Written By Maggie Smith.
I’m going to go ahead and let you know that my blog posts will not always be about music. A musician who constantly writes about music on a music blog is so boring that you will stop reading after the first couple of sentences, start hating music, eventually hate children who make music, and suddenly become a supervillain who terrorizes school orchestras while burning copies of “August Rush”.
So. To keep you from that horrible fate, I will just say that this post is a rare gem of musical knowledge! Also, it’s my first post, so if you personally know me, keep in mind that I will pop quiz you later when we’ve both been drinking and if you don’t pass with an A++, I’ll go all Tiger Mom on your ass and beat you with my purse. Just saying.
“Maggie,” you ask. “Get to the point. How do you write music that sounds like unicorn orgasms in outer space?”
As you are all aware, most of my music sounds like mythical creatures copulating in a vaccum, and as the resident expert in this area, I’m here to help. Here are my 3 handy rules to creating song perfection, songs so glorious that you weep with joy and stop doing drugs (if you do them) because now this music is all you need, thereby saving your life. Get out your clicky pen, your battered diary where you wrote all your previousy crappy music, and pay attention. Ehem:
1. Lyrics are for wussies. You should be writing epic Homeric poems, which just happen to slant rhyme the words “orange” and “porridge”.
Seriously, the best thing I ever do for myself when I first want to write a song, is to stop trying to write a song. Free-form poems are your bread and butter. You probably sat down to write because you felt those pesky things called “emotions”, or you just heard Richard Harris’s song “MacArther Park” (seriously, one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard, the whole thing is about cake. The 60’s, man) and you’re convinced you can do better than that crap. Of course, if you’re slant rhyming “orange” and “porridge”, what the hell song are you even writing? You’re doomed.
2. Drunk people should be able to sing the melody you wrote, and they should want to.
This is a great test. Gather your friends and loved ones, and get them wasted. Proceed to sing the melodies you’ve been testing out in your bathroom. Ignore grandma making out with your best friend Bob. Do people sing along? If yes, you’ve got a keeper. You see, drunk people have absolutely no focus and direction, and getting them to do something in unison (other than form mobs) is incredibly difficult. Melodies are great when they are simple enough for the wasted, yet complex enough to rise above the din of drunken screaming.
3. “Hook” isn’t just a villain in Peter Pan. That’s a four letter word you should keep in your vocabulary.
Musicians hate the “h” word. It’s selling out, it’s cheesy, god forbid their artistic creations should have a structure that comes close to anything Lady Gaga ever made with her weird alien brain. But the fact is that the best, most timeless songs you’ve ever loved had incredible hooks. That’s why you love them. When I’m listening to Joni Mitchell’s “California” and her warbling voice starts up the scale on the word, go figure, “California”, I get this die-hard happy grin because it’s what I’ve been waiting for the whole song. That damn hook, it’s so good! Same goes for Spice Girl’s piano riff in “Wannabe”..... *cough cough* I mean, not Spice Girls, Indigo Girls..... you get my point.
Alright kids. That’s it. Go out and write songs with wild abandon, and I’ll see you at the bar. You did read this, right? What’s rule #2, HMMMM? slowly reaches for tiger mom purse...
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