The Dichotomy

Last week, my latest rock band had its first live show. For me, a little bit of nervousness is usual before a live show. It typically disappears after the first few notes of the set. But this time, as the date approached I found myself getting more nervous than usual. As I tried to analyze why, I realized it was because of the songs this band had written. I wasn’t nervous about how the band would perform. I was nervous about how the band and its songs would be received by the crowd. You see, this band had a set of 8 songs ready to perform, all of them instrumental songs. We had written all of these songs, and had rehearsed them for months. We had even already spent time in a recording studio and had a good EP of 5 of these songs ready to sell. So I knew that as musicians we were prepared for the show. But as one of the major contributors to the song writing of this band, I was anxious about how the crowd would react to a rock band with no vocals. That is indeed a rare thing in the music world these days, especially for a band that plays relatively heavy alternative, progressive rock.

And I realized that the dichotomy I was feeling before this performance was a very typical experience for a song writer. And it’s also a dangerous situation for song writers too. Not dangerous in terms of one’s physical safety, but dangerous from the perspective of your style.

The dichotomy is this: when I’m writing a song and making various decisions along the way, am I making those decisions based on what I think other people will like, or am I making those decisions based on what rocks my world as an artist? I am a firm believer in the latter, not the former. And that’s why I was so nervous. The music was NOT written with the perspective of “will other folks like this?” constantly popping up in our heads. And it’s my opinion that more of an artist’s style emerges when they write this way.

So, in hindsight, my nervousness was a good thing. Right before the show, it made sense that I was anxious, wondering if the crowd would like the music, because I hadn’t given this any consideration when writing the tunes! That’s why it was a good thing. It meant that I was true to my art, and wrote for the right reasons, for me and this band of musicians, not for a “target audience.” When I realized this, I was happy about this particular flavor of nervousness. Because it meant I was honest about the song writing. I honestly did write what I felt, not what I thought people would like.

But let me go into more detail about our approach to song writing in this band. We do eventually want a singer. We simply haven’t found the right one yet. But we are not going to put this band on hold until we find the right singer. Until then, we’ll continue doing what we do, writing and making music, and even taking it to the public with performances and recordings. For us, this current limitation of having no singer means (1) the music has to be strong enough to stand on its own without any vocals and (2) because there aren’t vocals, we can shed the usual song structures (think of the typical alternating verse/chorus style of song).

And we were very careful of this responsibility and freedom of writing without a vocalist. The responsibility was the challenge to write music that was interesting enough without singing. It meant the instruments needed to be more melodic. It meant the dynamics and internal changes of each song needed to be more dramatic in order to communicate the emotion more effectively. And it also meant embracing the freedom of not having a vocalist in order to pull off these things. For instance, after singing the first verse and first chorus of a song, the singer (and audience) expect that song to go repeat the verse again, but with different words. In this case, the same music for the verse is repeated, but it’s a time for the vocalist to tell more of the song’s story. But why would an instrumental song need this same sort of repeating structure? There’s simply no need for it. Of course, we still have repeated parts, because the music listening mind appreciates this. But we were able to be a lot more creative with our song structures and were able to write songs whose structures are a lot more interesting than verse/chorus/verse/chorus.

And how did the crowd react to our first show? We got an overwhelming response. One fan told me “you guys don’t need a vocalist at all!” He went on to explain that our 50 minute set remained entertaining throughout, despite there being no words. Another fan told me she looked around during the show and saw most people watching and listening very intently. The comments from other fans and other bands were very positive as well. And reviewing the audio and video tapes from the show, we realize we’ve got a really special band here with a truly identifiable unique style. Because as song writers, we did not compromise by writing songs we thought would be well received. We wrote what inspired us as musicians, taking the opportunity to be creative in the way we wrote songs (in our case because we have no singer). The result is a band that truly has its own style. We broke rules (like the verse/chorus song structures) because we had no reason to follow those rules. And we took advantage of the situation and this contributed to our style.

So back to the dichotomy: should you follow the trends and write what you think will be popular or should you ignore song popularity and do what’s totally you instead? Do what’s totally you! You don’t need to copy anyone else, or to mimic what’s popular. You won’t find your own style that way. You find your style by breaking the norm, and breaking the rules. Don’t do something in your song just because everyone else does it, or because it’s expected. Yes, this will cause some tense moments, like mine, right before the live show, wondering how people will react to the music. But this is well worth it, a fair trade for writing without any compromises to your song’s “marketability.”

Finding your own, unique style is a difficult process in music. But you won’t find your own style by copying others again and again. When you write, question each decision you make. Why are you doing it this way? Because that’s the way you usually do it? Because that’s the way others usually do it? If these are the only reasons, then challenge yourself to change the way you are doing it in your song! Find another way to communicate the idea, but in a fresh new way.

Be diligent in your approach to this song writer’s dichotomy. As much as you can, follow your own unique internal artist’s spirit when you create, and avoid the “because that’s the way popular songs do it” approach. Enough of that will creep into your music anyway, just because you’ve listened to so many songs over the years. But if you do like my band, and embrace the responsibilities and freedoms that you face as a song writer, you will be absolutely thrilled when you identify that unique style of YOU shining through!


[By the way, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to have a popular song. It’s obviously a good thing for an artist’s career. But popularity should be a by-product of your writing, not the primary goal of your writing. Write because you enjoy it, and with the development of your style in mind. With the key in that last phrase on "development" more than "style".]

Copyright ©2009 W.A. Blevins