Workshop: Songwriting 3

The one thing I will leave this workshop with is definitely this one phrase "You ALWAYS need to have a catchy chorus." It's funny, because I never thought of that as very important, when in reality, it's the key to writing a song that makes people remember you, and being successful. We all showed what we were working on. I showed some lyrics that I was working on, but I still hadn't found a tune to them yet. We worked on trying to get a melody line with them, but after a while I realized you can't just write lyrics and expect to find music to go with it. You have to do both at the same so it flows naturally.

Afterwards we started listening to other artists. It was really interesting embracing the music as a group. You could feel a common vibe around the room, whether it was magical, happy, or just plain awkward. Music knows how to press your buttons. It makes the right sounds that trigger emotions like an on and off switch.

After the songwriting workshop I ended up going to songwriting club (that's 3 straight hours of songwriting) and Mr. Semerdjian showed us some of his songs. I asked him how he generally went about the process of writing songs, and he said 70% of the time he ended up starting with a chord progression. In response I asked him how he usually came up with chord progressions, and he told me he just messed around with the guitar until he found something cool. I went straight home and went to work creating something amazing.

At first, I started messing around with chords, what sounded cool. I found myself all over the place as one thing lead to another. Eventually I made it to a chord progression that was almost perfect, but the 6th string seemed like it would be better if it were a note down. Then I thought, why not tune down the string! My mind went haywire with ideas as I worked on this song, moving quickly from one thing to the next. I barely even noticed that 5 hours passed by the time I got a good amount of lyrics down.

I didn't end up liking the lyrics though, and that taught me another important lesson in songwriting. Make sure you know what you're actually writing about or else your words will be complete and utter nonsense. After a free write, I finally figured out that while I originally thought my song was about feeling abandoned by everyone, it was really about being obsessed with anguish. That certainly cleared a lot up.

Hopefully, I'll get it to turn into something good and presentable. I think I'm going somewhere with this.