Songwriting » Kristie Addison

The RPM Challenge – Post Mortem

Mar 012008

Well, The RPM challenge is over, and while I didn’t complete it in time I feel it was definitely worth while attempting it because I have written a lot of new material that I otherwise would not have.

Next year, I think I would do a few things differently to make sure I finished in time.

Not starting a week late. I started a week late this time, because I heard of the RPM for the first time a week into February.

Not spend so long on songwriting. I spent so long writing, demoing, then rejecting songs, that I planned to do most of my proper recording and mixing in the last few days. This backfired terribly when I got the stupid flu and spent the last few days lying on the couch feeling like death microwaved on high for 30 seconds.

Take it more seriously. Probably the biggest reason I didn’t finish, is simply the fact that I didn’t make it my number 1 priority. If I had taken it more seriously, I would have been forcibly removing visitors from my home – family or not, recording on those last few days no matter how sick I felt, and recording in the evenings without worrying about annoying the neighbors.

I had actually been planning on having a proper album finished by June, so this was good motivation to get some more material together, and I now have a few new songs that I’m quite keen on (and quite a few I’m not!).

[Actually, if I had really low standards I could just send in ten demo's I've done, but nah. Not gonna happen ]

Writers/Composers Block

RPM, Song Writing 7 Responses »

Feb 192008

Musicians can get writers block. I get it all the time, especially leading up to a deadline (like now). Common symptoms include:

Repeatedly playing Stairway to Heaven or Nothing Else Matters on the guitar for no apparent reason.
Listening over and over to previous work just so you can pick out every single little mistake.
Listening to your favourite songs over and over, picking out all the clever bits that are so much better than your own work
Drinking Coffee and eating Toast.
Doing housework, running errands, catching up on paperwork, blogging…

The worst thing is when you can think of a hundred things to write a song about – but none of it just seems any good. My current ideas involve sick frogs, the IRD, and mismatched socks.

The other worst thing is when you give up on what you’re writing a song about and just try to come up with some good music and/or riffs. When you have writers block, everything always sounds too much like something else. Sometimes, it all just sounds crap. Sometime it doesn’t sound like anything because you can’t even come up with anything.

Cures for writers/composers block:

Actually having feelings or opinions to write about. (Rumour has it you can get these by giving a damn – harder than it looks sometimes)
Being almost at the deadline… and dropping your standards to write about things you originally thought were crap when you had a lot of time to think about it.
Finding God (Christian bands NEVER run out of things to write about )
Harnessing random fluctuations in the Time Space Continuum. (eg, open any random book at a random page and randomly point at something on the page and write about whatever that’s about. Also works quite well with like dream cards, the random button on wikipedia, or even your media player set to random. [I secretly suspect all those Christian bands just write songs by doing this with the bible!])
Doing housework, running errands, catching up on paperwork, blogging… Sometimes stopping trying to compose and doing something else for a little while can give your brain a little time to stew things over and come up with some proper ideas.

I think I’m ready to get back to work now

The RPM Challenge

RPM, Song Writing 2 Responses »

Feb 062008

The RPM challenge is to record an Album in 29 days. I read about this in a blog, checked it out, and was horrified to see that it runs for the month of Feb, and I’ve already wasted a week simply by not knowing about it! Ahhhh. RPM stands not for Rev’s per Minute, but in this case for Recording Production Month. I think it’s a brill idea and signed up right away. You’re allowed to use pre-written material so that’s a big help since I’m starting a week late. I’ll still have to do some writing too, but not a whole albums worth in two days I’m trawling through a ton of ancient demos and lyrics to try and find what is easily salvageable or rewritable. I plan to have ten songs really roughly demo’d by midnight tomorrow night. So far since this morning I have five songs chosen for resurrection, have written two more songs, and still need to pull three more out of somewhere… Deadlines are great motivators.

Work in progress – new song to critique

Recording, Song Writing 2 Responses »

Jan 062008

This is a new song I’ve been working on. It’s had almost ten different versions, and this is the rough of the version I’m probably going to go with. It’s almost a bit too “easy listening” for my personal tastes, but I think it’s probably the version most likely to get me in with a chance at a NZ on Air grant (Muh huh huh haaaaaa).

My illogical songwriting process

Song Writing 1 Response »

Dec 292007

Songwriting is one of those odd things, I can never explain quite how I do it. I think it often starts with a riff. When I have a guitar in my hands and I do the audio equivalent of doodling on a notepad with a ball point pen, while day dreaming about something irrelevant.

Sometimes it starts with a thought, a sole line or lyric that might occur to me while driving, cooking, talking, thinking, walking the dog. If I have a pen and paper it may eventually become a song. If I don’t, it’s lost forever. My memory is terrible.

But where ideas for songs don’t happen for me, is when I’m trying to write something. When I sit there and try to write a riff, or come up with a lyric. Just doesn’t work. They have to surprise me.