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Interview with John |  |
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John Braheny ABOUT JOHN CRITIQUES AND CONSULTING SERVICES CLASSES AND SEMINARS ABOUT JO ANN BRAHENY PHILOSOPHIES INTERVIEW WITH JOHN OPINIONS AND RANTS CURRENT NEWS AND ISSUES BRAHENY SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS |
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This interview with John Braheny was for Skip's Valley Music News in Sacramento, California previous to a seminar he did there in 1996. Edited and updated a little. Q: What motivated you to write the book? - What need did you see you would be filling? A: Michael Dolan had asked me to do a songwriting column when he and Eric Bettelli started music Connection Magazine in L.A. in 1977. He knew that my partner, Len Chandler, and I had been auditioning, critiquing and showcasing songwriters at the Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase for several years. In those days we were the only game in town for showcasing writer/performers live. During that time we were rejecting most of what we heard and writers wanted to know why. As I went through the process of figuring it out for myself and explaining it to writers, I had an outlet for writing about it in Music Connection. After six years, I naively thought I had a book. Thankfully, Julie Whaley, a wonderful editor at Writer's Digest Books help me learn how to write a book. There was also a lot of confusion about the business side of songwriting. Most of the literature at the time was in legalese and needed a translator and someone who could talk about what it means in practical terms. Q: Who did you intend the book for? A: Anyone who was remotely interested in songwriting. I told my editor I wanted my mother (who can't carry a tune) to be able to understand it. Q: What wrong assumptions or misinformation do you see most up-and-coming artists have about songwriting? A: That lyrics don't matter because nobody listens to them. That to write a great song you need great gear. That a major A&R dude is going to walk into the club and "discover me" so all I have to do for my career is look good and play well. That my songs are great because my friends like them and the audience screams when we play them. That if a song works in a club with an audience it will automatically work on a record. That the mission is to put the song on paper just the way God (the universe, the spirit, the inspiration) gave it to you and never edit. That the real goal is to get a record deal, then you're a success. Q: What are the most common mistakes that most songwriters make? And how does your book help? A: They don't understand what powerful tools form and dynamics are. The book explains what makes them work, and offers techniques. Q: Does the reader need musical knowledge to benefit from your book? (or seminars) A: No. There's a chapter in the book about melody and rhythm by David Cat Cohen, but it's very easy to understand with musical examples most people are familiar with. In fact, one of the benefits of the seminar is that you can hear the examples. Q: What are the ways that most "wannabe" songwriters/artists waste their time and energies (and how does the book address this/help?) A: One of the biggest time wasters is waiting to see what happens to one song before writing another. When someone does that I realize they're writing for the wrong reasons. You should be writing all the time because you love it. In which case, it would make you crazy to have to wait. Q: You have a section on "Developing Songwriters Consciousness." Is everyone a potential songwriter or do some people just not have it? Does self-esteem or self-image come into play? A: By "songwriters consciousness" I mean that you can say "I am a songwriter and everything I experience could contribute to a song." It means being in constant awareness of what's going on around you and thinking about it as potential song material. It could be an unusual juxtaposition of sounds, an overheard conversation, a line of dialogue in a TV show, an argument with your lover, a magazine article, another song on the radio. It's endless. I think everyone is a potential songwriter. How good you are obviously depends a lot, if you're writing lyrics, on your language skills. As a music writer, it certainly helps if you play an instrument but it's not necessary. It's just that the more tools you have, the easier it is to do the job. I find that the best lyricists are people who love to read and who appreciate good lyrics. It's more likely that you'll avoid clichés and come up with fresh approaches. The self-image question could be an article in itself. I'm sure it comes into play in a lot of different ways; being able to control your inner critic (which my wife, JoAnn, will talk about in the "creative process" part of the seminar), your confidence about pitching your songs, your belief that you have something worth expressing, and your ability to endure constant rejection without taking it personally for starters. But it can also help your self-image if you have a craft, any craft, that you can do well and express yourself with. Q: You talk about knowing your listener. Could you briefly explain this to our readers. What's the relationship between the song and the listener? A: Tough to be brief on this one but I'll try. There's a difference between self-expression and communication. Sometime they seem to work together naturally because you express yourself well and you happen to be on the same wavelength as your audience. But I'll hear songs that I'm sure were perfectly understood by the writer when they were written, but as a listener I'm clueless about what they were trying to tell me. Songwriting is an incredibly powerful art form in which your song can potentially reach billions of people. What do you want to say to them, blah blah blah blah? If there's something you've experienced or felt that you want other people to relate to, you need to give it to them in a way they can get it. You can learn a lot about your listeners by paying attention to the way you listen. What excites you, what bores you and at what points in the song does it happen. One of the things I'll focus on in the seminar is Song Dynamics, techniques to help you hold peoples attention. Q: I like how you talk about there not being any absolute rules about songwriting, but there are some principles. Cold you briefly explain that? A: I learned early on that for any rule that I'd come up with, there'd be numerous exceptions, so I had to look at the exceptions to discover what made them work. I also learned that any successful record is a combination of ingredients: melody, lyric, groove, musicians, production, arrangement, singer, image, promotion, distribution, all of it's important but if one is missing it can be compensated for by something else although you strive to make them all as good as possible. Anyway, the principles that apply to most popular radio music are that it must maintain a balance between predictability and surprise, hold the listener's attention (except for some kinds of New Age music designed to not hold your attention, and dance music built for clubs where you already have their attention), and be easy for a listener to learn and remember. Q: Major record companies sometimes have a herd mentality (e.g.. the plethora of grunge bands signed after Nirvana's success.) Is this kind of trendiness damaging to creativity? Can trends like this be an advantage to songwriters? A: There has always been that mentality in the record business, actually in any business, particularly in large corporate companies because there's such a high risk factor in trying something new. It costs a major label $500,000 to a million dollars to launch a new artist. Consequently, it's safer to try to find a different version of something that's already successful. It's easier for an A&R rep to justify a signing if there's good reason to believe that a target audience had previously been created for the artist or record. But you're right, it can be both a hindrance and a help. There are always writers and artists who feel compromised artistically by thinking they need to adopt a particular style in order to be successful. Others welcome it as a challenge to their creativity. Over the years I've also seen underground stylistic trends that develop naturally because musicians and writers are subject to similar musical influences, but nothing happens to the trend until one successful act makes it easier for a major to sign others. There are always small indie labels who can afford to pioneer new music because they can work on a scale that allows them to recoup their investment on a much lower sales volume. Songwriters who write songs for others to perform soon realize that adaptability and versatility is a definite plus. Even within a genre it's helpful, but not necessary, to be able to write for the style of a specific artist. Much of the adaptability can come in the demo production. Q: How do you see new technologies influencing the way songs are written, and the way people think about songwriting? A: Technology is a tremendous influence. Since drum machines and sequencers, more songs are inspired by and start from grooves and sounds. Since computer and sequencers, more writers are becoming arrangers, producers and mixers and their songs are more dependent on arrangement and feel. It has allowed writers to experiment with various musical and rhythmic settings for any given song and to take as much time at it as they need. If you write a lot of songs it can save you loads of cash on demos. Those who write for orchestra or big bands don't need to wait to afford to pay one to hear their work. I know several people who are writing over the internet, another technology that is great help in marketing music and is destined to be even more important in the near future. For all technology can do, it won't necessarily make you a better melody or lyric writer and can actually trap you into deluding yourself because it all sounds so good. Maybe you just do it best with a guitar or keyboard. It all gets down to what works for you. There are many, many ways to write good songs. |
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THE LOS ANGELES SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE - SITE MAP