Songwriting Lesson Learned: Don't Care

For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that I wrote several songs last fall and winter. I'm now trying those songs out at gigs and open mics; taking them for a test drive, so to speak. And tweaking them a little, lyrically and (especially) musically.

At the time, I made a conscious decision to experiment both musically and lyrically. That is, I consciously decided to try new things and not worry about whether the songs would be any good, whether anyone would like them; or even whether I would even ever perform or record them. The idea was to try new songwriting techniques. These songs would be "lab experiments".

A funny thing happened. These "experiments" turned out to be some of my best songs, according to several friends and fans. In fact, after posting the the song "Misfit" to my myspace demo site, I wrote that I would probably never record or perform it, because it was so unconventional. Several people go on me about that, asking why not? They thought it was one of my best songs.

Based on that experiment, I now posit the following hypotheses about songwriting:

1. The more you concern yourself with writing a "good" song, the less likely the song will be good. In fact, you probably will never even finish writing the song. The less you care how good the song will be, the more likely it will be good.

2. The more you worry about whether people will like the song you're writing, the less people will like it. On the contrary, the less you care whether anybody will like it, the more likely people will like it. That's because the song will be honest.

In summary: be playful and experimental, both musically and lyrically, have fun, be emotionally honest, and don't worry whether the song will be good or if anyone will like it. I don't know if this will work for other songwriters, but it worked for me.

-Rob

Music Website Design

I'm redesigning my website (www.robroper.com). So I looked at other websites and made a list of things I like, and things I don't like, about other music websites.

Things I don't like:

1. Homepages that take 40 days and 40 nights to load. This is usually due to videos on the homepage, music players, and/or excessive high-resolution photos.

2. A homepage that's not a homepage; you have to click something to enter. Why can you just bring me to your homepage.

3. Pathetic begging for money and support. Buy my CD! Come to my show! Get on my email list! Now!

4. A cluttered page. Too much stuff on one page.

5. Small fonts that are hard to read. I'm not going to read it if it hurts my eyes.

#5 and #6 frequently go together.

6. Music players that auto-play a song on the homepage.

7. 4 billion cookies. There's no justification for more than one cookie.

What are the characteristics of a good music website?

The homepage should be simple, uncluttered, readable and fast loading. It should have the most important info up front. There should be links to other pages for everything else.

Music, video players and most photos should be on other pages linked to the homepage.

The site should express your personality. If you are humble and personable, then the site should convey that; it shouldn't make you out to be self-centered and pretentious. On the other hand, if you are self-centered and pretentious... hey, a lot of fans like that in their heroes. :)

For me, I like color and shape, so I like a nice background and a nice color scheme.

And last, but definitely not least, the site code for the site should meet web standards, and you should test your site with 2 or 3 common browsers.

Of course, those are just my personal preferences. I'd be interested in hearing what others like and don't like about music websites. And I'd love to get feedback on my work-in-progress, www.robroper.com. I'm just an amateur web designer at this point, but it's fun.

-Rob

Minor Key

I only have one song written in a minor key (When They Go). I need to write more.

That's all.

-rr

Art and Commerce, or No One Owes You Anything

If you put your heart and soul into creating a work of art, whether it be a song or a painting, do you have the right to demand that people appreciate it, take the time to admire it, maybe even spend money on it?

No.

Nobody owes you anything.

You can create whatever kind of music you want. Nobody's stopping you. But as soon as you want other people to spend their time and/or money on your work, you've now entered the world of commerce. And the rules of commerce now apply.

If I want someone to spend money, or perhaps more valuable, their time listening to my music, I have to offer them something in return. My music must do something for them. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them think, or perhaps just be beautiful and allow them to appreciate beauty.

As common sense as that sounds, it took me awhile to figure that out.

If you're a performer and/or songwriter, put on your music consumer hat for a minute. If I come to you and say, "Dude! You should buy my CD! You should take time out of your evening and pay the cover charge to come see me play!" What are you thinking? What if my music doesn't do anything for you? Would you spend your time and money on me just because I'm a nice guy? Just because I spent hundreds of hours, much introspection and soul-searching, to write these songs? Maybe. But that means you're doing it out of sympathy. Or even worse, pity.

Nobody owes me anything. It's my--and your--job to figure out how our music can serve people. Then people will spend their time and money on us because they benefit from listening to it. And that's how it should be.

-Rob

Friends and Fans

It's been about 3 years since I started playing out as a solo acoustic performer playing my own songs. I've noticed an interesting phenomena, which probably applies to bands also (none of the bands I was in before I starting songwriting lasted long enough for me to notice this phenomena).

At your first gig, or rather your first few gigs, of course you have no fans yet, so you invite your friends, family members and co-workers. You have a good turnout, because of the curiosity factor-- the "I didn't know you played music!" factor. But then once their curiosity is satisfied, they stop coming to shows, unless they really like your music; that is, they have become fans. Your closest friends may continue to come to shows for awhile longer, just to support you, but eventually unless they also become fans, you'll see less and less of them.

This can be discouraging. At your first shows you've got 10 or 15 people, now a year later, even though you're a better songwriter, a better singer, a better performer overall, only one or two people are showing up.

So once you've passed Stage 1; that is, after you've exhausted the pool of friends, family members and co-workers, the question becomes: how to you get actual fans? People who come not to "support" you, but because they love seeing you perform and hearing your music.

Ah, if I only knew the answer to that problem. I'd be interested in hearing how other singer-songwriters and bands have made this transition.

-Rob

Searching for a Producer

I now have enough songs I consider worthy of a full-scale album. I'm currently recording an EP, but it's stripped-down-- just acoustic guitar, violin and voice. What I'm talking about here is a full-sized record where I bring in other musicians to play and create arrangements for the songs. This could happen as early as next fall, but most likely will be done over the winter.

Step One is to select a producer-- the person overall in charge of the project. In my case, I'm looking for the following:

1. Someone who likes my songs and is passionate about making this record. Sure, I could hire any number of experienced producers, but I don't want someone who is just going through the motions because they're getting paid.

2. A producer who is also a songwriter, who will challenge me to make the songs as best as they can be, both musically and lyrically. Someone who might even co-write a song or two with me for the record.

3. A producer who is a singer, who will work with me to help me sing the songs as best as I can.

4. Someone who will be creative about the arrangements, the instrumentation, and the selecting of the musicians who play on the record. I don't want a generic-sounding singer-songwriter record, where you bring in studio musicians, go through the song once, give them a chart, and then they play generic, conservative parts. I want the musicians to listen to the songs several times before coming into the studio, try different things, take chances, be creative. I want a producer who knows these kind of musicians and has a pool of them to draw from.

As you can see from the above criteria, I'm looking for a *musical* producer as opposed to a *techical* producer. While some producers are also recording engineers, in my case they just have to know good recording engineers that they can hire (and good studios).

So the search begins. Ideally I'd find the right person in Colorado, but if I have to go elsewhere, so be it.

Amsterdam Songwriters Guild

While in The Netherlands recently, a friend pointed me to the website (or rather the blogspot site) of the Amsterdam Songwriters Guild. As a result I found two great open mics in Amsterdam where I play, Cafe Sappho and Skek. If you're ever in Amsterdam, check 'em out!

-Rob