Do you think there is more for you to learn about songwriting ?

IMO what it comes down to is songwriting is art, and art is subjective. Especially in the world of youtube, there is no way you can predict what in the flying hell is going to get famous.

What does the Fox Say - 359 million views. It's so stupid, that it actually kicks ass.

There are so many flavors of good songs... one can mean a lot to you emotionally, some can help put you to sleep, some get you pumped up, some make you want to dance. Sometimes the songs that you don't really like, other people will love them.

This series of videos was a good watch. One of my favorite parts is when he asks who's smarter.. you or the general public? The public is. You can have a song that you're like "yes, this is a hit" and then you show it to them and they're like "eh, it's ok".
John Mayer Berklee Part 1 Inspiration from Berklee - YouTube
 
The first couple of minutes in this clip he talks about songwriting and how each song is basically the same "start-from-zero" process (my words)....that it's NOT a cumualtive thing, with one song leading to something better on the next song...etc.

This is what some of us here were saying....that you can't just learn to write good songs as some lesson that has steps you follow to a better song.

 
For me new songs and new ways of writing come with non music related life experiences. That's how it started and that's how it continues. I will learn more about songwriting the next time my heart is broken. I will stop learning only if I stop feeling.
 
EricIndecisive said:
there is no way you can predict what in the flying hell is going to get famous.
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Here's the real problem as I see it - too many people confuse popular with good. They are not the same. Too many people try to write a "hit" song instead of a good one. These people are stuck on the bottom rung.
 
miroslav said:
I'm sure there are a lot of great suggestions at those things, and I'm not against the whole "workshop" approach....I've done it with acting back in my youth....but I find it hard to approach writing a new song as an exercise, or as some assignment.

I have some "Be a Better Songwriter" type of books...and I started reading through them a few times, and right away they want you to do some practice writing and some exercises, etc.....and man, I can't get anything out of that.
Either I'm writing a new song or I'm not.....I can't write "practice songs".

The other stuff...where they give you tips on how to generate new ideas for song themes, etc...that's cool, but I never run out of song ideas, or new songs. The hard part is coming up with lyrics that make sense to you, in your own words...and then to everyone else.

So give a few examples of the types of ideas/suggestion that are tossed out at the workshops......?
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I have to agree (at this point) regarding the Berklee Songwriting class - the exercises have not been real productive, and this week's rhyming videos and quizzes are grade school basic. I have picked up one 'tip' (from first week), though: the 'box theory'. Think of a song having 3 boxes (or more/less) developing the story idea. The first box is the basic premise, the second picks that up and expands it, the 3rd picks up the previous 2 and completes the idea/theme. I had never thought about it that way, but it makes sense. Have you ever started writing song lyrics from something that popped into your head and found after 1 verse (or even 2), you've told the 'whole story' and you've got nothing left for the bridge or final verse(s)? It's happened with me and I've had comments from a producer that told me basically the same thing on a couple of my completed songs - that by the 3rd verse I'm just rehashing what I already said. So the '3 box' idea can help me develop a more interesting lyrical structure.

On the songwriter group/workshop - this was only our 2nd meeting, first one that wasn't just an intro. What I got from it were some tips on the songs I brought in, how to make them more interesting , develop them further, and even to change chords at one particualr point to evoke a different feeling (going from a Bb major to a Dm on the first line of the pre-chorus).
Are these types of groups for everyone - no! But saying that you can't learn anything from a class or workshop with others and that just 'writing songs and listening to songs' will let you improve won't work for everyone. Not everyone is a Lennon/McCartney (and face it a lot of their songs were VERY basic in structure and with repeated verses, and some of the 'magic' was in fact George Martin's work).
 
There's always something more to learn.
If you can't already throw a 70 mph fastball, you'll probably never throw one at 100 mph, but you can start working on getting up to 70 from where you are.
However just because you can throw a 100 mph fastball now, doesn't mean that you can't one day throw a 110. (Maybe? I'm not big on sports. Is that possible?)
 
mjbphotos said:
Think of a song having 3 boxes (or more/less) developing the story idea. The first box is the basic premise, the second picks that up and expands it, the 3rd picks up the previous 2 and completes the idea/theme. I had never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.
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I never thought about following a specific writting format....but I really do spend a great deal of time thinking about the song's story line as much as I do on the actual lyrics that tell the story.
I'm not saying all my writting is great, but I do think about thouse things, and always have.
I was never one for writting a song with two lines that just repeat over and over or lyrics that kinda go nowhere or make no real sense.

AFA changing the chords and whatnot...well, to me, that's the initial part of the writting. Once you have some direction, I can't see stopping to change chords and melodies just to make things "more interesting".
 
fritsthegirl said:
Man, I hope the day when I think I know it all never comes....
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First off the bat, there's a very subtle but obvious difference between saying "I know it all" and saying "There isn't really anything else I can learn in this." The latter statement does not do away with the idea of progression or charting new ground. Absorbing all the things you may need to know in terms of songwriting could keep you writing until you die.
fritsthegirl said:
I definitely don't know anything about anything, least of all songwriting. But I kind of like it that way
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At the moment, because this is relatively new for you. You might feel differently in 30 years time when you've written 1597 songs. Unless you just do the same thing over and over and never absorb ideas and concepts that are at that point foreign to you and try new things in your writing, I would say you'll reach a point where you may feel there's nothing else you can actually learn about songwriting.
But that doesn't mean you'll stop coming up with amazing songs. Quite the opposite, actually.
fritsthegirl said:
The fun of living for me, is that I don't know and understand everything.
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I think that this is very different from writing songs.
But you know, you can understand things deeply and with much satisfaction and still get lots out of those things.
fritsthegirl said:
If I leave this planet thinking there might still be something for me to learn, I'll be a very happy camper
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Whether you want to or not, there'll be something to learn in life because life is vastly expansive.

Xdrummer said:
I would suggest that it is arrogant for anyone to claim there is nothing new to learn (about any given subject)
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I think it really depends on the given subject. But some things are actually kind of, well, finite.
Xdrummer said:
Almost everytime I listen to a songwriter I learn something and often wish I had thought of that phrase or that chord progression.
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Ah, but is wishing you'd used a phrase or chord progression synonymous with needing to learn something new ?
I would argue not. I hear songs or parts of songs all the time and think, "I wouldn't have minded coming up with that." But that's because I really like it, not because it was something that I needed to learn.
Xdrummer said:
I anticipate I will continue to learn until my last breath - at least I hope so.
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In some things, that, by necessity, will be the case. In some things that you're vastly experienced in, I'm not so sure.


mjbphotos said:
Anyone who says they can't learn any more about songwriting is delusional
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Are they though ? What can you honestly teach Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney or any writer that has been writing songs consistently for 50 years about songwriting ? By the time they died, what could Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms have learned about putting compositions together ?
You know, I don't think it's arrogant or delusional, if you've been writing songs for a long while and you're happy with what you write to say that you've got to the point where there's really nothing else you can learn. For the sake of argument, what happens when you get to the point where you know every lesson taught ?
Also, bear in mind that not feeling you can learn any more stuff neither makes you a good or bad writer. And the vice is also versa.
XploZiveToyz said:
Learn your craft.
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Songwriters, whether professional or hobbyists learn "on the job" and there comes a point where you no longer have to learn how to. Refreshers aren't learning. Improving isn't a contradiction.

Beck said:
I will learn more about songwriting the next time my heart is broken.
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But will you ? Is it not more the case that as a person you'll be expanded and therefore able to draw from that well within you in the songs you may come up with ? I can't see how your heart being broken will teach you about songwriting if you've been at it for a number of years. I can see how it may teach you lots of other things, many of which may bleed into your writing.
Beck said:
I will stop learning only if I stop feeling
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Have you ever been on training courses or workshops where you felt "I don't need to be taught this because I already know it" ? What would Michael Phelps need to learn about swimming ? Or Tiger Woods about golf ? Or Usain Bolt about sprinting ?
Improving on what you've learned is not the same as learning something new.
 
Grim,

All of your counter points are well stated. Like most of the questions you have posted to stimulate discussion - this is all a matter of perspective and opinion. Someone else mentioned that when it comes to writing the basic templates were establisjed long ago. We all know there are 12 notes and arguably a finite amount of combinations to use those notes for melody and harmony. Most things worth saying have already been said - as writers we can only hope to find a slightly different way to say it.

Given that I'm over 60, I've done many things for a long time (including songwriting) and I made mistakes, learned from those mistakes and in the case of writing continue to learn new chord voicings or substitutions to improve harmony etc. As I explore more world music I learn different rhythem that I have not previously spent time studying. Will I at some point reach a point where I have learned all there is about compostion - I suspect there will always be something more to learn.

I would suggest even the great composers could have learned more if they would have had acess to music from other parts of the world, etc.

Regarding songwirting circles or groups or seminars - one can only gain knowledge if they have an open mind. I recall a song group several years ago in which someone suggested I change one single word in a phrase and that change locked into a phrase in from a different line - and it omproved the song. Is that learning? I know I now think about things like that much more after that incident - and I beleive it has made me a better writer.

Some people prefer to stay self contained and are content with whatever thier level of skill/knowledge may be - and some people feel a need to seek out more knowledge - is either method right or wrong? I certainly don't know - but I do know that I personally prefer to seek out anything that can give me improved skill, knowledge or at a minimum a different perspective.
 
Xdrummer said:
Given that I'm over 60, I've done many things for a long time (including songwriting) and I made mistakes, learned from those mistakes and in the case of writing continue to learn new chord voicings or substitutions to improve harmony etc. As I explore more world music I learn different rhythm that I have not previously spent time studying. Will I at some point reach a point where I have learned all there is about compostion - I suspect there will always be something more to learn.
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Good points.
I think that as we go on in our songwriting, we incorporate different elements, new and different rhythms, perhaps different genres, even different chord voicings, but it's arguable as to whether or not one is learning new about songwriting, per se.
I definitely believe in keeping things fresh and mixing it up but the actual elements of songwriting, I do believe that one can reach that point where one knows about harmony, meter, grammatical and musical tricks, hooks, storytelling, riffs, discords, obbligatos and the rest, either formally or {sometimes} instinctively and there's really little else you can learn. That doesn't in any way invalidate further progression, taking your songwriting to new and exciting places. In fact, I'd say that after a while, the learning is complete and at that point, it's where you take it that's the issue.
That said, we all arrive at that place at different times. And the interesting thing for me is that it doesn't follow that one's songs necessarily get better, nor, if one treads the same path all the time, that they get worse.
 
I suppose it could be argued that once a writer has gained a general understanding of song structure - verse, vs. chorus, vs. bridge, etc. and perhaps the basic difference between rhyming the 1st line with the 2nd line (vs. rhyming the 1st and 3rd line), etc. and perhaps the use of internal rhymes and near rhymes (most of which is learned at a relatively early age) - and perhaps a basic understanding of chord progressions (even if only the I-IV - V) - everything after that could be considered simply refining those concepts - rather than actually learning something new.

One could argue that chord sustitutions, different chord voicing, etc. are more a matter of arrangement than composition.

If one were to break it down - we all know most of what we need to know to write a song (regardless if it may be considered a good or bad song) by perhaps the age of 3. Which now that I think of it ......... explains a lot of music that I've heard over the years!
 
Xdrummer said:
I suppose it could be argued that once a writer has gained a general understanding of song structure - verse, vs. chorus, vs. bridge, etc. and perhaps the basic difference between rhyming the 1st line with the 2nd line (vs. rhyming the 1st and 3rd line), etc. and perhaps the use of internal rhymes and near rhymes (most of which is learned at a relatively early age) - and perhaps a basic understanding of chord progressions (even if only the I-IV - V) - everything after that could be considered simply refining those concepts - rather than actually learning something new.

One could argue that chord sustitutions, different chord voicing, etc. are more a matter of arrangement than composition.

If one were to break it down - we all know most of what we need to know to write a song (regardless if it may be considered a good or bad song) by perhaps the age of 3. Which now that I think of it ......... explains a lot of music that I've heard over the years!
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Exactly.

You're going to write the way you write. No amount of schooling is going to really turn you into some other songwriter.....and yes, we naturally refine our songwriting the more we do it.

Songwriting isn't quite the same as learning to play an instrument. There's a lot of mechanics involved with playing, and you CAN learn to do that better with exercises and proper technique...and then you add the creative/emotion stuff based on who you are and what's inside of you.
Songwriting skips past the mechanics stuff and it's really mostly about what you have to say and how you feel about stuff.

Sure, you can learn to phrase things a little better and improve on your storytelling style....but it's going to be subtle and again, most of that comes naturally anyway just by writing more and more.
There are people who can take all the songwriting classes in the world...and still totally suck at songwriting, and that's because they just don't know how to express with words what they feel. Nothing bad about that, it just is they way it is.
They can be great musicians and totally suck at songwriting or simply find it very awkward and uncomfortable because it opens a door to their private, inner world. Even if you write for fun, it's not easy for some people....they just can't express things with song.
 
Greg_L said:
Here's the real problem as I see it - too many people confuse popular with good. They are not the same. Too many people try to write a "hit" song instead of a good one. These people are stuck on the bottom rung.
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Haha true, but who is to say what "good" is? It's too subjective. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Are there "bad" songs that you like? Why do you like them?

What do we even mean when we say songwriting?

Lyrics?
Melody?
Arrangement?
 
Greg_L said:
Only the author. That's it. The author of his/her song is the only person qualified to say if it's good or bad. Everyone else is talking out of their ass.
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Yes! I agree. The artist will determine if it's good or bad, and the other people will determine whether or not they like it. I imagine it must feel great though, when someone can really put themselves into a song and have it affect other people as well.
 
I think a lot of it also comes down to how we learn. Some may get something from a class or seminar, but others like myself are more intuitive with life in general and we do learn new ways without trying from the environment. I suppose most of us learn something new when we hear a new song, or a new style emerges and we hear something unusual. But I play by ear, taught myself piano and later guitar at a young age, so the idea of sitting under formal instruction for the creative side of music is rather foreign to me.

The technical recording side I was formally taught and trained however.
 
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