on the psychology of communication and impression management. My presentation was focused on teaching the group how to be more effective self-promoters. Mr. **** led into my presentation by talking to the group about the importance of networking and leaving a positive impression in the world of music business. What exactly is NSAI? Established in 1967 by professional songwriters in Nashville, NSAI is the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriter’s trade organization. Although it was started in Nashville, the is now worldwide in scope and is dedicated to serving songwriters in all genres of music, not just country music. NASI’s mission statement: The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) consists of a body of creative minds, including songwriters from all genres of music, professional and amateur, who are committed to protecting the rights and future of the profession of songwriting, and to educate, elevate, and celebrate the songwriter and to act as a unifying force within the music community and the community at large. (cite webpage). NSAI is focused on the business of songwriting. Mr. **** speaks of NSAI as a “pipeline” for the writer that leads directly to Nashville and other songwriting centers. This organization works to help its members breaking into the world of professional songwriting. Additionally, NSAI is also a large lobbying group in Washington D.C. The NSAI lobbyists address issues that affect professional songwriters such as illegal file sharing, copyright issues, and even some tax issues. Group Exercise For the group exercise, Mr. **** distributed all of the typed out lyrics to a currently popular country album, Gretchen Wilson’s: Here for the Party. After everyone looked over the lyrics, the group listened to several portions of the album and discussed what they felt made the album successful. The purpose of this exercise was to dissec...