datamusicata

About a week ago, my wife and I were guests of Timothy B Schmit (www.timothybschmit.com) at the Eagles Friends and Family concert at the Forum (yes, they evidently have a LOT of friends and family). The band was gloriously tight even tho this was their warm up show, and they made me want to go home and practice. You hear them play and you realize that you aren’t working hard enough.

After a few days, I got to thinking about all the great songs that they’ve written and decided that I was going to write an Eagles tune for the fun of it;. try to write and arrange one as they would. I put down a very Eagles like progression and then starte working on a melody and trying to find a lyric idea that would fall into their genre.

My wife came out to the studio and wondered what I was doing and why I was doing it. “Shouldn’t you try to write a song like you write? Be true to your own artistic gifts?” And it got me to thinking, about this creative force and inspiration and originality. I know that prior to my becoming besotted with the Beatles, whenever I heard a song that I liked, I simply learned it.

Then the Beatles came out and everyone had to write their own songs, which I tried to do as best I could. Then reading an interview with John and Paul I discovered a really interesting writing technique.  They talked about where they got their inspiration and they were very up front about the fact that when they heard something that they liked, they tried to write a song like that.

The example that comes to mind is the Sebastian song, “What A Day For A Daydream”.  John and Paul loved that song, but instead of learning that song and singing it, they wrote their own song, “Good Day Sunshine” which sounds absolutely nothing like its inspiration.

“Hey Jude”, according to Paul was simply the chords to the Drifters “Save The Last Dance For Me” with the cha cha taken out.    Something coming out of something else.  Should we think less of Paul for using that chord progression?  Hardly.

What I try to do, as a composer and arranger, is to leap upon the inspiration, wherever it comes from, and run with it. I know that even if I start out trying to emulate someone else, my own artistic gifts will emerge and take it down another road to another place. Trust your gifts and trust your inspiration. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, it only matters what emerges.

Remember that recording trick I told you about that Don Was allegedly does? Whereby he brings into the studio a recording that he really likes and then gets the band to cop that feel and apply it to the song that they are recording that day? It’s the same thing. Did any of Bonnie Raitt’s hit songs sound like anyone else’s recording? NO! They took it someplace else. Inspiration is where you find it and where you take it is what makes you you. Don’t be discouraged by someone else’s greatness. Be inspired by it.

My only caveat is for you to make certain that you don’t copy the song exactly. I just put a Beachboys tribute up on my Myspace site. It’s not one of their songs, it's one of my songs called "Wait For The Summertime, but it is arranged as like them as I could do it. And while you hear the echoes of the Beachboys on it, it doesn’t sound like the Beachboys, even tho I tried to make it so. Check it out: www.myspace.com/jamesleestanley  you'll see what I mean.

You want to use the inspiration as a jumping off place and then let yourself go. It’s great fun and it’s instructive from every aspect, compositionally, recording-wise, arrangement-wise and performance-wise. Try it…you’ll like it.