The RedFaux Transmission

February Album Writing Month & New Song Writing Tools

February Album Writing Month is in swing now, but its not to late to sign up and face the challenge at FAWM.org.  Every year FAWM.org hosts a song writing challenge to write 14 songs in 28 days.  They offer inspirational ideas every week to get your creative juices flowing.  This weeks: 

"Write a song using rests in the melody, or come to a complete stop, to create emphasis, tension and/or humor.

Examples: “Kiss” (Prince), “Roxanne” (The Police), “Mah Na Mah Na” (Piero Umiliani - Muppets), "Blister in the Sun" (Violent Femmes)."

Also FAWM.org has just released a new song writing tool for collaboration called FAWM CollabPad.  You can get it HERE. 

I took the FAWM challenge last year.  I didn't get 14 songs written but I did get 5 written... and 5 is better than ZERO ;-)

- Until Next time... Over N Out

RED

New Free Song Writing Tools From FAWM.ORG

 FAWM.org just put out some new free online songwriting tools today.  They call the tool suite MUSE.  In the suite you have 4 online tools. Access them HERE

• PlotSpline
• Struxxure
• LyriCloud
• Titular

Given the fact that I recently did a post on finding lyrical inspiration, I thought this would be a good follow up.  I took a look at each one of these tools and they do seem like they would be useful in getting the creative juices flowing.

PlotSpline

Helps you frame your tense and sense of place to help you devise a plot for your song.  Below is a screenshot example.

I plan on trying this out because I know I get caught in the rut of always using "you" as if I'm scolding someone. heh.  And I usually use past tense.  This tool looks useful in challenging the songwriter into trying different tenses and places when writing.

Struxxure

This tool will spit out a random song structure for you.  I think this one will also be incredibly useful to pull the songwriter out of structure rut and get you thinking about new ways to structure your songs.

 LyriCloud

This tool allows you to type in a keyword and then it will create a cloud of related words for you.  In theory this is a neat tool, but I find this one to be a little weaker than the previous two.  I may use this as a starting point just to try it out, but I prefer to create my own cloud using the lyrical tool box method I wrote about a few posts ago.

Titular

This tool creates several awkwardly strung togethor words that are supposed to inspire song titles or subject matter.  I think its somewhat interesting, but I'm not entirely sure how useful it would be.  It might work for some folks.

These are very interesting tools that I think can ultimately be helpful to trigger some new ideas and help kick you out of writer's block.  Like anything you don't want to become too reliant on it, because then it becomes part of the rut... but these are definitely good tools to add to the songwriter's bag of tricks.

- Over N Out... til next time

RED
 

 

Wrastlin' the Muse: Removing Lyric Block When Songwriting

Right now I'm busy writing a bunch of new material for an upcoming project.  (More details on that later!) The muse can be a tease sometimes... heh.  Sometimes you only get a verse and a half of a chorus and then it decides to laugh at you and fly out the window.  What do you do at this point? Just quit the song and move on hoping next time it will be more merciful? Heck no... grab the muse by the neck and give it the what for... basically I'm saying "don't give up".  Here are 5 tips for removing lyric block when stuck in the middle of writing a song.

 

1. Create a lyrical "tool box"

I find this to be one of the most useful exercises I've done.  Get a fresh peice of paper or notebook.  Write the title of the song at the top of the page.  Now write down every word, phrase or sentence fragment on the page like a list, that comes to mind when reading the song title .  Don't worry if they make sense or not. Now go to Merriam-Webster dictionary online or any other dictionary site with a thesaurus and type some of the more common words from your list into the site and see what kind of synonyms and antonyms you can find.  Write these down on your list. If these inspire more words and phrases write these down as well.  Now with your new set of words try to string some of the broken and phrases and words togethor.

 

2. Let the music do the talking

Set up a microphone or a portable recorder, play your chord progression and just sing... let your subconcious take control. .  Record this.  Don't stop to write down anything or edit yourself while you're recording, just sing and play.  After you are done go back & listen. Then you can jot down anything good from the recording.

 

3. A picture says a thousand words -- let them help you write your song

Sometimes a picture can help you come up with words you wouldn't have originally. Go to a picture site like Flickr.com and type in some of the words from your lyric tool box exercise into the search window and see what kind of pictures come up.  Find an interesting one that is relevant to what you are trying to say.  Look at the picture.  What kind of words come to mind.  How does it make you feel? Write these down and add these to your lyrical tool box that we created in the first exercise. 

 

4. Apply Limitations

Limitations can offer clarity. Forcing a structure on your song may just lift some of the writer's block as it becomes more clear exactly what you need to write.  Map out your song even though its not done.  Apply a structure. For example you might decide that you want the structure to go:

 

Intro

Verse 1

Chorus

Verse 2

Chorus

Bridge

Chorus

 

This helps you get a better feel for exactly what is left for you to write.  I find this takes some of the overwhelming feelings away if I know the quantity of lyrics I still need to write.  Lets say you already have a verse and the chorus written... well now you know that you actually only need one more verse and a bridge.  Hey you are halfway there!

I find when I do this I actually am able to write more content than I originally thought I needed!

 

5. Take a Break

If you are still stuck, its ok... walk away from it for a bit, maybe even a day or two.  Your mind will be working out the problem in the background.  Keep a notebook handy in case the solution comes at a strange time...

 

Well there ya go.  Five song writing tips when you are stuck halfway through writing a song... obviously there are many other exercises you can do to get out of writers block.  These are just a couple I use.  The main thing is that you want to try to get your mind out of its rut and thinking in new ways.  So anything that does that is good. There isn't a right or wrong way to remove writers block!

 

Until next time... Over N Out

 

- RED

Checkin In...

Thanks to all of you that have showed interest in the "Heather" synth.  I was quite surprised by it all... in the good way.  Thanks to the folks who re-blogged the post and all you folks who tweeted the link. You guys rock!

Also, in the week I've been on Twitter I've met some great folks and discovered some great audio resources that I'm going to add to the links and resources page.

• The Music of Sound - A blog written by sound designer Tim Prebble
• Think Tank - A music industry blog
• Robin Frederick.com - A songwriting blog by Robin Frederick
• Audio GeekZine - An online 'zine for music & audio production

Stay tuned for some songwriting tips, and more audio geekery in the next few days.

- Until Next Time... Over N Out

-RED

First day of February Album Writing Month

 This is the first day of the February Album Writing Month as sponsered by FAWM. Today's song challenges from FAWM were:

"Take a deep breath, hold it, and write down as many words as come to mind before you gasp. Now use those words in a song."  from the FAWM daily Tweet

and

"Write a song about the work-a-day world. One idea: express your elation (or frustration) about your own job (or perhaps lack thereof?). Another idea: write an ode to your favorite occupation or person who holds that occupation, from barista to tech support.

Examples: "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, "Take This Job And Shove It" by David Coe, "This Place Sucks" by The Descendents, "The Old Dope Peddler" by Tom Lehrer. "

from the FAWM website.

Just to make things fun, here's my daily song challenge for you...

"Write a song or instrumental about the nature of life and death without refering to any specific religion."

- Til Next Time... Over & Out

-RED

 

Two Upcoming Music Events

   Starting February 01, February Album Writing Month (FAWM) begins  at the FAWM website.  The organization encourages song writers to take the challenge and write 14 songs in 28 days.  The group's site includes forums for songwriters to encourage each other, provide constructive critisicm and ask questions as well as a user profile for each participant where they can provide links to their new creations.  The FAWM site also supplies song writing challenges once a week,(link to past song writing challenges) to help provide inspiration.  New this year, they will be tweeting daily song writing ideas during the month long challenge as well. http://twitter.com/fawm.  The challenge is open to all styles of music and composer skill levels.  I plan on taking the challenge this year... I'll let you know how that goes ;)

 The NYC Bent Festival has just announced the dates for their annual event this year.  It will be held April 22 - 24th at The Tank in NYC. The festival will feature workshops on circuit bending and DIY electronics & synthesizers as well as showcase artists that create music using these things.  Exact info on workshops and artists will be posted at a later date.  I'll let you know when there is more info :)

- Until Next Time... Over N Out

RED