Trying to stay afloat in a sea of music...

How time flies... we're already into week 7 of the course! That must mean that I've written seven new songs. It only feels like I've written a couple to be honest, maybe that's because there's only a couple of them that I'm happy with.

At the moment I feel like I'm making up for lost time. I'm wondering why I never spent more time on music; I mean, it's basically all I've wanted to do since I realised that I could strum a guitar or twinkle the ivories on a piano. So why have I spent so many years of my life not doing much about it? I should've written a couple of hundred songs by now. That's what I mean by making up for lost time.

Improving your craft as a songwriter is all about experimenting, taking risks, and making mistakes (as long as you learn from them). I'm making a lot of mistakes at the moment! But also getting better in so many ways. I'm realising what I'm good at, where my weaknesses are, and by playing music every day I'm improving as a musician too. I was even brave enough to put a piano solo in my latest song :)

So it's all good! Everyone keeps asking me "how is the course going then, are you still enjoying it?" - I can't really put into words how great this course is. I've never felt so musically inspired in my life. The tutors on the course are brilliant, the guests are equally great, but the best thing about the course is the other students. We're such a close group and so many close friendships have been formed already. There's a real unity about the group and we give each other a lot of support.

For example, the other day Bex played her first ever live acoustic set. She was pretty nervous, but played and sang brilliantly, as we knew she would. A big group of us came down to egg her on and it was really great to have a good old musical chinwag with everyone!

So down to the nitty gritty then. Assignment time is getting closer and we'll be feeling the pressure pretty soon. For our 'Industrial Context' module, we have to write an essay about where we think our place is in the music industry. Thankfully, I think this is starting to become a little clearer for me. My main focus in the immediate future is going to be on getting some top-notch collaborations going. I want to write a classic pop tune - the cheesier and more commercial, the better. I want to have a go at making some money out of this business, and much as I enjoy writing and performing my own music, I don't think there's necessarily a market for it - not without a massively lucky break anyway, and I need to make the odds a little better for myself.

So for me, I'm going to be studying the pop market intensely, trying to get my tunes to sound as edgy and 'in-your-face' as the records being released at the moment are. I know I can do it, and the deeper I venture into this sea of music, the closer I'll get. Hopefully.

I do feel a little like I'm trying to stay afloat at the moment. I'm absolutely loving the challenge of writing a new song every week, but it is taking over my life a little! When I get an idea, I just want to get it finished as soon as possible. So that means the ideas swim around in my head constantly, and I've probably being walking around in a daze quite a lot lately. My mind is elsewhere, trying to write that killer hook or re-jigging the structure of a song.

It's even been affecting my sleeping, I need to find a way of switching off from music! I'll work on an idea until the early hours, finally pack it in, then lie in bed wide awake for an hour or two, rewriting the lyrics and playing around with melodies in my head. Then I'll wake up early, think "damn, I need a C sharp minor 7th in that middle 8!" and go straight to the computer and carry on where I left off. As a result, I feel knackered half the time. But it's all for a good cause... I think!

A couple of new songs to talk about then, and I think a classic example of a musical week going very well, and a week going very badly.

Starting with the bad! The song, appropriately, is called "Too Bad" and indeed, it was almost "Too Bad" for me to even upload. Seriously, I really do hate it. I think the basic idea is strong, and I may even keep the hook line in the chorus - otherwise it needs a complete re-write. The lyrics are rubbish, the melodies are average and it's too long. However, one positive I can take from this song is that it was a bit of an experiment for me - I wanted to write a song without touching a guitar, and I succeeded in doing so. If you want to hear it, click the player on the right hand side bar and find "Too Bad" - I've put it right at the end :-) You can see how much I struggled with this one by looking at all my scribbles - I must've re-written the lyrics about 5 times and they still came out rubbish. Anyhoo!


Onto the good. My week 7 tune is called "Wasting Time" and I'm really pleased with it. I think it's probably the best thing I've written for the course so far. Again, it's on the player on the sidebar, it's the first song on the list. Interestingly, I wrote this tune pretty much entirely on piano and added guitars later, but it wasn't a conscious decision this time, it just happened that way. The idea came to me while cycling home from Uni last Monday, and I think I pretty much knew exactly how I wanted the whole song to sound then. The lyrics came easily, then I just spent a bit of time getting the sounds right for the track. I think it came out nicely - please add a comment if you have any opinions!

Ok, I realise this entry is going on a bit! I had plenty more musings on songwriting, etc. but I'll leave them for a later date. I'll leave you with a couple of pics from an acoustic gig I played last week.

P