I haven't made much progress since the last post because honestly, I haven't thought about it much. I've just been lazy about it and just been focusing more on finishing the songs I started before the projects began. A big problem is that I like a lot of the stuff that I've already written and would like to make actual recordings, but another side of me feels like I should start a fresh batch of material for my project. I'm also thinking that I could use the stuff I've already been working on. My songs are almost always narratives and stories about characters with interesting situations. The characters often portray the same "loser" persona: the hopeless romantic, the depressed widow, the husband with erectile dysfunction. So I think I can somehow thread these songs into one bigger story. The segmented structure of Pulp Fiction, where different storylines are shown one after another instead of a single chronological plot, appeals to me a lot concerning my project, so I'm definitely going to steal from that. On a side note, it's interesting to see how sometimes, creating art doesn't seem deliberate or pre-planned. Many times art seems to build itself and I just sort of follow it as it goes along, like I'm doing now with the album I'm putting together. Musically, I've narrowed down my influences to one of my favorites: the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed. This actually happened because of the limitations I'm running into. I record my songs alone, which means I use only the instruments that are readily available to me in my home. I don't have a functioning guitar amp, a bass guitar, or a drum set, so I'm left with acoustic guitar, violin, and maybe an electric guitar. The good thing is that the Velvet Underground's record uses a lot of the same instrumentation as I do. The drum parts are rather minimal, and John Cale's viola is a key feature in the album. I'm very interested in creating the most out of what little I have. Specifically, this means finding physical methods of playing the violin or guitar to create different textures and sounds. The VU's album has a lot of this, too. I want to create something that's conservative or tight, if those are the right words, as opposed to something that's expansive, like Sgt. Pepper's. There's also a very organic and clear sound to Lou Reed's music, like I can hear every single track on each song. That's what I was thinking the whole time when I listened to Berlin. So I guess I'll be listening to a lot of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground, not to mention other artists who I think are really good at making the most out of a little, like the Pixies. I'm excited to start thinking about the actual ideas for the ideas. I've laid down the boundaries and I've narrowed down a lot of what I need to research and study, so it's time to start filling in what's in between.

4/24

I spent today's class trying to finish up two songs that I'm working on. For my main project, I'm thinking of putting together an EP of maybe four or five songs that I'll record. I didn't really look at the EP as its own project, but more as a collection of different songs. But now I'm thinking I should approach this more   artistically. For now, I've been writing songs here and there about anything really. I've been mainly trying to improve my writing skills. But when I think twice about the EP, the idea of a rock opera comes to mind. As opposed to an EP of several independent songs, a rock opera, like Lou Reed's Berlin, gives me a lot more room to explore a lot of things, like my music, myself, etc. It allows me to work more as an artist rather than a songwriter or musician. In terms of content, my lyrical themes have changed quite a bit. When I first began writing this year, all my songs were about girls. Literally all of them. But now, I'm touching upon much darker and more tragic issues. I recently wrote a song about a boy who has tinnitus, a type of hearing impairment. The one I'm working on now is about burying a dead body...I think. Also, I've noticed that I love to write in the form of stories, like Kate Bush's work, which is what pushed me to consider writing a rock opera.
On the other hand, for my side salad, I'm considering something relating to photography or film. I've been taking shots with strictly disposable cameras for the past few weeks. I've yet to develop them, so I'm not sure how I'll be able to use them. I've also wanted to film for quite some time. Everything is still up in the air for the side salad.

Songwriting Intensive

The intensive that spanned over the past few weeks has been an effective introduction to songwriting. Before the first lesson of the intensive began, I had already begun to write my own lyrics. At the same time, I was also listening to a lot of different records and learning some of the techniques and theory that were to be taught during the intensive. For instance, I was already familiar with the common use of the descending bass line and the I IV V chord progression and had already used such elements in some of my own songs. Nonetheless, there was still a lot I learned from the intensive.

Concerning the musical theory taught during the intensive, the most important lesson for me was the Approach chord, which is a major chord above or below the tonic that eventually resolves to the I chord. I recall that when I used to hear Approach chords in different songs, I couldn’t really tell what was happening to the key and thought that they were something of a one-beat key change. But now, such a chord is a vital tool that I use time to time in my songwriting. It provides a different flavor or twist than that of the usual pop tune. I’ve never actually learned about such irregular music theory, like the Approach chord or the Two chord modulation, but something interesting happened during the intensives. I started to switch the quality of certain chords in a progression to experiment. For example, I’d take a simple progression, like I IV V I, and make the IV and V chords minor instead of major. As I played around, the progressions definitely sounded a little off, but it was nice to see where things went, and I’m sure this technique of switching chord qualities around will present itself in my songs in the future.

Lyrically, I didn’t learn as much as I did about rock theory during the intensive. A lot of the blurbs in the packets focused on keeping the writing tight and specific, such as the concept of locked imagery. I try to stay away from writing too generally, but my lyrics almost always contain clichés. During the intensives, my main goal was to keep the span of the imagery as small as possible. For instance, if I was writing about a girl I was pursuing, I tried to write based off of one or two images in my head that I had of her. On the other hand, one of the last packets, which was the breakdown of Luke’s song based on George Harrison’s tune, was quite useful. It was reassuring to look at another writer’s process and notice some of the same things I do. Sometimes when I write, a lot of lyrics are pulled out of nowhere, and I worry that the method I use to obtaining these lyrics aren’t legitimate.

The intensives were great because they reassured a lot of the techniques I was afraid to use in my own songs. Actually, this is the only time I’ve discussed or learned about songwriting. Before the intensives, I would write and hope that my work and process were what everyone else was doing. In a conversation with Luke, he asked me if I liked the intensives when the assignments were specific and to the point or when they were more expansive. I replied that I liked the assignments when they were expansive and I had more freedom to do what I wanted. But now that I think about it, I actually preferred the restricted nature of the intensives. I really like the idea of working with a limit and trying to get the most out of the little that you have. I think that I was just really anxious to use the ideas I’d learned from the intensives in my own writing.