1. When did you start writing songs? What kind of musical education have you had?

Cubinoid: I started writing songs when I was a kid – I had piano lessons when I was really young, then drum lessons, sax lessons, a few guitar lessons…weird thing was loads of musicians used to use the loft of our Victorian house in Clevedon for jamming, and they’d leave their instruments in our loft. I learnt loads by just being around all these great players and using their instruments whilst they were gone. My mum and dad had a keen interest in Jazz, and I used visit late night jazz sessions and sit in with the local jazz bands. After I left art college, I was going to go to Manchester Uni, but I went to London and joined a band instead. A few years later we had landed a record deal in Japan with the Polystar label, and I was writing and composing with the band (Boa) for the next eight years!

Tixia: It was shortly after I met Ben – initially I only wanted to write songs, and searched for someone to sing them – until one day someone heard me singing my own songs and said, “Why don’t you just sing them yourself?” So, I took some professional singing lessons from Celia Civiic and we started to get the band together from there.

2. If you had to pick one of your songs to show someone exactly what Moth is about, which one would you choose and why?

Cubinoid: My favourite song is the title track of the album “Children for a Day”. It’s got piano, autoharp, accordion, mandolin and a weird instrument called ‘Waves of Nightingales’. I guess the style of that song sums up what Moth are about – weird little acoustic trip hop songs with melodies. I like it ’cause Tixia wrote it for me!

Tixia: One song? There are so many… Probably “Tree Snow” because of the video (above) – we made an animated video last year and stuck it up on youtube.
Took ages to make because we made the robots ourselves and did all the animation.
It seems tales of artificial intelligence robots in a Victorian setting appeals to some people!

3. All songwriters steal from others. Which songwriters have you stolen from the most? Er, I mean ‘been influenced by’:-)

Cubinoid: Actually, this is the thing – our music is a reaction against that. There are very few artists that I actually like – I have a handful of CDs in my collection, and our music doesn’t sound like any of them at all, really. You might find traces of genres rather than artists, but we definitely don’t nick music ideas or structures if we can help it. We are looking to create something unique and different – and this is why our music has such limited appeal (laughs). It takes a very discerning ear to truly appreciate a Moth album. The select few who love our stuff say, “Whoa! That’s really different!” and buy all our tracks, but the white herd majority are like, “What? I don’t get it. Let’s put some Oasis on.”

Tixia: I get influenced mostly by films and sometimes write songs about situations or characters, or real life situations. Sometimes I’ll take a bit of dialogue from a film and mould it into a song, but I don’t steal others lyrics – I work hard at my writing, and just wouldn’t do that…although, I am aware that there are songwriters who have stolen my lyrics outright! But, you know, it happens. Imitation is said to be the best form of flattery.

4. Music or lyrics?

Cubinoid: What’s the question?

Tixia: I write all the lyrics. The melodies just seem to drop into my head, I sing them and then he puts the music to it – and we are really prolific. Last year we released five albums! Usually I hum a melody and you just write the music around it, don’t you?

Cubinoid: Yeah – she sings the melody into a dictaphone, and then writes the words around that. I’ll pick up a guitar, or sit at the piano and we work together and rough something out. When we are happy we can play it all the way through, we start to record it; one of the luxuries of owning a recording studio! I play a whole bunch of different instruments too, so that helps. When the song is finished, we compile it into an album and release it on http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/Moth

Tixia: Or on our weird little website that no-one seems to understand: It’s a bit like a video game – you have to click and find out how it works…

5. ‘What musical ideas (chords structure whatever) do you use too often?’

Cubinoid: Well, hopefully we don’t use any structures too often! All our songs tend to be uniquely crafted, although in terms of time signature, I am fond of writing in 4/4 time. Some of our songs are 6/8 and there are a few waltzes in there, and a few songs have quite odd time signatures with bars of 5/4 and 4/4 mixed together. Chord wise, I think there is a variation – particularly as I compose for orchestra – there are lots of instruments in a Moth song sometimes that create unusual chords and textures. There is an eastern scale that I am fond of, but it doesn’t feature too often…actually – I know a structure we use a lot – many of our songs are in a similar tempo – it seems to just feel right that way.

Tixia: Perhaps we write songs about real life situations too often? I don’t if that’s a bad thing necessarily though…but we do it a lot.

You can check out Moth’s music on their website.

This week I exchanged a few emails with a singer-songwriter named Shannon Hurley. She recently moved from LA to Nashville, and as a consequence her songwriting became less country.

I know, that sounds counterintuitive. I’ll let her explain:

Shannon: My songwriting changed in the most unexpected way. Instead of wanting to fit into the country genre, I went further out of the realm. I find that I quite like being the “indie-pop” songwriter in a city of country music. I am enjoying the experimentation of electronica, downtempo, chill-pop, etc. and blending them into my singer-songwriter world.

Tom: When and how did you start writing songs?

Shannon: I wrote my first song when I was about seven. It was called “Georgia Moonlight”. I remember exactly how it goes, and if someone paid me $1,000 then I will sing it. I even have the cassette tape I recorded it on..Maybe I’ll put it up on podcast for my own embarrassment

Tom: Music or lyrics?

Shannon: Both! They seem to happen for me at the same time. I often sit at my piano and start noodling around until a lyrical phrase and a melodic idea come together.

Tom: Have you got any tricks or tactics to come up with new songwriting ideas?

Shannon: Lately I have been enamored with bringing up different loops in Garageband. That’s the way “Life is Strange” (from my new project Lovers and Poets) started. A fresh groove is a great way to create a new song.
That particular loop I used in “Life is Strange” is just one of the basic “club” beats that comes with Garageband.

Tom: Your songs are very American, and very traditional. Are you ever tempted to go crazy and throw in five key changes then break into a 7/8 groove?

Shannon: Hmmm, probably not. I am not big into progressive meter changes or progressions that seem to go in random directions. I like simplicity, and all my favorite songs are easy to sing and play. The Kinks, The Who, Tom Petty, and The Beatles all had some great songs with only 3-4 chord changes. But who’s to say that I’ll never throw in an extra beat or an unpredictable chord? I will if the song calls for it. I’m just a slave to the song!

Tom: Personally I always over use certain chord progressions or keys – I have way too many songs in E lydian for example. Have you got any songwriting clichés you over use?

Shannon: I think every songwriter has little ticks and idiosynchrosies they rely on. Either you can fight it and try to go in entirely different direction, or you can use it to your advantage and it can become your “sound”. I don’t want to admit what I think is my weakness because that “weakness” may be what is drawing some listener into my music. But I know what I have to work with, and I am aware that my muscle memory is to play a certain way on the keyboard..but sometimes I will test my comfort zone and go off in a completely new songwriting direction.

Tom: The sample of Lovers and Poets sounds very different to your solo songs. What’s the idea behind this new project?

Shannon: I feel like my solo material is very personal and autobiographical. It’s also more organic with a full band sound. Lovers and Poets is more fanciful, and not based in reality. Instead, I chose to write about fictional situations or skewed the truth in some way to create alternate endings to things that have really happened to me. “Life is Strange” is a half-truth; I fell asleep at the wheel of my car in South Park, Colorado after playing keyboards for the band I was in at the time (called Jyemo). We had gotten through a sunrise set on the 4th of July. All I remember is listening to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, and then I was in the air, then the air bag inflated, shards of glass were everywhere, and I rolled a couple times in slow motion. I thought I was in heaven. Luckily I was unhurt (except for a case of shock) but it was the catalyst for the song. I heard Ralph Murphy speak here in Nashville, and he said there are no regrets in songwriting.

We can create our own truths, and things that didn’t happen, we can make them happen in our songs. So I thought, well, what if I wasn’t driving alone? What if I had a passenger..somebody I loved..and what if one of us died in the accident? And I wanted to be vague, like you can’t tell which of us had died. Or both. And I really wanted to tell a story of how fragile life is, how random life is.

Well shoot, I didn’t mean to end up on such a morbid note. On a more positive side, “The Things We Do for Love” is a song I wrote as a tribute to one of my favorite bands- Belle and Sebastian. So there, I hope readers feel warm and fuzzy now- I know B&S always does that for me!

Check out Shannon’s songs here!

PS. I’m always interested in interviewing songwriters about what makes them tick. Drop me an email if you want to talk about your songwriting at tomslattermusic AT gmail.com

One of the people who emailed in reply was Jeff Charreaux of the band Ultraviolet Eye. I took the opportunity to interview Jeff about his songwriting:

Tom: How did your songwriting career begin?

Jeff: As a teenager, when the main songwriter of my first punk band didn’t show up to a recording session for a compilation that was going to have the Dead Kennedys on it, we learned and recorded one of my songs.

Download Ultraviolet Eye – Before Sunrise

Tom: Your latest project is an album of Coming of Age tunes inspired by Ethan Hawk movies. How did you come up with that idea?

Jeff: In an art class, we explored brand identities of the things people use to decorate their personal environments—books, paintings, lighting, scents, background music and t.v. We studied the work of New York artist Jennifer Dalton and the Pitchfork semantics project: www.pitchformula.com We had to compile inventories of all our friends’ environmental ‘’ branding ‘’ products. The hard part of the assignment was finding some metonymy–what was a common thread? Ethan Hawke movies seemed to be on in the background more than any other thing that I cataloged. The theme in all of them seemed to be: don’t give in; don’t sell out; don’t compromise.

Tom: Personally, I think Coming of Age is one of the best concepts for an album I’ve heard in a long time. How has your songwriting reflected this concept, both lyrically and musically?

Jeff: I had to go back and watch the movies that had been in the background and take notes on how they expressed the concept of coming of age and holding onto your ideals. Sometimes the titles worked to inspire lyrics for the chorus (Gattaca, Before Sunrise). Sometimes they didn’t (Hamlet, Great Expectations). To get contrast between the verses and choruses, I took the most basic approach. On the choruses, I used less words, longer notes at a higher pitch than on the verses. Also, to have a sincere–instead of ironic or kitschy resonance–I started with the I IV and V chords in the chorus for nearly all of them. I tend to shy away from that because it’s hard to not sound vanilla or generic with such obvious chords. I used the pentatonic scale in the choruses to add some color.

Download Ultraviolet Eye – To Be or Not To Be

Tom: Every songwriter needs some music theory. How do you use your knowledge of rhythm and harmony in your songwriting? Is it in the back of your mind, or are you conscious of the theory behind your songwriting?

Jeff: Music theory is often in the front of my mind and can be a problem. Also, my favorite music is somewhat droning or repetitive like, electronic, Interpol, Eno, etc. Once my classical guitar teacher showed me how to play ‘’ How Soon Is Now ‘’, he said it sounded like a low-energy David Bowie. Anyway, after writing many angry punk rock songs, I had to work on finding out how to put contrast and interest into my chord progressions and melodies. I would get inspired mentally by an idea and lyrical possibilities, then try to communicate using word logic rather than emotions. Maybe that comes from being sent to Catholic school.

Tom: I’m currently writing a series of articles on the question ‘what makes a good riff?’ How would you answer that question?

Jeff: A good riff gets stuck in your head and makes people want to play it–even if you don’t play guitar at all! Like ‘ Smoke on the Water ‘, ‘ Iron Man ‘ or ‘ Enter Sandman ’. As simple as a nursery rhyme, but not in a major scale. Anyone with young nephews can attest to this!

You can find out more about Ultrviolet Eye at: www.lowartmusic.com

You can find them on CDbaby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/UltravioletEye1

What’s that?

The Fawm challenge is to write 14 songs during the month of February, and (if you want to) post your lyrics and recordings on the Fawm website.

Fawm.org also allows you to hear what other people have been writing, and the forums and comments are an amazingly constructive and encouraging experience.

In short, Fawm does wonders for your songwriting, whether you manage to complete all 14 songs or not.

It’s a challenge, but it’s great fun!

Still need convincing?

I asked some of the people I’ve met through Fawm.org to shed some light on the experience.

Erik Didriksen says ‘February is otherwise a dreary, dreary month — it’s frigid and snowy out, and baseball season is still two months away.’

(I’m a little bemused by this – as an Englishman I know that baseball is really called ’rounders’ and only played by school girls. I don’t see how this might interest Erik.)

More seriously, for Erik the forums have allowed him to meet other songwriters:

‘I have a little group of friends that I’ve made who are fantastic people, and are tremendous sources of support and inspiration. It’s really neat, because it works cyclically — I get to offer them my two cents, and they offer me theirs, and we all improve and get inspired together.’

I’ve had a similar experience – the supportive comments from people I’ve never met who’ve liked my songs, and the inspiration of having a deadline to meet, have done wonders for my songwriting abilities.

What if I fail?

You won’t. Fawm isn’t monitored or marked – it’s up to you how you measure success. I’d say getting even one song written that you otherwise would not is a major success.

If you’re still unsure, here’s a great list of tips to help you out over the month of February, courtesy of Evin Wolverton. (I also heartily recommend Evin’s podcast ‘Colors of the Ghost‘. Even if he can’t spell ‘colours’)

Hide a pen in the pocket of every jacket you own.
Keep inscribables on your person at all times.
Get a portable voice recorder and aggressively befriend it.
Find a quiet or private space to call your own.
Gather each unused title, tailless phrase, and rickety stanza from your mental attic, and take inventory.
Sweep every melody from under the bed and suck it onto tape.
Keep these things safe and organized.
Get silent, get still.

Notice all the things that task your attention:
Turn off all screens and speakers.
Find a phone that won’t ring.
Turn off the lights.
Acknowledge that part of you is thinking ‘I can’t,’ and turn that off too.
Look through your lists, your thoughts, and your fingers to find an idea that wants more.
Follow it all the way down.

Wake without the radio.
Walk without the walkman.
Underindulge, overinterpret, and break the pattern of numb routine.
Start conversations, overhear conversations.
Get lost in your home town.
Eat foods you don’t recognize.
Ask the questions you’ve kept hidden.
And no matter how incongruous or repetitive your instincts seem,
When they call, answer.

Erik Didriksen originally began his songwriting career writing awful minute-long compositions in a demo version of Fruity Loops. The first song he wrote worth listening to was written about a year later about a girl who, to this day, can’t stand him. (If she ever heard it, her opinion might change.)

You might think from this humorous intro that he doesn’t take songwriting seriously. You’d be wrong to think so however, as he’s a great songwriter with a particular talent for loop-based arranging.

His is the final 50/90 interview I’ll be doing this year:

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?
Obviously not; regrettably, I only wrote sixteen songs over the course of 50/90.  I’m a huge believer in FAWM’s unofficial slogan — “You can’t wait for inspiration.  You have to go after it with a club.”  (It’s actually taped up on my wall.)  That said, I think there’s a pretty significant gap between idly waiting for the muse and lacking all motivation.  For whatever reason, I got that vibe near the end of the challenge, and it really devastated any and all chances of me ending up with fifty songs.

To some degree, I do have a system for these things, though — without it I would’ve never come close to finishing FAWM, which I did this past year.  When I was in high school, I read somewhere in high school that Kurt Cobain would write in his notebooks late at night, just before he went to bed, when he was really tired — at that point, your brain becomes more prone to free association because it’s sort of misfiring in exhaustion.  I took that idea up at some point — so now I randomly will write late at night little quasi-lyrical scraps that I can come back to and use once I’ve polished them up a bit.

There’s a film called “Drive Well, Sleep Carefully” about Death Cab for Cutie on their Transatlanticism tour, which has a lot of interviews interspersed.  At one point Ben Gibbard makes a great little comment about his songwriting.  I’m paraphrasing here, but he says something to the effect that, fairly often, he uses songwriting as a way to document what is going on in his life, and that the resulting songs are much more beautiful ways to remember certain events and people than simply by memory alone.  I think going back and revisiting those little scraps of memory that I accrue fit into that nicely — I document a bunch of little triumphs and miseries and then make them far more beautiful than I ever could have just remembering it.

I would say the first two songs I did for 50/90 this year, “Dandelions” and “Fireflies (We Only Come Out at Night)” are my biggest successes.

Before 50/90, I was trying to lay out all the songs I had written to that point into a cohesive sort of album, and thought I didn’t have anything that would work to start out an album.  I started out 50/90 trying to fix that, and I think “Dandelions” works that way.  It seems totally arbitrary, but that was a goal of mine in writing that.  It also has a lot more chromaticism than I normally include in a song; it starts out in a nice diatonic E major, and incrementally adds dissonance.  That works very nicely with the lyrics, I think; they sort of outline this nice pastoral scene until slowly the revelation is made that something’s wrong here.  I’m pretty proud of the lyrics, too; I think the feeling is well set.

Download Dandelions

“Fireflies (We Only Come Out at Night)” has a lot of the same successes; I’m exceptionally proud of the lyrics — I don’t think they sound forced, but the rhyme scheme is really thick — ABABCBDDBB.  It’s also non-diatonic, to some degree — it’s based around the Lydian mode.  I think one of the things I like about this song in particular, though, is its semi-ficticious nature.  I tend to document real events that happen to me in my songwriting; and while “Fireflies” definitely sprung out of a mood that I was feeling at the time, there’s a pretty oblique narrative of going out and seeing someone on the sly that never happened.

Download Fireflies (They only come out at Night)

3. Music or lyrics?
That’s a pretty broad question…  In terms of my songwriting, I’ll generally start with a lyrical concept in mind — like something out of one of my notebooks — and I’ll start writing music trying to capture that mood.  The lyrics will get worked out to fit whatever melodies I come up with later on.  That’s just a general overview of my working pattern; and it’s mostly a matter of building a strong foundation in my weakest area.  Lyrics, for whatever reason, seem to come to me a lot easier than music does.  So if I take my weaker side and build something strong, then the song will probably come out stronger on the whole.

As a question of my preference listening to someone else’s work… it depends on context.  I don’t need a great set of lyrics for a song I’m going to dance to — but if there is a great set of lyrics, then the song is that much better.  Similarly, if the focus of the song is around the lyrics, the music might not matter so much — but if it’s great music, then you’ve got a killer song.

There are a lot of little musical patterns I’ve noticed over a bunch of songs.  A couple of chord progressions seem to get used a lot on my part — the classic Motown I-iv-IV-V, for instance, appears in my catalogue a couple of times; I-IV appears a bunch of times as the main progression in a song.  Additionally, someone pointed out to me how similar two of my songs sounded — one being i-III-VI (or, analyzing it in its relative major, iv-I-IV) and the other being I-iv-IV.  I was a little embarassed about it; and then became truly embarassed when I did a little analysis on one of my favorite songs to discover that it, too, was a I-iv-IV.  I know the saying is “Good composers borrow, great composers steal,” but if I’m going to do it, I’d like to at least know I’m doing it!

Metrically, I tend to write a lot in some form of triple meter; I really think that’s Ben Gibbard’s fault, a lot of early Death Cab is in 6/8 or 3/4 and I really dig on a lot of that stuff.  You can draw a lot of parallels between songs like “Postcards” and “Song for Kelly Huckaby.”  I try to play around with weird metrical things, too — that’s a big part of my Sufjan Stevens and John Lennon influences.  I was unduly proud of a little metrical hitch in “Father Christmas” from 50/90; there’s a measure of 15/16 in the middle of the song — it actually sounded totally wrong in 4/4, and the 15/16 actually serves as an aural correction!

As for lyrical cliches, I can’t think of any offhand that I subscribe to.  I think it might be an interesting little excercise to see how many times I use certain words in my songs and sift through the common ones (I, you, my, the, etc.) and see if I’m particularly prone to using some bizarre word in my songwriting.

There’s that element of ‘practice, practice, practice’ to 5090/FAWM, but I think more importantly than just practicing is that you’re doing so much of it at a time, you’re trying not to bore yourself.  If you’re only writing a song every half-year, you aren’t hearing yourself produce the same thing each time if that’s what you happen to be doing.  If you’re putting a song out every day or two, you start to hear some of your own tendencies and try to veer away from them when they start sounding cliche to your ears.  And the tendencies that remain — the ones really buried underneath the surface — those sort of emerge as your distinct sound.

I think the other element that makes these challenges so successful in helping you “grow up” as a songwriter is the interactivity.  I’m not just writing a slew of songs; I’m writing a bunch of songs and finding out what I’m doing that works as well as what doesn’t work.  Furthermore, you meet really cool people and start working with them — I’ve been approached by a couple of people for some production help; and I’ve also gotten to collaborate with a few people as well — both of which are incredibly exciting for me.  In the end, I’m not just making music, I’m making friends too.

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?

I sure didn’t, and it shows. I finished [drumroll!] 4 songs in 90 days. Compare that to this year’s FAWM (February is Album Writing Month), where I wrote 14 in 28 days. It’s a tough pace to keep, and I just didn’t have the lifestyle stability during these months to even set it.

For the upcoming FAWM, and for the next 50/90, I’ll return to my winning formula: a song every two days. I have to practice in seclusion for three to four hours a day. Gold or garbage, songs will be born.

2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?

Download The Bedlam Bash.

The structure, arrangement, and overall tone of it feel very synced with each other. It was the first time I’d truly embraced both low fidelity and that ‘first thought, best thought’ mantra. Having produced something so organic overnight was uniquely invigorating. And, more importantly, people seem to like it.

3. Music or lyrics?

Music first, invariably. Whether it be melody, meter or rhythm, the music always informs the lyric. Even if I have the ‘what’ of a lyric concept, I can’t approach the ‘how’ without guidance. It mystifies me to know that there are those for whom the opposite is true.

4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?

I have a tendency to turn song titles into punchlines, and I always indulge the relative minor or major of whatever key I’m writing in. I use the element of fire too often. These are more patterns than clichés. If anything, it’s that I spend far more time thinking about the writing than actually doing it.

5. How have you developed as a songwriter through this challenge?

I don’t think a soul exists who isn’t somehow changed with every song he or she writes. Measuring how is the tough part, and it isn’t really up to me to evaluate my development but to demonstrate it. Maybe I’ve expanded my palette a bit. I’ve certainly learned a thing or two about my intentions and anxieties in the writing process – how easily I paralyze myself.

If there’s one thing I’ve embodied during this challenge, it’s this quote from Thelonious Monk:

“A genius is the one most like himself.”

Empowering words to someone who riffs the day away in his underwear.

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?

Not really. Originally, I intended to do an album in a day early on, and then another one together with my friend Andy Dwyer (levitator), but neither of those happened. Then when Tim did his second pigfeast, and Nancy did her adventures in jazz, that encouraged me to try the same, hence “Lentilfeast”.

In the meantime, various other challenges had been set up, so I was partaking in random collaborations and reciprocal challenges, and then there were mini-challenges happening in the hypnopaedia chatroom that Mal had set up. The new genre of “Exquisite Corpse” song helped to up my song count a lot.

I ended up doing 2 “collabfeasts” where I spend a whole day co-writing with another 50/90er – once with Nancy Rost and once with Hoopshank. They were very different experiences. Nancy and I had an ocean between us, and a grand plan for how we were going to approach our songwriting, which we stuck to fairly faithfully. Hoopshank came to my house, we had no plan, just a couple of guitars and far too much cider.

All in all, I think that, while I didn’t have a system, I was helped through 50/90 by random challenges, which I did pretty much all of, and collaborations.

2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?

Hard to pick one song. I’m very proud of “Witching Hour” which was a collaboration I wrote with Swampjaw McLaughlin. It was the first set of lyrics I’d written without music, and I think they came out pretty well.

I really love “Middle of the World”, which was a really tough song to record.

Download Middle of the World

I used a synth emulator, but I didn’t have any way to record it, other than to plug a jack lead from the headphone port to the microphone port of my computer, so I could hear neither what I was playing, nor the backing track. I just had to guess, and then manipulate it once it was recorded. I then sent the backing to Nancy, who did some vocals, and then we added some aeroplane noises and some people speaking in foreign languages. To get the foreign speech, I recorded a skype call with Nancy, Hoopshank and Dan Wallbank, and we all said the odd phrase in any languages we knew. That was then put in as background sounds. I think that song was definitely the hardest to produce.

For a song that is more typical of what I write, I think I’d say “Pride”. It’s very simple, but I think it works well and gets its point across.

3. Music or lyrics?

I’m not really much of a lyricist, so when I write lyrics I like, I’m generally very proud of them, but really, it’s the music for me.

4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?

I tend to use very simple chords and rhythms on the guitar, but I don’t think I really go with cliches much. Maybe I do. I sing “Oh” at the beginning or end of lines a lot. Does that count?

5. How have you developed as a songwriter through this challenge?

I’ve learned a lot about recording and mixing. Also, my instrumental skills have improved. This all has made it easier to make the sounds I want to, which then has expanded my songwriting horizons a fair bit. Sometimes you need to know how you can do something before it occurs to you to try it.

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?
 
To be honest, I really didn’t. At the beginning of the challenge, I had my doubts I was going to make it to 50 songs at all. But after awhile, I found myself getting into a rhythm. Then I saw people crossing the finish line and my competitive nature kicked in. The biggest trick for me was “feasting” – sitting down and writing several songs at a time. It also didn’t hurt that I have a fantastic group of friends, both within the 50/90 community and outside of it, who were eagerly watching my progress and encouraging me to keep going.

Another trick is to take part in challenges. I did 2 reciprocation challenges – a song about cutting my own hair for Helen’s Evil Twin ($49.50) and a song about paranoia for Nancy Rost (It Makes Me Wonder Why People Go Anywhere).

I also did some collaborations, notably with Helen’s Evil Twin, Nancy Rost, Meg, Stephen Wordsmith and John Crossman. The more you interact with other songwriters, the easier it is to pick up on their momentum and get further than you thought you would. I may not have made it to 50 quite as fast if I hadn’t been determined to beat Helen to the finish line (she may have written more songs but I got to 50 before her!)
 
2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?
 
“Song For Shane” is definitely the most important thing I wrote during 50/90. Shane was a very good friend of mine who committed suicide in May, during what was already an extremely difficult period for me. Writing this song helped me deal with all the emotions that come into play when you lose someone tragically – guilt, nostalgia and an overwhelming sense of loss. At the same time, though, I wanted to honour his memory and infuse a little something of him in there – bits and pieces I remember about him that are still all too clear in my mind. I like to think that I’ve managed to create something meaningful out of a situation that I still don’t understand properly. I’m not going to claim that this is the finest piece of songwriting ever written but it meant a lot to me and to others who knew him, so in that respect, “Song For Shane” is my biggest success of 50/90.
 
3. Music or lyrics?
 
When I’m writing, melody and lyrics tend to come together for me and it’s then my job to “find” the accompaniment. For me, it’s the combination of the two. Lyrics might be pretty in themselves but sometimes it’s the melody that they’re sung to that makes them all that more magical. It’s hard to say which one I like best – I am a very lyrical writer, mostly because I talk far too much for my own good, but I’ve been a singer longer than I’ve been a songwriter so music is definitely important.
 
4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?
 
If you can count the continual recurring theme of unrequited love as a songwriting cliché, then sure. I have steered away from this theme as of late and am trying to widen my horizons just a tad! I also don’t use the most varied chord progressions in the world, if I am to be brutally honest with myself.

The best thing about 50/90 is that it’s okay if you write 15 songs with the same chord progression, that’s not what’s important. It’s about letting your creative side come out and play for awhile. You can do the same thing over and over again until one day you stumble across something that is quite fantastic – some way to make the cliché work.
 
5. How have you developed as a songwriter during this challenge?
 
There has been so much I’ve learned through 50/90. The first and most important has to be that music is to be shared. For years my songwriting was intensely personal and I wouldn’t share it with anyone. As I’ve taken part in challenges like 50/90 and FAWM, I’ve been more willing to share my music with friends and family in my local area and have since started performing locally on a pretty regular basis.

This years 50/90 was especially good for me, simply due to the fact that there was so much going on in my life that I was finding hard to deal with. Songwriting means so much to me and during a difficult time, it has kept me going. It’s been a welcome distraction as well as a way to express myself. Having other people listen to my music and relate has made me realise that I’m not alone and that has meant a lot to me. 50/90 is an amazing community and it really cracks me up that I have friends all over the world who share my passion for songwriting – I’ve written songs with Americans, Canadians and Brits, not to mention my fellow Kiwis!

This 50/90 I have also had the privilege of bringing my very talented friends into the fold, notably the incomparable Stephen Wordsmith, who I’ve had the pleasure of watching grow as a songwriter throughout 50/90. Through this whole challenge, as much as you get out of it as a songwriter, the best part is the interaction with other songwriters – that’s the heart of 50/90, as far as I’m concerned!

This one is with the lovely Mike Skliar

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?

Not exactly. I had completed two FAWM challenges (14 songs in 28 days) the last two years, and started 50/90 (my first!) with the idea that I doubted I would get to 50, but I’d try to write as often as I could. I had a few songs arrive in the first week, and then decided that I’d try to be a little more serious and try to get x number of songs written in the first two weeks, etc.

I knew that most of August I’d be busy with relatives visiting from out of town, so when I got back to it in September, I was fairly far behind. If it hadn’t been for the 2008 presidential election, which I’ve been avidly following, I don’t think I would have finished it.. having the election gave me a good source of song material if all else failed. I ended up writing only a fraction of the songs “about” politics, but it was a useful thing to fall back on.

Later in the 50/90 process I hit upon the “2 song idea”- whenever possible, if I was able to write a song, I’d try to schedule some time to try to write a second one right after.. sometimes it’d be a reaction to the first one, going to a different genre, or working method, sometimes not. I found that sometimes I couldn’t write one song, but when I could write , many times I could write 2 songs in one session, and somehow the frustration of one would feed the other, or something. I’m not exactly sure how that worked, but it seemed to work a good part of the time.

Near the end, to get over that “I need ten songs in 5 days’ feeling, I just used the time-honored 50/90 method of lowering my standards on what constituted a ‘song’! Ended up somehow with 53 songs, all but one or two I’ve recorded basic demos for.

2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?

The first one that comes to mind was “Song for George Carlin” I had been a fan of his since seeing him way back in the 70’s, live, and when he died suddenly this summer I realized I had a lot to say about him. Plus it gave me license to review all the old comedy routines that I loved so much. The song came together very quickly, which is at least sometimes a good sign. I also got to use a new instrument, a baritone Tricone National resonator guitar, which inspired a few songs, in fact. My demo for this songs for 50/90 is fairly simple, I’ve added things to the recording since then and it will be part of the new album I’m currently working on. (As will the song “The meaning of life” also from this year’s 50/90)

I didn’t do a lot of collaboration for this challenge, but one that I did do, with “Swampjaw McLaughlin”, turned out to be one of the most fun co-writing experiences I’ve ever had. We had each written separate songs extolling the virtues of New York City (me) and Los Angeles (him), and had joked that what united us was the fact that we both thought that Chicago was, to put it charitably, not so hot. We ended up writing and recording “Chicago” which turned out to be huge fun.

Some of the topical songs also felt like they wrote themselves, “A bridge to nowhere” about Sarah Palin, comes to mind, as does “How bad does it have to get” -for which I recorded a video on youtube that you can find here.

Finally, a song I wrote after a friends’ wife died (“Funeral for a friends’ wife”) was a song that did what I wanted it to do—which was simply put my feelings into words and music, just for that moment, and just for myself, really. I probably won’t revisit that song but it helped put some feelings in order at the time, perhaps.

3. Music or lyrics?

Both, please. Seriously, if the question is ‘what do I start with first’, the answer is ‘depends on the song’. Probably two thirds of the time, I have a lyrical idea or a subject in mind and might have a line or two, then start writing some music that seems to let the lyrics flow, and continue writing lyrics when I have a more firm musical foundation. I sometimes try to write lyrics first or music first, but most of the time it comes more or less together. Probably more lyric-driven for me then the other way around, but not a hard and fast rule by any means. And the lyrics are almost always harder to write to my satisfaction, although I’d still love to write some melodies as great as Richard Rogers, Cole Porter, Lennon & McCartney, etc etc etc.

4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?

Probably. (Listen for yourself and let me know!) I might be too close to it to give a good answer to that, however. I’ve probably written over 200 songs over the years, and there’s bound to be things that repeat in there somewhere. I probably get too locked into the genres I feel most comfortable in, which in my case are those blues-country-folk-rock kind of things. Lately, however, I’ve tried to incorporate more jazzier harmonic progressions and while some of them might be clichés, I don’t feel that I’ve personally overused them quite yet.

5. How have you developed as a songwriter through this challenge?

Good question. Hopefully, I’ve gotten better, both in terms of quality and quantity. I feel like I can get myself in that ‘songwriting place’ easier now then I could have before. I continue to feel gratified and awed by all the great talent from all over the world that turns up for these songwriting challenges. That ‘instant’ feedback is addicting, too and I sometimes wish I had it all year around, although it’d be hard to sustain the kind of creative involvement that 50/90 requires over a whole year. It’s a great community, and I feel lucky to have been able to take part! It’s also given me a few more songs for this album I’ve been working on at various parts through the year… hopefully it’ll be all finished by the end of 2008, or maybe Jan or Feb 2009 at the latest.

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Find Mike on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/mikeskliar

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?

My system was pretty simple: work, work, work. I took any and every experience I possibly could and turned it into lyrics during every spare moment – some of my best ideas happened during my time in the hospital for iron transfusions. That illness actually helped me a lot – I couldn’t work at a summer job, so I had a lot of spare time, and plenty of anguish to work with. While one can definitely write songs while happy, the angsty songs are the ones that come easiest, in my experience.

It all went downhill after I’d been hanging around Chat Hypnopaedia too long and started spending a lot of time chatting with all the wonderful 50/90 folks there, but I don’t regret it for a second. I ended up with 110 songs and a pile of great new friends from around the world.

2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?

My biggest success was definitely “Pants”. It was written fairly early on in the game, while in a hospital waiting room, but the concept had been banging around in my head for about two months by that point.

Download Pants

It’s basically a message to all the guys, creepy or otherwise, who won’t take “no” for an answer. If a girl says she wants to be just friends, just be her friend and be happy you can share in her company. Don’t try to “win her over” or flirt with her. If that was what she wanted, she’d have asked for it.
I’d had all those thoughts for a while, thanks to so many repeats of this going on in my life, but every time I tried to write a song to express them, it would all get muddled and come out sounding just plain bitchy. Because songs tend to come out really quickly for me, I was convinced I’d be stuck with this great idea but only crappy songs. And then one day, BAM! I created something that was fun, and funny, but still sassy enough to get my point across.

I was also really proud of it because it was one of the first songs I recorded, if not THE first, and the first using my ukelele. It’s a bit distorted in parts, but I’m pretty impressed with myself considering how lo-fi of a demo it was, and the fact that I only played one chord over and over and despite all that, it still sounds decent.

I’m fond of some other songs, too. “Far too Far” was really difficult to write, but I’m so proud of the lyrics. Billy Sea recorded this and did a beautiful job with it. “Tiresome” was a collaboration with my dear friend somos (he played guitar and wrote the melody, I provided the lyrics and vocals). It was the first song I ever mixed, plus the lyrics are really interesting to me. “Dear Doctor” was the most successful of my experiments with vocal samples and premade loops on GarageBand. “Porcelain Garden” – I’m so fond of the title metaphor. I’d really like to record this someday. “Villain” got an amazing demo courtesy of Hoopshank, Dan Wallbank, and Marie Marzzarella, who does a fantastic job of belting out the lyrics. I could go on… there’s a few more that I quite like.

3. Music or lyrics?

I love them both. I feel like I’m a pretty good lyricist, but not much of a musician. I really envy musicians, because I feel like lyrics are so much easier. Anybody can write words, but playing a guitar well takes some serious skill and dedication. Lyrics are something that you can just spew out but music takes years to perfect. That image of striving to be better really strikes a chord with me. There’s only so much you can do to make your lyrics better, but that’s all abstract. Music is concrete: learn new chords or a different technique or a new instrument.

4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?

Well, there’s my bad habit of using only a handful of chords, just with different strum patterns. I’m not advanced enough for fingerpicking yet.
As for lyrics, there’s a certain phrase I’ve used a few times, but I can’t think of what it is offhand. I hate re-using rhymes, but I do it, because I try to use pure rhymes most of the time, though I’m been moving away from that habit.

5. How have you developed as a songwriter through this challenge?

I’ve only been writing songs since May, so nearly all of my songwriting development has taken place during 50/90.

I learned how to carve out time to write songs and to really express myself through song. I’ve learned that a rhyme doesn’t have to be pure to be valid – “time” and “wine” are close enough – because sometimes the story is more important.

I’ve also tried to do things that don’t rhyme at all and things that don’t always have conventional structure. I started off with a lot of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus stuff, but now I’ve done songs that are one big verse, or several verses and maybe two choruses or a bridge, or songs where the chorus only shows up once.

The biggest development, though, would be my change from just a lyricist into an aspiring musician and okay singer. I’m glad I did some a capella stuff, because it taught me a lot, but I’m even gladder I’ve picked up the ukelele and the guitar. I can blame my fellow musicians for that one – they were all very encouraging when I started talking about getting into recording and into playing instruments. I have a lot to thank the 50/90 community for – probably more than I could ever say.