Faced With A Deadline: How To Write A Few Quality Songs Quickly!
Oftentimes pro songwriters are faced with deadlines, usually when they’re either competing with other music publishing company songwriters to pitch songs to a certain artist by a specific date, or when they’re trying to fulfill their contractual obligations to complete “X” amount of songs by a specific date as staff songwriters.
Amateur songwriters sometimes also impose deadlines upon themselves or band members when they’ve committed themselves to writing and performing original songs for a variety of reasons.
So what can you do if you’re a songwriter who needs to come up with 3-5 killer songs with in the next couple of weeks?
Relax. You can do it. You just need a clear path and a little direction. Let me give you an example, and hopefully you can take something useful from the following experience I had:
Before I was signed to a staff songwriter deal at Warner/Chappell, I had just begun shopping for a songwriting deal, and through a mutual contact, I was able to get my foot in the door to Warner/Chappell Publishing Company. Yes-I was in la-la land! I couldn’t believe that on my first try I was going to meet the bigwig of Warner/Chappell.
I presented then-Vice President Ellen Moraskie and her associate Giuliana Fragala a demo consisting of 3 songs I thought were pretty darn good while my hands trembled. Both ladies apparently liked what they heard, and they instructed me to provide 3 more songs so they could hear what else I had to offer, and probably to see if I had any depth as a songwriter. After that meeting I think I drank 5 cups of water because of my mouth was so dry from the nervousness!
I was thinking, “They want to hear 3 more songs within these next two weeks?” How am I going to do that? I had just spent nearly a year trying to complete my first demo of 3 songs (I was a newbie back then), and now they wanted what seemed to be a miracle! Well, I convinced myself I could do it, and I did!! Instead of providing 3 songs, I provided 5!!!! Of course there were some duds, but I showcased the best two songs as the first two on the demo. I was signed to a staff songwriter deal within 3 days after that!!
The following simple but powerful method is the one I used to create songs while facing a two week deadline while still holding a full time job:
Day One – time spent: 3 hours
1. I made a conscious decision to come up with 5 song titles and from these, if I ended up with 3 songs in the end I would be happy. As it turned out, I created 8 song titles!!
2. I memorized the song titles for about an hour and wrote down the song titles on 8 separate sheets of paper in large letters so I could refer to them for the next step.
3. I began playing chord progressions on acoustic guitar by fiddling around in the 5 keys I love to play most; Key of G, C, D, E, and A, just to get the juices flowing and a feel for some new, original music. I tried to place the match the feel of the chord progressions and I decided to sleep on what I had created so far.
Day Two - Time spent: 3 hours
1. I continued playing chord progressions, but this time, I was really “feeling it” and began matching each song title to each chord progression, and constructing each song using verse-chorus song forms for the time being.
2. I systematically took one song at a time, until I felt I had the feel of each song, and a general idea of where I wanted to place the song hook/title of each song. I practiced each song for approximately 10 minutes, then wrote down the chords for each song above the song titles on the 8 different sheets of paper so I wouldn’t forget them!
After that, for the next few days, I started working on the rough draft of the lyrics one song at a time, and although some of the songs were easier than others to write, after a week I was left with 3 fairly complete songs, and 5 songs half-way done! How did I come up with melodies? I used a combination of melody first for some songs, lyrics first for others, and chords first for another few. Using this method, I found it to be the quickest way to write quality songs.
After the first week all songs were done in rough draft form. They were written on 8 different sheets of paper complete with the chord sequences written on the top of each page. I selected 5 of those eight songs and systematically practiced each song for 2-3 hours (one a day) starting on the next Monday and ending on a Friday. By working on a song a day, I was able to completely focus and acquaint myself well, with each new song.
By that Saturday, after two weeks of extremely hard work, I had 5 songs completed. I didn’t have time to record them, however, so on the next Tuesday, I was able to rattle off the 5 songs “live” in front of Moraskie and Fragala. They were impressed with the work ethic and the quality of the songs, even if I didn’t play some of them perfectly. And yes-I was still nervous!
I was signed, virtually on the spot!
A-ha! So that’s how you lot do it. As a lyricist, I have to wait until you guys have finished before I receive a melody and backing track. I then work differently. Most of the time, a melody already has a “story” to it. It can be strident, melancholic, cautiously hopeful, angry turning to positive, etc.
I then simply try and extract the story without breaking the pieces. It involves a lot of listening to the track, a lot of scribbling (pencil on paper) and a last polish on the word processor.
That’s how us lot do it.