changing your song

[Layla Nahar]

The other day in my music lesson my teach hacked my melody. I had taken my song originally for a lesson about how to find the right chords. She changed one note in one part, but significantly changed it in another part, and really moved away from the chords I was trying to use. I felt like it was not my song anymore. She told me that for herself also, this was one of the hardest things to handle. Teachers at her school did it, and when she was recording an album the producers made major changes. She said she threw a real diva fit and the producer said, "If you want to work in this business, you just have to change that attitude"

Just wondering what other people have as a take on this.

Layla

[limoguy]

Hi Layla,

I can relate totally to what you are saying! One of the hardest things to learn if you're trying to be commercial with your songs, is to be original and not to get "married" to the song you are crafting. Some writers simply can't do this.

A song is a very personal thing. It comes from the heart and soul of the writer. It comes from your own personal experiences and is flavored with your own personality. In order to be commercial, we sometimes have to take a wide departure from what we would like to see happen to it.

My song writing coach is encouraging me to do the same thing. Melodies that are predictable have to be changed to appeal to a wide audience. As she puts it, if you can make the listener think the song is going to do "A", when it does "B", then it has the musical "Hook" that really makes it stand out from everything else that is being played.

I had one song I was working on where the last line of the first lift ended in a major note. She suggested I change it to a minor and boy did it ever make a difference!

Good Luck!!

Limoguy

[stonepiano]

It should bother you that other people came up with certain parts of your song. I've collaborated a bunch with other writers and inevitably they want to change certain things. The song loses some luster in your heart if someone else wrote part of it.

Then again, if you're writing for other artists, it's all about getting the best product to them so they'll eat it up and the writer gets to pay rent. It's a tough niche, I would imagine.

Then again, you learn from every song you write. I personally don't put too much stock into any one particular song. I consider myself ever evolving as a writer and artist so whatever someone teaches me today, I use tomorrow.

[mikeh]

Although our songs are indeed our children and no one likes people picking them apart, collaboration ifsalways going to be a factor.

A singer will add thier personality to the melody, and the studio musicians will change some chords/riffs, arrangements will be tweaked by producers, etc etc etc. Hopefully the sum of the whole is better.

When we allow ourselves to stay focused only on our "vision" of the song we will eventually limit ourselves to that which we know/like.

I record various songwriters and in most cases, my input and the input of other players makes the song better. On the other hand, the writters who don't accept other input - and in particular who play all the parts - end up having a "sameness" to the material.

No matter how good any of us think we are, we only have limited writting and playing chops, after that we either need outside help - or accept that the songs just won't get any better.

[Peter D]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything that's been said thus far. It's incredibly hard to get used to having someone edit or alter a song you've written. But, if you have any desire to make a living from songwriting you have to get used to it. What is even harder to do is determine when the changes that people want to make are to make the song better or to make themselves feel useful. Believe me, you will encounter many of those people in trying to market your songs.

There are a few songs which I have refused to change, though requested to do so, over the years. Sometimes my judgement has been right and sometimes has been proven wrong. You have to trust your gut and have people around you who are objective and who you also trust.

I just returned from writing for a film project for a few weeks and it was an object lesson on just this issue. It was fascinating, humbling and humiliating, all at the same time. So many people from different fields of expertise trying to describe a sound and feel they want your songs and music to convey. It felt like the first time I ever walked into a music publisher's office and asked to play a few songs. It was terrifying and a buzz at the same time. Good luck.

[Cyrokk]

In those instances when you are submitting your songs for review to someone else, be they a teacher, producer, or fellow bandmate, you have to take the attitude that what you present to them is an unfinished product. This helps smooth out the jarring tendency to be uncompromising.

I was in a band that wanted to put together an improvisational piece, where each band member would showcase his chops. The idea was there before I joined the band. The bass player wanted to have solo break with no accompaniment. When the idea came to me I told them it would be best for me to do my showcasing over the main theme of the song to make the song have more of an impact and be more concise. The others really dug the idea and when we rehearsed it things really went well. I think the openmindedness had more to do with the success of the song than the song itself.

When you are writing just for yourself, one of the biggest challenges is stepping outside your own box and acting as a producer, especially cutting out mundane crap. Initially you feel the groove should last another 8 bars, but honestly only four is needed. Another approach often forgotten with repetitive phrasing is having other instruments (outside your main one) playing the theme.

The editing process of songwriting is a separate process that can take longer and be more gut-wrenching than initial composing.

Cy

[Layla Nahar]

Thanks everybody - this has been really good feedback. I did some work with my teacher on setting chords to a melody again and we made changes to the melody. I also had the occasion this weekend to speak with someone who is quite big in another country, and he said with some distaste that with his first cd they changed *everything* but he basicially said that he sucked it up, cause he wanted the sucess.

I'm getting more used to this idea, iin particular the idea of changing the melody so that it matches the chords you are putting down. For songs were I have struggled and tried this and that to finish them, its not so bad, but for those songs where the words and melody all came in a flash, its a lot harder to concieve of changing them. Another useful thing I got from that singer was the information that in his carreer of almost 20 years, he said that only about 10 songs or so were the type where words an music came all at once; the the majority came from trying this, changing that etc.

So, yeah, I'm getting used to this idea, a little bit used to the idea of not getting to attached to a song etc. I'm new to writing music, it takes a much much greater effort for me than writing words, and so it seems so much harder to lose that work. A lot of the ideas you all mentioned here have been very helpful. Thanks

layla