If you're a creative person and you've been creating for any length of time, you've learned some things. You've probably (hopefully) learned places, times, motivations, catalysts that inspire you to new and more creative expressions. Maybe you graphic artists work best late at night listening to smooth jazz; maybe you youth pastors think most creatively early in the morning walking around the neighborhood or pounding out a few miles on the treadmill. My point is this - each of us find systems that help think in a non-systematic way. We find a "box" that helps to think "outside" of it.
That's not to say that inspiration is the only thing an artist needs. I can get just as inspired as Jackson Pollock. I could get Pollock's same supplies, same music, same location and splatter paint with a similiar intensity, but it wouldn't match up. Because I don't have Pollock's skill. (Regardless of your thoughts on Pollock, I think we can all agree that our "splatters" and his "splatter" are vastly different in artistic appeal, yes?) While I believe that art is about surprise, I also think that any creative form has to be a balance between inspiration and craft. It's not enough to get inspired on the way to the studio, fire up the computer, record my song and start selling it that afternoon. I have to apply the skills and experience I have to my art to make sure that its truly the best art I can make for a given theme/idea.
Why tell you this? Because I am discovering something that has consistently fired both my inspiration and skill with excitement and originality over the years. I don't know why I didn't notice it before.
I love writing songs for special occasions - retreats, camps, weddings, thematic services, communion, baptism, etc. Here's why I dig writing in these situations:
1. Surrendering the Song
Writing for events allows me to get away from the enormous pressure that rides on songwriters. While I do believe that its the job of songwriters (worship writers especially) to create songs that are fresh and that say things in unique ways, it can be hard to start a song with this idea in your head that you have to create something that is mind-blowingly original.
Writing for events kills that. Since I'm writing a song as a companion to a theme, the entire emotional/spiritual/philosophical push isn't on me alone. Especially with worship songs, I can write something very simple that, when in connection with a prayer or sermon or special liturgy, can actually be quite powerful.
2. Pressure
I think songwriters thrive under pressure. (Most do, anyway.) Writing for a special event is really the best kind of pressure, because it causes you to work with the idea that you want the event to be as powerful and as well done as possible. There's pressure, no doubt, but it's almost a self-imposed expectation - you want you to do your absolute best.
Artists (and songwriters especially,) I encourage you to find an event or theme coming up that you'd like to co-create with. Investigate options at your church, with your friends or even community theater to see if you might be able to surrender your "song" to something bigger (and hopefully better) than you. I don't know if you'll succeed...but you'll be a better artist because of it.
Monday, August 20, 2007
On Jackson Pollock and Songwriting
Posted by Todd Wright at 8:45 PM
Labels: songwriting
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5 comments:
Good words!
yes. Great thoughts Todd. Some of my most unusual and interesting stuff came from "assignments," either self-imposed or "contracted. I wrote 4 wedding songs that way (one of which made it onto one of my earlier albums and ends up getting used in weddings of people i don't even know fairly often), almost 20 camp theme songs (don't ask), and several songs on my records.
Inspiration is excellent, but we (artists) have to see that everyone else has to work at what they do, and we should too. Trying and working don't necessarily equate to anything false. I used to write about 12-15 songs per year, because I was always waiting for inspiration. Now I write 2-3 times that much, because I work at it.
One other thought, and you may have covered this, but I think it's okay to write "bad" songs, as exercise. For my new record, one thing I did was to make a list of things that i wanted to talk about, and then i wrote about those things. Sometimes I wrote 3-4 songs about the exact same things. When it came time to record, i chose the best ones and saw the others as good exercise.
Don't know if that makes any sense.
Anyway, good stuff.
That does make sense, and that's a very cool approach to the making of a record.
I think its unfortuante that sometimes we as writers don't even know "what" we're going to write about when we start a tune.
I know some cool things are often birthed out of spontaneous jamming/singing unto the Lord, but I've wasted so much time trying to figure out what a song is about after I'm halfway through it. It's never worked well for me.
Pagans believe in chance. We believe in dominion. Inspiration can come at various times but the sitting down to work out the craft is the Christian way to do art. We imitate our God Who planned and then acted. Y'all are writing like you're doing hymnody.
This thread could definitely turn into "the two self-important nerds talking back and forth about their artistic endeavors."
But i don't care.
Here are a couple of tips (as if i'm an expert) on finding subject matter for those great melodies/chords that come out of us while strumming the guitar or banging on the piano:
When you find yourself saying the same kinds of things over and over (i.e. "it just seems like people need community to really grow in Jesus" or "i think God is teaching me something about money" or whatever), i write those things down and make a note to pull them out next time i can't figure what to do with a great musical idea. if you're saying it a lot, that means it's important to you. shouldn't we write about things that are important to us.
Second tip: when you're talking to someone or listening to a sermon or whatever, and you think, "man, i've never really heard it said just like that before," do the same thing. Later, when you write the hit song, give a little credit to whoever said the profound thing.
I can't tell you how many songs I've written based on those kinds of things.
OK, that's enough of me acting like anybody cares about how i write songs.
Todd, great post. Thanks for getting me thinking again. Makes me want to go write something.
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