Day 328: The Other Way Of Writing

So here's the thing. I'm working on Silver aka Judas' Song aka Better For Me and I'm still working off a page that I typed out in 2005, annotated with a million different scribbles from the last 6 years (sorry my exaggeration alarm just went off).

I've been greatly helped by Nicholas Tozier's method of writing each section on a separate piece of paper (A5 is how I roll) that way you can rewrite without having to write it all and you can even swop bits around (still not sure verse 1 isn't verse 2 and vice versa. HAH "VERSE - A" - you see what I did there?!?!?!).

That's so cool and helpful. I wonder where T said it. Was it here? Anyways...

I'm losing perspective as you might expect with lyrics that are 6 years old and music that goes back to 1992! Some of the things that are 'wrong' with it have been wrong for nearly a decade. How will I know when I've finished? Or even near finished?

What I did was type up everything I've got so far. Hey presto! It's finished song. (I've read that Brenton Brown does a similar thing too).Yes there are still sucky bits, but I can see the finish line from here now. I'm going to press ahead with fixes and then demo, which will act in pretty much the same way as the fake finished lyric sheet. Once it really is a song, rather than a potential song it will be easier for me (or anyone else) to see the wood for the trees.

And in other news, here's a beautiful vid from Nottingham 'band' We Show Up On Radar. Some of it was filmed just round the corner from my house. Those flippin' foxes are a real pest...

Download the song for free from the We Show Up On Radar Bandcamp page

I'll be a Ghost from WSUOR on Vimeo.

Free download: Never Be Silent
Other free songs by Matt Blick

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Day 226: My Exquisite Corpse

I'm still doing way too much multitasking. I've interrupted the rerecording and mixing of Let's Build An Airport to contribute my portion of an exquisite corpse that we've got going on the 50/90 site. “What's an exquisite corpse?” I hear you google. In musical terms we have 11 people co-writing a song. One person writes about 50 seconds of music and then sends the last 10 seconds to the next person who does likewise. Finally someone puts it all together and we all get to hear the song. It's the musical equivalent of this...

I'm about 7th in line, and I'll post a link when it's done.  


Here's the finished song - You're Sure To Find Yourself.

The part I contributed was the 6/4 and 7/4 prog metal instrumental bit. It's after the folky 6/8 bit with the "we can do what we want" sample. Unfortunately during the edit my part comes in too early but to be fair I was asking for it superimposing 4/4 over 6/8 (If you're interested, here's how it should have fitted together).

Guest post

The second part of my series for Krown Media is up now. One of the reasons Christian's make poor artists is they spend way too much time obsessing over their motives. Here's a sample -

So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31) applies to all of us, no matter what profession. But have you ever noticed that Christian plumbers, Christian school teachers and Christian I.T. specialists don't seem to suffer the same kind of paralysing bouts of self analysis that artists do? Maybe because they instinctively realise that in context and practice that verse is about outward actions, not inner motivation.

Read the rest here

Great writing on writing

There are quite a few songwriting blogs out there that dispense really helpful advice. There are others that are so beautifully put together that reading them is a pleasure to be savoured. There's only one that I can think of that ticks both boxes and that's Nicholas Tozier's The Halted Clock. Check out his post Life Cycle of a Summer Song, Part 4: An Attempt at Self-Criticism for example.

Tozier wakes up in the morning, stretches, scratches at his unseemly body hair, and sits on the edge of the bed...He walks to the sink, where he definitely does not waste half a can of Barbasol by using the foam to make a giant Santa beard...Having accomplished a smooth jawline with only a reasonable amount of bleeding and crying, Tozier embarks upon the day’s errands.He ...buys two beverages: Lady Grey tea, because he is a sensitive poet; and coffee, without cream or sugar, because he is a total badass.
...At exactly 8:30pm he hits the stage. The audience is hushed, perhaps intimidated by his awesome punctuality.

Visit Tozier's site to see what this has to do with songwriting.

Lastly, and still on the Tozier tip, I got to round out the series of posts (44 and rising) which I've done about the Abbey Road album with a light hearted chat with Nicholas over at Beatles Songwriting Academy.

Free download: Never Be Silent
Other free songs by Matt Blick

Building A Fence

Nicholas Tozier flagged up a phrase I'd used in a recent post where I'd said I needed to build a fence around my songwriting during 50/90 to stop it taking over the rest of my life. He asked if I'd say a but more about how I plan to do that in practice. Though I'm sure to fail in some degree, here goes...

The trouble with open ended work (which is what a lot of us are engaged in) there is no clear finish line, or pass grade.

For instance, working for a church, building a website, caring for a child or writing a song is not like building a wall – which, when it's done, it's done. How do we ever know when we have truly finished, or made it as good as it could be?

“This church has been fully led!”
“I have achieved an 80% pass rate in childrearing!”

Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, says we need to forget work/life balance and pursue work/life separation. And the only two things you can do to put boundaries around this open ended work are to limit tasks or limit time.

In songwriting that simply translates as “I'm going to write X number of songs and stop” or “I'm going to write for X amount of time and stop”.

The tricky part is filling in that X. For me on 50/90 it's

Write for 1 hour a day and network/post for 1 hour per day max.

and

Write 20 songs max.

20 might sound ambitious but my problem during FAWM wasn't getting to 14 songs, it was stopping. To be honest I went a bit mental.

So if I do hit 20 and going to turn straight around and start improving the rushed demos.

Download my new song: Faithful & True for free!!!
Other free songs by Matt Blick

GTD For Songwriters (pt 3)

I'm taking a bunch of posts to look at applying the 'next action' principal of GTD to songwriting. If you missed them, here's the intro, part one and part two.

Say No To Moleskines

Not moleskin! Mol - eh - skeen - ah!

So you're gathering things according what you need to do with them next. That means all the drafts of your current song need to be together. All your potential songs need to be together. All your rejected and finished songs need to be together – out of your sight! Tozier won me over. If you're going to jot ideas down in a note book it needs to be one you're not afraid to rip up and file the pages away (so don't write a different song on the back!).

Speaking of which...

Everything Digital?

Why not keep everything digital as word docs or even something fancier and shmancier than that? Because sometimes you need to flick through all you ideas quickly (like pages in a book) and sometimes you need to lay out a million ideas where you can see ‘em and move em around (like pages ripped out of a book) but mostly because you need to not see a whole lot of other ideas (like pages that have been stored away in a totally different book).
“But I’ve got a billion terabytes on my laptop and I can store everything I’ve ever written!” you cry. But your brain can’t – that’s the point. The reason songwriters get into this mess is too much raw data. It needs sorting.

That said I do type things up and have digital copies of most drafts. These live in files marked current (songs in some stage of development), finished and old. Old contains a sub folder for each song. The others don't need sub folders as they should only contain one version of any song.

Next time - filing and hording

Related Posts: Writing songs with Joseph Pulitzer
Download all my 2011 songs for free!!!
Other free songs by Matt Blick



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Leading, Ranting & Haikus. OK?

Here's a few posts worth taking a look at


Brenton Brown gives some Tips For Starting Out Leading Worship in Small Groups 


Jeremy Pierce has a very clever rant about worship songs. make sure you follow the links!


Nicholas Tozier's first podcast looks at what the Haiku can teach you about songwriting


And finally another piece of OK Go geniusness...




Related Posts: We Need You Brenton!
33 ways to be more like Nicholas Tozier

Free songs by Matt Blick


[If you're subscribed to this blog via email, you will have to click on the post's title to watch any video content (the link will take you my site).

Write Them Songs, Songwriter!

Struggling to find time for songwriting? Check out Nicholas Tozier's excellent post 33 ways to make more time in your life for music making. I just printed off a copy for further reference. You might want to as well.

Speaking of songwriters, say hi to the two latest additions to the Newfrontiers Underground Olly Knight (Canterbury) and Richard Ward (Leicester).


Related Posts: The dangers of moleskines and multitasking

Free songs by Matt Blick

The Dangers of Moleskines & Multitasking

If you're into songwriting you might want to check out the blog of Nicholas Tozier, an independant singer/songwriter based in Maine. I've yet to hear any of his music but he's such an original and insightful writer that he could always blog professionally if the music career doesn't take off!

Check out these excerpts from The Seductive Dangers of Moleskines

When it’s time to write a grocery list, do you painstakingly select a fountain pen to use on your most expensive letterhead?

Or do you just scratch it into the back of last week’s receipt with a ballpoint?

I’ve bought Moleskines. They sit unused. Why do I do that? It’s like buying an expensive black suit when you live and work in a junkyard.

Sure, that’s the nicest piece of clothing you could buy for that amount of money… but is it something you’re going to feel comfortable wearing when you’re rummaging through all that scrap and mud?

When I buy something to scratch my ideas on, I now ask myself: “Am I going to feel comfortable when it’s time to tear this thing wide open and turn it inside out if that’s what it takes to write these songs?”... I like being able to rip something apart so I can see any two of its pages side-by-side without flipping around. I cut, I fold, I scratch notes, I mangle. I’ve got no business wearing a suit.

It's All Too Much

As I ransack The Beatles' songs and career for wisdom I've noticed that the Beatles went about recording their albums in a way almost no band does nowadays - one song at a time. I think they were onto something. You can read the third 'Be-atletude' "Blessed are the single-taskers" over at Beatles Songwriting Academy. 


Related Posts: Write like John Newton
All a songwriter needs is a door: advice from Stephen King
Do it yourself: Songwriting advice from Spielberg & Jackson



Free songs by Matt Blick