Ghosts of What Used to Work, But Did They
Currently I’m live in my songwriting group 'semester' and just really really not in songwriting mode. I’m an electronic songwriting mode but not typical verse course songwriting mode.
In the past what I’ve done to prepare myself is really write a couple before the semester starts, but this time I had so much electronic stuff going on and I’m very very much in that mode. not ready to eject just yet.
There’s a bit of a line between setting some ground rules and hang onto ghost of things that have worked in the past. And I have these ghosts of things that have always worked to get me going and songwriting, but then when I look back at the product--the end product, it's not great. So did these things really work? Did they spark ideas? I don’t know.
Part of why the songwriting group itself works is because you feel (peer) pressured to produce and get something out, and for a long time that really worked for me because I wasn’t finishing things. But what I’ve since found is that gigs make me finish things and anticipation of audience, and not necessarily making things for that particular audience, but knowing that there will be an audience and if I’m true to myself and I’m doing my thing then that will translate.
Case point the pre-SXSW gig I did before the grunge band and the punk band, I just had to hunker down and stay true to what I was doing and that’s why it worked.
In the limits of my live set with a drum kit, a bass with a sequencer, arp track with a sequencer, and then kind of 'guest spot' for whatever lead synth I have (currently it’s that my grandmother).
All of this is really working. I can go super deep on the drum rack next or the bass track or the harp track. These are all things that can are a bit infinite so they’re very limiting but they’re also super creative.
There is this kind of fine line so you do have to really disseminate between what is a what is something that’s worked in the past, what’s a limiting thought ,and what are restrictions that inspire creativity. I guess it’s part of the whole--it sounds so emo to say, artistic struggle.
I think what I found that really works-at this time- is time on the clock with my rig. Just come down and go, like this morning.
I tried some old songwriting tricks and they just weren’t working. Only the very lamest turds were were being produced. So that it wouldn’t be a total kind of bummer morning I turned to the electronic set up, and I got a feel groove going-quickly. I thought about a different way to do chords last night, and it really worked in practice this am. Kind of a better way of writing for me than the Expressive Chords device in Ableton.
I’ve realized this is where I am now, so I’m not really sure what’s gonna happen with this songwriting semester. Oh, the musical life. #amiright?