Devachan Music - Community Room

When people are strong singers or instrumentalists as well as writers, it is natural for them to write around their own performance strengths, such as their vocal range. Of necessity my approach to writing has evolved differently; I think this approach can be taught and can expand your pallette as a writer, even if your intent is that only you will perform (only?) your own songs.

Some songwriters (especially performing singer-songwriters) seem to divide the artistic possibilities of songwriting into two extremes: writing songs for yourself to perform, which are always deep expressions of your inmost authentic personal self; or "selling out" and writing cheap, formulaic commercial trash for cute Generation X neo-cowboys to lip-sync while prancing on Nashville's answer to MTV with a bunch of Texas babes water-skiing in wet T-shirts.

I categorically reject this false dichotomy. (Huh? What he said...) I guess I resent the idea that because one is writing songs with the intent that other people will sing and record them, one is writing "commercial" songs. In my experience, my deeply felt authentic personal songs are just as likely to come out formulaic, perhaps not by greedy intention but laziness and inattention to craft. Conversely, there are great, soulful songs written by writers who had other singers in mind. And there are great singers and musicians out there quite capable of recognizing great songs and honoring them in their interpretation.

Writing for yourself versus writing for others to sing is an important distinction. Writing for yourself versus writing what you think mythical others want to hear is a question about motive and authenticity. But the two distinctions need to be kept separate, in my humble opinion.

Comment? Use the Tag "Writing for Other Paople"

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