Live Q&A: When Should I Give Up? Playing Live & Finding Co-Writers

[00:06] he good day everyone Welcome to our very first live songwriter Q&A I'm so excited to do this for the first time a little bit nervous about the technology to be quite honest with you but um we'll see how it goes so I can see so many people

[00:19] joining us hey guys hey Jesse hi Lio um from all over the world I can see people from San Diego turkey Seattle people from San Diego turkey Seattle Washington so exciting um hey Miriam so

[00:35] Washington so exciting um hey Miriam so lovely to see you um and Benny is going lovely to see you um and Benny is going to be joining us on the chat so um he'll that come up that Benny can answer on the chat um he will do that um so let me

[00:50] just give you a little bit of a framework for how this is going to go little thumbs up if you can hear me and see me okay that will like fill me with is is working um so I have received a bunch of

[01:07] working um so I have received a bunch of questions about songwriting um some just technical songwriting questions some about sort of career as a songwriter so what I'm going to do is I am going to work through the questions that I

[01:22] received through our patreon community so our patreon community is a membership based um community of over 300 songwriters at at this point um where we do lots of things um one of the things we do is twice a month we have a live

[01:38] we do is twice a month we have a live song feedback session with Benny and I or Benny or I um where we get to hear your songs and give you some personal individualized feedback um so at some point um hopefully Benny will pop a link

[01:52] into the um the chat uh or if not I'll do that at some point at the end as well but you can check that out um great thanks Stevie and everyone letting me know that the technology is good so I'll be answering

[02:08] 30 minutes answering the patreon questions um I'll be here for about 60 minutes then what I'm going to do is spend 15 minutes answering a couple of questions that I received through the YouTube Community post um that I put up

[02:22] and then in the last 15 minutes I'll also answer some of your questions so if there are questions that come up as I'm going please feel free to them in the live chat if they're relevant to what I'm talking about or demonstrating in

[02:34] away if they're kind of tangential questions um I'll bookmark them and we'll come back to them at the end so that'll be at around 45 minutes we'll spend the last 10 or 15 minutes um doing that so um thanks Benny Benny's also

[02:49] chat if you're interested in checking that out so um let's dig into it so the very first question that I have is the should I give up question so the the

[03:03] full question it's not really about giving up songwriting this is the question this question comes from Shaman from our patreon community Shaman says when do I know I should give up on my current song and move to the next for

[03:16] example I've been working on a song for several weeks trying various different rhyme schemes chord choices Melodies versus chorus Etc as a result I'm feeling stuck on this song and I can't decide when I should stop spending time

[03:29] on this song or start writing a new one or is it okay to work on several songs at once great question and there's actually two questions in this question so one question is the last bit there is it okay to work on several songs at once

[03:44] and then the other question uh that I'm seeing here is really just about like an individual song being stuck on an individual song when to just give up on a song and and move on um and it's a really relatable question um let me

[03:57] answer the second question first because I think that it helps uh feed in to the first question a little bit um so that question is is it okay to work on several songs at once the answer to that question is

[04:11] unequivocally yes and and not only um is it okay to be working on several songs at once it's highly advisable to be working on several songs at once how many songs Look everyone has their own individual preferences I find it really

[04:26] helpful to be working on about three or four different songs at once seven or eight is a bit much I mean I'd only really be working on seven or eight songs or more if I were like in the um production phase of recording an album

[04:39] and I was kind of ringing all the songs together and you know tweaking them with that you know deadline coming up but in a general kind of ongoing sense three or good reasons to be working on multiple songs at once good creative reasons when

[04:54] we're working on one song um and kind of working on it you know there's a lot of working on it you know there's a lot of problem solv that happens in songs and um there's interesting kind of cognitive stuff that happens when we're in a

[05:06] problem solving modality when we're just intensely focused on one thing we really activate our prefrontal cortex I know this like neuro the Neuroscience of creativity but you know when we're actively problem solving we activate the

[05:20] prefrontal cortex which is one way of thinking but it's not all the ways of thinking and certainly when we're doing creative work we need to access different ways of problem Sol but when we're really stuck on something that's

[05:32] when this bit activates the prefrontal cortex when we get stuck it's often because that cognitive process has ceased to be sort of like functional for the problem we're trying to solve actually putting that song aside and

[05:47] working on something else it's funny you're like working on that song but you're actually problem solving the first song in a very like lateral way so prefrontal cortex or whatever other processes working on a different song

[06:02] but in actually kind of just removing ourself from that kind of mymic way of problem solving on something we feel stuck on we're kind of activating different neural networks that absolutely help us solve the problem in

[06:16] absolutely help us solve the problem in song A by working on song b so um it's really really helpful and I find three or four songs at a time is is really really useful the other thing that that does is it takes the pressure of any one

[06:28] song you know I think put so much pressure on every individual song to be um you know when you're working on multiple songs you just take the lid of that bit of pressure that can actually get in the way I think um of making true

[06:45] creative you know breakthroughs and and solving creative problems um in that way so um yes definitely work on multiple songs let me come to the other part of your question Shaman it is is what do you do

[07:00] when you're stuck on one song when that hasn't worked um and and really the should you give up on a song that you're stuck on um so when when talking about working on an individual song at the beginning of your songwriting journey

[07:14] and I would Define the beginning of your songwriting Journey as you know the first 50 to 100 songs that you write um I would be very cautious about giving up on songs because one thing you don't want to do is train yourself to to be an

[07:29] finisher the other way to say that is what you want to do in that kind of let's think of the first 50 to 100 songs as your like training phase almost as a songwriter you want to train yourself to be a finisher you know so on the one

[07:43] hand we're working on the songs themselves but on the other hand we're themselves but on the other hand we're working on ourselves as songwriters and building our tools our processes our methods our capacities and our

[07:56] confidence as songwriters and it's actually really important to build the kind of um muscular strength I mean that's just a metaphor but like muscular strength as a songwriter to know that you can finish a song even when you

[08:08] don't love it and it's actually by doing that like working out at the gym when you go to the gym and you work out your muscle groups that's not the point like the point of going to the gym is not to go to the gym the point of going to the

[08:20] gym is to make your body strong so that you are fit flexible and capable of in the everyday world right it means you're fast at running for the bus it means you can you know pick up your grandchildren when you're 75 you know

[08:34] it's it's everything else that's the point I mean maybe there is some like make the gym I'm thinking about this a lot at the moment because I've been going to the gym um so there are other reasons why we

[08:47] point coming back to songwriting we want to develop the skill set of finishing songs so um with that said you know in in the real world of songwriting I think about you know Benny and I very very recently did a sort of intensive weekend

[09:01] of songwriting and in that two or three days we worked on probably six or seven songs among those six or seven songs two or three of them are really good and they're worthwhile us continuing to work on there are other ones that didn't kind

[09:15] of like um spark the way the two or three does so those are the songs that have the question of like do we sit down and keep working on them or do we um give up on them and move on um when I really think about those songs part of

[09:29] really think about those songs part of my uh response is I think we just didn't I think a lot of them are worthwhile sitting down and and continuing on um and I do think that a lot of the time with songs

[09:42] you know if you're not I'm not like feeling it I'm not the spark didn't happen you give up too soon it's it's often when you just kind of work through that a little bit further and sit with a song um and keep working at it that

[09:55] creative breakthroughs can happen so don't give up too soon soon and I would certainly say in your training phase that actually finishing songs is a more important outcome than the quality of the song itself so let me let me also

[10:12] just give you some general tips on getting unstuck with a song um if you are feeling like you're stuck on a song um go outside go for a walk go for a run walk into a place of nature um doing sort of bilateral um phys IAL movement

[10:30] um and one where you actually increase the oxygenation to your brain um really really helps um it helps problem solve in a lot of different ways similar to what we were talking about before with working on other songs

[10:44] um another way that you can really work through a feeling of stuckness is to do through a feeling of stuckness is to do some immersive listening which is to say uh sit down and listen to some music you know listen to music both in the genre

[10:57] or style that you're working in I find that really helpful um and also just listening to other music that you love um in other styles and genres again it's that like approaching it laterally can really help so to me immersive listening

[11:13] impossible I find as a songwriter if I'm and for 30 minutes I'm listening to music it's almost impossible for me not to have ideas that helped me work on that song um so

[11:30] that's another tip um another tip a really practical tip for me um if I'm there and I'm like oh how do I how do I get this towards the end point a very

[11:42] useful tool is creating a song map now a song map can be a lyrical song map which understand uh where the story of the song is going to go and and often understanding that can really kind of help musical decisions as well so we

[11:57] have a video on the channel called the thumbnail is the songwriting formula um please check that out if you haven't already and maybe Benny um can find a link to that video and post it in the chat um that is really about song maps

[12:11] there's another video called the map method the thumbnail says the map method and that's also about song maps um a song map you know uh which we haven't made a video about yet but maybe we will in the future can also be like a

[12:24] structural song map so making a decision about song form can be really helpful to moving a song forward it's like seeing the song as a whole shape rather than it don't know what else it's going to be if you actually make a decision about song

[12:39] form with what you've got already that can help it can create a bucket I think of song form like a bucket you're you're you're you're giving yourself the bucket and then all you have to do is like fill the bucket with with the rest of the

[12:51] song So a song map a structural decision can really help always remembering that doesn't mean you're contractually obliged to stick to that um but I definitely find that often just making a decision helps the next decision get

[13:07] made it's like decision- making action creates action you know you make a decision and then the next decision becomes clear and when that decision whatever it was that your first decision was I know that sounds complex but it's

[13:20] on something and and it's almost this concept of putting limitations on your work you know actually imposing limitations can drive you towards the end point and it can help clarify you know it it's like sometimes we get stuck

[13:35] options we don't really know where this could go there's so many options of where it could go just making a few limiting decisions can help that Clarity emerge um so that's another one another huge tip for absolutely everyone uh at

[13:52] any stage of your songwriting life deadlines really help you know having a deadline that you're working towards is just one of the most powerful psychological motivators for getting work done um deadlines and

[14:09] know the best kind of accountability that I have found in my entire life is having a group of songwriters and we are we have songwriting projects you know we have a song uh prompt that we're working towards and we have a deadline that's

[14:22] either every week or every two weeks so that was extremely powerful for me when join songwriting groups um and that is the reason why Benny and I created songwriting groups that anyone can join so um uh registration is currently open

[14:39] for our next songwriting group the first songwriting group of 2024 that will songwriting group of 2024 that will start in uh on January 29th the deadline to join is January 27 um and Benny can post a link to the

[14:53] songwriting groups that is on our um website um those songwriting groups is they are eight weeks um I will send you a songwriting prompt every two weeks you are put with a group of no more than

[15:08] world and everyone writes a song to that prompt um and I have had so many people know just being a part of the songwriting group is kind of like the only reason why they um wrote the songs that they wrote and many people who had

[15:22] been writing three or four songs a year um writing you know in excess of 20 um writing you know in excess of 20 songs a year um so wow deadlines and accountability are are absolutely huge and thank you to those people who are

[15:36] and thank you to those people who are giving um other ideas uh in the chat and please if you have things that work for you um to unstick yourself from sticky songs uh please pop them in the chat that would be so so helpful to everyone

[15:50] there's just so much wisdom in the community of songwriters um you know I've got my ways of doing things um but other people will have other ideas too so thank you for that question Shaman um and I hope that was helpful to others

[16:04] question so I'm going to demonstrate a few things here so this question comes from Georgia in the patreon community Georgia says I'm struggling to make a pre corus distinctive something to build

[16:18] like a nice bridge to connect the two parts first and chorus are there any parts first and chorus are there any tips to overpass this block oh Georgia yes there are tips to overpass this block um I'm actually going to post a

[16:32] block um I'm actually going to post a link into the chat there um so that link that I've just put there to the YouTube channel is to a playlist of videos that we made a little while ago that's all about writing

[16:47] preuses um but I'm going to demonstrate a few things about pre- courses I I love talking about preuses I know they sing like why why they're like the the Lesser section of a song um but actually talking about pre

[17:00] choruses is actually a way to talk about big musical Concepts all the musical Concepts it's funny I just every time we talk about preuses it's actually

[17:12] the way to discuss principles of contrast principles of spotlighting ideas of tension and resolution so there are these much bigger principles of

[17:24] songwriting and composition that actually emerge out of a discussion of sweet little section called a preor so I really want to demonstrate it and I want to demonstrate it through example so what I'm going to do is play a little

[17:37] bit of um the Adele song Someone Like You and um the Adele song Someone Like You and and then what I'm going to do is discuss and then what I'm going to do is discuss some of the ideas both chord things that

[17:50] are happening and melodic things that are happening in the pre chourus that really help create a simmering tension that help create a simmering tension that allows the chorus to explode you know

[18:03] allows the emotionality that Peak emotional moment is really um Amplified because of the pre chorus and really to me that's why preor is actually so important because if it does its job right it is kind of serving up

[18:19] the chorus you know one thing to understand about the pre chorus is the pre chorus is not merely the bit before the chorus it's also not merely the bit that's a misunderstanding of the function of a pre chorus a pre chorus is

[18:35] function of a pre chorus a pre chorus is really the bit that creates tension before the chorus if it's not creating tension it's not doing its job you know tension it's not doing its job you know um or or you know look I I I have heard

[18:48] and both written songs where the pre chorus is sort of half doing that job to me that's a really good understanding of a precourse it creates t ention Adele snippet and I'll do my best to play it

[19:04] for you uh I don't want to sing too loud um and and then I'll discuss it okay so to sing half the verse um so that we can get into the preor all right so I heard

[19:16] get into the preor all right so I heard that you're settled now that you found a that you're settled now that you found a girl and you're happy now I heard that your dreams came true that

[19:34] she gave you I didn't give to you you I didn't give to you precour I man another Uninvited but couldn't stay away I couldn't fight it IOP you see my face and that youd be

[19:50] IOP you see my face and that youd be reminded for me it isn't Etc so then we go into the hi chorus okay so let me just talk quickly about

[20:05] chords because there are some important chord things that are happening in this song that are wonderful examples of the general principles of how your chord general principles of how your chord choices can help you write a pre

[20:20] chorus go back to the verse quickly the verse starts on the chord A verse starts on the chord A major key of A major so here is this big a major chord in the key of a major whenever we're inside a key major or

[20:35] minor there is one chord that is like the queen chord she rules it all she is universe and that chord is called the tonic which is to say if I'm in the key

[20:47] tonic which is to say if I'm in the key of A a major is the tonic she is Queen she is goddess the chords in the key they're not it's not a democracy of chords no it is a monarchy of chords there there's one Queen and every other

[20:59] chord is there to serve the queen chord so you know the chords are not all built so you know the chords are not all built equally Queen is the ruler of them all that means the a major chord in the K OFA is

[21:14] the home chord it's the chord of most stability right when I play other chords in the K of a right if I [Music] [Music] go and then I play a

[21:29] it's only by playing a that you feel any sense of resolution right so a is the mo chord of most stability the chord of most resolution this the the home chord

[21:41] it's the biggest chord think of it as the Sun at the center of a solar system every other chord in a key is there to create some kind of tension it creates some kind of Journey right so I start on home home in this

[21:59] song and then she kind of moves on this chord is moving us away from home and then I play the F minor this chord has is still away from home oh the

[22:11] D major chord I'm still away from home now I'm back at home now it comes back to that Central Point that home chord point of chord point of stability so then I go into the pre

[22:25] chorus and I want everyone and feel free to pop it in the chat to identify what cord is not present in identify what cord is not present in this pre chorus ready here we

[22:44] I see my face and be reminded that for me it isn't me it isn't over I played a major F minor D major

[22:56] like what cord is not there I am going to to preemptively say yes to everyone that is putting in thank you sopia Matt unup foric Angela Angela no yes you're

[23:10] mean there are actually about 45 chords that are not in that progression but in that are not in that progression but in the key of A we don't have a in that pre the key of A we don't have a in that pre chorus this is crucial because this is a

[23:23] chorus this is crucial because this is a tonal strategy this is not accidental this is not random chords trying their best to form random chords trying their best to form a chord uh sequence or rather to form a

[23:35] a chord uh sequence or rather to form a song form to create a pre chorus she is deliberately avoiding the tonic chord in the pre chorus because what's a pre- chorus it's the section that creates tension before

[23:48] the chorus what is one super effective way to create tension avoid anything that creates stability or resolution and one of the most stable resolved things

[24:00] you can do in any key is to play the tonic so she's avoiding the tonic we don't have that stable [Music]

[24:14] chord and then what is the first chord of the chorus you got it it's a it's the tonic that tonic of that moment is Amplified

[24:28] that tonic of that moment is Amplified by