The Song

The Song: A New Start

The process is still ongoing. My aim is to put the words I would like to see in my song, onto paper. Some words will make the final cut, some will not. I like to have the song nearly finished, never finished completely, as I look at the words as malleable iron. The song must have “room” to take shape to the melody, and meaning. Sometimes I start out with the song to mean one thing, but through the hands of Angels, a new meaning develops. It is okay for me. I think we dream the same way. We visualize what we want, but what we get is near, never exact.

The more general you can make the song or point, the less personal meaning you will have, however the size of the audience can grow, It is a trade off. For example: I might say, “Dolly Parton has a big chest.” This is precise and specific. But to say, “Blond beauty has a healthy set of lungs,” leaves open interpretation, is more general and less specific which might be okay if you want to grow the size of the audience (now, Hank in Hanover can think the song is about his new girlfriend).

The words are there on the page, but the one thing you cannot put on paper is “feeling.” Feeling, or the “feel” of the song, comes from making a melody, and shaping the lyrics to fit that melody, and to have the melody fit the words. For the Chorus, I like to keep short, commercial, and “verbish.” It represents what the Verse is not. Just as musically I contrast the Verse from the Chorus, I can also do likewise with the Lyrics. The Verse will describe, while the Chorus is action (or vise-versa).

Okay, so I just want to let you know this about the song I am working on... so you don't think that “nothing” is happening. I am molding a melody to the lyrics. You know... it is much like a painter has a blank canvas, he then sets some rules and guides for what he wants to accomplish, and he visualizes the colors. Everything is there except an interpretation of the scene. Some artists like full control of the end result, while others leave it up to the gods; Picasso or Van Gogh? Both are great, but both are very different.

Like I said before, I will spend less time in the future analyzing song making, and just paint them. But I think it is important that every artist share some of his or her “how to.” It's not about making money, but helping other's release what is inside their mind, and releasing it onto a medium, so the world can see inside the mind of your imagination.

The blank canvas will never look exactly the same when people put their imagination to it. Imagination is never “normal” because never are two imaginations exactly the same. I like this one saying, “I want to be different, just like everyone else.”

Peace Out, The Compusician

PS By the way, I do not have any audience to my words or what I am doing that I know of at this point in time. However, I do not let this stop me. I have a mission inside of me, and that mission may never be realized until long after I am gone. When we climb the mountain, and then stand on the mountain top, to others the beauty is the picture I took while standing at the top of the mountain. But for a true artist, actor, athlete or business professional, the personal journey is where the real beauty rests. And that is hard to take a snapshot of, heh? And no one else really cares these days in an “end result” society.