Where is everybody at?

[Boognish]

I feel like Covid has really put a cloud over everything lol
I was in the same boat recently, but started switching from my acoustic stuff back to electric and getting into my pedals more. So I have about 10 tracks I've recorded that are my MXR Blue Box jam tracks and I run a synth or guitar or both thru pedal board and finding good sounds and what works to build on. If I hear anything listening later, I might dig in further but it's allowed a little more focused creative exploration.

[StephenM]

And I've learned to make time to spend with my wife. I just find a time and spend it with her. If she's watching T.V. (I don't like it much) I'll do that. If she's grocery shopping, then I do that. If she's cleaning then I help.

Nice to hear from you TC... I totally understand the wife thing... mine will sometimes play music with me but only because she needs to because we play in a band together where we get paid!  Usually if I am going to hang out with her it's I go hang out near the kitchen (I do almost all the cleaning now I am retired) or go shopping with her etc...I like TV but don't watch tons of it and once in a while I can get her to watch with me while folds clothes or something (I do my own clothes too...losing too many socks otherwise!)

[WarpCanada]

> I give myself permission to suck, to fail, to do the best I can with what I have and move on.

Amen.   My motto is suck till you don't.

I give myself permission to write and that means, if my song sucks, so be it.  It's not so much that I'm endlessly NEGATIVE it's that I'm deeply idealistic about songs, and art.

But I need that internal critic to shut up and sit down sometimes so I can let the kid inside me play.

[Zoltan]

I see AndyR has trouble playing by the rules ("Write a lot of bad songs"). I've been trying to hear ONE bad song coming from him, and he just keeps on cranking out great songs. He should try harder

For once i've managed to follow my own rules instead of just ditching them out. Do i need to write a song? No. The main reason being that i've been quite tired lately. Things have started happening again after the biggest corona restrictions have been lifted so there's been lot to do.

About sucking. I once did a song called "Sucking in the 60's". I wonder what happened to it? I guess it was bad as i don't have any memory of it...

StephenM playing with his wife. I can see that spelling trouble. Especially if Stephen gets wild in the live situation. All proge and stuff (I managed to avoid using a dirty word although it would have rhymed better. And by explaining that i just used lots of words. Filler ain't killer. The ramble machine is on;)).

Great to hear T.C Elliot is back in the game and WarpCanada has landed!

[WarpCanada]

> I can't get away from the fact the same core compositional and playing elements are in there

I struggle with this on guitar.   The capo (partial) idea is one thing.  But you have tuner heads on there, and a whole different tuning is a great way to force your fingers to go somewhere else and do something else.

My favorite is open D chord tuning, but I also love DADGAD.   I don't have any idea where my usual chords, melodic runs and double stops are on DADGAD and in open D I have built a different set of licks.

After you run out of tricks like that it might be time to pick up a different instrument. Maybe harpejji or synthesizers.

To me it should be PLAY (fun) because it's only when the mind is at play that we are fully ourselves.   And art of a certain quality must be us becoming more fully ourselves.  Not escaping what we always are and always do, but transcending and refining it.

[StephenM]

To me it should be PLAY (fun) because it's only when the mind is at play that we are fully ourselves.   And art of a certain quality must be us becoming more fully ourselves.  Not escaping what we always are and always do, but transcending and refining it.

wow Warren, that is an interesting thought and one I must think is very true. 
I really like your idea of trying new things as well, such as changing your finger positions on the runs etc...alt tuning...
I do things like put my shoes on the opposite way I am used to.  Brush my teeth left handed.  etc, etc.  after a while things feel normal.  I am actually considering getting a left hand guitar or string one up side down... One I thought about doing that turned out to not be a good idea was drive on the wrong side of the road.  apparently the other drivers didn't think it so smart 

[AndyR]

Over the years, I have also struggled with

"I can't get away from the fact the same core compositional and playing elements are in there"

I can tell you how I personally got over it...

And it's related almost exactly to what WarpCanada says: "Not escaping what we always are and always do, but transcending and refining it"

The answer for me is:

It's not something I can actually get away from!

Try this:

Every time you feel the "same old same old can't get away" vibe coming on, just take your most used chord sequence, rhythm, feel, whatever it is...
(mine, at the moment, is G C9 Dsus4, Em7/9, Am type stuff)
... and write another song with it!

It's as simple as that - don't fight it, go with it.

When I do this, I can guarantee that when I've finished, I'll realise that I've got a new song that can stand beside the others that used, apparently, the same stuff.
AND... there's almost certainly going to be something "new" in there too.

-----------

On some tricks I have and still might use:

I personally do use the capo trick, still do - a straight capo - because if you play your usual chords in a funny key, you're bound to write a different sort of melody (I'm thinking like someone who uses their voice to write the melodies - you've got a certain range, if you always write in G, the melodies will all be in the same area... move the capo up 4 frets, you can't reach the high notes anymore, so you write a different sort of melody).

I used to use open tunings, but I find they get in the way of song-writing for me.
I end up playing guitar and writing arrangements, not writing a song.

I also find the same thing using an electric guitar to write songs.

Years ago, when in a band, I used to write on electric.
I was looking for riffs. I was looking for using that Chorus effect, when to be clean, when overdriven, where to fit the echoes, where to fit the wah-wah.
I was looking for bits that would sound good when I played them on stage... that's all it was.
And I'd get stuck on a really good song idea because I was busy worrying about the stuff that would only be important if the song got written.
I think I can argue that the good songs made their way through.... but I'm not sure anymore.

However, even back then, the best songs I wrote were always written on an acoustic, not worrying about the arrangement.

Eventually, I learnt that yes, a new effect or something can inspire me to hatch an idea - but the minute it's hatched, turn the effect or whatever off and concentrate on the idea.

I've actually got two perfect examples, from my recent stuff, of how I use this knowledge now:

Example One
The other day, thinking I'd finished writing for a while, my current "last song" (Be Big), started on an electric guitar.
I came up with a groovy electric guitar part, that recommended some sort of vocal climbing out of it.

While I stayed on electric guitar, I was coming up with more groovy parts, exploring chords, imagining how a performance might go.
I wasn't writing a song, though.

As things developed and it became obvious a song was possible, I deliberately put the electric guitar down and switched off the amplifier.

I took the acoustic and wrote it with that.

The original guitar part still exists, but you guys haven't heard it - it's NOT part of the SONG.
It will be part of any "band" arrangement I make of the song, but it's not important to the demo I recorded of the SONG itself.

Example Two
An earlier song in the set (Surprise Me) is based on a guitar part I first played several years ago.
It was originally played on a telecaster through an amp sound that was clean Fender pushed hard, chorus, tape echo, reverb (think Twin Peaks).
I LOVED this little part.
I couldn't see how to use it, though.
Was it an intro? Was it what?
Every time I played with it, I went for that same clean reverby etc sound...
I never got anywhere with it, I always got sucked into jamming with the sound... but no song to use it in.

The other week I stripped it down to the implied chords, NO effects, amp, or fancy stuff...
Very similar chords to loads of songs I've written, incidentally.
But I got the song written, no problem.

I tried to ensure the original part can still be played (most of it is in the demo, but the "Twin Peaks" vibe/bit isn't), it can, and might be, if I do a band arrangement. But it won't be the main hook - that's in the vocal in the song written.
But... there's at least one other set of implied chords under the original guitar part... What if, maybe, I don't use this part in Surprise Me and, maybe, I go for those other chords and write another song, instead?

-----------

Anyways, the last few weeks doing FAWM has really hammered the following home to me:

"Andrew, embrace the apparent restrictions and repetitiveness in your abilities, don't try to escape them, use them"

Before I started, I decided that I was going present all these as yet unwritten songs as acoustic demos, if I demoed them at all.

Of the 15 I ended up writing, only one of them is a single voice single guitar song in my mind.
The other 14, although they're presented here like that, are all songs best presented as ensemble pieces.

Forcing myself to go "live acoustic demo" enabled me to focus on the songs, not the arrangements, made me concentrate on making the bare songs interesting enough to stand on their own, and it forced me to embrace my own personal chord/melody foibles (call them restrictions, tricks, preferences, whatever) and to use them as they arrived.

It's the only way I could have managed to write that many in that short a time.

[StephenM]

"Andrew, embrace the apparent restrictions and repetitiveness in your abilities, don't try to escape them, use them"

this nails me right between the eyes.  It's a bit like learning to appreciate myself, my efforts, what I can and cannot do, and not judging myself right or wrong in it.  It's just being me.  That is something the last 10 years of my life I have really been working on.  Discovering who I am and just being me.  In doing that I also appreciate and embrace others much better.  What I strive for in life is (and I have not attained it but it's a goal) to observe without judgement.  This is also breaking into music in my life...in all it's forms whether it be harmonica, electric guitar, acoustic, keyboards, vocals ...whatever...

I enjoy reading these comments as I learn alot and also understand the other SC's better this way....

[Boognish]

"Andrew, embrace the apparent restrictions and repetitiveness in your abilities, don't try to escape them, use them"

this nails me right between the eyes.  It's a bit like learning to appreciate myself, my efforts, what I can and cannot do, and not judging myself right or wrong in it.  It's just being me.  That is something the last 10 years of my life I have really been working on.  Discovering who I am and just being me.  In doing that I also appreciate and embrace others much better.  What I strive for in life is (and I have not attained it but it's a goal) to observe without judgement.  This is also breaking into music in my life...in all it's forms whether it be harmonica, electric guitar, acoustic, keyboards, vocals ...whatever...

I enjoy reading these comments as I learn alot and also understand the other SC's better this way....

Something I've grown to realize is that even the best guitar players, singers, musicians, etc get in the studio and really have to work on songs. They're not perfect right away and they may have 50 recordings before it sounds good. That guitar solo we hear on the radio is the best version they had and that player messed up over and over or didn't have it clean. Sometimes that's a comforting reality check to know it's the same process we all use
I've grown to kinda embrace the rough patches because sometimes I get something good

[Greeny]

I've done / do all of these...

1. Collaborate - write to somebody else's lyric or idea
2. Try a completely new genre or time signature
3. Use a different instrument
4. Alternate tunings - which is like a different instrument
5. Keep a notebook / phone notes for titles and phrases that might inspire a song
6. Buy a new guitar!!!!
7. Learn a weird new chord - every chord I learn opens up a new world

Most of all though, don't beat yourself up. Life is hard enough.