“You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.” – Henry Rollins
What are some of your plans and objectives for the last two months of 2016? Statistics show that writing down goals increases the odds of achieving them! Big or small, it doesn’t matter what the goals are as long as we keep moving in the right direction.
Join us in goal-setting this month and post yours in the comment area.
“Starting a new way is never easy so…keep starting until the start sticks.” – Tim Fargo, Author
Jump in! A new month, a new begi
nning! Big or small, it doesn’t matter what the goal is as long as we keep moving in the right direction. What are some of your plans and objectives for this month? Statistics show that writing down goals increases the odds of achieving them!
Join us in goal-setting this month and post yours in the comment area.
“We are standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us
They are saints and they are humans, they are angels, they are friends
We can see beyond the struggles and the troubles and the challenge
When we know that by our efforts things will be better in the end”
-Excerpt from “Standing on the Shoulders” written by Joyce Royce
The poignant song, “Standing on the Shoulders”, was written by a lovely songwriter friend of mine, Joyce Rouse, and recently sung in it’s entirety by another dear songwriter friend, Lisa Silver, at the unveiling celebration of the new Women’s Suffrage Monument in Centennial Park in Nashville, TN. The lyrics were such an appropriate tribute to those women who bravely stood up for women’s right to vote.
However, this lyric took on an even more personal meaning for me earlier this month when my former creative director and publisher at Zamalama Music, Kacey Jones, sadly lost her battle against cancer on September 1st. I felt heartbroken when I heard the news. Kacey was one of the women whose “shoulders I stood on”, in other words, one of my mentors. She probably didn’t realize it, but she was my “fearlessness” coach. Watching her “go for” whatever she set her mind to, helped teach me to reach further and be braver. On her Facebook page, there are memories and tributes posted from those who knew and loved her from the 1970’s to the present. She was: Kacey, the recording artist, the comedian, the singer-songwriter, the Shameless Hussie, the Sweet Potato Queen, the business woman, publisher, and record promoter, and the list goes on. To me, she was Kacey, the first person to believe in me and my songs enough to hire me as a staff songwriter for the few years that she ran a small indie publishing company between 1999-2001. She guided me toward my first hit song and we celebrated that accomplishment together.
At the 2000 ASCAP Awards. With Kacey Jones – a rare picture of her short-lived, short haircut – and Sharyn Lane, owner of Zamalama, and me second to the right, accepting an airplay award for “Home to You” recorded by John Michael Montgomery. (Excuse the poor picture quality, it’s been sitting on top of our piano for a long time).
After my stint at Zamalama ended and the company catalog was sold, Kacey and I stayed in touch mostly through emails and Facebook. What I’ve realized through my grieving was that on a day-to-day level, I played a very brief and relatively minor role in Kacey’s diverse and well-lived life, yet her direct impact on my life was enormous. Did she know that?
This led me to think of other women early in my music career who unwittingly have helped shape who I am. They are the ones who showed me (not told me!) how to conduct myself and move forward in this crazy music business. One of the first, Lisa Palas, who in the early 90’s was already a hit songwriter and signed with Reba McEntire’s publishing company, invited me to stay at her home while I was researching a possible move from New Jersey to Nashville, TN. She invited me to tag along with her to cool gatherings and let me know that I would have a friend if I moved here. This taught me that no matter how successful you become, it’s important to keep it real and be kind.
Around that same time, Debbie Hupp, who co-wrote the Kenny Rogers mega-hit song “You Decorated My Life” took the time out of her life to sort through the pros and cons of being a woman in the music business and without mincing words let me know that if I didn’t move to Nashville and try, I’d regret it. She showed me that despite the odds, it’s okay to follow your dreams.
When I actually did make the move to Nashville in 1992, I was quite timid about the whole songwriting thing. Then I was hired by the power-house then-Executive Director of the Nashville Songwriters Association, Pat Rogers, who taught me that being timid was a complete waste of time. She showed me that if you know something has to get done, make it happen even if it means being the tough one. What a great example of business moxie and fortitude which I needed to summon over and over again as I slugged away at the music industry beast.
In my nascent efforts to become a professional songwriter there was one publisher, Karen Conrad, who was running a very successful independent publishing company, BMG, who always returned my phone calls even though I didn’t write for her company or have anything she truly needed or wanted from me. She returned my calls because it was the respectful thing to do, regardless of whether I was on my way up or down the ladder. That show of respect is something I’ve never forgotten and try to emulate in my own business dealings.
To be fair, there have definitely been a few good men out there mentoring me and nudging me forward, not the least of which was my husband, Danny Arena. I’m not embarrassed to use the cliche that he is the wind beneath my wings. We formulated our songwriting dreams together. Moved to Nashville together. Every song I brought into my publishing deal with Kacey Jones had Danny’s name on it as a co-writer, and every songwriting and/or music business success I’ve had, has his mark on it, including our songs in “Urban Cowboy, the Musical” for which we were both nominated for Tonys. Danny taught me take it slow and to keep learning and growing along the way.
Playbill from the 2003 Tony Awards. Danny and I were part of the composing team for Urban Cowboy, the Musical, nominated for Best Original Score. Danny was thrilled that among the nominees that year was one of his composer idols, Michel LeGrand.
Learning along the way was exactly what kept me going when the going got tough, and still does. Losing Kacey has given me a reason to pause and reflect on how much I appreciate all the people I learned from (and continue to) and the positive influences in my life. There are a multitude of other friends, teachers and mentors, both women and men, even serendipitous encounters with helpers whose shoulders were there for me, maybe not always to stand upon, but at least to lean my head on for awhile, and for all of them, I’m grateful.
I’m making a little joke here. I found this in my computer files. I can’t recall how I originally got it and haven’t found the source (if you do, let me know). But it still makes me laugh and there’s definitely a grain of truth – or the entire loaf of bread of truth – in this list. So without further ado, here’s what songwriters really need to know:
THE PROFESSIONAL SONGWRITER’S ABBREVIATED DICTIONARY
VERBS:
1. to schmooze = befriend scum
2. to pitch = grovel shamelessly
3. to brainstorm = feign preparedness
4. to research = procrastinate indefinitely
5. to network = spread misinformation
6. to collaborate = argue incessantly
7. to freelance = collect unemployment
NOUNS:
1. agent = frustrated lawyer
2. lawyer = frustrated producer
3. producer = frustrated writer
4. writer = frustrated artist
5. artist = frustrated human
COMMON TERMS AND PHRASES:
1. Entry-level = pays nothing
2. You can trust me = you must be new
3. Highly qualified = knows the producer
4. It needs some polishing = Change everything
5. It shows promise = It stinks rotten
6. It needs some fine tuning = Change everything
7. I’d like some input = I want total control
8. It needs some honing = Change everything
9. Call me back next week = Stay out of my life
10. It needs some tightening = Change everything
11. Try and punch it up = I have no idea what I want
12. It needs some streamlining = Change everything
13. It’s very close = You’re not even on the right planet
14. We want something different for this album = The last album didn’t sell
15. We’re looking for a new direction = see previous
16. I know someone at the label = I know the janitor
17. You’ll never work in this town again = I have no power whatsoever
“I’m still learning.” – Michaelangelo, at age 87
Songwriting is a craft that you can begin working on at any stage in your life. Unlike recording artists, who often have pressure to look and dress a certain way or to be a certain age, songwriters never have to “look the part
.” Even in Nashville where it’s common for a songwriter to become “famous” among the locals, nobody cares how old they are, if their vocals are perfectly pitched, or what size dress they fit in. They can show up to play a gig at the famous Bluebird Cafe in a t-shirt and old jeans (not even black ones) and their songs speak for themselves.
Great Nashville songwriters like Harlan Howard, Richard Leigh, Bobby Braddock, Tom Shapiro, Jeffrey Steele, Al Anderson and Gretchen Peters were, or still are, cranking out hits for young recording artists in their 50’s and 60’s (and that list is just off the top of my head). Singer songwriters like Elton John, Sting, Dylan, Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Cyndi Lauper all continue to write new material and reinvent themselves well into their prime. So, if you’re reading this and have a desire to write songs, nothing is stopping you. I would only add as a caveat that you have to be willing to continue to learn, to grow, and to be open to your surroundings…but that’s not rocket science.
For a little more inspiration, here’s a short list of diverse folks who accomplished great things at a more “mature” age. I culled this list from Goodreads.com and a couple of Google searches and admittedly haven’t fact-checked it, but it seems right to me!
Write on, friends!
-Sara
Although I studied violin from the time I was 9 years old, played in youth orchestras throughout my school days and all the way through college, the person who taught me most about music is the today’s guest writer (and my favorite collaborator in songs and in life), Danny Arena. While I memorized scales, key signatures, and fingerings, I missed the big picture. Danny taught me how to regard all the elements of music from the individual notes, to the chords and harmonies, to the rhythms and structures. He explained it all to me in a simple and logical way that made me enjoy listening to all kinds of popular music, and even made me want to try to write it. Here’s an example of the ease with which Danny takes you on a musical journey – Sara Light
Guest Post by Danny Arena – Sharpen Your Music With The Flat Seven
There are actually seven standard chords that are part of every key in which you may be writing a song. However the seventh chord, in its standard form, is not often found in most songs. But there is a variation of this seven chord called the flat seven (or flatted seventh) chord which does turn up in many hit songs.
Formation of the Flat Seven Chord
The flat seven chord is formed by first determining the seventh note of the scale of the key in which you are writing your song. Lower this note by a half-step (also known as “flatting” the note) and you have the flat seven. For example, in the key of C, the flat seven would be a Bb chord. In the key of G, the flat seven chord would be an F major chord.
How It’s Used
The flat seven is generally used in one of two ways. First, the flat seven chord can also be used as a “surprise” chord, where you set the listener up to hear a certain chord, but give them the flat seven chord instead as a “surprise”. This is how Jimmy Webb first popularized the use of the flat seven chord (in fact, the flat seven chord is also known as the Jimmy Webb 7th). The bridge in the Grammy winning song “Beauty and the Beast” (songwriter – Menken/Ashman) uses the flat seven as a surprise chord, as does the classic Vanessa Williams/Brian McKnight #1 hit “Love Is” (songwriter – Tonio K/J. Keller).
Second, it can be used as part of the motif chord progression in a particular section of your song. The bridge in the hit Country song “Money In The Bank” (songwriter – J. Jarrard/M. Sanders/B. DePiero) starts on the flat seven chord and the Faith Hill hit “This Kiss” (songwriter – R. Lerner/B. Chapman/A. Roboff) uses the flat seven chord in the verse chord progression.
An Example
Let’s say you are writing a song in the key of C and have the following chord progression for the verse (1 chord per measure):
Em Am F G |
One way to surprise the listener would be to play a flat seven chord (Bb) instead of the F chord in the seventh measure. Another way to surprise the listener would be to play the Bb chord in the 8th measure after the F chord, and use an extra measure for the G chord.
So the next time you’re looking for a little different twist on an old progression or just a different chord to start that chorus or bridge on, don’t overlook the flat seven chord – it’s really pretty sharp (sorry, I couldn’t resist).
Hope to see you on the charts.
–Danny
Danny Arena is a teacher, a Tony-nominated composer, and the co-founder of SongU.com.
This story begins in Nashville, TN in the spring of 1998 in a little writer’s room with a big window overlooking 18th Avenue on Music Row. That room was one of my only perks of being a staff writer for a small independent publishing company. I had arrived there to meet my co-writer Arlos Smith for our weekly Tuesday morning writing session, a tradition we started after reading a best-selling book at the time called Tues
days With Morrie, a true story about a teacher with Lou Gehrigs disease and his weekly Tuesday meetings with an old student. The life lessons in the book had made an impact on both of us, so we thought it would be a good tribute to Morrie to write on Tuesdays.
That particular Tuesday, I learned that my awesome writer’s room was going to be rented out as office space which meant that after that day I would no longer be able to write in that room. I had already been living in Nashville for six years and had been a full-time staff writer for over a year. Normally, I tried to keep a positive attitude amidst all the inevitable disappointments and setbacks of a tough industry. And even though I was reaching a lot of little songwriting goals, I often felt like I was simply treading water, not really getting anywhere, certainly not getting cuts! Losing my writers room left me feeling powerless and defeated. Admittedly, I was allowing myself a moment of self-pity.
By the time Arlos got there, I had worked myself up into a little tizzy. He let me vent about the loss of my room and about all the difficulties of breaking into the music business. Finally, I said, “well, if nothing else, at least at the end of the day I get to go home to Danny.” Arlos said, “Sara, that’s our song! Let’s forget about what THEY want and just write one for us today.” Before long we had written a heartfelt song about battling a tough day and going home to the person you love called “Home To You.”
Short-cutting through the next few months, we played the work tape for our publishers, demoed it, Arlos’ publisher played it for Al Cooley in the A&R department of Atlantic Records who sent it directly to John Michael Montgomery with a bunch of other songs (a little miracle in itself). Apparently, at the time, John Michael was out on the road missing his young daughter and pregnant wife, so when he heard “Home To You” he could directly relate to it. In December, we got a call that he was going record it!
Months went by as we sweated out the details: Recorded, yes – but would it make the album? If it makes the album, would it become a single? Sure enough, it became the title cut and the second single from the album. In the summer of 1999, over a year after we had written it, we heard it on the radio for the first time.
We made a point of tipping our hat to Morrie for being instrumental in our writing on that Tuesday. As we watched the song go up the charts we were excited and nervous. Suddenly, our thoughts were not simply about writing a heartfelt song, or getting our first major cut, but about how high the song would climb and how much money that would translate into.
Several more months went by as we eagerly watched the song’s progress. Finally, it broke into the top ten. Slowly but surely each week it moved up one or two spots until it arrived at number two. Then one Thursday, we got the call we had been waiting for. As long as the promotion team at Atlantic Records could hold the position through Saturday, “Home To You” would be the number one song on the Billboard Country Charts for the following week!
But alas, it was not meant to be. Our “competition,” the RCA promotion team who had the number three song, Clint Black’s “When I Said I Do” were able to finish at the very last minute in the number one spot. So we
got the call, instead, telling us that “Home To You” lost its bullet and would peak in Billboard at number two. It was hard not to feel disappointed. We lost the coveted number one spot, the ASCAP number one party and gifts, the fancy number one plaques, awards and number one banners hanging on Music Row.
In a strange twist of timing, that very same week a made-for-TV movie was airing based on the book “Tuesdays With Morrie”. Obviously, Danny and I sat down at home to watch it, as did Arlos and his wife. The movie’s opening scene is of Morrie and his student in the stands of a college basketball game. The crowd is in a frenzy screaming, “we’re number one, we’re number one…!” Morrie turns to his student and quietly asks, “what’s wrong with being number two?”
There it was – fate, timing, life, a higher power, good ole Morrie – stepping in to remind us what was really important. It is not getting to number one that makes us great or successful. It is not about standing on the top of the mountain, but the willingness to climb it. What makes any of us successful is to engage fully in life and in the things that we love. As long as we are being true to ourselves and doing the best we can along the way –what’s wrong with being number two?
“The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.” -Henry Ward Beecher
Ideas come from all sorts of places. My old “idea books” are filled with song titles, random thoughts and bits of conversations scribbled on napkins, placemats, and sticky notes, along with torn out newspaper and magazine articles. The current version of my idea book is stored on my computer: various emails to myself, screen shots, quotes, mp3’s, links to articles and websites. A necessity of the business of creativity is to grab that idea and keep it or it will elude you in minutes. However, once you’ve captured it, let it simmer in your mind and spirit until you find the perfect opportunity to use it. I can go back twenty years, look at any of my notes on napkins and tell you where I was, who I was with, how I was feeling, and why I was inspired at that moment to write it down.
Take SongU.com, for example. Back in 2000, my husband Danny Arena and I, who had the combined skills of being teachers, computer programmers, and professional songwriters had, in the immortal words of Oprah, an “aha moment!” We asked ourselves, “Why not combine our particular skill set and create a school online for songwriters providing everything we wished we had access to back in the days when we had to walk barefoot in the snow from Newark to Nashville with no clue? Why not give back to up-and-coming songwriters in the same way that our mentors guided us? Why don’t we provide songwriters around the world with easy access to the same songwriting classes and song coaching that we offer in our on-ground seminar? Why not ask our pro songwriter friends to contribute their skills? Why not call it SongU (as in Song University)?” It was idea whose time had come.
Here’s one of the earliest website headers we sketched out when we were first noodling around with the idea in 2001:
Finally, in July of 2003, in the dark ages before Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube graced the world wide web, we launched http://www.SongU.com, the first online education program for songwriters. Over thirteen years later it’s still humming along.
I know I’m not alone in trying to keep up with the rapid fire growth of technology (can we say iPhone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…?). By necessity, SongU.com, has continued to evolve every single year since its launch. We’ve persevered through dial-up to high-speed, through text-based chat rooms to audio/video-enabled meeting rooms, from desktops to tablets, and on and on. Being able to stay current for an international online school with instructor-led web-based classes, song feedback, and community shared over many internet platforms, computers, and browsers has been no small feat. During it all our members stayed true, many of them sticking with us year after year, exceeding our expectations as they achieved their goals, giving us the props and encouragement to carry on. Admittedly, we’re proud of this accomplishment.
Recently we launched the newest iteration of the site yet, completely mobile and tablet-friendly. We’re offering some new membership options to keep up with the Joneses. And we have more ideas on napkins that are turning into realities as we speak. This blog is one of them.
As Danny and I discovered a long time ago, it’s the ability to create – to turn a random idea into a working reality – that makes all else pale by comparison. I know that any of you who have written your ideas on napkins, that have turned some words into a lyric and some notes into a melody, can most certainly relate.
