Quote:

Well, Ike

I think you should look into the various ways that successful pro songwriters do their thing day in and day out also. You may just find that it is a lot different from the ways that the amateur songwriters come up with. Not that either is wrong or anything like that. The pros typically are tasked with coming up with product X by end of time Y and that's the bottom line. Nashville pro songwriters that work for publishing houses are but one example of this. There are books on the subject to be found, in which these pros are interviewed, their methods at least outlined if not fully described, etc.

They have even developed a terminology for their methods, too.

*"Ghosting" a song.

*Collaboration

*"Forced" Collaboration

Are but three of those methods.

These are people who have managed to keep their artistic viewpoint but have also learned how to focus it much finer, the point where art meets science, if you will.


--Mac



I guess to me, that's what's so special about the guy or gal who, just one day sets down and pencils this thing ... maybe it get's folded and put into a sock drawer somewhere, maybe it ended up in a box in grandpa's attic. Point is, one day someone comes along (looking for something new / fresh / non-cookie-cutter), the next thing you know ... a smash hit! I'm wondering if in these days of instant gratification over a song or songs that we write using a computerized program, that somehow that charm has been lost. We know that there are only so many chord progressions to be had, so many poems or catch phrases to be written about and I'm wondering if the number of songs that can be written and accepted by our ears isn't also a finite number -- based on a finite number of progressions and poetry (kinda complex way of thinking, but add in the technology which gives the non-musical-eared person the ability to produce music at the push of a button and then I wonder if there's anything left that's unique out there). I'm not anti-technology. I'm certainly anti-BIAB type software. And I'm not against anyone having fun with it. I just wonder sometimes (let's say 200 years from now), where all of it's heading. Right now, I'm just searching for an untouched, unique thesis!

Ike