When friends of mine learned that I write songs as a hobby since 1994 having close to 150 songs written as of today, they frequently asked me questions such as do you write lyrics first or melody first, where do you get your inspiration from, do you have a band, do you perform, to whom you play your songs to, and etc. Seldom do people ask me what is the most difficult part of songwriting.
PS. The picture was taken when I was dining in this high class Japanese restaurant at Jakarta. The lyrics of “Eternally Thankful” was born on that dinner table.
Writing a song is easy. Transforming a song from its draft state that is written at the spur of a moment into a song that is pleasant enough to last the years is tough. Recently I am reading a book written by a plastic surgeon and to me, songwriting can be as natural as the process of life creation but to enhance an existing song requires one to wear the hat of a plastic surgeon. What does this mean? Let me share my recent experience with you.
Last week I have written two songs “Diamond” (lyrics) and “Swallow” (lyrics) in two different nights. I managed to complete each song in one night, which is important because rarely the mood stays the same for more than a night. New songs take time to sink in and I practiced them for a couple of days. To my disappointment, I was not happy with the results. Something was missing. Something was not right. I felt as though I have missed the mark by a far margin.
So I called in Cynthia to help as a critic and lend me some fresh perspectives. Let’s deal with the second song first. “Swallow” was upbeat and the only discomfort I have with the song was that it sounded pretty much like my previous set of songs. It turned out that I may be over-worried as Cynthia did enjoy it. At times I wonder how far I can go without someone saying that my songs are lack of originality. There are artists who continue to churn our hits albums one after another sounding pretty much the same (Aerosmiths, Bon Jovi, Rolling Stones just to name a few).
That was “Swallow”. As for “Diamond”, Cynthia did shed a tear after the first listen to the song and it was the lyrics that drew her emotions. However, her first impression was that “Diamond” lacked some kind of oomph. In fact that was how I felt as well but I have no clue on how to improve upon it.
Cynthia asked me to play again and recommended a shift in key towards the end of the song. My only reservation was that “Diamond” was not written that way. I kept an open mind because she did help to transform one of my songs with the same technique. To shift the key, I first need to find the right key for my vocal range. I have lowered the entire song by a key and kept the ending as what it was originally written. It did enhance the song slightly but still, it lacked the oomph we wanted. We tried increasing the tempo but that took the emotion away from the song.
“Diamond” was basically divided into three parts without any chorus. The problem was a lack of memorable melody that could not be fixed by key shift nor a change of tempo. Now, that was the most painful part of songwriting – to throw away the parts that are not working well – because there is a certain sentiment towards each part of the song and today’s mood is definitely different from the mood when the song was crafted. We reevaluated the entire song and have decided that one-third of the song has to be rewritten.
Cynthia pointed out to me that there was a mismatch in part three of the song. All the chords were in major while the song started with minor. To those who are not familiar with major and minor chords, in short, minor chords create a darker mood while major chords tend to convey a happier message.
I picked up my guitar and started to experiment with some new chords. I was open to even changing the lyrics because it was this “hopefulness” in the lyrics that prompted me to stay major. New chords started to fall in place with the existing lyrics. Instead of the standard monotonous chord progression that I employed, I let the last part of the song to go free form creating a melody that follows the lyrics. The result was stunning even as we progress through the verse. Out of nowhere, an inspiration hit me with a surprise twist of chords that added colour to the song, creating a dramatic holding space before taking the song to the final lines of intense conclusion.
Having gotten a satisfying ending verse, that was not the end. It is because this new verse has to gel with the initial parts of the song. Like I mentioned, if parts of the song are created in two different mood settings, I need to find ways to put them together. That translated in me playing “Diamond” from beginning to the end again and again experimenting different chord transition to make it worked. Instead of the more mellow guitar solo chords transiting from part two to three, I have changed the chords to insert more emotion in preparation of the climatic last verse. This in turn drove me into having a completely different strumming pattern for the last verse to further bring out the building up of emotion to the climatic end.
With all these hard works, “Diamond” was transformed from a song that each time I played I felt something was missing into a song that each time I played my soul soared to the sky. That, is what songwriters put their blood and sweat for.