On Co-Writing, Pt. 1
December 2nd, 2009 by Travis Swan | Posted in Song Writing
The Unlikelies are Travis Swan (founding member of rockworship.com) and Katrina Stone – once a week or so we’ll be posting insights gained in the writing/recording/worship leading process of our album, “The World Will See.”
There are a lot of fundamentals behind good song writing: rhythm, rhyming, verse-chorus-bridge flows. However, I don’t really want to touch on those much – they can be learned, go get a book about songwriting. I’m going to instead touch a little on my own experiences in co-writing. There are a lot of thoughts out there about writing and productivity, but what finally worked the best for me was having someone else with me that could handle the pen and paper the entire time. Every time I sit down with the pen, my brain switches modes to a very non-creative space and just starts processing the physical act of pushing a pen and making letters with it. Melodies and lyrics pop into my head much faster when I’m doing the “walk around the room playing my guitar singing random stuff” thing.
The process isn’t all random inspiration though. The song has to start with a good concept. “Only By Your Grace” was written specifically at a time when our church was re-orienting philosophies of how to do ministry, specifically in the seeker sensitive/vs. deep “centered” teaching. Anytime the church takes a step back to evaluate their effectiveness, the repercussions spread throughout the rest of the body, sometimes in the case of the music. We had been focusing on the cool factor, being relevant to the world, and even using a bunch of songs off the radio to make them feel comfortable. Not that there’s anything wrong with this approach, but at the time we felt we needed to back off a little and let the aroma of the Gospel speak for itself. So when Katrina and I sat down to write the song, it was natural to use a topic the church was currently going through, coming back to the basics – God is the one that allows our next breath, and we are entirely reliant on him for anything good.
I had a chord progression I had been dinking around with, Katrina adapted it to the keyboard. We switched keys a few times and couldn’t come up with lyrics, so we put away the instruments and dove into the Bible, looking through concepts about finding our satisfaction in God. The Bible is FULL of material for songwriters writing songs for the church – USE IT! Once the lyrics started coming, I wandered around with my guitar singing a few lines we had come up with, while Katrina “scribed,” and came up with more on her own.
When you’re co-writing, there’s a self-conscious temptation to try to have a finished concept or line in place before you speak or sing it. Don’t worry about that – in fact, you’ve got to let go completely and allow for the silly, the mundane, the cliché to come out – somewhere in all of it is the meat of what you’re looking for. Write it ALL down and then come back, read through it, sing through it, and see what pops out. This is the hardest point, where most people give up and move on, settle for mediocrity, or just switch into a big jam session and accomplish nothing. Push through because this is the brainstorm stage, the draft stage – 90% of the work is at this point. Be willing to throw things out like chords, melodies, lyrics – really you’ll only use about 10% of what you come up with in the end, but it’ll be GOOD! Don’t actually throw the non-used material away – whole songs might grow out of these pieces!
One thing to keep in mind when co-writing is that you must be willing to give. Each of you should have veto power. I suppose this is true in every aspect of life, but in the creative process, you must be willing to totally give up that super cool melody, lyric, or progression you just came up with. Be gracious, but keep your standards high – if you both don’t agree at a certain point, it could very well be that something isn’t quite right with it, and another solution is better. I’ve tried writing with many people, and this is usually the downfall point – someone doesn’t agree, but the other person won’t give up their “pet concept.” Frustration is the only result in these impasse situations.
Immediately after writing a song I record it. I’ve used garageband, protools, and even the voice recorder on my cell phone in a pinch. Write down the lyrics on one page with the chords so you have them later. Otherwise, you’ll forget them completely! The recording doesn’t have to be perfect – it’s just for reference later.
And later . . . find someone you trust and play the song for them. Some people just affirm all the time in the name of being encouraging, which isn’t very useful. Find someone that’s willing to graciously pick your concept apart as an outside observer. This can be a great filter in the final tweaking process.
~Travis
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 am and is filed under Song Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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