It’s always interesting to hear songwriters talk about their songwriting process.
The clip above shows well-known singer Marie Digby talking about how she approaches the art of songwriting.
And that’s something that we usually do at our Songcraft sessions too – we share our individual approaches to songwriting, and we learn about the various ways in which a song can be crafted, and in the process we help one another improve as songwriters.
Posted in Songwriters, Songwriting | 8 Comments »
Some nights you find yourself in the mood for “catching tunes”.
That is when you sit by the piano and just try to come up little motifs…anything at all, really.
Little wisps of melody, chord changes, whatever you can grasp at.
Anything that might give you the inspiration to write a song with.
That’s not to say that anything will necessarily come out of your tune-catching session, to be honest.
In fact, many a times I come away with nothing.
(“Nothing” in the sense that there was nothing that I really felt was good enough for me to pursue.)
But that’s just the way it is for me.
I tend to not want to work on something unless I really like it.
Because I realise that I will not have the motivation to complete a song which I am not totally vested in.
Personally I feel that if a particular approach isn’t yielding anything after some time, it is good to alter your approach once in awhile.
Maybe start out by writing some lyric first, then see if you can put music to it.
It’s good to change things up once in awhile when it comes to songwriting.
Posted in Songs, Songwriting | 1 Comment »
Event: Songcraft Mini-Concert ’09 “Originally Yours”
Date: 21st Nov ’09
Time: 730pm-930pm
Venue: Play Den@Arts House
What can I say?
Another annual Songcraft concert (our 3rd one so far), another highly-memorable event.
Now I am quite an easily-satisfied person, but in all honesty…I really felt that everything went PERFECT tonight.
From the moment I stepped into the Play Den at 4:55pm, and I saw all 3 mics set up nicely on 3 mic stands with 3 accompanying music stands, I knew it was going to be a good night.
(That was exactly what I had requested for from the Arts House folks.)
My biggest worry was the turnout, cos I was worried about both overcrowding and undercrowding. (You can never predict how many people will turn up for something like this, cos it is not a ticketed event.)
But it turned out beautifully…cos the Play Den was filled just nice for the entire night.
Amazing.
A lot has to be said about the beautiful venue, i.e. the Play Den.
I thought it was a pleasant upgrade from the Choral Studio at the YMS.
Not to say the Choral Studio was inferior…but it probably didn’t suit our needs as well as the Play Den did.
The atmosphere in the Play Den was remarkable.
The lighting was great, and ambience was cosy, and the acoustics were fantastic.
I really think a lot of the success of tonight’s concert could be attributed to the venue.
And of course, the stars of the show were the 20 songs by the various songwriters…and they certainly didn’t disappoint.
We were treated to songs of various genres and themes, but all beautiful nonetheless.
At the end of the day, we’ve not lost our focus – it’s always about the songs.
It is a showcase of original songs…songs written by your average joes living in Singapore, people like you and me.
Songs written by people who love music enough to pick up the guitar or go to the piano to create an original song of our own.
It is really an honour to know of so many wonderful, gifted and passionate songwriters in Singapore.
*P.S. Thank you to all who are reading this who turned up for the mini-concert tonight. Really appreciate your show of support!
…
Future?
Songcraft has been around for almost 3 full years, and we’ve gone through 3 annual concerts.
We’ve certainly come quite a way.
It has been a most magical journey.
(When music is involved…it’s always going to be magical.)
What does the future hold? Will there be a 4th concert?
Nobody knows. It’s hard to look too far in the future sometimes.
I guess we will have to wait and see what the future holds.
We can’t be too sure of tomorrow.
But what we can be sure of is that the memories of yesterday were certainly great.
One big happy group of songwriters
Posted in Composers, Concert, Session, Singapore, Songcraft, Songwriters, Songwriting | 3 Comments »
I can’t speak for all songwriters, but when I’m trying to write songs the most important thing to me is that the songs should establish an “emotional connection” with the listener.
And the earlier in the song that the emotional connection can be established, the better.
The method doesn’t really matter – you could be using just three chords throughout, or you could be playing in the simple key of C major, or you could be using very elementary lyrics…it doesn’t really matter.
It’s the effect that matters.
Conversely, it doesn’t matter if you’re using complex harmonies and chord progressions, or complex rhyming schemes…if there is no connection, then I personally feel that the song did not achieve its intended effect.
How then, does a song establish an emotional connection? How does it “speak” to the listener?
Well, this is a hard one to answer. I wish I knew the answer to that too.
I personally think it’s just a matter of putting yourself in the shoes of the listener and imagining what the listener would like to hear.
But of course, everyone wants to hear different things, so I just focus on a particular type of listener in my mind that I want the song to “speak” to. (In business jargon, I think it’s called knowing your “target market”.)
So as long as my song can establish an emotional connection with the people I would like to establish an emotional connection with, I’m very happy.
Posted in Songs, Songwriting | 3 Comments »
I think I’m falling in love with Eb major.
Have been writing (or trying to write) a few songs in this key lately.
It’s not a conscious effort thingy, it’s just that I somehow like to gravitate towards starting in this key.
(I somehow tend to prefer keys with flats rather than sharps. Dunno why also.)
It’s a combination of things.
Firstly, I think it’s quite easy to play Eb major and its family of chords. It suits my fingers well on the piano, for some strange reason.
(However, I’m quite sure a guitarist would never tell you his favourite key to write in is Eb major…cos I think it’s quite a pain to play in Eb major on the guitar. Unless you tune 1/2 down, that is.)
Also, I think Eb major’s got quite a nice quality to it.
I know it’s silly to describe the “character” of a key, but I’ll try anyway:
Eb major is slightly darker, richer and more romantic than its adjacent neighbour E major, which I feel has a very bright tone to it. (E major can be overly bright at times, to be honest. But it definitely has its very good uses.)
Eb major is the key you go to when you want to write a wistful, reflective, emotive song.
If a musical needs a soliloquy kind of song, a song where the character says “why did this happen to me?” or “tell me what I should do now?” or “will we ever be together again?”…then I think Eb major would be a decent choice to start it in.
Not to say that Eb major is extremely dark. It’s not. It still has its share of brightness to it.
Just that I feel that it might be a slightly more emotive alternative to E major.
These are just my crazy views on keys.
As some of you might know, I have my views on many of the keys. (E.g. D major is romantic, A major is anthemic, C major is plain, etc.)
To me, many of the keys have their own special character…their special “colour”, if you will.
(See this post for a more detailed write-up.)
I always believe that a key is very important to a song.
It’s not just a matter of settling on a key that fits the singer’s range.
I believe that there is such a thing as a “right key” for every song.
But that’s just me lah.
p.s. If you have the time, listen through Chopin’s 24 preludes. They were written in every single major and minor key (hence the 24 pieces). Hearing them all at one listening would give you a pretty good idea of the subtle differences in colour between each key.
Posted in Music Theory, Songwriting | 2 Comments »
(Photo courtesy of B)
Songcraft turned 2 last week, and I thought it’d be appropriate for me to share my thoughts:
It was a great event at the Earshot Cafe, though it was a pity that a few of our regulars couldn’t join us that night.
Anyhow, the entire night went great and I have to thank everyone for making it possible.
Listening to all the wonderful songs and the great performances, I couldn’t help but notice how high the level of songwriting was.
And many of them not only could write good songs, they could deliver the songs really well too.
Negative Stereotypes
I’d like to think that Songcraft has achieved what I would have hoped it would achieve in the last 2 years, and more.
Basically, I wanted to create an environment whereby it was OK for one to share one’s original songs.
That was the main gist of Songcraft.
It was a subtle movement to make the art of songwriting more acceptable and accessible to people.
This might be something we take for granted now, but trust me, 2 years ago I barely had the nerve to tell any of my friends (or even my sibling) that I wrote songs, much less share the songs with them.
I don’t know about other people’s circle of friends, but where I came from, friends and siblings didn’t really take to original songs that well. They viewed original songs with a bit of aversion. (People still do now, I suppose…but to a lesser extent.)
It’s funny. When you tell people you do poetry, or prose, or art, or design, or crafts…it’s quite OK. But when you tell them you write songs, you can see them recoil a little bit with that “Say what?” look.
It was kind of an embarrassing thing to let someone know that you dabbled in songwriting, and if you were to share your song with them, chances were that they’d politely listen through it…but you’d probably be able to sense that it was awkward for them.
I guess over the last 2 years a number of my friends have found out that I actually run a little songwriting circle, and some of them have even heard some of my songs. And they’ve slowly started to accept it.
I’d like to think that in the last 2 years, Songcraft has helped break down negative stereotypes in Singapore when it comes to writing original songs.
(“Leaders of the Band”, as B calls it…)
Doing Justice To Songs
I have never been comfortable with the fact that great original songs did not get the attention they deserve.
One of our favourite terms in Songcraft is to “do justice to the songs”, meaning the song should get the proper recognition it deserves.
Nothing pains me more to see a great song being written, but it never gets to see the light of day because there is no one interested enough to listen to it.
Hence, another reason that Songcraft existed was to give songwriters an avenue to share their songs, to let their songs be heard.
And boy have we heard many wonderful songs over the past 2 years!
Personally, the last 2 years have been 2 of the most musically enriching years of my life. And I’m not trying to exaggerate here.
It’s fortunate that Songcraft was able to somehow attract like-minded musician-songwriters in Singapore to come together on a regular basis to share new songs with one another, as well as to exchange views on the topics we were so passionate about – music and songwriting.
Inspiring One Another
I think one aspect which we seldom talk about in Songcraft is the fact that hearing one another’s songs does in some ways inspire ourselves to write better songs too.
(Kinda like the McCartney-Lennon dynamic, haha!)
But yeah, I’d like to think that in the last 2 years, Songcraft has inspired a number of songwriters to write many wonderful songs, and in the process, it has also raised their level of songcraft too.
And in that sense, I’d like to think that Songcraft has played it’s own small part in contributing to the arts scene here in Singapore, by inspiring local songwriters to write wonderful songs.
Conclusion
The fact remains that Songcraft was started on a whim, over one weekend.
There wasn’t any thorough blueprint drawn up, nor were there any lengthy discussions conducted with subject matter experts or anything like that.
There wasn’t a committee set up to look into the feasibility of starting such a group.
There also wasn’t any financial planning or pro forma P/L projections being forecast with regards to the group’s finances (with explains the big hole in my pocket, ha!).
I just decided to do it because I felt that I wanted to do it.
It was something I felt strongly for, and I just decided to go ahead…and if it fails, it fails.
But luckily, it didn’t!
Thank you all for making Songcraft what it is today.
(“See you at our year end Mini-Concert!”)
Posted in Singapore, Songcraft, Songs, Songwriters, Songwriting | 3 Comments »
(This post is taken from Jeremy’s blog.)
Photo (“Car Free Festival (21 of 1)”) by airchinapilot
I realise that I write most of my songs in two types of instances: Whilst driving in my car, or whilst staring at a computer screen.
It’s weird, yes, I know…but that’s how the majority of my songs are constructed.
It kinda works for me.
While I would like to give you the impression that I write in the classic songwriter manner, which is whilst seated at the piano with a yellow pencil in wedged between the lips and a manuscript paper in front of me, or whilst sitting on the bed with a guitar…sadly that isn’t the case for me.
I let my songs germinate mostly when I’m driving, cos well…maybe that’s when I have absolute peace and quiet for maybe 15-20mins at one go, and I can just keep singing parts of the song to myself till I find something that I like and build on from it.
Yes, I am a firm believer that a song has to sing well. Meaning it is important first and foremost that the song can actually be sung, that it comes off the lips nicely. I don’t really know how to fully explain this, but I hope you get what I mean.
It’s no point if the song the song plays well on piano, or has a great riff, or has great chord changes, but it can’t really be sung properly.
Well, at least that’s my philosophy lah.
So anyway, it’s quite amazing how much of a song I can actually construct whilst driving in my car.
And I also mentioned staring at a computer screen – that’s when I get most of my lyrics done. Typing the lyrics out in front of me allows me to see the lyrical structure better, as well as the rhyming structure. And with rhymezone.com just a click away, I’m never at a loss for rhymes.
Yup, so that’s how the lyrics part gets done – in front of a computer screen.
…
So when does the piano come in?
The piano comes in when I need to suss out the chords and actually hear the song “in the flesh” for the first time. (It’s like when you conceive a play in your mind, and then you actually get to see it being staged in the flesh by actors and all that…that’s what I liken it to.)
It’s always quite exciting to try a musical idea out on the piano for the first time.
Sometimes the song plays better than what I thought it would sound like in my head…sometimes it plays worse.
Also, the piano can offer some much needed inspiration when ideas run dry. Sometimes you just let your fingers run wild, playing all kinds of weird chords and stuff…and occasionally you just might pick up some interesting ideas which you can then work with.
…
I used to think that a song should be written fully on the piano…but then after awhile I realised that it was not advisable in my case.
I tend to prefer getting the song done away from the piano most of the time (hence the “writing in the car” thing), because I realised that it’s better to compose melodies by singing them rather than playing them.
Because, as mentioned above, my personal philosophy is that a song must first sing well.
At the piano, sometimes the fingers tend to want to gravitate towards a few predictable patterns, and hence the melodies composed would tend to sound uninspired after awhile.
However, if I try to compose melodies via singing them out, I find that it gives me much more freedom and flexibility, and I am able to come up with more varied tunes.
So there you have it – some of my personal philosophies toward songwriting.
Posted in Songs, Songwriting | 3 Comments »
Tonight’s 2nd annual Songcraft mini-concert at the YMS Arts Centre was simply perfect!
Sometimes I need to pinch myself to see if all this is real. Everything seems to go so perfectly when it comes to Songcraft.
It is truly an immense joy to know so many wonderful and gifted songwriters here in Singapore. I never imagined all this when I first started the Songcraft Songwriting Circle. I feel truly blessed to have had the privilege of knowing them.
The audience at tonight’s mini-concert was noticeably larger than last year’s, and that was a very encouraging sign. Many friends and relatives of the songwriters took precious time to come attend.
I received quite a bit of feedback from fellow friends who attended tonight’s mini-concert, and they were generally highly positive. Many even commented that this year’s concert was even better than last year’s.
Overall, I couldn’t have dreamed of a better mini-concert than tonight’s. Who knows if there will be another one next year? Not me.
But at the end of the day, it’s memories like tonight’s which I will cherish with me for a long time to come.
Here’s looking forward to more good times ahead for Songcraft!
…
Many thanks to:
– All the songwriters and performers for such an enthusiastic effort.
– Alicia, who designed the cover of this year’s programme booklet (above).
– All of you who took precious time to come attend our mini-concert this evening.
Posted in Composers, Concert, Lyricists, Singapore, Songcraft, Songwriters, Songwriting | Leave a Comment »
Photo (“Music Man”) by chelseajg
How does an artist paint a picture?
Well, first I believe he decides what subject he wants to paint.
Then he’ll start to conceive the entire painting in his mind, and think about aspects such as perspective, composition, colour and perhaps brush techniques.
In other words, the artist has the entire picture all planned out before actually painting it out.
What about songwriters? How does a songwriter write a song?
I guess most of us tend to “grasp for tunes from the air”, so to speak. Or perhaps sometimes we bang it out on the piano or guitar until we hit upon something that we like, and then we work from there.
Recently in my songwriting, I’ve been trying out a new approach, and that is to “hear” the music before attempting to write it out. And it’s been working out pretty well for me.
Yes, I know it sounds weird…but hear me out.
What I’m doing is that I’m actually trying to envision the song in my mind. I have a somewhat nebulous idea of what I want to achieve, and what direction I want to take. I have a vague concept of the feel of the song and the shape of the melody. I roughly know where the song is supposed to go at what point.
And after that, what happens is I merely “flesh” it out on the piano or guitar. As in, fill in the actual notes and the chords.
Yes, it’s weird…but hey, if artists can envision what they want to paint before doing it, why can’t songwriters do it with their musical creations as well?
I think a big part of songwriting is having a firm idea of what your song is going to be about, and being able to take the song where you want it to go.
You might want to try it next time you write a song. Try to “hear” the song in your mind, the song you want to write. Then once you manage to hear the music…then you write it out.
Who knows, it just might work for you.
Posted in Songcraft, Songs, Songwriting | 5 Comments »
Photo (“No Exit Cafe, Chicago, 1989”) by Genial23
Our next Songcraft session will be held on Friday 730pm, 19th Sept ’08 at the YMS Arts Centre.
The theme for that night will be “Jazz”, so everyone is encouraged to write a jazz song and come share it with the rest of us that night.
Jazz can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, as it encompasses a wide range of styles…but not to worry – As long as you think it’s “jazz”, we want to hear it!
But of course, all regular non-jazz songs are still very much welcomed.
See you next Friday!
Posted in Composers, Lyricists, Session, Singapore, Songcraft, Songwriters, Songwriting | 1 Comment »
Songcraft Songwriting Circle 