Going solo?
Saturday, 14 February 2004 19:49![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fatrockstarI am not a great musician. As a matter of fact, I can only play one or two instruments. I play enough guitar to accompany myself, and was last chair french horn in high school. If you played a note for me, I could not tell you what it was to save my life -- but I could show you how to play that chord on my guitar.
I am, however, a great writer. I don't write poetry, or short stories, or novels, but I write and I'm really fucking good at it.
I am also a great singer. People have been complimenting my voice for years and years. It has only been a great source of pride for me in the last year or two, and I think I know when I'm singing something offkey or unpleasantly.
Put these all together and you have a passable singer-songwriter. I would hardly call myself a composer because of my limited instrumental abilities. This is going to change, and SOON. I have had about all I can handle from "people" who think they know better than I do about what I write, how I write, and what it should sound like. For the last month and a half I have been pushed around by musicians who think that because it sounds good to them, I should be happy with it, especially if I can't explain to them in their language what it is I'm not happy with.
Last night's rehearsal made me want to walk out on the band for good. I've probably explained the basics about these guys before, but I'll recap: One or all of them will present me with a composition and say "write us some lyrics because we can neither sing nor write lyrics." I come back with lyrics, we tweak it a bit, then we have a song. Thus far I think I've done some pretty fucking phenomenal things with the VERY lyric-unfriendly compositions they've thrust upon me.
This one song, Phat Sack (I didn't name it), has been one in their repetoire for ages. They swear they play it the same way every time. The chorus came easy--it had chord changes to work with and pretty much wrote itself. The rest of the song was a songwriter's nightmare. Repetitive, one chord throughout, no real cues as to when the chorus starts unless you were sitting there counting each measure (can't really do that and sing at the same time). Might have been a good thing for a rapper, but I'm not a rapper. After finally getting a recording of this song, I worked with it over and over until I managed to write some verses. Took over six months.
The first three or four rehearsals with this song we did okay. I would rehearse this song at home with my recording to make sure I could sing it with the timing I had originally written, because more often than not the guys will change something and say they've always played it that way and then I'm up a friggin creek. Last week I noticed that my lyrics weren't hitting where they were supposed to and I said something about it. I got blown off. This week I was louder about the change and not only got blown off, but the fuckers pulled rank by saying "well, WE wrote this song and think we know how it's supposed to sound," and added "we like it the way you just sang it, so sing it that way."
Since we had an audience of one in the rehearsal space, I held back by saying, "well, that wasn't how I wrote my lyrics. You changed something, and I fucking hate it. I worked for months to put these lyrics into this song, and I don't want to sing it 'the way I just sang it.'" They said fine, then we won't play it anymore. Fine. I hated that stupid song anyway. Just like I hate the crappy demo mixes you all insist sound so great. They suck. Suck with a capitol SUCK.
The rest of the rehearsal was sung flatly, because obviously my input matters very little. Well excuuuuuuuuse me for doing the job you brought me in to do, you fucking divas. Guitarman tried to do the manly buddy-up homey handshake with me after rehearsal, which really didn't do anything other than let me know he knew I was pissed. He and I will have words later.
What I think happened is that I made the mistake of telling Guitarman how I fit my lyrics into his impossible verses, which added two more measures of shit for me to figure out how to either vamp or sing through. Now instead of just counting from the top, he counts from the start of my vocal. Also, I think he's irritated at me for saying no, I won't jump right into the next verse after the chorus because there's nothing left in my lungs to sing with then.
I'M the lyricist. I sing the lyrics. I write the melodies. MY body is the one in front of the band that everyone is paying attention to. If anything, MY opinion should matter MORE than any of yours because MY name is going to be dragged through the mud should we do something stupid as a group.
Fuck. Rant over. Thanks for reading.
I am, however, a great writer. I don't write poetry, or short stories, or novels, but I write and I'm really fucking good at it.
I am also a great singer. People have been complimenting my voice for years and years. It has only been a great source of pride for me in the last year or two, and I think I know when I'm singing something offkey or unpleasantly.
Put these all together and you have a passable singer-songwriter. I would hardly call myself a composer because of my limited instrumental abilities. This is going to change, and SOON. I have had about all I can handle from "people" who think they know better than I do about what I write, how I write, and what it should sound like. For the last month and a half I have been pushed around by musicians who think that because it sounds good to them, I should be happy with it, especially if I can't explain to them in their language what it is I'm not happy with.
Last night's rehearsal made me want to walk out on the band for good. I've probably explained the basics about these guys before, but I'll recap: One or all of them will present me with a composition and say "write us some lyrics because we can neither sing nor write lyrics." I come back with lyrics, we tweak it a bit, then we have a song. Thus far I think I've done some pretty fucking phenomenal things with the VERY lyric-unfriendly compositions they've thrust upon me.
This one song, Phat Sack (I didn't name it), has been one in their repetoire for ages. They swear they play it the same way every time. The chorus came easy--it had chord changes to work with and pretty much wrote itself. The rest of the song was a songwriter's nightmare. Repetitive, one chord throughout, no real cues as to when the chorus starts unless you were sitting there counting each measure (can't really do that and sing at the same time). Might have been a good thing for a rapper, but I'm not a rapper. After finally getting a recording of this song, I worked with it over and over until I managed to write some verses. Took over six months.
The first three or four rehearsals with this song we did okay. I would rehearse this song at home with my recording to make sure I could sing it with the timing I had originally written, because more often than not the guys will change something and say they've always played it that way and then I'm up a friggin creek. Last week I noticed that my lyrics weren't hitting where they were supposed to and I said something about it. I got blown off. This week I was louder about the change and not only got blown off, but the fuckers pulled rank by saying "well, WE wrote this song and think we know how it's supposed to sound," and added "we like it the way you just sang it, so sing it that way."
Since we had an audience of one in the rehearsal space, I held back by saying, "well, that wasn't how I wrote my lyrics. You changed something, and I fucking hate it. I worked for months to put these lyrics into this song, and I don't want to sing it 'the way I just sang it.'" They said fine, then we won't play it anymore. Fine. I hated that stupid song anyway. Just like I hate the crappy demo mixes you all insist sound so great. They suck. Suck with a capitol SUCK.
The rest of the rehearsal was sung flatly, because obviously my input matters very little. Well excuuuuuuuuse me for doing the job you brought me in to do, you fucking divas. Guitarman tried to do the manly buddy-up homey handshake with me after rehearsal, which really didn't do anything other than let me know he knew I was pissed. He and I will have words later.
What I think happened is that I made the mistake of telling Guitarman how I fit my lyrics into his impossible verses, which added two more measures of shit for me to figure out how to either vamp or sing through. Now instead of just counting from the top, he counts from the start of my vocal. Also, I think he's irritated at me for saying no, I won't jump right into the next verse after the chorus because there's nothing left in my lungs to sing with then.
I'M the lyricist. I sing the lyrics. I write the melodies. MY body is the one in front of the band that everyone is paying attention to. If anything, MY opinion should matter MORE than any of yours because MY name is going to be dragged through the mud should we do something stupid as a group.
Fuck. Rant over. Thanks for reading.
