Funny things can turn up on twitter.
For example, this little exchange:
@Fredfresh: “@RavenousRaven #Songwriting should be spontaneous and meaningful. No rules. Ensuring well crafted harmonies? Who are we impressing?”
@Tomslatter “You’re supposed to be impressing the listener.”
@Fredfresh: “If you write music to impress a listener you will never write good music. #allaboutsoul”
I don’t think it’s an overstatement if I call Fredfresh a deluded idiot, is it?
Apparently, to him writing with passion and writing with the listener in mind are mutually exclusive.
Or at least, considering what you write means you’re not writing ‘from the heart’.
I disagree completely – the whole point about songwriting is to compose music that takes the listener on an emotional journey.
Yes, writing with passion is important – our best work is that which we care about the most – but craft is not opposed to art, passion is not the opposite of thought.
So I don’t agree with Fredfresh on this, but he does have a really good singing voice. Here’s his myspace.
So who should you write for? Does the listener matter?
Related posts:
I always write for myself and maybe a few of me mates. I generally expect the rest of the world to hate what i do so if anyone else likes it its an bonus. I’m always amazed how many people like it.
Yeah, but with every piece of music you’re considering a listener, aren’t you? And doesn’t that affect the musical decisions you make?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gary Jugert and Wolfgang, Tom Slatter. Tom Slatter said: New #songwriting post: Who should you write for http://www.songwright.co.uk/?p=808 [...]
For me, it’s a balance. I’m the listener I care about most, with other people a close second. But that’s a long way from saying others don’t matter. In fact, few things make me feel better than a compliment on one of my songs. Speaking of… here’s a link to a YouTube video/song I created for my just-born twin girls. If you like it, please let me know!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hucOOIc4awY
There is no “the listener.” There are many listeners, and you can’t please them all.
So, you start with yourself. First you write something you like. Then you ask yourself if you would like it if somebody else had written it. If the answer is no, you make it better.
‘There is no ‘The Listener”
But I do have a listener in mind. I mean, I do write primarily for myself in terms of stylistic taste, but I do also imagine a listener – not one who has stylistic opinions, but one who responds to fixed ideas of pace, who has a tolerance for the length and self indulgence of guitar solos, who doesn’t want overly obvious lyrics, who needs to be suprised but not confused by chord choices.
Is there such thing as an idealised listener – are there musical ideas we all need to conform to to be good writers. Or can we just write whatever comes naturally and let whoever hears our music make sense of it after the fact?
I would not call fredfresh a “deluded idiot” at all. And I don’t think the problem lies in imagining a listener. fredfresh seems to not like your word choice of wanting to “impress” someone. I’d agree with him there.
I want to express myself and move the listener. But impress him, what for?
Songs that are aimed at impressing a listener usually sound just like that. I don’t see the point.
See what I mean?
No, the man’s a fool – it’s not just a question of semantics. From our conversation he clearly thought that worrying about the listener in any way was kind of selling out. He thinks that thinking about your songwriting – using craft at all – is dishonest and not what an artist should do.
He objects to well crafted melodies and thinks songwriting is entirely spontaneous.
It’s not just the semantics of whether we mean ‘impress’ or ‘move’ or ‘entertain’. He just doesn’t care what his songs sound like as long as he’s being spontaneous and expressing himself.
Which is foolish.
But he does have a good voice.
Oh, one of the believers of “rewriting is tampering with divine inspiration”. I blogged about that misconception recently http://rocknrill.tumblr.com/post/3032939472/writing-and-rewriting
My imagined listener, by the way, is always “me, the music fan”, not necessarily “me, the musician” – although I’ve never before put it that way and I don’t enjoy speaking of myself in the 3rd person.