Are you getting enough fiber in your music? Is the music you listen to and/or make have enough roughage–those undigestable elements that give the music its grit and the sounds their edge?

My tough, zany Russian grandmother, Bertha Smilowitz, was obsessed with healthy bowel movements. She would ask complete strangers if they were getting enough roughage in their diet.

I always winced when she would bring up this unpleasant topic, but her dietary wisdom must have rubbed off. Years after her passing, I find myself musing on the importance of healthy musical movement and the central role that fiber plays in keeping the creative juices flowing.

In my experience, when music goes down too easily–when it doesn’t offer any challenges to the listener (or the music maker)–it fails to nourish, inspire, or touch the audience in any meaningful way. We seem to need unfamiliar sonic aspects that keep the music from lulling the listener into unconsciousness. If the music does not have these rougher qualities, the music can become an opiate, or a form of artistic propaganda.

Musical fiber can appear in any number of forms. It can be a lyric layered with multiple meanings, a complex set of overtones, fret buzzes, rhythmic tension or anything that keeps our ears pricked and our mind and heart actively involved.

Listen to this humorous podcast as the under-explored subjects of musical nutrition and roughage are exposed and examined from a Whole Musician perspective.

 

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The concept of reverse engineering, while commonly used in fields as diverse as aeronautics, military science, business modeling, and software development, is seldom consciously applied to songwriting or music composition.

Reverse engineering is simply the process of taking something apart and then putting it back together in order to see how it is constructed. Thinking in these terms when listening to music can quickly deepen your understanding of songwriting and advance your craft.

Without being aware of it, you probably often reverse engineer already–every time you listen to a great song or recording with the focused intention of studying and learning from it.

Reverse engineering in music is the act of taking an existing song (or any other work of art, for that matter) and asking some basic questions like:

* “What do I hear?”
* “What’s going on behind what I hear?”
* “What is the method or thinking behind these details?”
* “How can I apply these methods or techniques to my own work?”

Given how many great songs and recordings already exist, reverse engineering can give you unlimited access to the brilliance and inspiration of the masters in your field and can prompt you to expand your own creative process. All you need is an open set of ears and an open and focused mind.

Listen to this SOS episode as JP explores reverse engineering as it applies to seven core parameters in songwriting: lyrics, melody, form, harmonic language, groove, point-of-view, and production quality.

 

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Springboards. Sparks. Influences and Inspirations. What are yours? What do you model your music after?

When it’s time to create your next song, you can always benefit from others’ works by extracting out the spirit, concept, or essence of the work and translating it through your own Voice and perspective.

As artists mature, they are still influenced by the music of their predecessors and contemporaries, but rather than copying, imitating, or emulating the styles of their heroes and teachers, they engage in the modeling process.

Just as researchers have methodologies, companies have business models, professionals have career tracks, and economists have schools of thought, musical artists can decide upon the approach they take to their craft, before composing any words or music. A consciously chosen approach can be based on a number of elements, including:

• timeless topics
• successful song-formulas
• proven assumptions behind song-crafting
• time-tested strategies for creativity and productivity
• undeniable grooves, moods, or vibes
• modes of storytelling
• a compelling perspective

Songwriters can extract the spirit, structure, or conceit of a great song and use it as a springboard for their own compositions. We can Song-Model.

A song-model is different from a genre, a sound, or a tradition in that it has nothing to do with how the music sounds or what it is made up of. It’s more like a mood encoded into the music and lyrics or a borrowed approach to the songwriting structure. A model exists apart from the actual content of the song.

Join the Song-Modeling discussion and JP explores three common qualities that have been modeled in countless songs: sex/passion, romance/imagination, and compassion/love.

 

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Crooked phrases. Deceptive cadences. Internal rhymes. Uneven meters.

Have you ever experienced a song that subverts your sense of “how it’s supposed to go” and yet simultaneously feels totally right?

Music is full of opportunities to throw off expectation and surprise, awaken, and even enlighten listeners. Despite the fact that nursery rhymes and metronomes have trained many of us to expect our music to be even and predictable, most folk traditions have always been (and continue to be) full of asymmetrical elements. Songs can defy our expectations using everything from from uneven measures to sudden shifts of tempo…from spring loaded phrasing to complete changes of groove.

Join this SOS episode as JP shares the delight of songwriting that falls outside the narrow confines of symmetrical composition and ventures into the realm where music and lyrics stay off-balance while remaining on-target.

 

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What’s your story and how do you tell it?

Are you a provocateur? An abstract, evocative storyteller? A painter of fables? An abstract teller of tales? All (or none) of the above?

When music and lyrics are understood in dramatic terms, rather than in purely musical terms, the process of songwriting becomes less about verses, choruses, lines, or hooks and more about characters, actions, scenes, and narration. A switch of context like this can help you bring some fresh material to the table and enliven your music in some interesting ways.

Listen to this special SOS episode (recorded on the road in rural Massachusetts) for a glimpse into JP’s understanding of the relationship between music and drama. Apply the concepts to your own writing and the results might surprise and delight you!

 

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Do you ever find yourself spontaneously creating something and having no idea whether it is any good? What do you do? Do you ignore the impulse? Do you follow your original thought? Do you try to transform an imperfect seed into a viable work? Do you stop the flow of ideas, waiting for something “good” to come along? 

In this unique SOS episode, the discussion about how the process of improvisation can turn into a composition takes a sudden turn when JP stops talking and starts playing…taking the closest instrument to where he is sitting (in this case, a ukulele) and exemplifying in-the-moment the very process he addresses in words. The result is both raw and revealing. 

 

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Good songwriting may be based on considerations about key, tempo, harmonic progression, lyric form and structure, but somewhere along the line, you have to lay down your weapons and surrender to the unknown–the mystery of music. But does that mean it’s all up for grabs? Can you know exactly when and how to give up control and in what proportion? There are some tried and true techniques for subverting the rational mind in order to allow the pure spirit of the music to come through. Listen in as JP takes you on a brief journey into the non-rational spaces of musical creativity.

 

 SOS Episode #11: Getting Out Of Your Head: The limits Of Rationality In Songwriting and In Living (or “When To Stop Making Sense”): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download