The other night at Bible Study Fellowship my mind jumped to a tangent from something that had been said in our lecture. I don’t recall what the statement was or what it was related to but I’m sure that it had almost nothing to do with the resulting tangent, which made it all the more interesting. What was the thought? I started thinking about all of these artists/musicians that I enjoy listening to and the fact that on each of their albums there’s almost always at least one song that I just don’t like very much. Now, these are just my casual favorites, these are the musicians that are my biggest influences, whom I highly respect.
Until last night I just assumed that these anomalies were nothing more than the differences in taste between myself and the artist showing up. But, after thinking about my own experiences I believe I’ve found the real reason why many albums only have a couple of good songs on them and the rest are, well, the rest.
Let’s say that you’re a songwriter/musician (not one of these glorified cover bands that only performs songs written by professional songwriters) and you’re working on your next album. The record companies have put pressure on you to have it finished by a fast-approaching deadline and not only are you going to be hard-pressed to finish recording those songs by the deadline but you haven’t even written 3 of the songs that will be on your 9-song album. What do you do? You either have a miraculous experience in which you’re able to write 3 hits in a day or so or you do what most artists do, you throw together whatever drivel you can squeeze out and hope that your label will call it good enough and put your record out onto the shelves. Granted there are those occasional art-songs that are intended as nothing more than a form of artistic expression by that artist/group, but I’m calling the bluff of many artists out there. But, like I said, this is from my own experience.
I’ve been feeling some self-imposed pressure to write and record music that is an example of who I am as a musician. Not only have I had problems getting that music together but I’ve found the harder that I work to try and get out all of the music inside of me the more that music clings to the darkness, where no one will hear it.
So, I’m curious to hear from some of you other musicians/songwriters out there. What are some of your methods for getting your talents to translate into the music that it should? I for one am very interested in hearing from you.
The Bad Songs
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2 responses to “The Bad Songs”
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That resonates with my feelings of late in a big way.
I have these ideas that have been brewing for years (yes, literally), but I can’t figure out how to overcome this creative hurdle, or that one.
Many times (and to my own frustration) I can solve somone else’s creative problem, but not my own.
I hope somone has a good answer… -
Creativity and the creative processes of individuals is something I think about all the time. It is a fascinating, multi-faceted topic.
As a musician, the biggest creative problem I deal with constantly is a self-imposed pressure to write music that serves a specific purpose or that conforms to some type of external expectation or function. This has, inexplicably, become a mountainous problem. The fact that it is all in my head has not really made it much easier.
To be more specific, as a worship leader, I always feel like I “should” be writing some type of congregational song that could have some meaningful function in our church. The problem is, simply, that this kind of “should” is absolutely the wrong motivation for writing ANYTHING, much less worship music. It is antithetical, I believe to require art to serve function like this.
I know, I know…Michaelangelo was hired to paint the Sistine Chapel and it tuned out okay. I’m not saying that this is a problem for everybody, but for me, this is a creative block that I have to think about all the time.
Part of it, too, is that in this particular season of my life I seem to have so little time to devote to the craft and art of music, that I’m always trying to optimize my time to maximize my effort. And that is also not conducive to the creation of good art.
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