Songwriting

Songwriting is something I think about a lot. I think about it way more than I actually do it, which is indicative of how complex the process actually is (or how lazy I am?). We've had a couple days off the road in Houston, before heading to Dallas tomorrow, to relax and think about new music. Just like a lot of art, songwriting is a universe of dualisms and unless one can free their mind of these competing concepts, songwriting can be very difficult.

The main dualism has to do with who, or what, the art is being created for. Most artists will agree that they produce their product from within, for themselves. Then again, if the artist is the only individual who enjoys the result, the artist will die of starvation and certainly not make any more art. However, if an artist focuses solely on what her audience might want, she will become disconnected with her art form, eventually disillusioned enough such that she ceases to create altogether. Quite the conundrum, no? This equation is the source of terms like "tortured artist" or, more applicable to music: "starving artist".

I cannot really speak to how other art forms are created (my drawing skills operate around a 3rd grade level and any attempt to write something longer than a blog looks like a diagnostic test for A.D.D.). But, I can say with some level of certainty that most of the music in the world is created without any outside influence on a conscious level. It is simply too hard to visualize a crowd of people and ascertain what they would theoretically want to hear. Such knowledge can only come after the fact, after playing lots of music in front of lots of people, lots of times.

This isn't to say that no outside influence is present in songwriting. Whether they like it or not, songwriters will always operate in the framework of the collective human music consciousness, even if their goal is to write something completely new. Nothing new can be written without first having a complete sense of what has been done already in human music history.

Of course, these are all aqueous, esoteric concepts; probably more useful for you to ponder yourself than to read my blabbering. So, I'll close with a poem about our hitchhiking buddy and his dog, who I wrote about last post.

Turquoise necklace and orange energy vest
A dog and a backpack, on a mission
For herbs in the Ozark heights
Deep in the mountains, a moon-cycle of medicine
Miss Wilbur, Shaman of the Night
No human thinking, don't think too much
Discover the dog light
Miss Wilbur, Shaman of the Night