songwriting

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Forgot to mention yesterday...I've already gotten started on one of my New Year's Resolutions! Yesterday I gave tapes to Allison and Jodi; both tapes contained a rough version of my new Eowyn song, "Unrequited". Allison's tape also included a version of her Tuck Everlasting song ("Everlasting") that we're collaborating on - I've added music to her lyrics. Allison's also working on another song collab we're doing called "Bill The Pony".

When writing a song from scratch, I now find it impossible to write music with also writing the lyrics, or lyrics without also working on the music, even in my humour songs. I wrote "Eowyn" over the Christmas holidays, and it sort of poured out of me in a few days.

I was going through my old sheet music archives and doing some purging/reorganizing, found this worksheet for Another Story.



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I hated my chorus, though. Desperate, I gave the song to Allison, asking her if she could come up something for the chorus...I -love- what she came up with. Here's the final version of the song, which is going to be on our new CD this year.

For "Unrequited", I relied heavily on paper, and started with music rather than lyrics, though I knew what I was going to write about. I find that when working out arrangements for Urban Tapestry, writing the basic chord structure and vocal lines out on paper makes things a lot easier in terms of figuring out where harmonies and counterpoint lines should go.

I love working with counterpoint parts (two or more melody lines that are sung at the same time but that are completely different melodies). For me, it's almost like working out a difficult math problem and then (aha!) you find the right answer. When I write counterpoint, I usually write the lines out on paper, and then use a four-track recorder to first record the guitar rhythm and one vocal line, then lay the other vocal lines on top of that.

In this way, I can check whether the counterpoint actually works, and what bits need to be tweaked. What works on paper may not always work when sung. If there are more than two tracks, I have to mix the tracks down to two, transferring the recording to a cassette tape, then give the tape to Allison and Jodi so they can hear the song and learn their parts. Can't wait until I know how to use Logic Audio -- hopefully it will make this recording process much easier!

Here's a rough worksheet I found for the music to "Another Story", where I worked out the counterpoint lines for Allison and Jodi. I ended up not using the last bit of music on this sheet:



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Today's Blatherpics:

Songwriting worksheets. I've already explained the last two worksheets for Another Story, a song which I had originally intended to be a children's song, but which mutated into something darker as I wrote it. It will be included on our upcoming CD. The one at the top of the page is for The Friendship Song, a three-part a capella piece I wrote for Urban Tapestry, which is also going to be on our CD this year.