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It’s all about inspiration. For Hemingway it was
Paris,
women, hunting, booze, Idaho, women, Africa, booze, hunting--not
necessarily in that order. But how do you write a song? Gaining access
to the muse is the main thing. Sometimes a song falls into your lap.
This is a gift. Other times a song is the result of craft and work and
sweat. Still other times, during a dry spell, you can’t believe you
ever wrote a song, and you would do anything to write again. The desire
becomes a dull ache in the back of your psyche, from which you seek
relief in any form: a new guitar, a loud amplifier, late nights, early
mornings, lots of coffee, travel, meditation, wine, Oprah, sensory
deprivation.
You are not alone. I have found no guaranteed
access to
the muse, but I have learned how to open the door a crack for a peek
inside, a glimpse that sometimes leads to insight, that sometimes leads
to inspiration, that sometimes leads to a new song. What follows is a
foray into that search for the muse.
WRITING FROM BOTH SIDES
OF THE BRAIN
The important thing is to write. It took me years
to
realize that songs don’t happen unless I write them. Sounds simple. I
think of it like fishing—you can’t catch anything unless you go to the
water’s edge and put the line in. So I set myself up to catch whatever
falls into my lap. When I am starting a writing cycle--because it goes
in cycles for me--I begin with my journal. For 15 minutes before I play
my guitar, I write down whatever comes into my head. It’s drivel for
the most part, but it’s my drivel. I get used to
putting words to my feelings. After a while themes show themselves.
After another while I attempt a poem of free verse, a stream of
consciousness that forces me to be more specific. I begin to use images
and metaphors--you know, the stuff you learned in English class.
I don’t judge my journal. I don’t think I have
ever
pulled a line from it. It helps me begin to focus on something other
than the mundane. I start to read books that appeal to me. Sometimes I
read aloud. I want to know that words have worked for somebody else.
Sometimes I read books on writing. They give me hope. If at any time I
think of a phrase or a line I like, I write it in the back of my
songwriting notebook. I start to listen harder. Lines like "He was much
too good-looking for his height" ("Johnny Was a Pyro") and "The Book
I’m Not Reading" came out of real-life conversations. What you hear
around you becomes fuel for the fire. I listen to music. I listen to
music I would never play--Beck and Counting Crows. I listen to Dylan
and Leonard Cohen and Mary Margaret O’Hara, to angry young women and
famous old men. I want to create a hunger to write. I want to witness
beauty in order to create it. I want to feel passionate about what I
do.
WHILE YOUR GUITAR GENTLY
SPEAKS
I am a guitar-focused songwriter, which means that
my
melodies and harmonic sense are derived from the resonant instrument
perched on my lap. The guitar intrigues me and makes me want to
vocalize. The guitar creates an atmosphere--the sounds and textures
that become songs. Sometimes I hear what I want to write before I sit
down with the guitar. I visualize it on the guitar, not in any special
way, just simply. Before I wrote "You and Me," I was overcome with the
desire to play a big fat open A chord. With "Booth of Glass" I knew I
wanted to capo up the neck and fingerpick something pretty. I’ll
experiment with guitar sounds and techniques, and the licks I like can
spawn new songs. On the other hand, I find that when I write story
songs I want simple chords--open G, D, or C. I just need to get the
voice of the narrator out.
Very subtle changes in the chords can help guide
the
melody for me. In "I Told Him That My Dog Wouldn’t Run" (aka "Dog"), I
was writing in my journal and I picked up the guitar and played an open
C, then an F with a G in it (Fadd9). I played it in this form:
Fadd9
The added tension of the open G on the third
string drew
me in. The melody goes to the root of the chord, the F on the fourth
string, and sits there at the end of each phrase. The result is a
dissonance that creates a feeling of uneasiness, a lack of resolution.
It’s unsettling, and it fit perfectly with the lyric. In "Johnny Was a
Pyro" the chorus goes, "What am I doing with this ring on my hand?" I
am playing an Asus4 chord and singing the resolution before I go to the
A chord. More tension. I search out these curious spots in other
writers’ work--and I look for it in my own writing. I want to go
outside the lines. By holding the melody note too long or by adding
tension to the chord, I can draw the listener in, emphasize the lyric,
and create atmosphere.
THE ALTERNATIVES
Another way to add color to a harmonic progression
is
through the use of alternate tunings. If you play piano, you know that
you can get plenty of dissonance by playing the middle C and the D next
to it at the same time (as in "Chopsticks"). As guitarists we are a bit
more challenged to play those two notes at the same time on the
fretboard. With open or alternate tunings these sounds become easily
available. In my song "Carolina" (in C G C G C D tuning), one of my
favorite chords is an Am11. The top three strings ring out--B, C,
D--going right up the minor scale, so you get this beautiful little run
on the treble strings:
Am11
If you take your index finger off the fifth
string, the
chord progression descends while the top three strings are suspended
above it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know I am going from the
IV minor to the V chord, but I don’t care. I just like it.
When I go to alternate tunings it’s because I am
looking
for inspiration. I can get drone strings, ringing notes, and languid
tensions that are not available to me in standard. I want to be
surprised by what I play. I don’t want to think too much. To that end,
I seldom analyze what I play in alternate tunings. There are some
tunings I am very familiar with—D A D G A D, dropped D, open C with a D
on top (C G C G C D)--and they still fascinate me. If I’m feeling the
pressure of a great void, I turn to technique books and publications in
order to bend my mind with new tunings. I’ll tailor a tuning to fit my
needs. When I rearranged Laura Nyro’s "Poverty Train," I remembered
reading an interview with Emmylou Harris in Acoustic Guitar
where she described a low tuning: A A C# E A C#. I thought that it
would work well on a low, gnarly guitar part. It gave me the courage to
try something different. I ended up with A A A E A B and used a
variation of that tuning for "Anyway the Main Thing Is" (A A A E A A)
on my new album Regrooving the Dream (Vanguard).
Ignorance is bliss. When I wrote "Tango," I thought the guitar was in
standard tuning, and I picked it up and played an open D. It was in D A
D G A D, so I let go of the high E string and voilą, a song fell out.
The world of alternate tunings is a land of no rules. You are likely to
enter the maze dazed and confused and exit it in a creative state of
grace.
I am looking for connections all the time. What
note can
I hang out to dry? What notes connect the next chord to this one? You
can get these kinds of runs (B, C, D, open strings, etc.) in standard
tuning (see Fingerstyle Cross-Picking Solos, Mel
Bay), but there is something delicious about an open or alternate
tuning. I checked out Richard Thompson’s instructional cassettes on
Homespun, and I have since written four songs in his F G D G C D
tuning: "Monte Vista," "The Road," "Closest Thing," and "Rear View
Mirror." The tonal center is on the fifth string, the open G. So when
you go to the open F on the sixth string, the world turns and becomes
very modal sounding. If you play all the strings starting at the fifth
string, it sounds very ancient with a wealth of melody notes.
Descending the whole step to the sixth string while muting the fifth
string sends you back half a millennium. It is this brave new world of
discovery that leads me on. I find that a friend or an instructor can
be helpful in revealing the sweet spots of a new tuning, and then I set
out on my own from there.
THE JOY OF TECH
When I come up with anything of interest, I
immediately
put it on tape. I record it on a cheap little handheld tape recorder
that sits nonjudgmentally and unobtrusively on my desk. I note any
tuning information or personality quirks right on the tape, so that I
don’t return two months later and wonder what was going on.
I think it’s important to keep the critic off your
shoulder during the writing process. I just want to get it out, then
analyze it and critique it later. Most of my songs initially appear as
first verse and chorus. I may know what’s worth keeping right from the
start, but I want to keep that channel to the muse open—the beta state,
the subconscious, the white light.
It’s about thinking differently, connecting with
something beyond yourself. If I get really stuck on a lyric, I ask
myself, "What am I trying to say? Does it ring true?" Even if it’s
fiction, I want it to be honest. I want to tell the truth. I want the
songs to capture the essence of my experience or the flavor of my
observations. It’s like centering a piece of clay on a potter’s wheel.
If it’s not centered, the whole thing crumbles.
TRIAL BY FIRE: PLAYING
OUT
I’ve just recently (in the last decade) gotten to
the
point where I can play partially written songs for other people, works
in progress. The real test is to play the finished product out. It’s
why I am a performing songwriter. Performing the song reveals its
foibles; the glue and the cracks show up in the light. It becomes
painfully apparent that the song is only as strong as its weakest line.
You must be happy with the results of your work,
because
you will be singing this thing for the next several years. Does the
song capture the feeling you originally intended? Is it done? It’s up
to you to decide. I’ve begun to relate to Leonard Cohen, who has said
that some songs have taken him ten years to finish. Get it as airtight
as you can, open the door, let it out, and have fun. That is, after
all, why we do this in the first place.
From the book Songwriting
and the Guitar. The article also appeared in Acoustic
Guitar magazine, August 2000, No. 92.
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