It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...For Songwriting

People see me carrying around Christmas music books during the year and assume I'm learning Christmas songs for, well...Christmas.

A reasonable assumption. 

Except it's wrong.

I use Christmas music as my secret weapon for learning about songwriting.

"Huh???" Yeah, I hear you. 

The 19th century Christmas songs, like O Come All Ye Faithful, and more modern ones, like The Christmas Song and Last Christmas, have endured not only because of tradition, but because they're written so well. 

The technical aspects of these songs - the lyrics, the melodies, the chord progressions, the tempos, etc. - have served their purpose: to invoke emotion.  

And do they ever. They can make you smile, laugh, cry, and everything in between. 

And they can be adapted to various genres. My favorite punk band, Bad Mary Band from Long Island, does a cover of Silent Night that's not so...silent. 

You can also have a ton of fun making up your own covers. I had major surgery on my left foot right after Thanksgiving in 2011, so I was on crutches during the holidays. Being the parody lover that I am, I made up parodies of Christmas songs. 

Everybody's favorite, hands down - especially mine - was It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Crutches. I really ripped into that one. Laughter saved me that season, believe me. 

So if you need a new way of thinking about songwriting...well...It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year for that!

🎅🎄🎶

 

Happy Anniversary!!

I'm coming up on the first anniversary of this fun little trip into Songwriting Land.

And to celebrate...I'm gonna "mess things up"! 

I've been thinking of doing that for awhile now, actually. 

I started this off by focusing on my experiences as a beginning songwriter. But...I got bored. Frankly, writing about "me, me, ME" all the time just wasn't very interesting after a time. 

So now I'm broadening my horizons. I'll still write about myself, especially since I have a special project next year that I'll need advice and guidance on. And I'll write about songwriting resources, and news in the songwriting world.

But here's a cool new feature: Songwriter Of The Month, where you can discover a rising star in the songwriting arena, as well as established songwriters. 

I'll give you a bio on them, of course, but I want to delve deeply into their songwriting processes. Everybody is different, and being a former psychology major, I'm curious about each songwriter's techniques, and their "mental processes." 

Many of them will be songwriters I discover on social media. I'm very active on Instagram, but even more so on Threads, where I've become part of a really fabulous community of artists, like, yes, music folks, visual artists, and writers. 

So, to quote the ever-awesome Pink...let's Get The Party Started! 

A-Chord-ing To Me...

Last month I decided to focus on learning more guitar chords. I write on guitar, so I thought doing that would improve my songwriting.

I gathered all my guitar books, found about 195 chords I liked - yes, I counted! - organized my info about that, and now I set aside time each week, like on Friday and Sunday afternoons, to learn them.

Will I use all these? Of course not. But I enjoy knowing where to find them if I need them. I have that information in a notebook, so I can reach in there and grab something when I need it.

And it's nice to hear different sounds, instead of the same old chords. I'm also coming up with new chord progressions, which is fun!

It's opened up a whole new world for me. It's helping me try new things, which I love to do. And it's shooting my creativity through the roof. I'm also getting out of my D-G-A rut, thank goodness.

Let's see what I come up with, now that I'll have more tools in my toolbox.