Category Archives: songwriting

Boston trip

"Rob Roper", Boston, songwriting

I took a little vacation July 17-23 in Boston. I have some songwriter friends there that I met at the Lyons, Colorado Song School over the last few years. I had heard that Boston was a great city, with a great music scene, so I decided to go visit my friends there. Charlene DiCalogero was nice enough to offer me a place to stay, so I didn’t have to pay for lodging.

I played at The Lily Pad in Cambridge on Friday, July 18, along with Boston-area singer-writers Rob Mattson, Charlene DiCalogero and Tim Riordan. Charlene organized that show, and Tim and Rob helped with the publicity. It was a great little hall, and the crowd was small but appreciative. I used my handheld recorder, the Edirol R09, to record the show at the Lily Pad. I posted two of the songs on my myspace site, myspace.com/rroper, “Like a Child”, a song I wrote last Spring, and “The Screwup Song”.

I also played two open mics. Monday July 21, I played The Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, hosted by Tom Bianchi. What a great open mic! It’s a contest, with a $50 prize for the winner, selected by a judge appointed by Tom. You play two songs. Tom always has something positive to say about every performer, and jokes around between acts. Tom also insures that the sound is good. There were some very good songwriters there; the talent pool there is very large.

The next night I played the open mic at The Burren, a great Irish pub in Somerville. The front room is the bar, and the music room is in the rear. Here you got to play 4 songs, which is nice. (One reason I generally don’t like open mics is that I like to play for an hour. After two songs I’m just warming up!).

On Sunday night, July 20, I attended Charlene and Tim’s songwriter group, at the home of Chris and Esther (forgot their last names, dammit) in Reading. Great people. Earlier that day, we visited Charlene’s future home, a co-housing development on the outer edge of the metro area. And we went to Walden Pond. What a beautiful place; now I understand why Thoreau was so inspired.

Of course I walked around the old Boston and saw the Boston Common and the historical revolutionary war sites, and ate some good seafood. But it was mainly a music vacation. One afternoon Tim Riordan and I started writing a song. Tim came up with some cool chords and a lyrical theme, I wrote some lines, who knows if we’ll finish it. And I ran into Theresa Storch, another Boston songwriter whom I met at the Lyons Song School.

The only negative was that I came down with a cold the week before, and was suffering from that the whole trip. But all in all a good little vacation. I hope to get back there before too long.

-Rob

My songwriting room

hiking, songwriting


I get the impression that most songwriters just need a small room, a guitar, a pen and paper. I wish that was true for me. But I seem to get most of my ideas when I’m outside, and moving. I went hiking today in some mountains just outside of Denver. This photo is where I stopped for lunch. I bring my songwriting notebooks and handheld digital recorder with me. I’ll walk around and come up with lines, rhymes, melodies and such. I realized a few years ago that I’m an outdoors person; I’m happier when I’m outside, especially in the woods. I don’t know why.

Another new song, 1st draft

songwriting

Following up on my earlier blog, “The Songwriting Process is Weird”, I’ve written a 2nd and 3rd verse for the song. So here’s the first draft lyrics, I will post a rough cut on my myspace site, myspace.com/rroper, so you can hear the music.

No Title Yet
by Rob Roper 1st draft April 19, 2008

She took off for Biloxi, with a banjo on her back
and left me here in Denver, trying to understand
I heard thunder in the distance, but I never thought it’d rain
and now you say, you’ll be ok

Chorus
But try and explain that to my heart
It cries when it’s left out in the dark
Like a child, it wants to have its way
everyday, and feel no pain
(hey-hey-hey)

Well, I’ve got a friend, all she does is cry
’cause he won’t return her calls, and she don’t know why
She showed me the pictures, of that beach in Mexico
I tried to say, you’ll be ok, (but she said…)

Chorus
Try and explain that to my heart
It cries when it’s left out in the dark
Like a child, it wants to have its way
everyday, and feel no pain
(hey-hey-hey)

Most good things come to an end
That’s the way it’s always been
Just listen to your brain, it’s easy to explain
So what’s wrong? Just move on

Chorus
But try and explain that to your heart
It cries when it’s left out in the dark
Like a child, it wants to have its way
everyday, and feel no pain
(hey-hey-hey)

The Songwriting Process is Weird…

songwriting

…but I’m starting to accept that, and even like it.

You may have noticed I haven’t written any love/sex/relationship songs. Of course, that theme comprises probably 90% of all popular songs. That’s partly why I haven’t written any, I figure the world doesn’t need anymore of them. Why write the same songs that have already been written 1,000,000 times by 1,000,000 songwriters? But I have done some free-writing on various past relationships, and even started putting some lines together. I thought I should do at least one.

I was trying out some lines with different types of music, not finding anything that seemed to resonate well. I then put on a cd of my “library” of music ideas–stuff I’d come up with and recorded so I wouldn’t forget, sometimes years ago. One was on a mandolin. Upbeat, simple I-IV-V chords. I started to fast forward to the next idea, then hesitated. Hmmm… something about that. The girl in question was into bluegrass music… and maybe the music shouldn’t be slow, shouldn’t be minor key, the subject matter is dreary enough… let’s try it. So I grabbed my acoustic guitar instead of the mandolin. The music on the mandolin was in D. I replicated it on the guitar. Then I remembered seeing a songwriter friend of mine, Ed Skibbe, performing recently, and it seemed on 2/3 of his songs he used a partial 5-string capo on the 2nd fret, for a drop-D simulation in E. I had one of those laying around, hadn’t written a song that way before, so I slapped in on there. Bingo. That was it.

Once I had music that seemed right, what do you know? The lyrics started falling into place. Got a chorus–a good chorus too, if I do say so myself–and the first verse written. Some of my best stuff, I think. Here it is as it stands now:

Verse 1:
She took off for Biloxi
with a banjo on her back
And left me here in Denver
trying to understand
I heard the thunder in the distance
but I never thought it’d rain
And now you say
You’ll be ok

Chorus:
But try and explain that to my heart
It cries when it’s left out in the dark
Like a child, it wants to have it’s way
Everyday
And feel no pain
Hey hey hey

Now for the second verse. Another weird thing happened. I’d written all sorts of other lines about the girl in question. But something said to me: you’ve said enough. Talk about somebody else now. I thought of a friend, and started writing about one of his experiences. Then I ran into another friend, and decided her story was better. I’ll write that one for the 2nd verse.

Then I’ll have either a bridge or a third verse where I summarize the theme–talk about how illogical the “heart” is; how the “brain” can accept that something is over and move on, but the heart won’t listen. That’s the plan now, it could change. Hell, the first verse and chorus could get changed, too! Gotta keep an open mind…

Weird how this songwriting works. But now I say, “bring on the weirdness”.

Capturing Ideas: songwriting technology

capturing ideas, Edirol R09, songwriting, songwriting technology

Every songwriter knows that ideas–lyrics, melody and such–frequently come at times when you don’t have a guitar, pen and paper handly, much less a multitrack recorder. But if you don’t get them down, they’re long gone and forgotten.

For a few years I carried a mini-cassette recorder in the car with me, because, oddly enough, I would get ideas for lines or melodies while driving. Of course I have a notebook (or notebooks), for free-writing and such. That was good for capturing ideas, but if I wanted to record a demo, I’d have to setup the microphones and my multitrack recorder.

Last December I gave myself a Christmas present: an Edirol R09 handheld digital recorder. I highly recommend it. It’s easy to use, and the fidelity is great–of course, WAY better than a mini-cassette recorder or a boom box. In fact, the built-in microphones are good enough to record a concert. You can record to either .wav or directly to .mp3 files, then just transfer the files to your computer with a USB cable. I put two new songs that are in the first draft stage on my myspace site (myspace.com/rroper). I recorded them by simply setting the Edirol on the music stand next to the lyric sheet, and recording voice and guitar at the same time.

By the way, I’m not being paid to promote the Edirol R09. There are other similar products by Zoom, Tascam, Sony, etc. I can’t say if those are better or worse. I suspect they’re all pretty good.

Yesterday I got new cellphone, the Palm Centro. It has an application called “Voice Memo”. The fidelity is crappy, but I think it will be fine for capturing lyric ideas if I don’t have my Edirol with me.