For a musician, your songs are your art. They are the physical embodiment of your creative gifts. Every bit of anger, happiness, anguish, joy, pain, elation, knowledge, or humor enters the story known as your song. You write it and rewrite it, running through every note and word … perfecting it for recording and live performance.
But when you play it for others, you don’t get the reaction you expected. Your friends, fans, and family seem less than enthusiastic when they boringly reply, “Yeah. That was … um … good.” How could this be? You poured your soul into this piece. This was his “Stairway to Heaven”! This was their “Smells of Team Spirit”! It’s a lyrically amazing ode about the persecution of pagan midwives in grass hut tribes! Flow, breathe, and it’s seven and a half minutes of pure musical perfection!
Wow! Stop there, Mozart. You wrote a seven and a half minute song about the persecution of pagan midwives in grass hut tribes and wonder why your thirteen-year-old cousin fell asleep in the middle of the fourth verse. You wrote a seven and a half minute song about the persecution of pagan midwives in the grass hut tribes and you are confused as to why your drummer’s girlfriend started calling her friends on her cell phone before the song will reach its peak.
It may be hard to believe when you’re writing a piece like this, but the normal human brain is wired a little differently than an accomplished musician, like you. And while music is art, it is also popular culture, and the goal should be for others to enjoy your creative endeavors as much as you do.
So how can you ensure that your writing experience is as positive as your audience’s listening experience? What can you, as musicians, do to remove aspects of your songs that may alienate, confuse, or simply bore your fans?
The following are some tips that can add success to your songwriting experience:
1.) After four minutes, it turns to background music — Music fans aside, the average person has about the attention span of a young adult hummingbird. As a songwriter, you need to grab your audience’s attention and hold it until the end of the song before they drift onto something more interesting to them. Although four minutes (or less) may seem like the blink of an eye when a songwriter is telling a story, it’s a long time to wait for your regular club goer or web surfer to remain obsessed with their music.
2.) Tell your story as directly as possible — We all love allusions, allegories, vague references, and subtle metaphors, but use them sparingly or become a beat poet. A little abstraction goes a long way when writing a popular song. Song lyrics fly into people’s minds as fast as the bass player pulls out the black ones. If you make your lyrics too complicated, your audience may still be trying to figure out the verse when you’re already playing the chorus. This could cause the average listener to tune out your masterpiece, order another beer, and turn on their Ipod.
3.) If English is your first language, use it in your song — It’s great that you are a cultured, cultured and artistic intellectual sponge. But remember that most of the people who listen to your music are not bookworms or art prostitutes. Big, implicated words make song lyrics memorable, but use them every now and then. It’s good for your fans to ponder the meaning of a particular lyrics, but if you give them too many to ponder, they’ll get so caught up in the words that they can forget your song.
4.) Dark musicality can also be confusing — Lyrics are not the only way to confuse the average listener. Dark time signatures, jarring instrumentation, and cutting-edge drum lines may sound great to your fellow musicians, but if your listeners can’t play and / or hum, they might just invite you to perform in underground opium bars where Audience members have all eaten too many hash brownies.
If you’re not sure where to start, start simple. Write a short but sweet song that has an emotional impact in a universal way. Write about something everyone is familiar with: love, politics, lifestyle issues, or the sociology of being a human being on the planet. Once people have fallen in love with your music, it will be easier to get them to listen to your more complicated pieces of art.
Remember that just because a song is popular or easy to understand doesn’t mean it’s not a good creative. Art is subjective and is truly in the eye of the beholder. Your least favorite song could be someone else’s favorite. You never have to stop being creative or artistic, just recognize that there is an audience that wants to hear what you have to say … but first they must be able to understand it.
