Going for a song

What begins as an abstract slip of an idea germinating in a troubadour's bedroom can often blossom into an industry-boosting anthem blasting from every boutique, club and pub in he four corners of the globe. Songwriting is a tricky business - Keith Richards likened it to picking up signals from some unknown station broadcasting from the outer limits, Van claimed it all came through him rather than from him, and Bob Dylan just wrote. Constantly.
So while the pursuit of the perfect three chords, middle-eight and chorus might be as much art as craft, it's also a business. In this article we'll be examining the nuts and bolts of getting your sterling tune from the bedroom to the record stores. It doesn't matter whether you re a budding acoustic rocker, techno space cadet or skateboarding scuzzpunk, when it comes to the finer points of composition, recording and marketing, the song remains the same.
Songwriting
As with almost any endeavour that requires the engaging of the creative faculties, the rules are there are no rules. Everyone has their own favoured method and environment for writing, but one thing all songwriters will tell you is that it s 10% inspiration, and 90% graft. Mind you, the approach can vary according to the genre you choose to work in. A winsome minstrel might prefer to compose in solitude in a Rathmines garret, a rock band may favour recording all-night jams and then picking out the best bits (a la U2), and a dance outfit might find their creative juices stimulated by accidentally-triggered samples or loops.
Donal O'Mahony of Dublin outfit The Plague Monkeys is a great fan of songwriting by accident. "The way we do it is we have absolutely no starting point," he admits. "When we are composing on four-track or in the studio we just basically wing it. The best thing in that situation is not really to have a set idea about how the song is going to turn out. Regardless of what it sounds like, it ll always be a pleasant surprise. We don t like songwriting-by-formula. "
Perspiration is the key. CS Lewis once remarked that the muse is most likely to some calling when you're sitting at your desk working. Pete Townsend of The Who stressed the importance of seizing the moment, sitting down and writing the song while the inspiration is there. Song-ideas tend to lose some of their lustre after several days of being put on the back boiler. On the other hand, Phil Lynott always maintained that if a new tune is good enough it ll stay in your head for days.
"One thing I'd say to any songwriter starting off is, don't finish ideas you don t like," advises Glen Hansard of The Frames. "I've had a lot of ideas when I was younger where the band would all be excited and I wouldn t be as happy after the first couple of days. Some songs in my past have turned into monsters that I don t want anything to do with. I'd be going 'Ah Jesus, did I write that? I let that one out of the cage!'"
Alan O'Boyle of Dublin dance terrorists dEcal might come from the hi-tech end of the spectrum, but his composing methods are similar to orthodox rock outfits. "I tend to approach things with the same structure in mind," he admits. "Get a basic chord sequencer bass line together and build it from there. Same way as if you wrote a rhythm guitar track."
Equipment
Although it's advisable to go for big-name brands, it's not necessary to spend a small fortune on equipment. If the songs are good, they ll stand up by themselves.
"We've always had really cheap drum machines and so on," admits Alan O Boyle, "but it's all stuff that we know how to use. We can get sounds out of them that nobody else does. We use three Yamaha DX27s and a Boss Dr. Rhythm 550 for 808 sounds. Mostly these days we just sample all the things off the keyboards, effect them, then resample them and stuff."
Whatever gear you favour, it's vital that you take the time out to actually learn how it works. The more you know about the maintenance and playing of your instrument, the more chance you have of achieving an original sound.
"You get some people making absolutely incredible music with one keyboard and one drum machine," Alan continues. "They know them so well they re getting sounds out of them that nobody else ever would. Whereas if somebody's got access to a full studio or is going in with a producer for a day, they re just going to be using immediate present sounds. The last thing you want is another house tune with a digital piano sound."
"I'm still at the stage where I try to go for a good name but I'm always at the bottom of the range," says The Plague Monkeys Donal O'Mahony. "I have two Epiphones: an electric SG copy and a twelve string. I got the SG copy in London for #150. You make do with restrictions - it becomes a bit of a trademark."
Recording
What with home-recording studios becoming increasingly more affordable and easy to operate, many young artists are eschewing the expensive commercial studios and opting for the DIY approach. Tascam have always been one of the leading lights in the world of home recording. Since introducing the world s first Portastudio in 1979, the company has masterminded many innovations, the latest of which is the world s first Digital Portastudio. The Tascam 564 is as easy to use as the traditional cassette Portastudio, but also boasts new features like sequencer-style editing and non-destructive track bouncing. It employs MC Data cartridges which can achieve 37 minutes of high-quality four-track digital recording on a single disc.
I ve got a Tascam eight-track reel-to-reel and it s absolutely brilliant, enthuses Glen Hansard. I just love it cos I m constantly recording things, and it s really teaching me stuff about recording. The album The Frames are doing is sounding more like my eight-tracks as we go along.
We had an eight-channel Fostex four-track recorder with guitar multi-effects which The Plague Monkeys still use as a writing tool, states Donal O Mahony. Most people were convinced it was well above going into a studio for eight-hour sessions or whatever. I also do a lot of sound-engineering work.
Indeed, moonlighting as a sound engineer, tape-op or even roadie can prove to be a valuable experience for young songwriters. If a musician wants to retain control over the recording of his or her material, they will want to familiarise themselves with the role of the producer. In this respect, Portastudios are a useful means to that end and can help prepare a musician for the rigours of recording in a commercial studio.
A song is like a living thing and you re dragging it into a butcher s when trying to record it, confesses Glen Hansard. I ve never gotten it right. You re cutting it up into pieces and there s blood everywhere and you re constantly wondering, Who killed it? The best recordings come from when you stop being precious and stop trying your hardest to be the best, freaking everybody out with your intensity. If you pull back on the emotion and the dynamics of something, it generally has an opposite effect on tape, it seems to come across more. It s a matter of getting to grips with teamwork or whatever. Hold back!
Once the business of committing songs to tape is over, there are other factors to consider. Many musicians complain that the tape or CD they receive back from the pressing plant bears no resemblance to what they heard on the studio speakers. This is where they would do well to educate themselves in the mastering and duplication process.
We run our own label, so basically we master it ourselves, all the stuff on the label has been recorded in our own studio, so from that point of view it s been pretty straightforward, claims dEcal s Alan O Boyle. For pressing stuff up we ve used loads of different places: France, Ireland and England, and we re just going for independent distribution deals everywhere. As regards duplicating facilities, it s hard to get vinyl in Ireland which is pretty disgraceful. The Anodyne CD came back within seven days, that was done through Trend so it was grand, but dEcal went to the Czech Republic for the last twelve-inch and that was brilliant high quality vinyl and pressing, really quick, really cheap. Vinyl s important because DJs can t or won t play CDs.
For The Plague Monkeys Navigator EP it was a case of going into the studio and mixing the demo straight from the four-track digitally onto DAT, Donal O Boyle explains. It took an hour or two and that was it. As regards distribution, we went through Sony. We were lucky in that respect before, it was just a sale or return basis, going into shops, which can get you down, but now we ve got it sorted out in Ireland anyway. At this moment in time we re still holding off from the record companies but we don t want the material to get stale so we re just going to put it out there.
Rehearsals
If a songwriter is lucky enough to hook up with like-minded individuals who want play his material, he will need a rehearsal room. Ideally a band would have their own rehearsal space, allowing them to develop their songs and their sound in relative solitude and tranquillity, but this is often not feasible in the city. Therefore, when renting rehearsal space in one of the many city-centre studios, good planning is essential.
As well as obvious (but often overlooked) points like punctuality and having spare strings, skins and so on, it s well worth five minutes of any band s time to sit down and plan out the night s work, allowing an hour or so for jamming/composition, another hour for going over the live set, and the remainder for working on problematic material. Just don t go in and kill your songs by rehearsing them again and again, urges Donal O Mahony.
Live
Many solo artists and bands fall into the trap of allowing nervous adrenaline to overpower the songs in a live situation. While a good gig is often about energy and abandon, it s important to remain true to the spirit of the tune. There s no point in taking a chainsaw to your most delicate material just cos the punters want to dance. Also, listen to what you re playing. Live gigs needn t be a matter of rattling off the set by rote they can be creative affairs too.
dEcal are in a unique position: We just have our own little studio and it all moves live, explains Alan O Boyle. You just basically take the loops that you d use from the sequencer to actually build the track, turn them into repetitive loops, let them run over eight bars and you can build them up and down through the various stages of a song just by turning them on and off. You can make the song as long or as short as you want. You re 100% free to improvise.
If you re running to freeform you can speed it up, slow it down, take it in different directions depending on what way the crowd are reacting. If you re playing to DAT and you start a song and you aren t enjoying it, there s nothing you can do about it. Gigs are totally different because you re writing from a totally different point of view. When you re writing to release records you have to take into consideration how a DJ is going to mix it in and out of his set.
Copyright
As soon as a songwriter has begun performing or recording their songs, they should also think about copyrighting them. This not only protects the artist from having their material ripped off, but it also ensures payment if the song is played on radio or television.
IMRO is a collective of Irish songwriters and publishers who enter into an agreement with similar collectives in every other country in the world, thereby looking after Irish songwriters repertoire on a global scale.
It s essential for young songwriters to join IMRO because with the convergence that s happening now in telecommunications, that s how their rights will be protected in the future, explains Hugh Duffy of the organisation. A songwriter who doesn t have a CD or cassette out but is gigging around will get income from those gigs by making a return to us and saying where he played. We ensure that the live venues are surveyed, and if he submits details we will ensure that he gets paid.
The conditions for joining are that an artist should have one commercially-recorded album CD or cassette out, or have performed a song commercially in eight venues. IMRO circulates information via newsletters, and membership officer Paula McDermott is on hand to answer all queries. There is no membership fee.
I sent the first Plague Monkeys video off to No Disco and I got a call off Donal Dineen telling me to join IMRO cos we were starting to get airplay with Dave Fanning as well, recalls Donal O Mahony. I would recommend joining, particularly if you re starting to send stuff out to the radio stations. We made money from the playing of the video if you re played on MTV or BBC television it s amazing, you get a couple of hundred quid per play. Publishing is where the money is. That s where you re going to make your money and pay off debts.
Mistakes
Mistakes are only a bad thing if you don't learn from them. Every songwriter has a skeleton or two in the cupboard, a cringe-inducing memory that they d rather forget. In dEcal s case it was a lack of thought about the practicalities of a DJ spinning their record in clubs.
Some of our earlier records didn t actually consider DJs enough in the construction of the songs, Alan O Boyle explains. There was never enough lead-in space in terms of a beat at the start for a DJ to mix it in, and not enough lead-out space for him to mix another record in on top of it. They were constructed like songs instead of tracks for club use. If you re writing stuff for an LP you can get away with that, but if you re writing for one-off 12 that are aimed for the dancefloor you ve got to consider how a DJ is going to use them.
Artwork/Packaging
Instead of going straight to the commercial firms and paying dearly for the privilege, rock n roll apprentices might consider taking care of the artwork and packaging themselves. It s cheaper, less homogeneous, possibly far more satisfactory in the long run, and gives the artist more control over their image.
For The Plague Monkeys it was a case of a chance encounter after a gig. This guy Simon Roche came up and offered to help us out with putting visuals to the music, recalls Donal. The same with Brian O Malley on the videos. I would advocate getting friends to help out rather than going straight to the commercial companies. Keep it a cottage industry.
Marketing
Writing the song is the enjoyable part, hustling is where the work comes in, whether submitting it to record labels, publishing companies or song-placing agencies.
One such agency is SongLink International. Launched in September 93, SongLink (described as the premier industry resource for songwriters, music publishers, labels, producers and managers ) provides music publishers and songwriters with up-to date information. Every month it prints details of around 30-40 upcoming recording projects requiring songs. In conjunction with the Munich Newsletter Songs Wanted it has found homes for songs with artists such as OTT, Jennifer Rush, Paul Young and Jaki Graham.
Editor/Publisher David Stark is also a partner in the Unisong International Song Contest. The overall Grand Prize in this competition includes a chance to participate in a hands-on major songwriter workshop in Clifden. Special guests at the workshop include Brian Kennedy, Joan Osborne, Liam O Maonlai, Luka Bloom and Niall Hogan of The Cranberries. Other prizes include $2000 cash in each of the eight categories, plus publishing contracts with companies including EMI Music and MCA Music.
Songwriters need to have a professional approach and good demos because they re competing against publishers with master quality demos a lot of the time, warns David. But if a songwriter's got a good song and it's well recorded then it stands just as much chance as a publisher in getting a song accepted.