Ever listen to a song for the first time and before the lyrics start you are thinking “this song is going to be awesome!” And then the singer comes-in and something happens. Either their voice, how they are singing, or just their choice of words totally turns you off. Yea, this happens to me all the time. I will likely never seek-out this song or maybe even the band ever again.
Then there are those times, and they happen very rarely, when you hear a song or a band for the first time and you cannot believe your ears. The music is superb and the singer’s tone matches the emotion of the song perfectly. To others, this may not be the case, but to you, this may be your favorite new band. So before we get too far here, remember that music may be judged by the listener, the one buying the songs, tickets, and concert shirts, but none of that really has anything to do with the satisfaction of writing a quality song.
ORIGINALITY
As a lifelong musician, I gravitate toward music that pushes the envelope either in playing style, sound production, or vocal performance. I don’t really care for copycat or overly commercial songs because they offer nothing new to my experience. This is also the reason I don’t listen to to house or dance music.
It is not easy to write, record, or perform even a boring song. fact is, it takes a lot of energy and focus to complete a song. Even when you think you have a hit, by the time you get to the end, after all of the work you put into creativity and arrangement, you can end-up with a flop.
I am not a big fan of Tom Petty. No doubt he was very original, even when he seemed to be “mailing-in” a performance, it came across very unique. And this is what the record industry would like to bottle and sell to us, new artists with original performances. But it is very rare to find.
The problem is, there is no way to gauge originality. No way to mathematically rank artists by their level of creativity. It seems like they either have it or they don’t. Is this why few artists are catapulted to the top so quickly while 99% of the rest are left to the scrap heap of unheard artists? Depends on your definition of success.
WHY MUSIC
I have heard few cover songs that were better than the original. Listen to all of the covers that are out today, it is rare to find one that I would play twice. But in its purest form, covering a song is the easiest way to experience the power of performing music. Just look at how many live bands exist without a single original song. And by the way, none of them are "hitting it big"...
When I was an aspiring musician, I knew I was not going to be satisfied unless I made the jump from covering someone else’s songs to my own. Don’t get me wrong, learning hundreds of songs by a variety of musicians and bands is necessary boot camp for any musician. But I expected more from my creativity and passion.
So as an aspiring musician you owe it to yourself to identify WHY you continue to invest time into your songwriting or practice. And then make sure the work you are putting into your music aligns with your goals. If you play guitar for an hour a day and expect to become a rockstar, you are likely never going to be heard.
THE 10K RULE
There are some basic rules that govern a person's ability to create something better than anyone else, or at least equally to those who are considered “professional”. The first of them goes like this: It takes 10,000 hours for you to become so proficient at something that you would hardly ever fail at performing it.
Take a quarterback for example. Successfully throwing a back-shoulder pass while running sideways and hitting a wide receiver traveling not only away from you at a high rate of speed but 30-50 yards away is not a “god-given” talent. It is the culmination of a lifetime of practice. How are so many high school quarterbacks unable to throw this pass while many college and every pro quarterback is able to do it? Time and practice.
Fact is, to learn something so well that you literally would hardly ever perform it incorrectly takes a lot of practice. If you take 10,000 hours and divide it into 365 days, that would be over 27 hours per day. Not even possible. Or how about dividing it into 5 years, that’s nearly 6 hours per day. Still extremely difficult to achieve.
To be a little more accurate and align with reality, you should apply the 10K rule to 10 years of practice, it is still about 3 hours per day, but it also feels a lot more achievable. So the 10k rule is really about years and years of practicing the same things, and eventually, you become good enough to get it right every time.
The same goes for songwriting or anything else. The more time you put into it, the better you will become. But that is just the beginning.
THE SPARK
Tom Petty once said he doesn’t seek to write songs, he just waits for God to send them to him. I have no clue if he was joking or actually believed in divine intervention, but many artists would agree, their own favorite songs weren’t crafted like a statue cut from a block of marble, they were the result of a spark of creativity.
I have experienced this spark many times in my life. Waking up at 2am with a melody or lyrics to a chorus in my head, I spend the next 2-4 hours essentially finishing the song. At first I am excited to dig-into composing, and after a few days working-out the parts, I can finally start to hear the song in its entirety. Sometimes it is very satisfying, other times the end result is not all that exciting. But this is yet another investment into my 10K hours.
As a lifelong songwriter, I rarely write a song without that initial spark. And after years of writing I know exactly how to make it happen. Some of these situations are not preferred, while others are definitely therapeutic.
First let me get the notion that heartbreak or strong emotional experiences are good fuel for songwriting. They aren’t. All that these experiences do is allow you to hyper-focus on your feelings. What results from them may become a #1 hit, but chances are they won’t.
The Spark may be the result of divorce or loss of a loved one, but if you expect to maintain a healthy songwriting lifespan, you can’t go through life like a TV drama and hope to exist as a happy person. And if you become addicted to these experiences in order to spark the genesis of songwriting, you are missing the point of creativity altogether.
THE FORMULA
There are essentially three ways I use to generate creativity. This is my formula:
First, do not underestimate the power of solitude. You may think standing around in a garage with other dudes and writing songs is a good place to start. But the fact is most musicians in my experience, and surprisingly most talented guitarists, are shit at songwriting. So I don’t recommend collaboration with anyone else unless you know they are an equal if not more experienced songwriter than yourself.
Instead, leverage solitude as your first tool for generating creativity. And I don’t mean meditation. In fact I recommend the opposite. Some of my favorite songs have been written while I was driving, alone, or working on my yard; mowing grass or digging a ditch. These are times when my body must remain focused on a simple, physical task, but my brain is free to travel.
Remove all other stimulation, and repeat the sections of the song In your head while you compose. Record the lyrics and melodies on your phone with a voice memo app so you don’t forget them. And don’t listen to other music while doing this! It will absolutely kill the creative process.
Second, put a playlist of your favorite songs together and listen to it exclusively for days. And I am not talking about 100 songs, just about 10-20. The things that you love most about those songs will start to cement pleasurable pathways in your brain, and eventually you will encounter a Spark moment. One that is truly unique, but coincides with the kind of music, melodies, or lyrics that you have come to love by other artists.
And this is where we need to discuss degrees of originality. When I first started songwriting, I had a tendency to copy other artists way too closely. My material wasn’t that original. I was very aware of this fact, it’s really inescapable given the amount of music out there today, so even if I had a spark moment, it may not be all that original. Be conscious of this reality. If your take isn’t original, it likely isn’t good enough.
Third, listen to new music in genres that are near you own style. I listen to many genres of music, and all of them somewhat align with my personal preference. I don’t listen to a lot of other genres because I don’t prefer them. I will never write a world beat, jazz, or gospel song because I find no pleasure in listening to them.
Knowing what you like, and more importantly what you don’t like, is exactly why you listen to new music. Yes of course most new music is really just a rehash of old music. But sometimes an artist has a spark moment that is so original, when you hear it, you cannot escape the spark that it generates in your own creativity.
I recently discovered a band that I would have never listened to in the past. They have like three albums under ther wing and their genre, what I call “Cookie Monster Rock” is just not my cup of tea. Gutteral or Screamo rock may be very popular, but I usually only reference it for the music. This band, however, decided to record an album recently with far less screaming and far more actual singing. It was amazing! And the songwriting skill they demonstrated in the recording was even more impressive. Likely the result of songwriting, recording, and performing live for the last ten years. In other words, 10,000 hours / 10 years / 365 days per year = 2 hours 45 minutes per day…
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