Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Revision

Write, reflect, rewrite. If you don’t like editing, songwriting is probably not for you!

Part of the joy of writing songs is in the refinement, the polishing. Working and reworking the material until you get it … just right… is immensely satisfying.

Perhaps there is an instinct to “knowing” when it is right. I can’t rightly claim that I HAVE that instinct. I’d like to think I do, but it’s hard to gauge since I cannot brag of any multi-platinum selling efforts to date. But, hey, here’s to thinking positive! — right?

Of course, any good book on writing has at least one—if not several—chapters on revising your writing. I usually start from a very raw draft. I get a basic idea, the theme, a few catch phrases or images that seem to fit, and then I just bubble them on the page. I will fill out as much as I can “hear” in my inner ear, and write ellipses where I’m not sure how the next part should go.

I love to write lists, brainstorm words and rhymes, find synonyms. The thesaurus has to be my favorite book. I very often find the direction for the next verse when I’m looking for more words. When I start a song, truly I will confess, I don’t usually know where the process will take me. Discovery is what it’s all about. The sculptor has her piece of marble; the songwriter just has words. Well… and tunes. The poet’s job—now there is one I don’t envy. Poetry vs. Songwriting is another topic, ain’t it?

But, I digress. I should probably go back and edit out that paragraph! But I won’t :-)

Revisions can be major or they can microscopic. It always amazes me how much difference a tiny little change can make. I wrote a song called “Oh Life” a few years ago. (It’s still up on my MySpace, if you want to listen.) In fact, it was the second song I wrote when I decided to get back to writing after going back to school for my masters degree and then having a child. I’d been on “hiatus”—let’s just say—six years (!!! Ech, note to self: Never let it go that long again!).

Anyway… I wrote the song, made demo recordings, played it out with some friends, etc. After I had the song kicking around for over two years, it dawned on me that changing ONE WORD would tie the whole thing together and make it much more powerful.

The word I changed was (drum roll): “a” to “this”. Amazing, huh?

First version: “Oh, life is a struggle in a run-down town.”
Revised version: “Oh, life is a struggle in this run-down town.”

I think changing that one simple tiny word made the song more immediate, more intimate, more personal. It’s not hypothetical anymore. It’s BUFFALO. Or… wherever the listener may be. And why didn’t I catch that sooner? I don’t know, but I have no shame to change it even much later. People update lyrics all the time. And it’s a good thing I did, because the song was included on a compilation CD by the Buffalo radio station 107.7 The Lake—and it was a pretty cool feeling for me to hear it on the air.

So this is the point I want to make: the process of getting a song to reveal its mysteries can take a long time. It’s not always obvious—and it’s often very subtle. Songs are tiny encapsulated moments. They’re like paintings. There’s only so much you can say, only so many words you can fit in. Finding the right ones — that is the joy!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Not All Songs Are Joyful

Song writing is fundamentally really fun, to be honest. Making music fills me with joy. Creating is always filled with amazing surprises. I cannot think of much else I would rather be doing.

But not everything I create is filled with joy. Today I turned my songwriting practice to a deeper source—something I’ve needed to extricate. You could say I’ve got the blues—real bad. Writing heals. Writing words gets to the heart of it, and adding music roots out the pain. It’s like pulling up weeds. They grow really deep. Sometimes I don’t even really know what the source is. That’s the bind—writing blind. But the writing helps define it, helps me dig down and get inside whatever it is that I need to explore—and I’m getting more skilled at getting deep down in the hole—the subterranean cavern of my soul, basically!

I wrote a song today—pulling some crazy crap out—I don’t know if ANYBODY will like it, but that’s really not the point. Certainly, I get satisfaction from knowing that what I write communicates something to somebody else, and even helps them get to their own feelings. But that happens more truly when I just reach in and work through the stuff of my own experience—and imagination—on my own terms!

The song I wrote is called “My Lover/My Abuser.” I don’t want to scare anyone off, so it’s one of those songs that I will probably just laugh off and say—“it’s just a song”— if anyone asks what it’s really about! I mean, it comes from a dark place, and I’m trying to examine my depths in the light of some sense of humor—some sense of exaggeration and irony. But it’s hard to admit that – I can be – um – attracted to somebody for – um – the pain that it puts me through. See, even that much is hard to say. The reasons why, …well… always about healing old hurts. Once you can see a pattern you can decide if you want to continue it – or not. But it’s impossible to live mindfully if you don’t know your mind. Including your subconscious mind. Hence daring to write about it—trying to articulate one little facet of it.

The song is kind of about an (um, ahem) S&M situation (an imaginary one!...kind of...)—so I don’t really know if I should post it online. I mean, I teach at an elementary school. I have to think about my public persona. Perhaps I will create a fake band to release it w/out my real name on it. They used to that all the time, back in the day!

Another problem aspect writing this song brings out is that I’m still defining myself musically. I haven’t settled into a tight boundary yet! This song is pretty hard rock (I pulled out some Iggy Pop as a reference for my mix.… and I was listening to Alanis Morisette the other day). I’m just recording all the tracks myself on Garage Band right now so I dusted off my electric guitar, too! That was fun. But when I get some real musicians to play it will be smoking.

However—I gotta ask myself—does it fit in with my sultry jazzy girly piano/singer persona? I sure as hell do not know. It most DEFINITELY is waaaay beyond anything I ever used to do w/ my acoustic duo, the Jazzabels. Well, I’m not going to finalize that tonight, anyway! And the beauty of the “100 Songs” project is that I can explore anything that comes my way. It’s all fair game! I just have to express myself honestly.'

Aw… if you read this far… you gotta hear it. I’ll put it up. www.myspace.com/kilissacissoko. Tell me what you think! Works in progress, all. I can change them at any time.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Where do Songs Come From?

Where do songs come from? I saw Arlo Guthrie perform this spring and he told this wonderful story (of course!). He said writing songs is like fishing. You just sit down by the stream, cast your line, and wait for the fish to bite—and you have to be ready when they bite. He made a very funny joke: it figures he had to sit downstream from Bob Dylan. Bob took all the good songs first!

Songs come to me from multiple tributaries. My best songs have spawned from at least three sources. The sources can be of a different nature, but I need at least three to get into the flow.

One inspiration can be a snippet of melody, going through my head, presenting itself to me. Where the heck did THAT come from? Oh, well… let me just hum it a while. Mark it down for later.

Or inspiration for a song can come from a groove, a rhythm, a sense of energy. I might just be jamming on my piano and I like the feel on my fingers.

Sometimes a phrase of a lyric will show up. It arrives at the door and I say, “Hello, step right in.” It will hang around for a few days, and if I can it match up with one of these other bits it may just stick around.

But for me to reel in a full blown song, the random tune, groovy groove or catchy phrase on its own is never enough. I have spent many a frustrating song-writing session trying to pull something out of a phrase that just goes nowhere. Kind of annoying. But I don’t take it personally anymore.

The strongest pull towards “songdom” is always a wider concept. The deeper flowing idea, if you can pull one up, will easily hold it’s own. Then it’s just a matter of plugging in the music and the lyrics to get the point across. It’s a feeling, the heart of the song, the theme, if you will. Once I find one of those I know I will be able to complete a song. Whether it’s “good” or not… that’s another story!

For example, today I wrote a song called "You Set Me Free.” I put it up on myspace if you want to hear my demo: www.myspace.com/kilissacissoko

It’s kind of a breakup song—one of those songs where you lift your chin and gather your pride and walk on after a failed romance. It started out, frankly, as a little riff. This very silly little doo-woppy melody, and then the catch phrase lyric presented itself. Knowing how to pace myself in the process, I didn’t worry too much about where it was heading. I just laid down a very rough demo so I would remember it. Then I went grocery shopping, or something like that. You know, just forgot about it for a few.

Back to writing, I rolled up my sleeves and I realized where this was heading and I set out to build the lyrics. I had figured out the stylistic parameters, kind of a minimal Motown take-off, but somewhat updated (hopefully!). I wanted it to be very laid back and somewhat weary, yet also simmering with understated energy. You get the picture? Knocked down, but not knocked out! After that the lyrics just came right along. It’s kind of amazing how easily they flow once I have the format figured out. I had a few images I wanted to incorporate (that’s another tributary!), and as the verses came along, it became clear how they would progress to build the story.

It’s not a descriptive story, per se—with a beginning, middle and end; it’s more like a reflective narrative. I think everyone has been through a heartbreak. The less I say about a specific situation the easier it will be for a listener to put their own story in it and relate to the essence of the feeling.

So, I had gotten that far but I still needed something else! Another trickling stream. That’s when I went to wash the dishes. Let it sit. I came back and by the blessed favors of the waters, I got my bridge. I borrowed the word “disingenuous” from Dar Williams. I didn’t really think I would keep it, but in the end it seemed to work. I also picked up a phrase from Berry Gordy. I read his bio this week (hence the Motown feel, I suppose!) and he said something about winners and losers that I paraphrased in my song, so I want to give him credit for that!

I made my complete recording and polished it up as best as I can with my current technology—will be better with "real" musicians. But I’m happy with it. It is what it is. I’ve decided to write in a “singles” format. That is, each song is written on it’s own terms, for it’s own sake, and in it’s own realm. The next song I do may be completely different. I’m trying to write 100. This one was like… number 45 or something like that. But that is a topic for another blog entry!

* ... and a note here, on "revisions"... I revised the song tonite (8/12/09), a few days after the original post. I changed only a few tiny things around and it all made so much more sense. I also changed the title; I had originally called it "It Didn't Mean That Much"—but I realized that it DID mean that much—so I had to fix that!
I also had shared the original demo with somebody else who made a savvy suggestion which I incorporated just by flipping some verses around. Songwriters... get Garage Band. It's a great tool.

Song Form

Whatever happened to the old Verse-Chorus-Bridge format? I miss the “middle 8.” Call me old fashioned, if you will, but it is such a classic form. AABA… or ABABCAB. It never seems to run dry. I guess I’ve worked with it so much I’m naturally inclined to sculpt my thoughts that way. It’s a convenient storytelling format: set the frame, fill out the story, interject in contrast, wrap it up.

I do like to work with other forms—and also if I work with this form I like to see what I can do to vary it slightly. That adds to the intrigue. Well, if Mozart worked in Sonata-Allegro form for most of his career, I can stick with this standard song form. So sue me! Right?

But thinking about it makes me listen to what is out there now with attention to the form … and it seems like form has been tossed away. First of all, am I on target to say that harmonically people are not using all the chords anymore? Perhaps just one or two. Seems like it’s more about the production sound, the drum beat, the rapper, a riff. Also, music seems to be consumed in tiny snippets—with contrasting elements crashing against each other. Well, Frank Zappa used to do that; he interspersed his songs with electronic collages—but that was in the days when they had an “album” format consciousness. Now it’s every song for itself. And people probably only listen to a few seconds of it. I certainly am guilty of that. 30 seconds is plenty to get the gist of it! Who has time for more?

I probably have to do a lot more listening. There’s too much to listen to.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Getting Started

Sometimes just getting something started is all takes. Get an idea, write it down. Save it for later. Don't expect immediate results. Refine and polish over time. Remain open to new ideas, look at the creative problem from a variety of perspectives. Don't get discouraged, don't worry about the eventual outcome. Dip your toes in the flow, and then jump in.

The Joy of Songwriting

Ah ha!! This morning I realized that writing a song is very much like cooking! Perhaps I thought of it because in the car on the way home from dropping my son at daycamp I heard on NPR a review of a movie about Julia Childs. When I got home I set to work sketching out a new song and it came to me that I’m engaged in “The Joy of Songwriting”!

So, that’s the premise—here’s the connection. A delicious meal evolves through a set series of lovingly tended stages. My songs emerge through a comparable process. I hope they are delicious!

prep – includes planning and shopping! (listening, studying, reading about music, absorbing!!)
deciding on the cuisine… flavors, styles (style, genre)
selecting a dish (song topic, hook, etc)
chopping, washing, getting ingredients together (sorting through the ideas)
heating the pan (turning on the amp, the computer, tuning the guitar!)
sautéing the onions, garlic (getting warmed up, trying out ideas)
searing, stir-frying (getting the outer edges fixed, reigning in the ideas, finding the boundaries)
steaming, simmering (deepening into the ideas, digging into the spirit of the emerging song)
tasting (running through the song so far, recording rough demos, playbacks)
adding spice (putting in details, lyrical, melodic, harmonic, instrumental)
curing the sauce (rehearsing, refining)
getting the side dishes ready – (different sections of the song are like the salad, the rice)
baking, roasting (letting it sit and mellow for a while)
setting the table (organizing a recording, or performance)
gathering the guests (getting together musicians, audience)
enjoying the meal (performing, enjoying)
…and… lest we forget… the cleanup! (winding cables, making backups!!!)


So, when you are cooking and sitting down to eat, imagine that you just wrote a song! And I hope to be serving up songs to suit the appetite!

Kilissa Cissoko is a songwriter of longstanding on the Buffalo indie music scene. www.kilissa.com.
www.myspace.com/kilissacissoko