The Collaborator
Thursday 13 August 2015 LyricsBlog
On the road, as I think I have thought about in previous posts, I knew I would find it hard to write music...
But I truly had no idea, that on a trip which is about music, how little I would actually get to play! Perhaps it would be different if I was a guitar player - I could pull out my guitar wherever we happen to be, with no need for electricity or amplification. But with my electric piano, no matter how much I love it, the number of times that I have been able to get it out just to play, practice, write... well I can count them on one hand.
Surprisingly, I have been able to write quite a number of songs - but just the lyrics. And so, not wanting to wait until we return to Hong Kong until I start to develop them musically, I have been sending them to my brother in England.
It is a fantastic thing to have a little brother who is a better piano player than me!
I write lyrics, usually divided into “verse”, “chorus” and “bridge” sections, with a couple of notes about inspiration or feel or time signature. But that’s all I give him, and then he starts to pull ideas together.
It has been amazing to hear the short demos that he sends back. Sometimes they are what I had in mind, sometimes they are totally different. Sometimes they don’t fit my vision, but most of the time, they totally capture the mood and the purpose of the song.
I have never collaborated like this in my “adult” songwriter life. When I was a kid, the first songs I wrote were with friends. But, I think songwriting has always been such a personal and introspective, delicate process for me, so I have always feared sharing it with anyone else lest... actually I don’t know why.
But I have found this process to be absolutely rewarding - the songs that we are writing are richer, more intriguing, more musically interesting than anything I would have written by myself.
Two heads are better than one.
But I couldn’t have shared the creative process with just anyone. What I have learned is that, to collaborate with someone:
1) You have to trust them. You have to trust that they will honour and protect you and your work with integrity. If you don’t trust, you won’t share your best work.
2) You have to be honest, always. If you like an idea, say so. If you don’t like an idea, say so! If you stop being honest, the work that you create will not reflect your intention at all and you will end up with something that is weak, watered down and not what you wanted to portray.
3) You have to respect each other’s work. Find someone who you admire and whose work you love. And make sure that they love your work and respect your skill and creativeness. If you feel superior to the person that you are working with, you will not take their opinions and suggestions to heart. And if you feel inferior, you won’t feel comfortable sharing ideas. Mutual respect is the only place in which creativity can grow.
Above all, be open, be humble and see what comes out. I have been blessed and surprised by the new ideas that my brother has recorded - each time he sends me something new, I get so excited that I want to jump on a plane to England and sit down at the piano with him.
I really never thought that I would be able to be a collaborative artist - but, when you find the right person, the results can be just stunning, and I can’t wait to share the songs we have written together!
But I truly had no idea, that on a trip which is about music, how little I would actually get to play! Perhaps it would be different if I was a guitar player - I could pull out my guitar wherever we happen to be, with no need for electricity or amplification. But with my electric piano, no matter how much I love it, the number of times that I have been able to get it out just to play, practice, write... well I can count them on one hand.
Surprisingly, I have been able to write quite a number of songs - but just the lyrics. And so, not wanting to wait until we return to Hong Kong until I start to develop them musically, I have been sending them to my brother in England.
It is a fantastic thing to have a little brother who is a better piano player than me!
I write lyrics, usually divided into “verse”, “chorus” and “bridge” sections, with a couple of notes about inspiration or feel or time signature. But that’s all I give him, and then he starts to pull ideas together.
It has been amazing to hear the short demos that he sends back. Sometimes they are what I had in mind, sometimes they are totally different. Sometimes they don’t fit my vision, but most of the time, they totally capture the mood and the purpose of the song.
I have never collaborated like this in my “adult” songwriter life. When I was a kid, the first songs I wrote were with friends. But, I think songwriting has always been such a personal and introspective, delicate process for me, so I have always feared sharing it with anyone else lest... actually I don’t know why.
But I have found this process to be absolutely rewarding - the songs that we are writing are richer, more intriguing, more musically interesting than anything I would have written by myself.
Two heads are better than one.
But I couldn’t have shared the creative process with just anyone. What I have learned is that, to collaborate with someone:
1) You have to trust them. You have to trust that they will honour and protect you and your work with integrity. If you don’t trust, you won’t share your best work.
2) You have to be honest, always. If you like an idea, say so. If you don’t like an idea, say so! If you stop being honest, the work that you create will not reflect your intention at all and you will end up with something that is weak, watered down and not what you wanted to portray.
3) You have to respect each other’s work. Find someone who you admire and whose work you love. And make sure that they love your work and respect your skill and creativeness. If you feel superior to the person that you are working with, you will not take their opinions and suggestions to heart. And if you feel inferior, you won’t feel comfortable sharing ideas. Mutual respect is the only place in which creativity can grow.
Above all, be open, be humble and see what comes out. I have been blessed and surprised by the new ideas that my brother has recorded - each time he sends me something new, I get so excited that I want to jump on a plane to England and sit down at the piano with him.
I really never thought that I would be able to be a collaborative artist - but, when you find the right person, the results can be just stunning, and I can’t wait to share the songs we have written together!