Chapman Song News Page


This page is dynamic and contains periodic, informal updates, stories, notes, ideas etc. on my own music projects as well as any other related music or songwriting topics. If you find these articles interesting, please stop by occasionally for an update, or feel free to drop me a line.	Check Previous Notes and News Articles (history) Here

I got "Ride With Me" to a point and have been stuck there for a while... In addition, my reality-based day job situation has been stressful and taking a lot of my time (I am now between jobs (unemployed) and it's taking some major efforts to get that back on track again... sheesh...) and I am not sure if I am even going to record "Ride.." at this point...

OK, getting to the real song-writing part... It takes quite a bit of time for me to record my songs. I know I could do much simpler productions (just guitar and vocals and maybe a little fill) but once I start the recording, the ideas start comming (and it is really a lot of fun (mixed with frustration) ) and I just can't seem to leave it as a simple production. So, I may not record all of my latest material, although, if I don't record them, sometimes they get forgotten and will never be heard (some people may NOT see this as much of a loss to the world... :-) ). Alright, I guess it comes down to... If I get the time I'll record it.

The next thing I have re-visited (as they say) is using movie stories as seeds for songs. I tried this a while back and didn't really follow through with it. Now, I have been wanting to get more content to my songs (ie a little more of a story/scene rather than simple single themes) and it is just way too time consuming to think of and write short stories for each song. So... I tried an experiment by summarizing a movie and trying to use the storyline as the song story.

I'm not sure how well this will work, but I do think that is has some good possibilities. I have a lot of freedom with the lyrics, because the song doesn't have to be that close to the original movie story but it gives the song a nice core story and direction.

I was a little concerned about the legalities of this process, but I really don't think that that is a problem. I don't think it matters where your song idea came from, as long as the song (music, lyrics) is original. It should not conflict with the copyrighting of the original movie... I guess this is where I would need a lawyer for the finer points... (If I make any money doing this, I guess I'll look into that in a little more detail :-) ).

OK, so I suppose you are all wondering what movie I choose... Well... I just thought of some movies that I liked and some that were not overly popular and obvious (to start with)... A light movie, with some emotion to it (OK, some may say a "chick flick")... I started with "Overboard", an old Goldie Hawn movie...

I've been working on my next song for a while now (as usual... it seems that I always have at least on "in the oven"). I believe that this one will be called "Ride With Me" (unless it goes through some unexpected radical changes before it is complete).

My original idea was to write a song with a basic hopeful theme, but from an experienced, "been down" point of view (as opposed to a I'm so happy/cheerful/hopeful suns-shinney point of view).

It still takes me forever to get decent lyrics and then they never seem to meet my expectations anyway. I am also trying to persist at songwriting, but I am going through a difficult "why am I doing this", disappointment in everything that I have done phase... Ah well... I guess that comes with the territory and I don't see any practical way to quit right now :-)

OK, so anyway, I've spent quite a bit of time on some disjointed lyrics and finally got a verse and a chours together and started to work on the music (I actually usually have some basic melodic ideas as I am doing the lyrics... kind of a mostly lyrics-first with melody and melodic rhythm evolving at almost the same time...)

I was getting a little disappointed in the song and my own progress and just about trashed another one (I have had a handful that ended up on the cutting room floor) Then... just tonight it started to come together pretty well!!! I can now see some real potential to this one.

So far, it seems like the music is a little stronger than the lyrics in this one (in my opinion) but the lyrics do have a decent direction and some meaning (maybe just not as much of a story/theme/setting or as conversational as I would like, but I am working on that). It seems like the kind of song that can lend itself well to a very dynamic production. (I just wish I had better equipment to do a higher quality production of what I have in my head)...

OK, I guess I have made up a little for lost time! :-) Stay tuned, more to come!

I'm sure this has been done before and is documented somewhere in the Official Book of Songwriting or something, but I did an interesting songwriting exercise today that I thought I would pass along...

I was struggling with some semantics related to songwriting and emotions. I believe that the lyrics to a song should generate an emotion or at least a feeling (part of the problem here even is differentiating between an emotion and a feeling). So at first I was attempting to make a list of emotions and feelings ("I Feel ___") and what thing (or word(s)) would bring on the specific emotion ("____ makes me feel ____"). I made some progress, but this was a pretty difficult exercise.

My next exercise is the one that I actually wanted to mention though. I went through an old list of all-time-great-songs (you know some of the biggest hits over the last few decades) and simply attempted to describe the emotion, or feeling that (in my opinion) each song generated. One little twist here is do you relate to the song and/or emotion from the singers point of view or the singees (?) point of view... (ie, like in Elton Johns "Your Song" the lyrics "my gift is my song and... this one's for you", do you relate to giving a song or receiving the song).

Anyway, this is not quite as difficult and is pretty interesting... (I think anyway...) You can put together a list of any group of songs you like and just go through each song and take a minute to describe the emotions/feelings that the song (lyrics mostly) generates. Here are a few of my samples:

Song	Feeling	Song	Feeling	Song	Feeling
Yesterday	Reminiscent, Sad	Bridge Over Troubled Waters	Gererous Sincere	Born to be Wild	Free, Uninhibited
Like a Rolling Stone	Humbled	Good Vibrations	Hopeful	We are the Champions	Pride
Your Song	Grateful	Rock&Roll (Zepplin)	Exhileration Reminiscent	Here Comes the Sun	Peaceful Hopeful
Dream On	Hopeful	Smooth	Sensual, Cool, Needy	Born to Run	Free, CareFree

The emotions/feelings generated are totally personal, of course and the descriptions are pretty subjective but it can be interesting. I'm sure one could take a huge amount of time and make an extensive study in this area and accumulate a lot of interesing statistics... Styles of music and the dominant emotion/feeling of most songs within each genere, etc, etc.

For the moderate group of songs that I did, and with my own opinions of the emotions generated I came up with the following emotions/feelings on the top of the list:

Well, I hope this was interesing to some of you and I hope that it can help some of us to write some better songs!

October 22, 2002 - Post, Release... Never enough Time... Songwriting Balance...

I haven't received a lot of rave revueues on "Babes in the Wild" (yet) but I am happy with the song, production and release. (it hasn't hit MP3.com yet. That takes forever these days...) I've reviewed it quite a bit (on my car stereo) and it's pretty decent. The only thing is it doesn't really fall in to that "up" category. "Up" songs always seem to go over better (for me anyway)....

OK, for those of you who don't know me, I am also a programmer and I am taking a Java class at a Jr. College by us. What does this have to do with music and songs??? Well, it is another activity taking another slice of my time and this particular class is very difficult and time consuming. Therefore, I beleive that I will be focusing on the class for the next 2 months and will probably have a little delay before the next release. :-(

Even when I am focusing on other things, I find that I still always have various songs ideas going around in my head so I'll still be working at it at times, I just don't think that I will have the time to really work on a song and get it recorded and produced real soon...

I did take a little time to review my songwriting goals again recently... I have some problems with the commercial side of things versus the artistic side and what I believe that I do best. When it comes right down to it, I can't ignore the commercial side, because ultimately my goals still involve getting a song (or songs) published. But then again, I believe that you must stay true to your own music and can't "sell out" to what is popular or the latest craze. I guess this is just a balancing game.

I find that my best chances seem to fall into either rock, pop or possibly even country but I believe that they are usually looking for harder rock than I do, younger pop than I do (like kid stuff) or country which I am only really a little close to (I used to call what we did in the 70s "country-rock").

I guess I will just try to keep the songs sounding current, stay true to my own musical styles and directions, keep trying to improve the quality and see how it goes! Sheesh... what a long shot! :-)

"Babes in the Wild" has been released to the interenet! See the scoop behind the song, lyrics and of course give it a listen... (and let me know what you think...)

I've started the recording and some of my next song "Babes in the Wild" and done a rough mix on to a CD for review in my car. I like it. It's a little more layed back than my last few but it has a real nice groove and a catchy melody in the chorus. Unfortunately, I know it is going to be a while still before I do the internet release. I've just started a new job and have a heavy load of homework still from a class that I am taking (yea, I know excuses, excuses...)

I've also written the song about Palatine (where I live), but now I am not really sure if I will take the time to tweak it and spend the time recording and mixing it... It's a nice novel idea, but I am thinking that I will probably just keep working on the old standard common (more universal) theme songs...

I have also been giving some thoughts to reviving my Free CD offers. The idea was basically for exposure and was an interesting experiment. It turned out to be great in some ways and not so good in others. I got some decent (and some very nice) feedback on my songs and found that there are people out there that really enjoy the songs (at least some of them :-) ).

The only thing that I really disliked is that there are also people out there that will ask for anything that is free, just because it is free... Also, the over-seas shipments were a little difficult, because I had to fill out extra forms and go to the post office to send them (in addition to the extra costs).

So I imagine that I will have to limit my offer to US only (although, I would still like to keep the offer global). More importantly, I need to figure out a way to limit the offer to people with a real interest in the music and not just something free... I'm not exactly sure how to do this yet... any ideas out there?

I am starting to believe that the mucic really counts a little more so than the lyrics for the most part, although there are obviously many many components to a great song/performance/production. As far as the "melody" goes, it really is multiple melodies in most songs. The melody itself really consists of multiple phrases (mini melodies in themselves) and the harmonies can be melodies also... At a bare minimum there is usually at least one melody for the verse and one for the chorus (they can have a relationship or even be 100% different).

I guess my point here is keep those melodies strong, interesting and use as many as needed for the song (one is not usually enough to carry the whole song).

On another subject, I just got a reply from a publisher that I sent my song "Spare a Little Love" to back in March! Yes, it can be a really slow process. It was another "thanks but no thanks" theme (i.e. rejection), but a really nice reply. I quoted the good parts in my "what people are saying" section (of the Request a CD page).

I have had a few contacts with this publisher (Dan Schafer, Faverett Music Group) and have had a good experience and have been very impressed. I checked out his site and he's had pictures of himself on stage playing with Shania T. and they are located right on Music Row (I went there when I was in Nashville). Even though he is popular and has some great contacts, he actually finds the time to listen to the songs (from us unpublished start upss) and replies... OK, I don't know that he personally does it all, but it appears that way from the communications that I have from him.

He is on the top of my list for publisher contacts as far as that goes. Unfortunately, I don't think that my material is a real good fit for the types of material that they seem to work with (pop and country) and I am beginning to think that my material is very "stylized" (as I have been told) and I am not sure of my chances of getting other musicians to record it. If I did get a song published, I'm sure it would be in a more unique area of rock. In other words, I'm not sure which direction my songwriting will take right now and my goals (and the things that I find important) are constantly changing.

About the only thing that I am sure of now is that I will continue to write and strive to improve. I do believe that songwriting (for me) is a little bit of an additction. To me that means something that gives you pleasure, is habit forming and you find yourself compelled to keep doing it in spite of the fact that it costs you time and money and you could and should be doing more productive and useful things.

September 20, 2002 - One More Written, The Personal and Specific approach.

I've completed the lyrics and music to my next song "Babes In The Wild". I may have gone from lyrics that are too light to possibly too heavy... I think that many people will still be able to relate to it though... We'll see how it goes... Unfortunately, I have some major homework comming up for my Java II programming class so I'm sure that the song will have to sit a while before I get it recorded, mixed, etc. and up to the internet...

I have also started another song with a very different approach. OK, I admit that it is basically is a cheap commercial gimmicy concept but I don't think that it really compromises my songwriting and it still gives me the opportunity to write, improve and experiment.

My idea is to write some songs with subjects that are very specific and personal to a limited number of people, as opposed to trying to write generically for the widest possible audience. In the process, I was hoping for some additional interest in the song and interest in my other works.

It is not real practical to write songs specifically for an individual (most of the time) so I am considering subjects that would be specific and personal to a moderate number of people (hundreds or thousands of people... but NOT necessarily everyone). My ideas were specific schools, towns, organizations, etc. etc. and my first experiment is my own town of Palatine. Yep, I'm just writing a song about Palatine, Illinois... I didn't find any songs about Palatine on the internet other than a few instrumentals with the name alone. This would most likely appeal to a limited number of people, by design, but with very specific lyrics it may just have MORE of an appeal to Palatine residents and generate an interest from them...

It is kind of a novelty type of approach but I am not going for comedy songs (of course, you never know how it could be taken :-) ). This approach can, of course, be applied to many specific subjects if it works out... It's kind of a target marketing type of thing... Not aimed at everyone, but more personal to those to whom it does reach.

Well, we will see how this goes... As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, etc... Let me know... more later... Rob.

First, with 9/11 comming up I thought that I would pass on a link to a great, inspirational, patriotic 9/11 song that I got via my IFS newsletter (see the Links page if you are interested in getting IFS). The song is called We Will Stand, and here is the link www.mp3.com/erichorner. It's not at all a style that I would do myself, but I really think that it is very inspirational and fits the 9/11 anniversary coming up.

Next, just a note on a song writing technique that I have been keeping in mind recently. This has to do with those of us who have a formal musical background and have learned instruments by taking lessons, reading music, studying music theory, etc.

Lessons, notation and music theory are, of course good things for the most part, but sometimes they can get in the way when it comes to raw creativity. I have found that when I am writing a melody or chord pattern I just naturally consider the key that I am in and the related chords... so I start trying the 4'th, 5'th, minor II or VI (in place of a IV) etc, etc. and don't just go with an odd chord like a Major III or just start trying any chords, with an open mind (outside the box/key) (the same goes for a melody also).

Recently I have been trying to be much more open in this way and concentrate on a Keyless attitude. Of course, the chords and melody still have to work! And this doesn't mean that I am transitioning to some real weird, open keyless music. It's just an attitude and tool to use in the creation process.

I also find that after some experimentation, I end up with many of the traditional chords and scale patterns anyway but maybe in a more interesting way or maybe with some very unique chords and melodies. I think that a lack of formal training has also helped some other great musicians and writers (specifically I was thinking of the Beatles).

That's my thought for today... Don't let your training and education get in your way...