I Hate Mornings

Ben’s Big Gig was ridiculously successful.

We sold out a 200-seat theatre and had an online audience of about 300. The sound was great, the people had a good time, 500 Twitter messages floated past on the big screen, and I almost remembered all the lyrics.

Wandering through the lobby after the show, I saw a lot of smiles. It was a feelgood gig, and I can’t help but think that part of that was due to the feeling of involvement everyone got from the Twitter messages coming in from the outside. Everyone felt part of a bigger event.

Some very cool people pulled through.

I’m amazed by the goodwill and generosity of all the people who helped out with the promotion and production of the gig. There are way too many to mention by name, but I have to thank Xander Cansell for writing emails, posting videos, enduring rehearsals, editing slideshows and keeping everything running smoothly backstage. And Phil Campbell for putting together the Ben’s Big Gig Rezpondr page, dealing with blocked ports and broken video mixers, interviewing, AudioBooing and taking responsibility for the video streaming. Both legends.

We pushed some boundaries

I saw the Big Gig as an experiment from the start, and because of that I made some tricky decisions about the technology we used. If the gig was a success, I wanted it to be something others could use, recreate and build on. So I went for the DIY approach wherever possible. A couple of weeks before the gig, I was approached by Streaming Tank, the company who broadcast the “DIY” Sandi Thom sessions to see if I wanted to use them. They seem like a nice bunch, but I opted for Phil, Bambuser and some hectic last-minute network testing instead.

Phil has already posted some thoughts about the streaming setup, and I’ll definitely be blogging more about how well it held up and how we would do it next time.

So, what’s next?

The day after the Big Gig was fine. I relaxed, told stories, relived the glory moments, did the crossword in the park and enjoyed the quietness where the internal monologue of todos and tasks used to be. But there’s an empty feeling you get a couple of days after finishing something that big. Xander and I were both feeling it:

quitexander: @ihatemornings dude. Suffering slightly now from come-down after #bensbiggig! Feeling this may last a while :) You free for a chat tonight?

ihatemornings: @quitexander Also working in pub (JT). Also suffering #bensbiggig comedown. Let’s talk later. ;)

So we did. And there was a lot to talk about. What do you do after a Big Gig? A bigger gig? Some smaller gigs? Something else? We haven’t figured that out yet. But what we know is that we learned a lot by putting on such an ambitious event without a label, a manager, a promoter or a sponsor. And part of the Big Gig plan was to share that learning with the community so that musicians (and others) can build on our success. So we’re going to take some time to write some good blog posts, put together a website that links up all the online artifacts of the gig, and answer a lot of questions.

I think blogging comes into its own when there’s actually something real and interesting to talk about, and I hope that Ben’s Big Gig will provide some conversation-fodder for a little while. Leave your messages and questions in the comments, and let’s talk. ;)

[photos by Garrett and Phil]

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I’ve found myself writing a lot lately, both songs for the 50/90 Challenge and prose for the blog. My prose writing and songwriting skills are improving, and it’s mostly because I spend a lot of time actually writing. But I also study songwriting with berkleemusic.com and read about writing whenever I can. As any teacher will tell you, learning and practice produce results.

A few years ago I read an essay by George Orwell called Politics and the English Language (1946). It is an inspiring piece of writing that I read two or three times then forgot about. Earlier this week productivity guru Merlin Mann mentioned it on 43folders.com. I abandoned everything else I was doing, printed it out, made a cup of tea and read it again at the kitchen table. It still makes me feel excited about language, writing and communication. And a lot of Orwell’s advice on writing prose applies just as much to songwriting.

The message of the essay is that modern English “is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.” I’m going to give you a few quotes from the essay, and my thoughts on how they can help us write natural, conversational lyrics.

Imagery and precision

Orwell quotes five examples of bad writing, about which he says:

…quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.

Listen to pop song lyrics: “Staleness of imagery” is standard. A lot of pop songs, especially more dance-based tracks, have no discernible meaning. That’s probably not such a disaster. If a song is written to be danced to, let’s judge it by its danceability. But how about singer/songwriter pop? James Blunt’s songs get by on a pathetic crumb of meaning, and are built on clichés.

“Lack of precision” is also a common pitfall. There is nothing more forgettable than a song that talks about “a girl” you met in “a bar” who was “crazy” but “beautiful”. Be precise with your lyrics! Try to write a story that’s actually interesting. Don’t be the guy who bores you in the pub telling stories with no details. Write about “Cynthia Glossop” who you met “queuing for parsnips at the organic market” and who was “disturbingly edgy” but had “something fascinating and unique about the curl of her upper lip”. You know the drill. Write visual descriptions that make the listener imagine the situation.

Simple words, simple phrases

George is on a roll by this point, and lists a number of linguistic felonies. The crime he calls “operators or verbal false limbs” is particularly juicy:

a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb … the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds … The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation.

For us songwriters, this can be taken as a reminder (I almost wrote “a timely reminder” then without thinking about it. How very relevant. ;o) to simplify our verbs, to use the active voice, and to embrace gerunds (ing words). We can hopefully feel proud never to have used the not un- formation in a song. Although I might give it a go. “You are a not undesirable lady” has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

Think for yourself: avoid ready-made phrases

The essay goes on to warn against “pretentious diction” and “meaningless words”, both worth avoiding in a song, before telling us that:

[M]odern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.

This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.

Written to describe the state of political speeches and wartime journalism, this quote also highlights a common problem in songwriting. How often do you use a phrase in your lyrics without thinking deeply about what it means? Or use an adjective with a noun because it sounds familiar? It’s easy to build Lego lyrics out of ready-made blocks, but it isn’t good. It doesn’t connect with the listener. And given the choice, it’s probably sound advice not to anaesthetise anyone’s brain.

The rules

And so we come to George Orwell’s Rules Of Songwriting (my title, not his ;o):

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Writing well is always good for the mind. As George said, “If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly”. I think the moral of this blog post is that sharpening our prose writing skills will help us become better communicators and therefore better songwriters.

If you have time, the original essay is absolutely worth reading. Do you know any other great writing about writing? Let me know in the comments.