Resophonic guitar player, vocalist and songwriter Paula Lane lives in Southern California by way of Jacksonville, Florida. She has played with several bands, including This Just In (current),  High Cotton and Misbehavin’ and has done a movie soundtrack. Paula and her husband Dwayne are  generous in holding many music events at their home in Lakewood. When she’s not writing songs or playing music, Paula works in the intensive care units at UCI Medical Center as a respiratory therapist. She also has a photo restoration business.

Rick: You have written many of your songs from actual experiences; what is your process for translating “real life” into the phrases and stories that hold their own in the sparse language of songs?

Paula: A lot of great songwriters begin with a title or a melody, but that technique often does not work for me. When I write, I usually have a subject in mind for the song and in most cases, this is a true life experience or an story of someone that I know and something that has a personal meaning to me. I write down ideas and phrases of the story line and keep them in a word document on my computer. I pick and choose the best of these phrases and they eventually evolve into a song. Sometimes this happens in one day or in some cases, weeks.

Once I have the lyrics, the song just leads me in the direction that it wants to go. I can’t always say that I want to write a waltz or a fast song because the lyrics usually dictate the tempo and the mood of the song. My next step is to sing the song along with either regular guitar or resonator. That helps me to come up with a melody. I experiment with different chords and structure my song so that it compliments the words. Often I tune my resonator guitar to DADGAD tuning because I love an old time, bluesy sound to compliment certain lyrics. That is the instrument I play with the band I am in and I use it a lot to set the mood of the song.

Sometimes after I write a song, the song names itself. Often there is a line in the song I have just written that repeats itself and it seems appropriate that it should be the name of the song.

Rick: Why do you write original music?

Paula: For a long time, I played cover tunes. There are a lot of great songs written by other artists and I enjoy playing and singing them. But people like to express their own feelings and writing a song is a good way to accomplish this. You are talking in your own voice rather than imitating someone else. You can make your song anything that you want it to be and there is something very rewarding about that. Besides that, someone in the band has to do it!

It may be wishful thinking, but I’d like to believe that someone will listen to these songs years later and remember these stories which would otherwise be forgotten or remember a character that I have sung about.

Rick: What is the very best part of presenting an original song you have written to others?

Paula: Like a lot of people, I tend to be critical about my own writing, but when I get a positive reaction from the audience and they can personally relate to my song, I know that I am on the right track.

My band members have been very supportive of my writing and it is very exciting to hear other people add harmonies and instrumentation to your own original song. It adds another dimension to the song and brings it to life.

Rick: Every song has a story — what’s the story behind your original song “Harry Lee?”

Paula: Several years ago, I decided to research my family history. They say that if you dig deep enough you’ll find some interesting stories and I certainly found that to be true. One of my relatives mentioned that there was a murder in the family and that captured my interest. I did some investigation and found some newspaper articles about this incident. Harry Lee was my mother’s first cousin but since he was born in 1895 and much older, she does not remember him. In 1914, when Harry was only 19 years old, he went to work for his uncle in a bakery in Hawkinsville, Georgia.

He claimed that his uncle did not treat him well and would not give him money to go home on. One night, while his uncle was sleeping, he brutally murdered him with an axe. He went to prison for this crime but was later released. Since there are a lot of murder ballads in bluegrass music, I thought this would make a great song. At the very end of the song there is a line that says “Often times I sit and think about my family tree, and wonder if there just might be a little Harry Lee in me.” So now there’s a running joke in my band that my husband won’t let me keep any hatchets in the house!

Rick: What are the most significant things you’ve noticed or learned about songwriting that might help other songwriters?

Paula: When I first started writing, I felt that I had to tell the whole story. Later I learned to leave out some of the details of the story and leave something to the listener’s imagination. It’s ok to be a little vague and let the listener create the outcome of the song. You can learn from other people, but don’t try to copy. It’s good to be different. There are no specific rules.

A friend has asked us to play at a fund-raising event for Rett Syndrome this August in Teton Valley. A little research has revealed that Rett Syndrome is a heart-breaking disease that affects mostly girls. The symptoms only become evident when the baby is between six to eighteen months old. So far, there is no cure, but they’re close.

We wrote this song to play at the concert, and decided last weekend in Carmel to video the first draft to share with our onsongwriting.com community.

More on the process of this particular co-creation in a blog to come soon. For now, here’s the video… and the lyrics:

Silent Angel
© 2009, Rick Jamison and Kathy Schmidt

Hope in a blanket
Tiny in pink
Coos and blows bubbles
Maybe she’ll sing, someday
She’s our angel

Just hold the moment
Stars in her eyes
Shine with a promise
Limitless skies, today
Little angel

Chorus:
Change happens slowly
Unless, it never comes at all
When was the moment
The promise of her star began to fall

Don’t see it coming
Hope clouds the view
Suddenly helpless
What can we do? We pray
For our angel

Reaching for answers
The future is near
While we are searching
I’ll sing for you, my dear
Silent angel

Change happens slowly
Unless, it never comes at all
When is the moment
The promise of their stars return to all

Single-track recording. Virtual bands. Long-distance collaboration. Digital recording has opened up a world of possibilities that never existed before, well, digital recording.

I’ve used this capability on most of my own recording projects. On my first CD, for example, I recorded several songs in Twain Harte, California, downloaded the WAV files and sent the tracks to Rob Ickes and Dave Pomeroy in Nashville. Dave recorded Rob’s Dobro and sent the WAVs back to me. Upon synchronization/integration of the digital audio tracks, it sounded like we recorded everything in the same studio real-time.

The following video takes this concept to a whole new level, combining audio and video tracks from musicians from all over the globe:

One street performer recorded the original track, and then additional instruments and vocals were laid down by different singers and musicians from around the world.

The song itself is the classic Stand By Me, which was originally released in 1955 by The Staple Singers and then released again in 1961 by The Drifters. This composite version is a real toe tapper, so turn up the speaker volume and prepare yourself for a warm and happy feeling.

How cool is that? People who may never have a chance to travel great distances to personally meet can collaborate digitally to create just about anything they can imagine.

What a wonderful time to be alive.

Here is Part 2 of my recent interview with Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby:

Rick: In your experience marketing songs and listening to songs marketed by others, is it better to introduce a new song in the form of a rough recording (where the listener has room to imagine how they might arrange and interpret the song themselves) or a highly-polished CD track that demonstrates a well-produced expression of the song’s potential?

Derek: Arranged and produced, definitely.  You definitely do not need the million-dollar Neve console and Neumann mic, but you do need the bass, drums, background vocals, or whatever else you imagine is really part of the song.

Never think “polished.”  Very few people like polished.  Go for cheap and rough, but do the arrangement your mind really hears.  People can’t read your mind.

Rick: Since selling your business to Disc Makers last year, what’s ahead for you?

Derek: I’m always thinking about how I can best help musicians.  Lately it felt like distribution is something that’s already “done” for them.  They don’t need my help with that anymore.

But the actual hands-on labor help: help booking, help promoting, help with the boring uncreative work around being an independent musician — that really interests me.  That’s what MuckWork is all about.  It’s not ready yet, but that’s what I’m working on now and really excited about.

Rick: What’s the most important question I could ask you that it didn’t occur to me to ask?

Derek: My two biggest bits of advice to writers are to be prolific and to improve every song.

Did you know the Beatles wrote 100 songs before “Love Me Do” - their first release?  They wrote, improved, performed, and then basically threw away those first 100 songs.  Some people at clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg heard them, but that’s it.  Because of this, by the time we heard the first note from them, they were already very seasoned experienced writers.

If the Beatles were coming out today, they would have spent far too much time, emotion, and expectations on uploading their first three songs to their website, MySpace, and iTunes.  They would have emailed everyone saying, “Let us know what you think!”  They would have gotten incredibly discouraged with the lukewarm response.

Luckily for them (and us!), the Beatles were in an age where they just kept writing and writing and writing.  Constantly improving every song, trying it out on crowds, improving it again, then writing more and moving on.

I strongly recommend throwing away your first 100 songs.  Get into that mindset and it changes everything.  Instead of trying to promote every song, you just keep writing.  You stop worrying about piracy, because you know you have 100 more songs coming.  Each time you record an album, it’ll be your 10 favorite songs from the last 100 you wrote.  You focus on building and building your career instead of trying to force everyone on earth to love your first three songs.

As for improving, I was blown away by the responses I got recently, asking writers What do you do for feedback on a new song you’re writing? Apparently most people just treat the first thing out of their mouth as if it’s the unchangeable stone tablets handed to Moses!

I have always been a relentless song-improver.  I would write 25 verses to come up with two good ones.  I’d ask all my friends, “What don’t you like about this? Where do you lose interest? What line do you not love?”   Some of their feedback would resonate with me, and make me realize some great ways to make the song even better.

I’d constantly learn new techniques in melody-writing, arranging, chord progressions, lyric-writing, and song structure.  I’d aim to write at least one or two new songs for every new technique I learned, just to try it out for myself, and really internalize it.

To me, this is where all my growth and improvement came as a writer.  I can hear a clear progression and improvement in my writing that never would have happened if I had just strummed and sang whatever I felt and left it at that.

Derek Sivers founded CD Baby in 1998.

Before that, he graduated from the Berklee school of music in 1990 and toured with a circus for ten years as ringleader/musician (1988-1998). Derek quit his last “job” at Warner/Chappell Music Publishing in New York City in 1992 to be a full-time musician. Ten years after he started CD Baby (and HostBaby), Derek sold the companies to Disc Makers. Since 1998, over 250,000 artists have sold their music through CD Baby (including me) – they have sold over 5 million CDs online to customers and paid over $100 million directly to the artists. What a cool business to start.

Rick: In a recent interview, you suggested that a songwriter should “decide BEFORE you make the music: What could we create that would be SO noteworthy, SO remarkable, that there’s no way it could be ignored?” I’ve heard other voices advocate “Be authentic. Be true to yourself.” Or as Kathy Kallick said in a recent interview “I have to sing it from the heart, or it will fall flat. I’m always writing songs for me to sing; if somebody else wants to sing it, that’s great, but I first have to be able to sing it myself.” Both pieces of advice ring true, but how does one reconcile those two points of view?

Derek: Combined, it becomes, “Be the most remarkable version of yourself.”

You can be yourself and be entertaining - or be yourself and be striking.

Not just in music, but even socially.  If your spouse says, “When you meet my co-workers from the office, please be charming!” - then you’re still yourself, but the best version of yourself.

Specific to songwriting, though, it’s as simple as the occasional choice of words or notes.  You can go for the ordinary way to say something (”People in New York are strange”) or fascinating (”Plucked her eyebrows on the way. Shaved her legs then he was a she.” from Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side.)
In an interview with Eminem, he said his goal when writing is to make a noisy room of people not-listening stop talking, look at the speakers and say, “He didn’t just say what I think he said, did he?”

When writing melodies, you can just stream-of-consciousness sing what comes naturally out of your throat, or you can go to an instrument and come up with an interesting series of notes that fit beautifully with your chords but maybe take a little work to sing.  Now when someone hears that song, your melody will really call attention to itself, for its striking originality.

All of this is still being true to yourself.  Just challenging yourself to come up with something more remarkable than the first thing that comes out of your mouth.

Rick: For many creative people, writing songs is the easy part. Getting the songs out there, not so easy. You’ve written an awesome guide titled How to Call Attention to Your Music (download the PDF at http://sivers.org/pdf) that covers just about every important aspect of marketing original music, except one: how do successful songwriters keep motivated to stay in the game when the going gets toughest?

Derek: You have to love the process.  You can’t just be in it for the goal.  Luckily, writers can always write, anytime and anywhere.  Performers have it tougher.  If you love performing for a crowd and there’s no crowd that wants to hear you, it’s tougher to say, “Enjoy the process.”

The same way that you sometimes approach songwriting saying, “Let’s see what happens if I take this ballad and make it uptempo,” you can say, “Let’s see what happens if I contact this website (or venue or magazine) and ask them how to get featured.”

Detach yourself from the results and make it all a fun ongoing experiment.  Persistently try little things every week, and after a few months, you’ll find out your so much further along than you expected.

Rick: On a similar note, you’ve written “Music is like perfume. You have to convince and persuade people, with your words and images, to take that initiative, to make an effort, to hear your music. If you try to just ‘let the music speak for itself’ most people will never hear you.” For those songwriters who have more humility than self-promotional genes in their DNA, is it time for a cold, hard reality check?

Derek: No! That’s a horrible way to think about it. Instead just make it a continuation of your creative writing. Instead of stopping at the last line of the song, have fun creatively describing your music.

If you’re writing a song for someone you love, and you want them to understand how much you love them, you choose words that they can relate to - words that they will love, not just words that you’ll self-indulgently enjoy writing.

So when describing your music, make it a writing challenge to come up with some enticing words that are not so esoteric or alien that people tune out — but not so boring that they tune out either.  A few succinct and intriguing words can go a long way…  just like lyrics!

Continue reading… Derek Sivers Interview: Part 2

The craft of songwriting takes place amidst the rhythms and context of the rest of life. A pursuit unique to itself, but holding much in common with all else.

In addition to the On Songwriting blog, I also write a social media-related blog called Listen. Engage. Create. This week’s post in that blog is about why “The Story of the Three Bears” is relevant way beyond the nursery. The concepts of too hot, too cold or just right tend to show up just about everywhere, including music.

In many ways, especially music. Consider just a few of the extremes:

• Too predictable = boring; too improvizational = hard to follow
• Too fast = you’re making me nervous; too slow = you’re putting me to sleep
• Too sentimental = sappy; too flip = shallow
• Too loud = a wall of sound; too quiet = huh?

Somewhere between the polar points, there is a sweet spot that’s just right.

Songwriting, approached as a thoughtful craft, seeks that goal: a song that can be played over and over and listened to again and again.

You know it when you hear it. Accept no substitutions.

The good news is there’s always room for one more song… especially when it’s in the sweet spot.

Dan Miller is the founder and publisher of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, a bi-monthly print and online-based periodical (and companion audio CD) dedicated to presenting all aspects of the art of flatpicking the acoustic guitar. The following conversation concludes my interview with Dan that began with the previous post on March 22.

Rick: Excellent insights, Dan. I totally resemble the part about getting excited about writing a new song only to do next to nothing to promote it beyond the people who already enjoy listening to my music. So what are some of the other changes you’re seeing in the music industry as the digital age continues to unfold — and what is staying the same?

Dan: What is constantly changing and evolving are all of the new ways listeners are getting their music and all of the new avenues for promotion and sales. On the down side of this is that there is a lot of competition and there are so many artists out there trying to sell their music and capture the interest of music listeners. Add to that the fact that there are so many artists willing to give their songs away for free and it is so easy for the consumer to copy songs from their friends, most people, especially the younger demographic, don’t really spend any money for the music that is on their computer or in their iPod. Not many people are buying CDs these days, and huge numbers of people are getting downloads for free. That is not good for the artist who is trying to make a living at this.

What is staying the same is that it takes a lot of hard work and investment in time and money to make it. This has not changed. In the old days, a band had to work really hard to get picked up by a label. There was a lot of competition to get on a label. So the competition part is the same. Once a band or artist got picked up by a label and had the label’s support, they could get somewhere. However, if they didn’t get picked up by a label, it was really hard to get anywhere because studio costs were high, record duplication and distribution was expensive and difficult, and avenues of promotion were nearly closed off if you didn’t have the support of a label.

Today, in the digital age, recording is affordable, and distribution, promotion, and marketing online are easy if you put the time in and know what you are doing. So, in today’s digital world, it is possible for a band or artist to make it on their own without the support of a label or a lot of money. The downside is because it is all so affordable and accessible, hundreds of thousands of artists are doing it and so it is very difficult for the consumer to sort through it all. So the competition is still there and the hard work is still there, the success factor has just been taken out of the hands of the labels and put more into the hands of the artists and consumers.

Rick: Do believe it’s possible for a songwriter to be successful without touring – or at least committing to an ongoing public performance schedule?

Dan: I’ll assume that you are talking just about someone who is a songwriter trying to pitch and sell their songs, not someone who is also working to be a performing or recording artist (because the answer would be different for each). If we are strictly talking about a songwriter, yes, it certainly is possible. There are songwriters who are doing it. As I’m sure you know, there are a lot songwriters who have never toured or even performed in front of people and they are making a good living, they are simply good songwriters and write songs for other people to record and perform.
What those songwriters who are successful have is either one, or a combination of:

1. A foot in the door at a record label, television studio, movie production studio, video gaming company, advertising agency, or the like
2. A good song plugger that is working hard for them
3. They work very hard to promote their own songs. They are consistent, they think outside of the box, and they are out there “selling” themselves and their songs

I set up as a vendor at a lot of music festivals, guitar shows, and conventions and there are some songwriters that I’ve met at those events who are their handing out demos to anyone and everyone. These writers will always give me a demo CD of their newest songs and say, “If you know anyone who is looking for a song, pass this along.” Then they follow up with phone calls or emails. You don’t have to be “over-the-top” or obnoxious about it. There is a tactful way of promoting yourself and your songs that doesn’t turn people off by being in their face all of the time.

I’ve owned my own business for a long time now and during the early years I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the promotion and marketing aspects because I was “in it for the music.” I figured that if I put out a good product people would hear about it and they would buy it. I wasn’t going to push it in their face and try to convince them that they needed it. I have always been really turned off by the stereotypical idea of the “salesman” or “advertiser.” So I know how some artists feel when it comes to self promotion. However, this is something else that the internet has changed. Today there is so much that people can find online that is free, that it is really hard to get them to spend money on anything. So you really have to work hard just to capture their attention and let them know that you even exist. At first, I went into the whole internet marketing thing kicking and screaming, but once I started doing it, I saw the value in the results that I was getting.

All that to say, that yes, there is a way to get your songs recorded by other people, you just have to know how to market and promote your songs and you have to be diligent and consistent about it. Be tactful, courteous, and polite and people will respond. A lot of it has to do with making connections and networking, and there are some good tools on the internet for doing that.

Rick: Finally, Dan, what’s ahead for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine as well as your record label and instructional DVD business?

Dan: Like everyone else, we are trying to keep our head above water in this economy by providing quality products at affordable prices, and we are continually working to keep up with all of the technological changes and advances. Last year we launched a digital download site (www.flatpickdigital.com) that allows our customers to download a PDF version of the magazine, plus any of our 13 years worth of back issues. They can also download a number of PDF copies of other instructional books and audio files that we have in our catalog. We also have some special issues of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine coming out in the near future that I think subscribers will enjoy. For instance our May/June 2009 issue is a special “fiddle tune” issue that features two arrangements each of 22 of the most popular jam session fiddle tune favorites, as arranged by 22 different flatpicking gutiar artists.

We continue to put out instructional material for guitar. Tim May and I are working on an eight-volume guitar instructional course called “Flatpicking Essentials.” The first two volumes have been released and the third volume will be out by the end of April 2009. The course teaches the flatpicking guitar method step-by-step as it developed chronologically in history. The first volume covers rhythm styles of the early pioneers of acoustic guitar in roots and country music (those who played in the 20s, 30s, and 40s). The second volume then moves on to teach how to arrange solos to vocal tunes in the styles that were common during the 1940s through the 1960s. The third volume then teaches how to arrange solos for instrumental numbers using some of the techniques that folks like Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Norman Blake made popular in the 1960s and 70s. Volume 4 teaches how to understand the fingerboard, teaches how music theory can be useful, and applies that to playing up-the-neck. Then in the remaining four volumes we teach more advanced concepts and styles, again in a step-by-step, easy to understand presentation. The plan is to release a new volume every-other-month.

We also continue to produce DVD concert performance projects. We just recently released our 5th concert DVD in the concert serie. The new one features Robin Kessinger, Robert Shafer, and Mark Cosgrove. Artist we have featured in the past include David Grier, Kenny Smith, Wyatt Rice, Tim Stafford, Bryan Sutton, Jim Hurst, Tim May, Brad Davis, Cody Kilby, Josh Williams, Andy Falco, and Chris Eldridge. We will be filming a new one in May 2009 featuring Jack Lawrence, Scott Nygaard, and Robert Bowlin.

Our record label is getting ready to release a great new various artist project called “Flatpicking Bluegrass.” This will be our 28th CD release. This CD highlights lead guitar work on standard bluegrass vocal tunes. Each song on the CD features a full bluegrass band. While the band remains the same for each tune, the guitar player/lead singer changes. The guitar players/lead singers who are featured on this CD include some of the finest in bluegrass: Josh Williams, Tim Stafford, Kenny Smith, John Chapman, Brad Davis, Tim May, Richard Bennett, Jim Hurst, Chris Jones, Jeff White, Stephen Mougin, and Jim Nunally. The back up band includes Shad Cobb on fiddle, Charlie Chadwick on bass, Chris Joslin on Dobro and banjo, and Dave Harvey on mandolin. Tim May and Brad Davis provide harmony vocals on most tunes, although others also sing harmony on select tunes. If you love traditional bluegrass and flatpicking, you will love this CD!

Dan Miller (right in photo above) is the founder and publisher of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, a bi-monthly print and online-based periodical (and companion audio CD) dedicated to presenting all aspects of the art of flatpicking the acoustic guitar, as pioneered by such great guitarists as Doc Watson, Clarence White, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, and Dan Crary. In May 2008, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine launched the Flatpicking Guitar network, an online community to discuss, explore, learn and interact with other flatpickers. In the following interview, Dan shares some of the insights he has observed about the art of creating — and marketing — original music.

Rick: You’ve had the opportunity to personally interview well over 100 highly-respected guitar players through the years, many of whom are also talented songwriters. Have you observed any recurring themes or shared traits among the songwriters you’ve interviewed?

Dan: While each artist may have a different process, I found that the most prominent common thread amongst the songwriters I’ve interviewed is “Don’t try to write a hit. Don’t try to keep up with trends. Write from your heart.”

When I interviewed Marty Stuart about his album The Pilgrim, he called the pop country hits “disposable” and told me that when working on The Pilgrim he wanted to write songs that “sounded like they were old.” He said, “What I feel like I have done with The Pilgrim is regained my credibility. Not to say that I discount anything that we’ve done over the past fifteen years, but you back it up to before we had a hit with Hillbilly Rock, and man I tried everything. I tried bluegrass, I tried folk, I tried country, and the first thing that took off was Hillbilly Rock. So what do you do? You start chasing. You work what works for you. We played for thousands of people, sold lots of records and won lots of awards. But there came a point where I looked around at the state of affairs in country music and it was just disposable pop music. I went over to talk to (Earl) Scruggs about it one day and he said, ‘It just don’t really turn your crank does it?’ I thought, ‘Well put!’”

Marty also said, “I read a book called In the Country of Country. It made me really stop and think. The music we are talking about here (in the book) is going to last forever. The kind of records we are trying to keep up with and make a trend out of (today) are going to be disposable. I thought, ‘Well, I am going to stop making records long enough and really make a record.’”

Chris Hillman, whose songs have been recorded by Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart, Tom Petty, The Oak Ridge Boys, Patty Smith, Marshall Crenshaw, and many others, said something along similar lines. His recommendation was “Look at the lyric that you are writing and ask yourself, ‘Is this something that I am going to be able to listen to in twenty years?’ Do not ever listen to what is on the radio and say, ‘I’ve got to write that kind of song.’ By the time you do write that kind of song, it will be passé. We have created an amazing disposable culture. When I got into the music business it was a small cottage industry. Even if you were lucky enough back then to get on a label, they’d keep you around for a while if you worked hard. It is just disposable now.”

Chris continued, “It’s kind of a trite saying, ‘write from the heart.’ Try to look at it as if it is a short story and get as descriptive as you can. Write from something that is familiar. I can’t say what comes first, the melody or the lyric line, because it changes. These days I write more of a positive bent to most of my songs. I don’t have anything to whine about at age 60. I’m alive and I have a good family, so I’m a pretty happy guy. It is hard to go back and write some sort of angst-ridden song that I might have written when I was 23 years old.”

Since I publish a guitar magazine, the questions I pose to songwriters usually focus more on writing music, not lyrics. The common “recurring theme” answer there is “The music and the solos have to support the lyrics.” Regarding his approach to playing the guitar in support of songs Darrell Scott said, “I am hyper-aware of composition – it is an important aspect of supporting the song. I listen to the lyric and support what it is saying.”

Darrell continues, “Kenny Malone is a drummer, yet he has to know the lyric to a song before he plays it. He wants to help the singer tell that story and so he keeps a copy of the lyric on a music stand. A lot of guitar players are just waiting to ‘blow’. As a guitar player you need to support every piece of the song, and the guitar solo is just a part. It is funny how many guitarists know the chord changes, but not the lyric. The chord changes are a skeleton that the lyric sits on. When I know the lyric and sensibility, it tells me what I can play. I think that playing licks keeps from bringing the song to the listener.”

Darrell explained that he views the song as an umbrella that encases parts that can be broken down into a familiar form, for instance: intro, verse, solo, chorus, bridge, and outro. He said that in a great song there is a reason why everything is there and every part helps to carry the listener on a journey. If a guitar player is mindful of all of the parts, then they can better support each part of the song and can make a conscious shift from one part to the next.

Rick: In addition to your work as a magazine publisher and record label owner, you’re also close to the inner workings of more than one successful music career. With the Internet eroding the traditional star-making power of the major record labels, what are some of the most important things a songwriter can do these days to get exposure for their music?

Dan: I would say that every songwriter and musician needs to learn as much as they can about marketing, advertising, and publicity and work at that just as hard as they do their songwriting. How to market your songs and music in today’s changing music market is a large and complex topic, which continues to evolve rapidly. So it is hard to really dig into all of that “how to” information in a short interview.

The one thing songwriters need to do, however, is be as creative in their approach to marketing and pitching their songs as they are in their song writing. The music industry is in the middle of a rapidly changing revolution, so it is no longer viable to just think along the traditional lines of record labels, CDs, touring, etc.

While the “old style” music industry is in decay, songwriters have to realize that there are more markets and opportunities for their songs now than there has ever been in the past. There are songs and music on video games, hundreds and hundreds of shows and commercials on cable television, hundreds of large and small video productions, cell phone ring tones, and numerous types of digital downloads and broadcasts — and there are a lot of new, interesting, and exciting ways to reach these markets.

The obvious ones that everyone uses on the Internet are MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Internet radio, and podcasts. But there are also many others that a songwriter can find and use to his or her advantage. The songwriter simply needs to do his or her research and explore all of the possibilities, and think outside of the box.

As an example, Brad Davis, an artist and songwriter on our FGM record label, does a lot of writing with actor, writer, and musician Billy Bob Thornton. He and Billy were working in the studio a few years ago, staying up for days on end and drinking a lot of coffee. They ran out and ordered some coffee from an Internet company called Coffee Fool and absolutely loved the stuff. Brad was telling me this story and raving about this coffee and so I said, “If you love the product so much, write a song about how great it is, call the song “Coffee Fool” and send it to them. Brad wrote the song, recorded it, and not only did the company use the song on their website, they have since sponsored some of Brad’s shows and clinics and continue to work with him on some other promotional projects that have turned out to be mutually beneficial for both Brad and the coffee company. So, you never know. You have to pursue all avenues. Don’t just think about pitching to labels and/or other recording artists.

The biggest problem that I see is that songwriters and musicians like to write and record songs, but they are not always so crazy about working really hard to promote those songs once they are written and recorded. The ones that are super successful have other people doing all of that work for them. That’s great, however, until you can afford to pay the publicist, the radio promoter, and the song plugger, you have to do all of that work yourself. It is not always fun and the constant rejection is hard to take, but it is a necessary evil.

The other thing to say here is that the concept of promotion, and all that it entails, can be very overwhelming. There is a lot to do and you don’t have time for it all. It is a lot of hard work and it can be very disappointing when the majority of your efforts don’t pan out. I recommend that songwriters and musicians look at marketing and publicity as a very long and slow moving process. Consistency and diligence are the keys. So I recommend that artists set aside a certain amount of time every day, maybe an hour, and work on promotion and marketing consistently. Don’t finish a new song or a new CD and work really hard to promote it for only three or four weeks and expect to get very far. Work on it an hour or so every single day of every year. Be consistent, keep at it, and results will come.

Continue reading: Dan Miller On Songwriting, Part 2

Have you ever written a song that sounded too good to be true?

Not in an ego-centric expression of “C’est moi, what an amazing songwriter am I!” but in the genuine sense of “This song sounds pretty good. It must already exist — I just can’t remember where I originally heard it.”

Yet there it is, your new song. A finely-crafted melody with good, easy-flowing words. How is it possible that this song has been out there floating around in the ether for literally anyone to grab and make their own, yet you’re the first and only one to notice it, write it down and record it?

Kind of like a bunch of fisherman angling on the same river at the same time with essentially the same bait. Then, out of the blue, BOOM — a huge, feisty and majestic German Brown that had been owning those waters for years is suddenly hooked on a single thin line, just as surprised as the one who just caught him.

Unlike the trout that may well be released, however, there you are with something beautiful and wild right out of that teeming river of creativity where songs hatch and swim around freely… a genuine keeper.

Most of the time, of course, it’s rare to hook a finished song out of thin air, whole and fully formed. It’s usually harder work than that with multiple iterations, edits and twists along the way.

But even after I’ve found my way through the creative process and crafted a new song, I often second-guess if the latest one is really mine.

Nobody wants to tread on the IP of another songwriter or represent that a creation is yours when it isn’t. With literally millions of songs already written and in the bag, so to speak, it makes you wonder how it’s even possible to create something totally brand new. How can there be anything left that hasn’t already been thought of by somebody else?

Yet it happens all the time, and that’s one of the most special and true things about songwriting. Your next song hasn’t been written yet, and nobody will ever hear it until you create, perform and publish it.

How it works, why it’s possible… I’ll leave those questions for others to answer. I simply believe that if you approach songwriting from your own genuine point of view, listen and respond to ideas that are authentically your own, bring them forth with the help of the Muse and work the craft, magic can happen.

Do that, and every so often, it really is true.

Rick: With so many songs already written and published, what inspires you to keep writing?

Kathy: I can’t help but write songs. I have a very aggressive Muse who will not be denied! When I’ve tried to intentionally take a break from writing, it never works. Neither will it work for me to sit down and make myself write a song. The busier I am, the more input I’m receiving from the world at large, the more likely I am to have a burst of songs.

I’m very inspired by the stories I hear from friends, or a common thread that runs through several situations. Sometimes I’m percolating a song subconsciously, and it’ll come out fully formed and surprise the heck out of me.

I tend to write a lot in the first person. That’s how my first bluegrass songs came to me, as stories from my experience, but many songs are just story songs, or quite removed from my own experiences, when I can take the opportunity to try on another point of view. I love a good story song, and I’m sometimes inspired by novels I’ve read or songs I’ve heard. Sometimes I want to think about more of the story than has already been told.

I get inspired to write new songs when ever I learn a new chord shape, or guitar run, or strum pattern. Anything that gets me playing the guitar a bunch to learn something new is likely to unleash a melody, and then the words fall into the cadence of the melody. For me, songs start in all those ways; melody inspires words, the lyric suggests a cadence that leads to a melody, or the lyrics and melody appear simultaneously. Sometimes a new song will be based on playing out of a certain chord shape and I’ll have to capo a gazillion frets up the neck in order to sing it in the right key!

Rick: What have you learned from your personal journey as a songwriter that might be helpful to others walking their own creative path?

Kathy: I’ve found that listeners will often take their own meaning from a song, and that’s something I really love. I’ve often not thought about the meaning of a song in the same way as somebody who hears it from their own experience, and the song is open to different interpretations. I never try to correct somebody who’s heard something that resonates for them, even if they’ve heard a completely different lyric than I wrote. Sometimes the music happens somewhere between my performance and their ears, and it’s magic.

I think the most important thing about songwriting is to write in one’s own voice. By that I don’t mean everything has to be True Confessions, but that the voice I write in is believable. Even if I were to write in some arcane dialect or different gender or historical background, I have to believe the voice of the singer. I have to sing it from the heart, or it will fall flat. I’m always writing songs for me to sing; if somebody else wants to sing it, that’s great, but I first have to be able to sing it myself.

I like to write a song that’s interesting to me, so even if it’s a simple love song, I’m going to reach for some word or phrase or perspective that’s not been worked to death. I’m going to let unlikely words and language into a song, and let the story unravel how the song tells me, even if it goes somewhere uncomfortable.

I try to never force a rhyme, or force a word into a song just because I like the word. I let the song take the lead. Then I go back and edit. Get rid of clunky stuff. Take out verses if it’s too long. I often like to leave a bit unsaid, and tell the barest bones of the story, implying things. That lets a listener fill in the blanks and get personal with the song. I think many songs fail by being too long and just beating the listener to death. Of course, the details really give the rich flavor to a song, but Hank Williams wrote some killer short songs!

I try to stay away from maudlin, tear-jerker, National Inquirer songs. If a song is manipulative, it doesn’t move me, it just makes me mad. If the emotional content is real and believable, the song will be moving to a listener.

These are my opinions, and I could go on and on, but, each songwriter will have their own set of criteria, and checklists of good intentions. The world is full of way too many songwriters. Nowadays everybody has to be a songwriter, and sadly, there are so many generic sounding songs.

Sometimes I take a break and go back to Carter Family songs or classic Bill Monroe or the Stanley Brothers — just anything pure and plain — and I loll around in the beauty of those songs, thinking I’ll quit cluttering up the air with more songs. Then the cosmic radio switches on and a song starts screaming away in my brain, and I’m off and running! I guess I’ll probably keep writing songs as long as that continues.