Songwriting - finishing your songs - a blog series

[Drew Stephenson]

I've mentioned this a few times and some folks expressed interest so I have finally got around to it.

I've started a blog on finishing and fixing (to use a copyright term) your songs. The pitch (and title*) is 'From Rough to Ready'. I did consider a podcast (and thanks to those who volunteered to get involved) but the old effort vs reward equation didn't quite stack up.

I'll be updating every Wednesday and sharing the core content here. There will be a few extra bits and bobs on the main blog, and later entries will cover the basics of recording and production but I won't bore you with that flavour of egg-sucking here and will just stick to the song-writing side of things.

I've published the first couple of entries on the blog:
Part 1 - https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... -from.html
Part 2 - https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... ssion.html
And you can do the usual follow / subscribe thing.

But you can skip past those to the next posts in this thread if you just want to read the content.

There will be some generalisations that apply to a wider audience than this site, so please read past anything that doesn't apply to you on that basis.

* Thank you Albatross for the title suggestion.

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 1 - The Pitch: Taking your song-writing from ideas and chords to fully worked-up demos or releases.

Hello and welcome to Rough to Release. My name's Drew Stephenson and I'm a singer-songwriter and home-recordist (that's not a real word) from the UK.

In this blog we're going to be looking at how to take your song-writing from a bunch of lyrics and chords to fully worked up demos and releases.

We're going to start with the song-writing, including that vital stage of actually finishing, and turning an idea into a song.

Then we're going to look at recording or capturing those ideas. We'll talk about what you need to get started and, probably more importantly, how to get the most out of it.

We'll also talk about the blurring of lines between writing, recording and producing - which is a theme we'll revisit throughout the series.

Next up we'll get into that production concept, how to establish and support a vision, and we'll wrap up with a bit of discussion about mastering and distribution.

So if that sounds like it might be of interest, hang around. Otherwise skip on and enjoy the myriad delights that the forum has to offer.

[Insert obligatory "Oh, you're still here" joke]

It's never been easier or cheaper to record, produce and release your music. The technical barriers to entry are fundamentally as low as 'own smartphone + have internet access'. But if you talk to aspiring musicians / content creators, and established musicians who normally work with or for others, frequently what actually stops them are two things:

"I'm never happy with what I create."
"I never seem to finish anything."
I can't make you happy with what you've created, but I hope this series of blogs and supporting content might help you finish those half-baked hits you've got kicking around.

And maybe doing that might help you be happy with what you've come up with...

In order to navigate this musical journey we'll reference well known (and probably some less well known) songs. I'll add some video of a few things live here and there, and we'll deconstruct and reconstruct a few of my tracks (thereby avoiding any copyright issues) to illustrate some technical ideas.

I'll be linking to things throughout so it's worth reading this with a set of headphones handy.

We'll also conclude the series with a step by step walkthrough of a complete rough to release production.

For clarity, it's probably worth me saying what we won't be doing as well.

We won't be musically dissecting songs or closely analysing dorian modal harmonies. Because I have no idea what they are. For that kind of stuff check out Rick Beato's 'what makes this song great' videos or The Daily Doug's reaction videos.

Likewise we won't be getting into the nitty gritty of compressor ratios, EQ curves and pre-amp recommendations. I do (mostly) know what this stuff is, but again there are people who do this stuff better. Check out the rest of this site and Warren Huart's Produce Like A Pro channel.

We're all about getting an unheard song out into the wild.

Which is why I'm doing this series. Because I'm a songwriter who juggles a day job, like most of you, and I'm working in a compromised domestic environment like most of you.

Before we get into the chunky stuff in part two, I'm going to tell you one other thing you're not going to get from this series.

This is not going to be a 'how to write a hit song' or 'how to get a million plays on Spotify' or anything like that.

There's a thousand videos out there that will try and tell you this, probably with a million views each, but I don't see a billion hit songs coming round every year... So maybe they're not that all that?

But there is one simple, pretty much failsafe, way of getting your song lots of plays.

Ready?

Get someone really, really famous to make a cover of it.

Easy.

Don't know anyone really famous? Sucks to be you. And me.

So we're not going to talk about how to write a hit song because a) it's bollocks, and b) I don't care.

If you're writing deliberately poppy songs with an aim of selling them on, then maybe go check out some of those videos. But if you're writing anything that isn't mainstream, that isn't in a popular genre, that's maybe a little bit more cerebral or quirky, or is just something with a target audience of you alone, then hopefully this blog will help you get that out there and get it heard.

And when it does get heard it'll be your song, with your heart and soul in it. Not a paint by numbers effort that could be churned out by any song-writing factory in the business.

So I don't care about hits, and neither should you.

Maybe.

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 2 - Welcome back

Song-writing then.
Perhaps you have a folder full of loose papers, or maybe a stack of notebooks, or whatever it is you use to capture your ideas.
Now we start the process of turning the ideas into songs - complete, finished songs.
And here is my first rule for completing songs.
Which has nothing to do with songs or music.

Space and permission.

What do I mean by that? These two things come together to give you the best chance at writing your best songs. You can ignore them, but you'll make life harder for yourself.

Space. What I'm talking about here is a physical space where you can focus completely on the job in hand. It might be you're lucky enough to have a dedicated music space in your house, if that's so, take a moment next time you step in there and think about how it feels to cross the threshold? Is it inspiring? Does it give you a little lift just being in there?

If so, great. If not, have a think about what's missing and whether that's easy to fix.

If it isn't then you're in the same boat as everyone who doesn't have that space.

So find a different space. Maybe that's a bench in a park. Maybe it's a seat in an understanding coffee shop. Maybe it's the front seat of your car. I used to travel up and and down to London a lot and two hours each way on the train gave me loads of song-writing space.

But it has to be somewhere you can focus.

If it's the most inspiring room in the house but constantly interrupted by family members or you can't hear yourself think because the washing machine has just hit the spin cycle... Well that's not going to work.

Find the space that works for you.

Right, got your space sorted, now let's talk about permission.

I'm not talking about permission from your housemate or neighbours to play music and make some noise, I'm talking about permission from yourself to completely focus on the your songwriting.

That means not worrying about getting the washing out. Not just popping online to check there's enough cash in the account to pay the bills.

It means allowing yourself to stay in your music space until 2am to finish a song if that's what it takes.

It means ignoring the texts, emails, Whatsapp notifications and every other distraction that creeps into our lives.

But Drew! I hear you cry. I live in the real world! I have family, and obligations, and bills that actually need paying!

And I understand that, and that's why this bit is so important and so difficult.

So here are three good ways to tackle that intrusion of the real world.

Firstly, there's the easy-but-expensive route. Book yourself onto some artists retreat somewhere. I have done it a couple of times and they're brilliant. You get inspiration, a bit of camaraderie, minimal obligations (maybe a share of the cooking), but fundamentally you get protected time.

But they do tend to cost a fortune.

So the second option is to arrange your own retreat. Hook up with some band mates, or friends with different hobbies entirely, and book an Airbnb somewhere. But be really clear with everyone why you're there. It's on you to protect your time.

You don't even actually need to go anywhere.

Which brings us to option three. And that's to be open with all those people and things that are a demand on your time and negotiate that protected time.

Maybe it means a staycation with no plans. Maybe it means Monday evening between 7 and 10. Maybe it's alternate Sunday afternoons after the kids are back from football.

But somehow you are going to have to give yourself the gift of some time.

Because whilst some songs spring out of nowhere and are done in 10 glorious minutes, most aren't. They need to be teased, cajoled and nurtured into being.

And that needs serious, protected time.

As CS70 of this parish said, if you don't take yourself seriously, why would anyone else?

[MarkyC]

I really like these, they are practical and not going on about yet another technical thing to try and remember whilst in the midst of actual writing!

With all good things it's just common sense, but how often do we get overwhelmed with the day to day to forget all that!

I'll read and reread in order to try and put practical things into practice.......

[Drew Stephenson]

Thanks Marky C, I'll try and keep to that balance.

[RichardT]

I like the concepts of space and permission. They are very relevant to me, for sure.

I don’t know if you would like to hear what other people find helps them finish things, but I have one.

For me, what helps me a lot is if I don’t try to make things right, but just make them better.

So if there is a section in a tune that isn’t working, it can be impossible to get right and daunting to even try. But if I ask myself - ‘is there something I can do to make it better?’, there almost always is, even if it’s only changing the dynamics of a couple of notes.

I’ve found that if I keep applying that principle, almost all the difficult problems slowly melt away and things get fixed.

[Drew Stephenson]

I don’t know if you would like to hear what other people find helps them finish things, but I have one.

Always!

For me, what helps me a lot is if I don’t try to make things right, but just make them better.

So if there is a section in a tune that isn’t working, it can be impossible to get right and daunting to even try. But if I ask myself - ‘is there something I can do to make it better?’, there almost always is, even if it’s only changing the dynamics of a couple of notes.

I’ve found that if I keep applying that principle, almost all the difficult problems slowly melt away and things get fixed.

Bonza. I was thinking earlier of adding a 'problem solving' entry to the list so if it's ok I'll quote you in that bit?

[RichardT]

I don’t know if you would like to hear what other people find helps them finish things, but I have one.

Always!

For me, what helps me a lot is if I don’t try to make things right, but just make them better.

So if there is a section in a tune that isn’t working, it can be impossible to get right and daunting to even try. But if I ask myself - ‘is there something I can do to make it better?’, there almost always is, even if it’s only changing the dynamics of a couple of notes.

I’ve found that if I keep applying that principle, almost all the difficult problems slowly melt away and things get fixed.

Bonza. I was thinking earlier of adding a 'problem solving' entry to the list so if it's ok I'll quote you in that bit?

Sure!

[Drew Stephenson]

Gracias!

[awjoe]

For me, what helps me a lot is if I don’t try to make things right, but just make them better.

So if there is a section in a tune that isn’t working, it can be impossible to get right and daunting to even try. But if I ask myself - ‘is there something I can do to make it better?’, there almost always is, even if it’s only changing the dynamics of a couple of notes.

When I get stuck, the thing that helps the most is to hit 'delete', to abandon ship. When I find myself trawling alphabetically through all the rhyme possibilities, I'll throw the first line away and come up with a new line that does a better job of letting subsequent lines flow.

And if I'm struggling with TWO songs at the same time, I'll get double trouble out of my system by just mashing them together, and keeping the best of the collision. Lot of interesting bridges come out of that. It doesn't have the integrity of the 'one idea, one song' approach, but sometimes it captures the feeling just fine, plus it has the advantage of getting through stuckness.

[RichardT]

For me, what helps me a lot is if I don’t try to make things right, but just make them better.

So if there is a section in a tune that isn’t working, it can be impossible to get right and daunting to even try. But if I ask myself - ‘is there something I can do to make it better?’, there almost always is, even if it’s only changing the dynamics of a couple of notes.

When I get stuck, the thing that helps the most is to hit 'delete', to abandon ship. When I find myself trawling alphabetically through all the rhyme possibilities, I'll throw the first line away and come up with a new line that does a better job of letting subsequent lines flow.

And if I'm struggling with TWO songs at the same time, I'll get double trouble out of my system by just mashing them together, and keeping the best of the collision. Lot of interesting bridges come out of that. It doesn't have the integrity of the 'one idea, one song' approach, but sometimes it captures the feeling just fine, plus it has the advantage of getting through stuckness.

Do you find deleting things psychologically easy?

[awjoe]

Ha! I find that impossible! Only two things help - time and a shift of focus, or outgrowing where I'm at (slow and painful, but a 'higher' more inclusive perspective, so to speak).

[Drew Stephenson]

Honestly, I had one job!

Anyway, here we are, a day late, with part 3:

Part 3 - Spark and Spice - Wherein we actually talk about songwriting.

Let's start with the concept of Spark and Spice.

Spark is the idea behind the song. Pop music has traditionally been very frugal with the range of ideas that achieve widespread acceptance. Boy/girl meets boy/girl. Boy/girl loses boy/girl. Boy/girl has unrequited love for boy/girl. Etc etc.

I mean, obviously there are other themes in popular music, and certain acts definitely had a much broader range of stories to tell, from the Beatles, to They Might Be Giants, to Radiohead. But take a quick look at the charts and do a count up of the proportion of tracks that are, shall we say, relationship-based.

And yet, there are thousands of brilliant songs out there that somehow manage to mine this same vein and still extract new nuggets of gold. How does that work?

Well that's where the spice comes in.

If spark is the idea, spice is how you turn that into something interesting. And if you're familiar with the old idea that there are only seven plot-lines in story-telling, then spice is how you turn that into millions of novels, films, comics and, yes, songs.

Let's look at a couple of examples. You can either jump out to the songs as we cover them or pick them up as homework afterwards, either way will work.

For the purpose of this exercise we'll start with the humble love song. Some of the best songs ever written have been love songs; and as I've already intimated, it's a pretty congested field.

So how do you add something new?

Left-handed Kisses by Andrew Bird is an interesting angle. It's plainly a love song, but there are a couple of narrative shifts that give it some spice.

The first is a fourth-wall-breaking, self-mocking chorus that says "you've got me writing love songs with a common refrain like this one here". That's then reinforced by the duet line from Fiona Apple that is more cynicism and spikiness than the usual saccharine sweetness. But again, it's not just a typical brush off, it too plays back on the song-writing itself with "if you really loved me you'd risk more than a few 50c words".

The orchestration and arrangement is decidedly non-standard as well, but we'll come back to that.

Comments of the Inner Chorus, by Tunng, was probably my album of the year back in 2006/7 when it came out. It has beautiful track on it called Jenny Again. Which at a casual listen appears to be a fairly regular 'let's get old together' type track. But it's not. It's told from the perspective of the titular Jenny's ex-boyfriend. Ex, in this case, because he's been murdered by his replacement.

Lovely song.

Actually, the whole 'let's grow old together' is a fairly common way of spicing up the love song. Add a heavy dose of reality to juxtapose with the romanticism and you immediately have a more interesting story.

David Ford's Song For The Road, and Tom McRae's Let Me Grow Old With You are both good examples of this variant.

How else might you spice up the common, all-garden love song?

Well first up consider the participants. Boy meets boy or girl meets girl songs are becoming a bit more common but they're still pretty rare.

Or introduce a random third party to the picture, like, maybe, a motorbike - as Richard Thompson does with Vincent Black Lightening 1952. Gary Numan's Cars is a similar approach.

Or take your regular characters and put them in irregular situations. I have a song called Red which is based around the idea of clumsy small talk between two people, who just happen to be secret police.

Another approach might be to mix in a bit of reality in a different way. Take the idea of a holiday romance, constrain it in time and geography, and let Paul Simon yank your emotions every which way with Hearts and Bones.

Then of course you've got the whole barrel of love-gone-wrong songs (as Thomas Dolby would say). But again, this is such a regular theme you'll need to find a new angle. A good recent example might be Olivia Rodrigo's Driving Licence. It manages to add in both the immediately-relatable, everyday object, with the extra heart-break of taking what should have been a happy moment and flipping that on its head as well. It also provides a convenient trove of easy metaphors.

Lola, by The Kinks and First Day of My Life by Brighteyes are a couple of examples of using some of the 'spark' ideas suggested above.

We'll come back to this idea of Spark and Spice again next time.

As usual you can find the full set here: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... spice.html

[Martin Walker]

This is all fascinating stuff Drew - thanks for all your efforts on our collective behalves

[Drew Stephenson]

This is all fascinating stuff Drew - thanks for all your efforts on our collective behalves

Thanks Martin, I know there's a lot of old hat in there for many folks here but hopefully the odd nugget is of interest.

[tea for two]

Jolly good show Drew.
It's weirrdd when its printed text I have lots of pateince to read. When it's online I just skim quickly. So I shall print these read them printed in a park.

As CS70 of this parish said, if you don't take yourself seriously, why would anyone else?

My take is. I don't take my self seriously. I don't take what I do seriously. Instead I'm conscientious about what I do, conscientious about my music, conscientious about things that mean something to me.

::

One thing that helps me a lot in churning out instrumental tunes, instrumental albuumes :
I'm not holding on tightly to what I'm doing.
Such freedom from such fetters enables me to get ideas down one and done nearly every thyme. Thereafter this freedom enabling me to rapidly deleting editing rearranging to get to an almost completed piece fairly rapidly.

Another thing that helps me :
unless I'm feeling the vibe I won't touch the musical instrument.
This could be weeks, months. Was nearly a decade lol at one point. As soon as I feel the vibe its go go go (The Go Go's ) grabbing the musical instrumental getting the vibe idea down fast one and done.
Helps me enormously in capturing the moment the vibe.
Helps keep music fresh for me.
Freshness is so important to me. Staleness is a massive block I found for musical output.

::

Were I a paid commercial music composer working to a deadline then it would be somewhat different to an extent.

[IAA]

Just gone through these Drew and they’re both illuminating and helpful. The one that I did think a lot about was the space and permission. Rarely is my issue lack of ideas or tools. It’s mostly feeling comfortable with heading to the studio for the afternoon when there are “things” I need to do. Now I hasten to add my wife is often the one saying “why don’t you finish your SOS track this afternoon whilst I’m in the garden” but the tension is within me, a kind of guilt that I can play the piano and compose/track when there are everyday things on my list of to dos. It’s like I treat my music as a thing to do when real life is “sorted” paradoxically when I was working full time I found it easier(!) because I sensed I’d earnt the right of protected time.
I guess I need to work a bit on this. I’m still trying to finish my latest SOS track and my first EP….. the latter a year late!

Oh, the grass needs a cut….

Anyway thanks for the insights and ideas. Helpful. Cheers.

Ian

[Arpangel]

Do you find deleting things psychologically easy?

Psychology doesn’t come into it, what does come into it is getting rid of stuff so you can move on, and not continually prevaricate and make excuses, choosing between this and that, focus, focus, focus, and then, you call it a day, it's done.
I worked with a guy who made excuse all the time, we had a massive row and I’ve never spoken to him, he was so scared of putting his stuff out there, or our stuff, it was never ever right, it really did piss me off big-time.
Result, an extremely talented guy who’s never got anywhere.
Also, sometimes we act as though what we’re doing is "so" important, it isn’t, in the grand scheme of things, get a perspective, it helps tremendously when you have to press that delete button.

[OneWorld]

Do you find deleting things psychologically easy?

Psychology doesn’t come into it, what does come into it is getting rid of stuff so you can move on, and not continually prevaricate and make excuses, choosing between this and that, focus, focus, focus, and then, you call it a day, it's done.
I worked with a guy who made excuse all the time, we had a massive row and I’ve never spoken to him, he was so scared of putting his stuff out there, or our stuff, it was never ever right, it really did piss me off big-time.
Result, an extremely talented guy who’s never got anywhere.
Also, sometimes we act as though what we’re doing is "so" important, it isn’t, in the grand scheme of things, get a perspective, it helps tremendously when you have to press that delete button.

Spot on, back of the net, well said that man! Yes we can sit on our trifles for ever and a day but it ain't going change much, mother nature is possibly the most apparent exemplar of that, we are brought into world, most likely the result of a serendipitous coupling and at some point in time, we are deleted, although if our songs are worthy, they live on beyond us. If our songs are worthy of surviving into perpetuity then fate will determine that, not psychology.. That being said give the immense amount of storage available to us, put the song away, and move onto something else.

In an interview, Sir Pail Mac said cheap recording was possibly the curse of song writing, he said "I must have a 1000 unfinished songs scattered about the firmanent. Back in the day of recording studios, you prepared a song, had an idea, went in the studio, boxed it off and that was that, the song got finished because the meter was running"

I suppose writing in a group, as opposed to writing as an individual was that you'd knock the sketch of a song out and the other band members would say, or more appropriately play their part, the song took shape, or if it was naff, they'd soon let you know saying "Hand me down the tin polish, for what good it will do" You could always count on fellow band members to give a robust critique "I am not playing that sh*t, are you feeling ok?"

[Drew Stephenson]

It’s mostly feeling comfortable with heading to the studio for the afternoon when there are “things” I need to do. Now I hasten to add my wife is often the one saying “why don’t you finish your SOS track this afternoon whilst I’m in the garden” but the tension is within me, a kind of guilt that I can play the piano and compose/track when there are everyday things on my list of to dos.

I don't think this is uncommon, the person we most need to get the permission from is ourself.
If it helps you rephrase it internally, consider this me telling you do it!

[Drew Stephenson]

Do you find deleting things psychologically easy?

Psychology doesn’t come into it, what does come into it is getting rid of stuff so you can move on, and not continually prevaricate and make excuses, choosing between this and that, focus, focus, focus, and then, you call it a day, it's done.

Personally I find deleting stuff difficult, so I don't. Memory is really cheap these days so I just leave it there. The next step for me is moving on - and the easiest way for me to force this is to publish it. Once it's out there it's done - no matter how 'done' it really is.

I've been re-working a track recently that I'd recorded a couple of years back. I've made it better, eventually, but will anyone else notice? Probably not. Has that been educational? Yes, but not in the way I'd originally thought!

I suppose writing in a group, as opposed to writing as an individual was that you'd knock the sketch of a song out and the other band members would say, or more appropriately play their part, the song took shape, or if it was naff, they'd soon let you know saying "Hand me down the tin polish, for what good it will do" You could always count on fellow band members to give a robust critique "I am not playing that sh*t, are you feeling ok?"

Yeah, I think there's a lot of value from having a set of relationships where you can get, and give, that honest feedback. Where someone can say, "Yeah, that's ok, but it's not one of your best and I think we should focus on something else."

But also, coming back to the point of the thread for a moment, I find that finishing stuff is also a powerful tool for weeding out those weaker ideas. I'll often have an idea for a song floating around for a while and I'll finally make the time to finish it, and it's not until that point that I can really look at it and say, "yes, this is a good idea that should be developed," or, "nope, that's not working, move on."
Anecdotally I do often find that if I've had an idea for a song, worked it up, then dumped it because it's not good enough; it will frequently be followed fairly soon afterwards by a song that mines the same vein but is worthwhile.
But I can only make that step if I've already closed off the first attempt.
Back to that moving on business.

[Arpangel]

Did four tracks for the next album, listened to them this afternoon, two of them got the delete button, never to return.
I know memory is cheap these days, but I have this feeling about bad tracks, they sit it there as a testament to my complete lack judgement sometimes, so in that respect they have to go.

[Drew Stephenson]

We all have our processes.

[BigRedX]

In an interview, Sir Pail Mac said cheap recording was possibly the curse of song writing, he said "I must have a 1000 unfinished songs scattered about the firmanent. Back in the day of recording studios, you prepared a song, had an idea, went in the studio, boxed it off and that was that, the song got finished because the meter was running"

I try an keep the composing part as separate as possible from any recording that will be made available to the public.

In the days of The Terrortones doing would be committed to tape or hard disk unless we were planning to release it. I would comeuppance with the musical elements of the songs on guitar or bass which I would play to Mr Venom as he looked through his book of lyrics for something suitable. Once that was found we'd work on the structure which would then be presented to the rest of the band at the next rehearsal.

Even in my current band where drums and some of the synth parts are supplied by computer, what I produce when I am writing the song will be completely revisited when we decide to record a version.

[Drew Stephenson]

Funnily enough, there's a post coming on the separation between creation and engineering...