So I know most of these songwriter posts have been geared to the tyro writer – here’s one for those of you who have a few good songs under your belt.
Take one of your better songs and record it. Put it away for a few days and revisit it.
If you were going to pick a famous artist/singer to do your song, who would sound good doing it?
If it’s a Broadway-type of show tune, can you picture it being sung in a bravura fashion that Broadway is known for?
If it more of a metal piece, how many thirds are in your accompaniment that soften the delivery of the melody? Are there more power chords than usual in what you wrote?
These are all valid questions. The genetic code that comes with most great songs is that you can simultaneously here yourself singing it along with the artist who recorded it. If you can’t relate your inner voice to the song, you will likely skip it and move to a different song.
Ok.
After you pick someone who could have done your song, how would they improve on the original material to make it more communicative with their voice?
Essentially, the mind trick is this: if you think the song is done, try to imagine how a successful songwriter would listen to it and edit your work to make it stronger.
Is it in the best key, the key that would most evocatively project the artist’s personality and voice?
Try it up a third, fourth, or maybe down a second.
There is a famous story of how the producers kept raising the key to “Heard it on the Grapevine” on Marvin Gaye in the studio to push his strongest emotional performance.
Can the groove and tempo be improved?
Does the high point in the melody fit with the artist’s top of range, the place where they arouse the most emotion?
Are the ending vowel sounds in your lyrics open and resemble the ending vowel sounds that the artist repeatedly uses in their songs?
Are there words that don’t fit in the context of the majority of lyrics?
Are there moments where you are forcing a rhyming pattern because the lyrics don’t really fit?
Do your phrases include pauses where the listener can either internally repeat the past phrase or anticipate the next phrase?
These are just a few of the ways you can revisit your completed songs to tighten them up and take them to the next level.
They key is that editing is just as important as working the initial musical idea.
I’m not asking you to copy someone else’s style but to rather recognize it for what it is. You will put your own stamp on the song by the way you add emotional content in the performance that is different than how the imagined artist would render the song.
That way, no matter who ever you secretly imagined doing your song would not be able to the ultimate performance of it – because it is YOUR song!
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