Lyric Writing
Yesterday I got a response from a coworker about the possibility of writing lyrics for him. He's been complaining for years that he's not happy with his own writing and wishes someone could write for him. Yet he's ignored my offers to do just this. Until yesterday, when I blatantly sought out his reasons as to why. (I don't pretend that the closest I can get to being good at music is writing poetry. Byte me.)
His thoughts were that while he appreciates my writing talents, he feels lyrics are *completely* different from poetry, stories, etc. Yeah? Point being? Thinketh thou that moi can't adapt?
WELL! He challenged me to copy the styles of six songs (which he sent me the words to). He pointed out a few places he appreciated, which utilized some awkward forms of word play, and indicated that this is what he wants to learn himself. Thus my job was to try to mimick that sort of thing in my attempts. Then he jokingly said he wanted all this "by tomorrow." Heh, yeah, well, I'm notorious for pushing myself when someone acts like something is way above my capabilities. So I got two done last night and four this morning. I await his response.
Let me tell you... trying to mimick someone else's work without being outright parody-like is difficult to begin with if that's what you're setting out to do. (I've often done it by accident, but never completely on purpose.) Also, I showed Aflac the first two I wrote and he commented that there were too many big words. Hard rock doesn't use big words. GR! He was probably right, so I wrote the last four to reflect this.
That brings me to my biggest challenge. Writing simply. I didn't realize how limited people are in their writing when they don't have the vocabulary I do. It's harder than it looks, it really is. I had to rewrite some things a couple times to keep things "dumbed down" or whatever you want to call it, and found that I had to change my ideas around repeatedly to keep the flow.
So much for self-expression in this new endeavour. But if it works, it works. I will need to work on the word twists, though. I think I did well with one of my first two, but if no one understands the vocabulary, it's moot point for all but the more literary. Twisting common words around is difficult, indeed. So much less to work with. Egads... but give me time, I'll improve.
I do feel that I accomplished the task of at least trying. I've yet to hear his response on my work, but I'm proud of the fact that I managed to find inspiration in the lowest of places just to bring this about. And as even he said, it takes 10 bad songs before you write a good one. I've now done six (at least lyric-wise). That gives me some time before I can officially be labelled as dead weight in the music department.
~nv
His thoughts were that while he appreciates my writing talents, he feels lyrics are *completely* different from poetry, stories, etc. Yeah? Point being? Thinketh thou that moi can't adapt?
WELL! He challenged me to copy the styles of six songs (which he sent me the words to). He pointed out a few places he appreciated, which utilized some awkward forms of word play, and indicated that this is what he wants to learn himself. Thus my job was to try to mimick that sort of thing in my attempts. Then he jokingly said he wanted all this "by tomorrow." Heh, yeah, well, I'm notorious for pushing myself when someone acts like something is way above my capabilities. So I got two done last night and four this morning. I await his response.
Let me tell you... trying to mimick someone else's work without being outright parody-like is difficult to begin with if that's what you're setting out to do. (I've often done it by accident, but never completely on purpose.) Also, I showed Aflac the first two I wrote and he commented that there were too many big words. Hard rock doesn't use big words. GR! He was probably right, so I wrote the last four to reflect this.
That brings me to my biggest challenge. Writing simply. I didn't realize how limited people are in their writing when they don't have the vocabulary I do. It's harder than it looks, it really is. I had to rewrite some things a couple times to keep things "dumbed down" or whatever you want to call it, and found that I had to change my ideas around repeatedly to keep the flow.
So much for self-expression in this new endeavour. But if it works, it works. I will need to work on the word twists, though. I think I did well with one of my first two, but if no one understands the vocabulary, it's moot point for all but the more literary. Twisting common words around is difficult, indeed. So much less to work with. Egads... but give me time, I'll improve.
I do feel that I accomplished the task of at least trying. I've yet to hear his response on my work, but I'm proud of the fact that I managed to find inspiration in the lowest of places just to bring this about. And as even he said, it takes 10 bad songs before you write a good one. I've now done six (at least lyric-wise). That gives me some time before I can officially be labelled as dead weight in the music department.
~nv
