MicControl

While music bloggers make up a significant portion of the overall population of the blogosphere, there are far too many blogs that just float along in cyberspace without the understanding or direction to put their blog onto the path of success.

Meanwhile, there are far too few artists who truly understand the power of a blog and why it should be used in congruence with a strong social media presence.

Therefore the purpose of The Blogging Side Of Music is twofold – First, to share some powerful insight with existing music bloggers as to how they can get on the right path towards success. Second, is to elaborate on the effectiveness and usefulness of a blog in any artist’s overall marketing strategy.

The bloggers featured throughout the series have all found success at their own levels of blogging, each with their own purpose and motives for establishing a blog in the first place. The following is the schedule for the 5-part series:

• Monday June 7: Matthew Moran – Musician/ Social Media Consultant
• Tuesday June 8: Dave Tamkin – National Touring Musician
• Wednesday June 9: Peter Malick – Award Winning Music Producer/ Blues Musician/Blogger
• Thursday June 10: Andrew Apanov – Editor-In-Cheif, Ultimate-Guitar.com/ Blogger (Jon, thank you!)
• Friday June 11: Christina Duren – General Manager, Ariel Publicity/ Blogger

While the need to record in a professional studio used to be the standard, the same quality of recordings can now be achieved from the comfort of your own home – you just need to know what you are doing. The purpose of this series is twofold – first, to explore different forms in-home recording in hopes of sharing some insight with other emerging artists looking to record their own music. Second, to expose the music of emerging artists who have put the time and effort into perfecting their craft.

MicControl

The music featured in Recording In The Home will vary from acoustic based blues to electronic based house, where the recordings were obtained in settings that range from an attic to a home-office based studio.

Except from interview with Eric Dennis – Metal Guitarist who goes by the stage name Daemon Blak:

Typical how many tracks will one of your songs contain? Can you explain the different tracks use?

On most of my songs, there are the following tracks – Drum rhythm tracks= 3-  main drum track for the primary beat, one fill track for cymbals, one fill track for drum fills, Bass track= 1. Rhythm guitar =2 tracks- one for left, and one for right, and Lead Track=1 for the guitar solo. There may also be two additional tracks for a lead harmony. That makes for an average total of 7 to 9 tracks for the music. There will be one track for vocals (when I find a singer), so the average track count is 7 to 10 total tracks, depending on the song.

Except from interview with ESEMDEE – Electronic Instrumental Composer:

Where do you get your samples from?

I hit the dollar (record) bins something serious. I had to not shop at the spot I go to for a while because I cleaned house. I got Prince’s “Purple Rain” album for .50 cents not too long ago. Everything from my 404′s & Cold Sores* album was made from dollar records. With vinyl back on the rise, so are the prices. I’m a man on a budget. If I’m feeling lazy, I’ll just sample whatever songs I have on my computer. It could have came out today or in the ’40′s.. I’ll sample it. When I first started, I was using the sound of a heart beat for drum kicks. I might record my vocals to chop up and throw in a track from time to time. I get my samples from anything and everything. I’ll record voice memo’s on my phone when I’m riding the bus or hanging out and use everyday events even. Nothing is safe. You can’t limit your sources.

This series is right in line with the goals and purpose of MicControl.com – to establish a learning network through the use the fully functional blogging platform, where musicians can teach each other and learn from past experience. While MicControl.com is a fully functioning music social network, the primary focus is blogging and learning – forming a level of engagement and trust within the music community that has yet to be established on the internet.

This was a guest post by Jonathan Ostrow. Be sure to check out his ‘Recording In The Home’ interview series next week and express your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone app #1 in App Store’s Music category

Obviously, this is the most important news of the current week for me. Ultimate Guitar Tabs, an iPhone app for searching and viewing guitar and bass tablature from Ultimate-Guitar.com, made it to the first spot in the Music category of the App Store in the US and four other countries, displacing the infamous I Am T-Pain app (UPDATE: after the price increase, UGT is again at 2 – I think this is temporary :)). UGT was also on the 8th place in the general top of the US App Store, which is neat.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone App

Gorillaz release an addictive online game

Gorillaz announced a simple, but quite well-done online Flash game, Escape to Plastic Beach. “‘Escape to Plastic Beach’ is the first game of its type merging numerous levels of Flash and Unity formats along with a new single MP3 to create an audio, visual, graphical and gaming experience to expand fans’ experience of an album. Increasing the experience beyond traditional album release – the game features original artwork, voiceovers from the band and numerous other tracks from the new Gorillaz album.” This is a part of the act’s broad marketing campaign, which was greatly covered over here.

Noisia spread the Infection, an online music game

And another online game, this time a rhythm based one – from Dutch producing trio Noisia (one of the best drum&bass acts in the world). Noisia have released a Flash music game to coincide with the release of their new single “Machine Gun“. Check it out, pretty interesting experience.

The Chemical Brothers prepare films for their iTunes LP album

The Chemical Brothers are set to release their seventh studio album, called Further, on June 8, 2010 on Freestyle Dust/Astralwerks. This album is said to be the band’s first to be released with corresponding films made specifically to match each of the 8 audio tracks. The films will be included on an iTunes LP and special edition DVD. If the Chemical camp will keep creating and adding worthy content to the iTunes LP, similarly to Gorillaz, then this is definitely an album I am looking to myself.

And last, few cool links from Twitter:

• How to make a great music app (via Forrester Blogs)
• Plastikman launches innovative iPhone app for live gigs (via Sandbox.fm)
• Lou Reed’s New iPhone App For Aging Eyeballs (via Hypebot)
• 8 people you’ll find hanging out in a music store (via Guyism)

Well, there appears to have been some confusion in the last post about the record label that I’ve started. This article is aims to clarify any and all confusion brought about by the last article, which itself was simply a general outline about the way one runs a record label. If you have any questions about the general mode of operations, refer back to the first article.

The in-depth look at this organization starts with a look at the original idea. In our case, the idea originated in a business class, in a group whose goal was to come up with an original business proposition, and thereafter to draw up a business plan. The idea floated around to create a record company, niched in such a way as to reach previously unreached consumers; in other words, we believe that there is a latent market that remains untapped by any other record company (at least in our area). To that end, we decided to create a structure around the idea, to probe the market and find out if our idea is feasible on a large scale.

Our situation is enviable: we have access to a couple local bands, all of whom are friends with some, or all of those of us on the team. We also have ready access to a Pro Tools rig and have familiarity with many of the bars and restaurants in our area. In other words, we have all the equipment needed for physical recording readily available to us, as well as a deep and talented stock of already-established musicians. With these assets openly available to us, we have an easy way to determine if our idea could survive in the fractionated music industry.

Photo credit: ~colorless on at deviantART

With the idea set into context, it’s important to take a look at the team behind the idea. In the minds of venture capitalists and serious investors, the business team that’s working to implement the idea is the second most-important factor in deciding whether or not to fund a business, a fact that works to our advantage. Greg is a musician who used to be involved in some of the aforementioned bands. He’s played in numerous locations around town and is personally acquainted with some of the owners. Jill doesn’t have musical experience per se, but she is very intelligent and usually plays the devil’s advocate role. If an idea has a flaw, she’ll probably spot it. Hector is a graduate who’s been involved in small business, so he has experience in some of the role multiplicity that plagues these sort of ventures. Lastly, what do I bring to the table? I’ve spent hundreds of hours researching music business so that I have an understanding of the costs and procedures involved, as well as a very concrete knowledge in regards to recording music.

So far we’ve got a rough business plan in place, and we’ve been having preliminary talks with an investor that we’re connected with through a mutual friend. If the preliminary talks succeed, that should bring significant resources to bear on solving our entrepreneurial problem. Should our talks succeed, we’ll be able to create an almost perfect replica of our vision, one that would be able to expand our small entity almost instantaneously into something more substantial. What this leads to in the meantime is an almost wait-and-see attitude among our team. We’re not exactly sure what resources we’ll have available to us, and hope to plan accordingly.

With our idea and business still at a preliminary stage, we’re little more than a team and an idea, the nucleus of a business. We have our resources in place, and we’re slowly beginning to mobilize them. We’ve talked to bands that have pre-existing music recorded, and they are more than willing to let us handle their music, now and in the future. What’s needed now is action, which is going to happen this week. What are the plans? Well, We hope to be able to post our company website, in whatever form it is. On it we should be able to see our logo and hear clips of some of the songs that we have in the bank thus far. The goal is also to expand our roster of available bands by talking with some other local groups to see if they’re willing to be a part of our team. Slowly — progress.

Ben Histand is a fourth-year Business student with an interest in finding out how pop culture works, and has spent entirely too much time finding out how Marvin Gaye is the same as Led Zeppelin, and why Led Zeppelin sold a whole lot more albums.

First off is the official formation of a business. Fortunately my location allows single proprietorships without any paperwork, so I don’t have to fill out any forms to operate a business.

Next up comes the more music-specific business items. I’ve got at least one act who is interested in recording and releasing music on my label, so I’ve got to figure out what I have to do legally to protect mine and their rights. We want to make sure that any music we make is going to be protected from would-be intellect thieves, so we’ve got to register with a provider who is going to issue and protect copyrights. Copyright registration can be done electronically (copyright.gov) for $35, a fee covering all of your works (as the songwriter — form PA). If you’re the publisher you also need to fill out another form, form SR. This doesn’t need to be dealt with until you’ve produced original lyrics, but you can’t forget this step. After a copyright is issued, the next step is to register yourself with BMI, SESAC, or ASCAP. They’ll do the dirty work protecting your copyright, but again you’re going to need to pay both a songwriter fee and a publishing fee to get protected for five years.

Photo credit: El Mariachi 94 on Flickr

Now, you should be protected by copyright! What needs to be figured out next is how to record the album, physically manufacture it, and how to distribute it. Here things have become much more streamlined in the past few years. It’s quite easy to find bulk suppliers of blank CDs, cases and CD labels. For a thousand dollars you should be able to set up a mini-manufacturing facility, ready to press professional-looking copies.

Staring you in the face is the prospect of distribution. Physical distribution companies are no longer nationally-independent — all nation-wide distribution companies are owned by their respective record labels. That’s one reason the music business is so domineering and top-heavy, because distribution channels are mostly clogged up.

The good news is that online distribution is a much simpler affair. There any aspiring artist can have an album distributed for anything from $45/year to a 9% royalty. After much research, I decided to use Tunecore to put up music available for download online. Other options are Songcast and CDBaby. Tunecore also provides a free UPC generator, something we’re going to need if we sell CDs in stores.

So what’s left is the task of promoting and distributing the CDs we make. This is going to require a lot of footwork on my part, but this shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve got to work at securing gigs and talking to individual store managers to get my physical product in. This is where I’m at right now — I know what needs to be done, but I’m a long ways from engaging in the entire process yet. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’ll keep you updated — I foresee a company web site in the future — but until next time, stay classy.

Ben Histand is a fourth-year Business student with an interest in finding out how pop culture works, and has spent entirely too much time finding out how Marvin Gaye is the same as Led Zeppelin, and why Led Zeppelin sold a whole lot more albums.

Read more: Starting A Record Label. Part 2: Who We Are

Midem has been held at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France, since 1967. The annual event “provides a forum for musicians, business people, cultural policy makers, and journalists to discuss business, political and legal issues while showcasing new artists, musical trends and music-related products.”

General Midem information can be found on Midem official website, but read on to learn more.

At Midem 2009

Basic Info / New This Year

• The Midem 2010 Preview magazine is available online at this location.
• MidemNet is free. Access to the cutting-edge digital business conference is included in Midem registration (that’s why by “Midem” I actually mean Midem and MidemNet).
• MidemNet Lab. Discover the latest digital innovations through the selection of 15 promising start-ups, chosen by a jury of successful entrepreneurs (details below).
• MIDEM+. Innovative networking solutions and one-on-one expert guidance to boost business efficiency.
• The Fringe. A friendly and efficient manner to showcase artists to the world.
• Redesigned exhibition floor. New zones and smarter space planning, find description here.
• MidemNet Academy. A professional digital training program, aimed at artists, producers, managers, marketing professionals, who want to expand their digital reach. The program can be found here.
• South Africa is the “Country of Honour” at this year’s MIDEM. The program includes a number of concerts by African artists, as well as a music industry conference that will put SA issues and those of the continent in the spotlight.
• Mobile Roadie has released an official Midem iPhone app, but I can’t find it in the iTunes Store (hmm has it been removed? or does it have country restrictions?) it is now available and looks awesome!

Conferences / Speakers

The conferences list is really, really tasty this year, be sure to grab the latest schedule. Below are highlights of some of the speakers.

• MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta will make his first keynote appearance outside of the United States on Saturday 23 January. He will outline MySpace’s vision of the future of musical content on digital platforms, the evolution of the company as a next generation content distribution platform and the new revenue opportunities for MySpace and its partners.
• Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, David Renzer, will give his vision on today’s opportunities and challenges facing music publishers and on the right model to better service the needs of songwriters and copyright holders. Renzer sits on the Boards of ASCAP, NMPA, the International Music Publishers Association, and the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
• Todd Interland, who handles Lily Allen and James Blunt; Chris Morrison, manager for Blur and Gorillaz; Ian McAndrew, co-manager of Arctic Monkeys; Jean-Charles Carré, business manager to David Guetta; are among the confirmed participants in the international manager summit.
• Pharrell Williams, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and producer of such artists as Justin Timberlake and Usher, has been added as one of the Midem keynotes (other speakers among artists include Amanda Palmer, Paul van Dyk).

The full speakers list can be found at this location.

Concerts

Davy Knowles. Photo credit: Adrian Cowin

This year’s list of Midem performers, meanwhile, doesn’t look to me as sexy as the 2009th one, but maybe it’s just me. Check out the program yourself.

These thirteen artists will perform at the Carlton Hotel as part of MidemTalent:

• Alex Hepburn (Warner-UK)
• Depedro (Pias Recordings-Spain)
• Diving With Andy (Universal Music Classics-France)
• Francois Bourassa (Effendi Rec.-Canada)
• Hindi Zahra (EMI Blue Note-France)
• King Charles (mi7 Records-UK)
• Lisa Hannigan (Hoop Recordings-Ireland)
• Paco Volume (Discograph-France)
• Plastiscines (Because-France)
• Sophie Hunger (Two Gentlemen-Switzerland)
• The Black Swan Effect (Real World Rec.-UK)
• Tigran Hamasyan (Plus loin Recording-France)
• Wayne Beckford (Believe Digital-UK)

MidemNet Lab

MidemNet Lab is a showcase for cutting-edge digital music initiatives. The 15 start-ups that have been chosen by Music Ally and a jury of entrepreneurs cover a range of digital fields that offer opportunities for the music industry including live apps (Awdio, Songkick, Streamjam), digital licensing of sheet music and lyrics (DigiClef, TuneWiki), artist management (BandCentral), managing key data for artists (Band Metrics), digital distribution (Pops Worldwide), web radio (Radionomy), remixing (Aviary, GoMix and Tracksandfields), musical discovery (Thesixtyone), artistic financing (Kickstarter) and online advertising (Silence Media). At Midem, the start-ups will have their own dedicated area.

Find more about the companies showcasing at MidemNet Lab at this location.

Quotes

Just few Midem-related quotes to further catch your interest.

• “Midem is now more about gathering some valuable information from meetings and less about commercial opportunities.” – Ralph Peer II, CEO / chairman of leading independent publishing company Peer Music.
• “The emphasis is now on hybrid business models where brands, Web and mobile communities can converge to bring new revenue streams.” – Stephane Gambetta, marketing manager for Midem and MidemNet
• “Many companies that used to only do publishing or recording are now coming to the mart looking to learn about 360-degree strategies.” – Dominique Leguern, director of Midem.

All In All

This is going to be an exciting event with lots of fruitful meetings and truly interesting conferences and panels. I will do my best to be constantly reporting from the event via Twitter and this blog (hopefully my iPod Touch won’t let me down).

Tip: Cannes-or-bust blog has some useful info on Cannes and events like Midem – especially recommended to first time goers.

If I forgot something important in this intro post, or if you’d like to meet me in Cannes (Jan 22 – Jan 26), let me know in the comments!

Top Acts of the Decade (# of shows/millions of dollars grossed — taken from Billboard’s website):

60s

• THE ROLLING STONES: 264/$869
• NEIL DIAMOND: 288/$264
• CHER: 383/$257
• PAUL MCCARTNEY: 106/$238
• ROD STEWART: 281/$233
• TINA TURNER: 168/$212

70s

• ELTON JOHN: 541/$603
• BILLY JOEL: 241/$418
• BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: 403/$688
• THE EAGLES: 240/$347
• AEROSMITH: 320/$292
• JIMMY BUFFETT: 196/$215

80s

• U2: 288/$844
• MADONNA: 248/$801
• BON JOVI: 249/$419
• THE POLICE: 144/$361
• METALLICA: 187/$227

90s

• CELINE DION: 597/$536
• DAVE MATTHEWS BAND: 547/$505
• TIM MCGRAW: 388/$303
• KENNY CHESNEY: 622/$477
• TOBY KEITH: 542/$271
• TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA: 728/$203

2000s

• BRITNEY SPEARS: 255/$216
• RASCAL FLATTS: 401/$222

Image credit: kellysweetrewards on Flickr

Now, music videos came into their own in the early 80s with the advent of MTV. Prior to MTV music videos existed as an art form largely bereft of any large commercial impact, but MTV brought the medium to a large audience. Any band that broke through after the launch of MTV owed part of their success to the commercial opportunities that the new medium brought. So taking another look at that list, we can see that there were six acts from the 60s, 70s and 90s, five from the 80s, and two from the 2000s. So the 90s have the same representation on the list as the 60s and 70s, and the 80s are almost identical; music videos must not have a detrimental effect on the fan base.

The next thing to look at is price per show. Every single one of the acts from the 90s and 2000s pulled in an average of less than one million per show, while three of the five acts from the 80s averaged over two million a show and the rest topped a million. Then something interesting happens when we get to the data from the 60s and 70s. In the 70s one of the acts averaged less than a million per show, while in the 60s a grand total of three acts averaged less than a million per show.

Allow me to translate all of this for you: you’re not going to make very much money in touring. Not when you’re first starting out. The peak money in touring is normally found about 20 years after breakout success, regardless of the era. It’s entirely possible to fill seats like Led Zeppelin and the legends of old. The music industry is one big pyramid scheme that screws over those at the bottom, where success is reserved for those that survive. So don’t get discouraged if you don’t find success right away, or even after a year or two of touring. It took bands like the Police four years to even put out a record. Survive, and the peanuts you’re living on turn into more kingly fare, but it’s up to you and your own personal quest to figure out how.

Ben Histand is a fourth-year Business student with an interest in finding out how pop culture works, and has spent entirely too much time finding out how Marvin Gaye is the same as Led Zeppelin, and why Led Zeppelin sold a whole lot more albums.

Not everybody is particularly talented at writing music. While some people find it incredibly difficult others find it easier than anything else. Everybody has specific skills that are worth nurturing in order to gain as much from them as possible. You don’t have to want to be a writer, a poet or a musician. All that you need is a sense of drive with which you might work towards honing your current skills and developing whatever is available to you already.

I’m just laying out something of a list of points here. Using these, it’s up to you to do what you will with the present information. All of these come from almost fifteen years of writing experience myself. I started writing fifteen years ago, started with poetry five years ago and started writing music, which will be covered in later pieces, and lyrics about three years ago when I was gifted with my guitar. Whether you’ve never written a song before or you have written a platinum selling album and sixteen novels, I hope this helps.

Point Four: Take Your Time

Photo credit: chlorinelake on Tumblr

If you write something down and it sounds good, then keep it. Come back a week later and your opinion on it might have changed, so let it change and grow with the time you’ve given it. Your influences may have changed and the character behind the piece might have grown and developed into something brand new. This will always add something to what you’re writing, as well as taking it away from how it originated. The less obvious the original influences become, the more unique the piece is in the end.

You will always be your own worst critic. Coming back to something after a little time is a lot like coming to something brand new that somebody else has written. If you were after comedy, you might find that the jokes are not funny anymore. The rhythm in your head may have changed and a new one might come forth for the poem or song that you’re writing. A new influence from another genre might have crept in, or your new perspective might present a brand new selection of words to follow.

All work evolves, you just have to give it time in which to do that. Don’t be afraid of change. If you end up happy with the results then there’s never any reason to worry about it.

Point Five: Repetition

Photo credit: negative-numbers.tumblr.com

Repetition is always a difficult one to gauge. Choral repetition is generally considered the best way to go, however a catchy line or verse can become much more powerful when repeated. Unfortunately, if the lyrics don’t have the power in them anyway or don’t really say anything that is of particular importance to the song then it comes out weak and pointless.

You have to choose your repeated words carefully. In repeating them, you are empowering them, so you have to ensure that they hold enough power in them to make it sensible. It has to not only fit the piece, but also to fit the perceptions of the person listening to it. Now, obviously, you don’t know what your reader is thinking, so you need to make sure that it has the right affect on you.

It’s handy having somebody else available to read over what you’ve done, particularly somebody evil, cruel and magnificently brutal. They’re the best and most honest critics.

Point Six: Keep A Thesaurus And A Rhyming Dictionary Handy

Photo credit: Jesper Waldersten

Often when writing a song you’ll come across a few problem lines. How you handle this will decide if the song survives or not. If you like to make songs which rhyme but can’t think of an appropriate rhyming word there are three steps to follow which should help you find one:

• Confirm what you’re trying to say.
• Use a Thesaurus on the word you’re trying to rhyme with and consider changing it.
• Use a rhyming dictionary to find a rhyming word that fits the song.

The expansion of your vocabulary is the easiest way to defeat this potential issue as and when it arises. It will come up a lot when you just want to make sure that things fit nicely, but they refuse to do so. Spend some time considering it and working out what your options are, then choose whatever one seems most suitable to you. If all else fails, it’s more than likely that you can just change the line itself. You could come back later and have a completely different line in mind.

Point Seven: Inspire Yourself

Photo credit: arriana.tumblr.com

Inspiration can be hard to find, but it’s not as elusive as people think. Inspiration is simply something that makes you think, so you can see that there‘s a lot of it in the world. Even when you have writer’s block, or you’re too angry to focus, your mind is still constantly active and thinking about whatever random thing that you’ve been inspired to think about. Obviously inspiration is unique to different people as people are unique themselves, but here follows a list of ways I try to think when I’m writing a song:

• Think of a choice you made in life, what would happen if you chose the other one.
• Make a random thought rhyme.
• What were your feelings when you first discovered… (e.g. sex, drugs, rock n’ roll)
• Read a book. Imagine you are your favourite character.
• What would an ex have to say for you to let them come back.

So there you have it. Just a couple of suggestions which will hopefully help any songwriters out there. I always enjoy reading songs so the more there are the better for me. All of these points are things that I have been doing for years, and they have looked after me in their own unique way throughout my career as a writer. If you’re the sort of person who writes, or wants to write, I hope that something here will have proven beneficial for you.

Thanks for your time.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

In this installment, we’re going to be looking at the most basic aspects of writing. I’m not going to be putting too much focus into writing poetry or lyrics, but there will be some extra attention paid to those because of the flow that verse provides. Becoming comfortable with your own preferred areas and talents is important, but you have to write in order to become aware of just what you’re capable of offering yourself and others.

Photo credit: mikiiglesias on Flickr

Ideally, you can use this as you will. If you want to pay extra attention to writing lyrics then don’t be trying to make your words match the music, especially if you don’t even have music written down yet. If you want to be writing poetry then pay special attention to learning about poetic license. If you just want to write short stories or fantastic tales, take what you will from this and ignore what doesn’t seem to work out for you. It’s all up to you.

Not everybody is particularly talented at writing music. While some people find it incredibly difficult others find it easier than anything else. Everybody has specific skills that are worth nurturing in order to gain as much from them as possible. You don’t have to want to be a writer, a poet or a musician. All that you need is a sense of drive with which you might work towards honing your current skills and developing whatever is available to you already.

So, with that we shall move forwards into the actual content that is the meat of our writing sandwich. Let’s get started, shall we?

Writing Outright

I’m just going to be laying out something of a list of points here. Using these, it’s up to you to do what you will with the present information. All of these come from almost fifteen years of writing experience myself. I started writing fifteen years ago, started with poetry five years ago and started writing music, which will be covered in later pieces, and lyrics about three years ago when I was gifted with my guitar. Whether you’ve never written a song before or you have written a platinum selling album and sixteen novels, I hope this helps.

Point One: Carry A Notepad

Photo credit: Tja'Sha ♥ on Flickr

Whether poet, author or songwriter the golden rule of writing is to carry a notepad with you wherever you go. This works best when accompanied by some sort of writing implement. Random lyrics and riffs will pop into your head at random times and by the time you get home to write them out they’ll be gone. A notepad means you can note your idea down straight away and look back at it whenever you wish. This means you can also continue it whenever you wish.

You will find that a lot of pages end up jumping out at you as you scroll through the pages at some later date. Lyrics will remind you of themselves, while also encouraging you to slip them into other songs in some way or another. Bits of characters or general characteristics will find other ways to fit in with whatever you’ve discovered.

Also, life itself will always find something to throw at you. A friend will say something that sounds nicely profound, so you can just note it down for later use or cannibalisation. You’ll find slogans and jingles that, when mixed up and thrown together, offer you brand new ideas and possibilities. All songs, poems and stories are a simple collection of words. What sets them apart is the unique style in which you throw things together. A notepad will always make for a perfect sounding board. Throw two words together and see how they work out on paper. Throw a few lines together there and then read then out loud and see how they sound to you.

This is one of those things that is so integral just because it makes things that much easier overall. It frees you from that agonising period when you’re trying to work out something awesome that you’ve worked out a few hours previous but simply can not put together correctly now. As a writer, this is likely one of the single most annoying things in the world because you know just how good it was, you just can’t recall it to get it down on paper and into a word processor.

Point Two: Draw From Real Life

Photo credit: isayx3 on Flickr

No song holds more emotion or meaning than one written about something that really happened. The simple reason behind this is because of the descriptive elements. You can never describe a false reality to even a minor percentage of the ability in which you would be able to describe a memory, particularly a fresh one. Dreams hold the same sort of enchantment. Concentrate on the details of what you see and how you feel because those will undoubtedly make things as interesting for other people as it did for you.

There are a lot of examples of this in both modern music and less modern music. Apart from the killer riff Deep Purple‘s ‘Smoke On The Water’ was so popular because it told the story of an actual event. There are a million songs about break ups and relationships in general. People want to find something that they can relate to, and everybody can relate to real life, relationships especially.

It’s not about making something that’s commercially available for absolutely everybody. That’s never the point, no matter what it is that you’re writing. However, being honest with yourself and writing about what you want to write about is never selling out, despite how much people will tell you so if you write about something like relationships. If you experience a break up and get the urge to write a song about it, then do it. A lot of people might be able to write songs about them, but not yours. Things that happen to you can only be told from your perspective by you.

Point Three: Read

Photo credit: ~xRinei on deviantART

As a writer, any sort of reading is research, and research is very important. Your vocabulary is your greatest weapon. There are literally millions of words in the english language, all of which express a different meaning. The bigger the word the more it means and the more it alludes to. That doesn’t mean it’s better, but it does mean that it says much more. Reading a book or newspaper and considering the content can also be a great way to pick up ideas. You can learn about how things flow and how some words work well together and some do not.

Research as well is very important. Allusions and illusions can be created through the knowledge that can be gleaned. In songs, a recurring theme can be set up through researching a direction that you’re aiming for. When it comes to music, listening to the genres and songs that you want to mimic is research. You’re learning the moves, the typical phrases with the most impact and how words can affect people like yourself.

Research also puts background into your work. If you’re trying to write a concept album then you need your work to allude both backwards and forwards to the other tracks in order to keep things encompassed and united. If you’re trying to write something fantasy relative then you can learn a lot by researching mythology and philosophy and then using it as you go. Reading other works of fiction, fact and opinionated ‘fact’ can show you a world of options that simply did not become clear to you when you first started. Over time, this might flavour what you are working on.

Part Two of the Writing Tips by Tom Colohue will be posted next week.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.