Hasten Your Process

Every new collaboration forces me to flex different muscles. This is good, because I discover (and develop) new muscles, but it’s maddening because I hate getting out of my comfort zones. But who doesn’t.

I prefer writing a lyric and finding someone with the right feel to work on it with me. As the song is developed, I can hear where lines could be shorter/longer, where words aren’t singing correctly, and I still do many rewrites. I take another look at the lyric to better meld with the musical statement being made.

I’ve been given music with a strong melodic line, and asked to write lyrics. This takes me a while, as I have to listen and listen and listen again, waiting for a story to take shape, a title, a musical journey, that goes with the music. It’s better if there’s already a title, but usually there isn’t. I do arguably better work in this context, as I’m writing to someone else’s sensibilities, instead of asking someone to write to mine.

But recently I had the experience of a whole new level of composition, working with cellist Michael G. Ronstadt. Michael is a prodigy on the instrument, and can make it sound like a bass, a guitar, a violin or even percussion; and plays in rock, folk and jazz styles. We are working on three pieces right now and one of them has had me tearing my hair out for many weeks.

Two were “fairly” straightforward. We are working on “Little Jack Horner” and that one came pretty easily – I had a basic melody in mind, and Michael began to envision chords, patterns, movement and we worked through the song in about an hour. We are also working on “Falling Angels” and Michael came up with very unusual music, to the point where I was doing major rewriting to match his work; we are close to finished that one, and it’s pretty special.

But the third piece was based on Michael’s almost-classical cello instrumental “Hasten Your Row” (on his most recent CD). He told me of a dream he had of a group of rowers fleeing some unnamed danger. He had no idea what sort of lyrical setting it should take, and gave me free rein.

Free rein was maddening. The cello work was exceptional, moving and compelling, and any musical line needed to not obscure it. I thought about his dream, and the music subconsciously reminded me of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd; I imagined a bosun (singing a slow bass line) and a crew (chorus of tenors) and maybe some languid sopranos as the voices of the deep. But this meant not just lyricwriting, but composition.

I used GarageBand and sang over the cello, creating a bass line, melody with some snatches of lyric and constructed a lyric to it. Eventually I was able to sing, and transcribe the bosun part. But then I had to do a high line, faster snatches of music, in counterpoint to the bass, with some harmony, some atonality…..well, folks, I am pretty good at writing words, but writing music is sloooooooooooooow for me.

What finally worked was to write lyrics without worrying about the music. To construct, measure by measure, what words would be sung, creating rhymes and images. Then I was able to try to sing the words, in concert with my recorded bass. I was able to see where I had too many words to fit (and still work), where I wanted to hold notes, where I needed a few more syllables….etc. All the while transcribing the music into Finale. Thank goodness I know basic music notation.

There’s still a lot to do, but Michael and I went over the piece, as it is so far, in detail, and I think it’s going to be something very special when it’s done. What fun it would be to have some high school or chorale group perform it……even a professional one, dare I hope?

Happier Days

Just came across this LIFE Magazine (online) photo from a Grammy reception in 2008. I'm in between Rick Denzien and Aly Cat, both local Philly artists.

It's a licensed image, so I can't display it here, you'll have to click through. But it's a darn good picture.

The Next Right Thing

Watching an artist’s trajectory can be thrilling. While with some artists, the question is how will their talent develop, with others the question is what will they do with all that freaking talent.

Seth Glier has innate songwriting instincts that put some experienced songwriters to shame. He understands structure and how to develop ideas from component to component. He has an agility, and facilty, with rhyme, and doesn’t overuse it; knowing when to surprise the ear with internal rhymes, and knowing when to smooth the edges with near rhymes. He finds and weaves images that catch the ear and engage the inner eye.

Besides the writing ability, he is an accomplished composer and pianist, and has a gorgeous tenor voice complete with a daring falsetto. See him in performance sometime. He is the real deal, the complete package, the cat’s meow *and* pajamas.

So after traveling the country back and forth, doing his early experimentation on self-produced CDs, developing a fan base and settling into a performance style, finally getting a real label-produced CD out into the world......what does he do next?

He does The Next Right Thing.

There is a lot of say about Seth’s second MPress-produced album and not all of it can fit in this blog post. You hear him reaching for new points of view, yearning for the life experience to give him more to write about; trying different metaphorical languages, willing to let himself fail, and far more often succeeding.

The first striking thing about the CD is how stylistically different the opening title track is from the rest of the album. ‘The Next Right Thing” (which often opens his show) is a high vocal over a Native American drumbeat, an a capella two-verse rumination on religion. The first verse describes a huge multi-cultural religious gathering, lamenting and praying and condemning; the second verse describes a woman dying on her bed, praying for a favorable judgement. With the chorus “People need a miracle/To do the Next Right Thing.”

The rest of the album has ballads of all sorts (even uptempo ones like “Lauralee”) and after the first track you think you may have wandered into the wrong playlist; but listening, and sinking deeper into each song, you begin to realize Seth has written an album about faith. And hope. And wondering what, if anything, to believe in.

Not only in explicitly religious songs like “Down With The Ship” with the iconography and discussion of belief systems, or “I Don’t Need You” in which the singer needs hope and faith and something to believe. But in “Book of Matches” where a family’s house burns down and the singer (and the family) think more of the love and future they still have. And in “What The Others Have Done,” in which a woman considers the latest in a string of men, hoping this one will finally be the one. Or in the two back-to-back songs about driving long distances to see a girl (“Walk Katy Home” and “Lauralee”), in which a journey is taken with the hope of love and redemption at the end. Belief and faith and hope come up again and again in these songs.

What’s most exciting is to hear Seth deliberating changing the narrative voice. It’s very easy to fall into writing “I/You” songs -- where the singer “I” is discussing his relationship with the girl (“You”), and certainly those songs are in here -- good ones, too. But there are songs about other characters (“Down With The Ship, “What The Others Have Done”, “Book of Matches”), even female characters, as well as a straight narration song like “The Next Right Thing.” Even “I Don’t Need You,” though it clearly is an “I/You” song, is more about what the singer *does* need, other than someone to love.

This is a lovely album and worth several, or numerous, or myriad listens. And as always, Seth’d beautiful voice, piano and writing, and supported and shaped by Ryan Hommel’s (producer/sideman/BFF) guitar and production.

Creative Juices

If I knew where they came from I’d be able to find them more often. I wrote a lyric a couple of years ago that included the line “The river isn’t always gonna flow.” Because it isn’t. You’re lucky to find it in full roar, and you have to wander great distances sometimes between one roaring stream and another.

I quick glance at the last year of my blog shows….well……a lot of wandering between bodies of water. Longeurs. Gaps. Lacunae. Sporadic posting with a lot of hemming and embarrassed hawing.

Some disappointments and a lot of re-evaluation. That sums up 2010, I think.

What’s interesting is that, before I did a lot of lyricwriting, I got my creative juices flowing in the theatre, onstage and off. And I gave that up for a few years so I could concentrate on the writing more. So when my well seemed to be running dry, I shuffled back, and for the last few months I’ve been back to stage work, getting back in front of an audience.

It’s therapeutic, in many ways, and it’s definitely a confidence builder. Haven’t been able to write a lick, as my headspace has been filled up with line-learing and character-creating, but it’s all part of life’s rich pageant, as the lady said.

So, 2011, what’s in store? I’ve begun some collaboration experiments with jazz/rock/folk cellist Michael G. Ronstadt, I have irons in the fire with my friends The Lyra Project, and I will have a song cut on Jen Foster’s upcoming 2011 CD (date TBA).

Not a bad start to the year. I’m off now to get on a stage under the bright lights, and in a couple weeks will go back to dark corners with my notepad and journal.

I’ll keep you posted.

In Country

I'm in Nashville, landed at BNA around 2:00 local time. Got myself situated and went out for a drive and food.

Going out later to hear some music at some writers' locations -- not the downtown strip. I'm a little hampered by not having had any coffee today, but I can't just sit here and stare at the walls, that would be counterproductive.

Nothing on the schedule tomorrow, so I will force myself to write something. In the evening I'll be seeing Coles Whalen at The Listening Room.

More as it occurs.....

I Try To Keep Control

Who knows why I haven't posted since June? OK, I probably know, but it's not terribly interesting, when you come right down to it. Music has taken a vacation this summer, along with me. Here we are at Fall, and me about to go to my high school reunion. I could tell you which reunion it was, but as Number Two said so often, "that would be telling."

Here's a song I wrote with two (2) composers, Josh Dodes and Adam Blau. Josh is an NYC denizen, had a band, did all the Lower East Side venues, and now does more straight composition. Adam is LA-based, and does film work. I've met Josh, and when I called him to work on a song to pitch, he brought in Adam. The song is "Constant" and it's a swell song -- the guys did a kick-ass job on the music and the recording.

I went up to NYC to see Rachael Sage perform, and she was sharing the bill with her friend and partner Seth Glier, whom I met that night. Seth and I struck up a conversation, as we all wandered the Lower East Side, and several of Rachael's friends went to get crepes.

The creperie across the street from The Living Room is tiny, and is staffed by a couple of women in very tight t-shirts. The air in the creperie was heady with all sorts of desire. Hell, it was a Saturday night, and the whole neighborhood was alive with young people, wearing little clothing, exuding hormones. Electric.

Seth was writing a note to someone, I assumed a girlfriend, but I couldn't be sure, and he wanted a metaphor for being constant. He was musing, looking for input...."...constant as......constant as....." I didn't have an answer right there but I kept thinking about it.

The crepe girl. The lust-filled Lower East Side populace. The girl at a distance that one needed to be constant for.

That's the background to the song. Hope you like it.

Not Autobiographical. Really

Here's another of the new songs that were written for a pitch. It's an energetic defense of laziness. An ambitious ode to lack of ambition. It's called "I'd Rather Sleep."

I've had this lyric kicking around for a while. I forget why I wrote it in the first place, but I had fun with it. Early in my collaboration career, one of my other (now) regular collaborators tried it and we didn't see eye to eye. Finally, he confessed that he thought the guy singing the song was sort of a jerk. Which I can't disagree with.

Jordan, who wrote a couple other songs with me that I just love hearing over and over, has a great pop voice and sound, and he came up with a really fun setting to the song.

I had a crisis of confidence about this song, when I revisited it being set to music. I rhymed Mona Lisa with Tower of Pisa. All very well and good, but it hit me that Cole Porter had done the same in "You're The Top."

I thought about changing it, or taking out those lines. But then I thought, hey, is he the only guy who's allowed to rhyme those two things if they work? And Cole Porter wrote that song in the 1930s. Seventy-Five years later, I think I may get a pass on using them again.

I hope.