For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that I wrote several songs last fall and winter. I’m now trying those songs out at gigs and open mics; taking them for a test drive, so to speak. And tweaking them a little, lyrically and (especially) musically.

At the time, I made a conscious decision to experiment both musically and lyrically. That is, I consciously decided to try new things and not worry about whether the songs would be any good, whether anyone would like them; or even whether I would even ever perform or record them. The idea was to try new songwriting techniques. These songs would be “lab experiments”.

A funny thing happened. These “experiments” turned out to be some of my best songs, according to several friends and fans. In fact, after posting the the song “Misfit” to my myspace demo site, I wrote that I would probably never record or perform it, because it was so unconventional. Several people go on me about that, asking why not? They thought it was one of my best songs.

Based on that experiment, I now posit the following hypotheses about songwriting:

1. The more you concern yourself with writing a “good” song, the less likely the song will be good. In fact, you probably will never even finish writing the song. The less you care how good the song will be, the more likely it will be good.

2. The more you worry about whether people will like the song you’re writing, the less people will like it. On the contrary, the less you care whether anybody will like it, the more likely people will like it. That’s because the song will be honest.

In summary: be playful and experimental, both musically and lyrically, have fun, be emotionally honest, and don’t worry whether the song will be good or if anyone will like it. I don’t know if this will work for other songwriters, but it worked for me.

-Rob

I only have one song written in a minor key (When They Go). I need to write more.

That’s all.

-rr

I now have enough songs I consider worthy of a full-scale album. I’m currently recording an EP, but it’s stripped-down– just acoustic guitar, violin and voice. What I’m talking about here is a full-sized record where I bring in other musicians to play and create arrangements for the songs. This could happen as early as next fall, but most likely will be done over the winter.

Step One is to select a producer– the person overall in charge of the project. In my case, I’m looking for the following:

1. Someone who likes my songs and is passionate about making this record. Sure, I could hire any number of experienced producers, but I don’t want someone who is just going through the motions because they’re getting paid.

2. A producer who is also a songwriter, who will challenge me to make the songs as best as they can be, both musically and lyrically. Someone who might even co-write a song or two with me for the record.

3. A producer who is a singer, who will work with me to help me sing the songs as best as I can.

4. Someone who will be creative about the arrangements, the instrumentation, and the selecting of the musicians who play on the record. I don’t want a generic-sounding singer-songwriter record, where you bring in studio musicians, go through the song once, give them a chart, and then they play generic, conservative parts. I want the musicians to listen to the songs several times before coming into the studio, try different things, take chances, be creative. I want a producer who knows these kind of musicians and has a pool of them to draw from.

As you can see from the above criteria, I’m looking for a *musical* producer as opposed to a *techical* producer. While some producers are also recording engineers, in my case they just have to know good recording engineers that they can hire (and good studios).

So the search begins. Ideally I’d find the right person in Colorado, but if I have to go elsewhere, so be it.

Here’s another new song I wrote in the DADGAD tuning. Been messing with DADGAD for over 2 years, finally got some songs to the 1st draft stage. A rough demo is on my demo site, myspace.com/robroperdemos.

Let’s Go to the Mountains
by Rob Roper 2nd draft December 8, 2008

Hey, girl, what’s up today?
I got an idea, now what you say?
Let’s go to the mountains

Yeah I know I slept ’til noon
But fall is here, and in full bloom
Let’s go to the mountains

(break)

The trees are turning yellow and red
So don’t be lame, don’t be dead
Let’s go to the mountains

Remember that place we went last year
We’ll sit on the deck and have a beer
Let’s go to the mountains

(break)

No, I didn’t go out last night
just played guitar and stayed at home,
How ’bout you?
No wait, I don’t wanna know

Yeah I know that we’re just friends
I won’t try to start it up again
(I promise)
Let’s go to the mountains

(break)

We don’t even have to talk
We’ll find a trail and take a walk
Let’s go to the mountains

So hang up the phone, jump in the shower
I’ll be at your house in half an hour
We’re going to the mountains