Thursday, June 3, 2010

wrote last night

So I had changed the chorus to the song that my co-writer liked (the verse only). I had struggled with it because the chord changes were stuck in my head. I did do a new melody to the old chords. I wasn't completely happy with it and had little time to work on it - go figure since I'm not working much lately. But anyway, I had only one idea to show him and decided we could work on it together. Usually he lets me do all the music, which I like, but this time I asked for his input and we worked on improving the melody. To be honest, I'm still not sure I like the melody. Doesn't quite sound like a hit song to me. It works and sounds good, but do I want to walk around singing it? I'm not sure. I purchased Carrie Underwood's "So Small" yesterday - now that's a hit song melody, really soars. I've got to improve on the new song so I actually like it and want to sing it around the house. That's my measure for a good melody - do I want to sing it? Can I actually enjoy the song? I was teaching a voice student of mine about improvisation and was giving her different techniques but told her that ultimately it has to sound good. It's all fine and dandy if it "works" or if it's "clever", but is it good? The melody must stand out - it is the most important part of the song - I'm convinced of that 100%. How many songs do you remember from high school, but never got the lyrics right, or never even knew them for that matter? And do you know the chords? Doesn't matter as much as the melody. The melody is the speech of the song, how the song is communicated. The chords are just the boat the melody is carried in, and the lyrics are the color of the boat. But the melody is the goods in the boat. So I've got to re-work that darn melody and make it good!
Tomorrow is my acoustic showcase - performing 9 original songs, 3 of which are brand new. They sounded really good with the pianist the other night, so I'm excited to get to perform them. It's always scary performing a new song for the first time, not knowing how the audience will react. But I'm taking a risk and doing it anyway! My attitude is: what have I got to lose? It's my self-expression and no one has power over that. It's me expressing me, either they will love it or hate it, but it's still me and I have to express who I am.

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