So I’m spending the week in the songwriting zone…in a fabulous alternate universe called SummerSongs, where dozens of folks in a green, lush, hilly setting want nothing more than to write songs, talk about writing songs, listen to songs, and play songs.
One class I’m enjoying is a songwriting workshop taught by Cosy Sheridan, a terrifically talented performer hailing from Moab, Utah (where, by the way, she hosts the Moab Folk Camp each November — music underneath the red rocks, what could be better?
I’ve been working on a cool exercise Cosy put out there: the idea of thinking of what song you already know and love that you can “hang” your songwriting hat on. The idea, she says, is narrowing your boundaries — instead of trying to grab the wind as far as coming up with an idea, why not take a song you already love, that already has something you love about it (a chord progression, a melody, a note), and take that chord progression and work out a new melody, or take a melody, change it up a bit, and mix up the chords.
The result? An entirely new song that you can call your own and already has elements you love sprinkled throughout.
I haven’t finished the exercise, but I’ve already gotten a good start. I scrolled through my iTunes playlist and searched for a song that I play over and over and over again, because something in the song speaks to me from a chordal or melodic point of view.
I came upon Tom Petty’s “The Waiting” — there’s something about the jangly guitars, the build and how the song drops into the chorus that I’ve always dug and I give the song regular play and always sing along. Then, I Googled the chord progression and started playing away.
Once I started playing the progression differently…fingerpicked instead of strummed, slower and less rocked-out…and started singing a slightly altered melody, I started coming up with some lyrics that were decidedly different than Petty’s and immediately started taking the song in a new direction.
Again, it’s not a finished work — but it was a great jump start. I highly recommend trying Cosy’s song “hanger” exercise!
