Practice Songs - Hanging Garden
So I have read a little and listened a little and I've found that authenticity seems to be important in songwriting more than classical music? I've defined a songwriting process that works for me toward the bottom of this page which is honestly the most useful thing I could have gained from this unit - I've been struggling a lot with my mental health but after I started implementing this process I've been feeling so much better and more in touch with myself, also calmer and more content. But in terms of "composed" music (as opposed to songwriting), I think the authenticity and feeling of the music comes more from the composition techniques, the setting of the performance, the people around, the recording, and the lyrics just as much as the voice that sings it. But it's kind of detached from the composer and that's where I think songwriting differs - the person who writes it is the person who sings it and I think that makes it very powerful.
After my comparisons of professional recordings as well as a little personal (ANECDOTAL) research, I've realised that it's not the timbre of the voice at all. It's a couple of things: how you use the voice (I guess my piano teachers were right all along, it's all about interpretation), the composition techniques, melodies, arrangements, lyrics, context, even the performance and recording of a piece of music will change and add to the feeling of something. So I guess that input from anything and anyone will slightly change a song because it's got something extra in it..
I have decided for this project to focus on lyric writing and strip everything down to voice and guitar; the most "authentic" way I can think to write. I am focusing on creating a sense of place and cohesive story over my 5 songs here as a practice for the recital I'm making, I guess it is similar to writing around a concept but not quite - it's more visual. I haven't had time to actually make something like an EP but I have written a couple of songs around this hanging garden idea, just recorded on my zoom in my bedroom so they're kind of "live" - tracks are below.
I also came out with a bunch of poems while I was exploring this idea of a hanging garden - they didn't fit as songs but I've placed them below as supporting evidence for this project :) They're not great but they're there~
I am feeling way more confident about my recital after doing this project because I wrote all four of these songs plus the poems in the last 2 weeks of semester. I know that's not great but I have been really struggling with motivation lately so I'm feeling positive about it now because I had to push myself to write something in such a short amount of time.
The following "poems" are (I'm aware) really terrible but they are just me practicing with words to see if I can write around a specific, set topic. It seems to have been okay to do - I know a lot of people say don't go for concepts first but it has actually been helpful for me to have something to write around because this semester, I have been struggling a little with my mental health and so I really haven't had anything to say. It's like my brain falls out the back of my head and I have no opinions or anything - so it's been helpful to me to write around this topic. I have learned this can be an effective way for me to produce work, even though it's not my best - it's still something so that is really useful because I can use this technique of writing if I am behind with my recital material and need to just get a move on with the music for that.
Poem 1
The nylon strings of anchored brains
connect the dots and find your reins
following illusion - an oasis stuck in Hell
Apparently, it was the Old Money who'd written on the wall
The game and rules for you to follow
And following stops the fall
But over time, you'll recognise that God has missed your call
You'll analyse and fantasise about that
writing on the wall
I know a place, we can go
To show you what I saw -
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were never there at all
Poem 2
I want a man who would build me a garden
of wandering, dangling plants
of steps so high you can always see them
from the edge of the dry desert lands
I want a man who would build me a garden
in the absence of flowers and trees
who could understand my basic feelings
and who'd want to tend to my needs
Oh, to have a man who would build me a garden
under a blistering sun
to shade us from the harsh world around
and show to me his love
But I'm not a princess - no long, flowing hair
who's travelled so far from home
to be with a man who's lone adoration
would build me a garden throne
Like these are pretty childish omg ugh BUT they helped me to write lyrics because they clarified an idea or opinion that I wanted to express before I wrote any lyrics so I will keep using this process. They really help me get at different angles of ideas and such - they've been super helpful!
Poem #3
Spirals climbing up the wall
Silent, Steady, Soft
Flow within them fits the mould
The ever-flowing trough
Stoney veins for desert rains
from the very top
Trickle down, emerging out
Across the land of God
Ripples in the water
Ripples in the air
Ripples ringing out forever in the desert sand
Poem #3
Wade across
Or wading through
Wear me down trying to get to you
And my face
Will change and change
Like the stones that form in crushing waves
In your embrace
Wear me down
Build me new
Like the water that I'm wading through
You can't see well in these pictures but these are just a couple of the pages from my songwriting book. Mostly how I write is just to sit with my guitar and find some chords that I like - usually the lyrics, melody and structure all come to me at the same time so they tend to work together in that way.
References
Documentary Archive. (2020, May 26). Secret History: Finding Babylon's Hanging Garden - Documentary. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzrX00FFwog
This documentary is following some archeologists who are investigating river systems and canals to see if they can find the hanging gardens of Babylon. They didn't end up finding anything but Im sure they're still looking. Pretty interesting, they found aqueducts! The ancient engineers were so clever, they planned entire palaces and cities without modern maps or satellite images so the main academic in this video believes they would have had the engineering skills to build some huge gardens.
Side note, Romans didn't do aqueducts first - assyrians did :O
Flanagan, P. J. (2019). ‘A Certain Romance’: Style shifting in the language of Alex Turner in Arctic Monkeys songs 2006-2018. Language and Literature, 28(1), 82-98.
In this text, I learned how your voice can hint at your identity. the Arctic Monkeys are a great example of this as their accents became less and less pronounced as their music went on, once they'd move to America, their songs sound vastly different. to me this suggests that identity/personality is fluid and maybe the place where you are (and the people you are around) shapes both who you are and your artistic output (if you're an artist)..
Geographics. (2021, June 29). The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: The Ancient World's Missing Wonder. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT3i57lkIQk
From this video, I learned the story of the hanging gardens: a king in modern day Iraq who was married to a princess from a different land which was more luscious. Since moving to the desert she started missing her home, things like "the shade" and "the green". So he built her the gardens - very sweet but probably made up by a priest and I think you can see the Christian values in that story. Also, there are 2 main ideas of the gardens. First that they are literally hanging, that there are huge pillars and the gardens hang off them - this version would rely on rainfall and so it's unlikely to have existed in this way but it's a loverly image. The other is that the gardens were built in a kind of pyramid shape and were next to a river. A lot of people think they don't exist but there is a growing idea that they did exist, just in a different place - there was another place which was commonly referred to as Babylon. I am watching more about this in a video about Stephanie Dalley (an Oxford academic).
Gooding, L. (2008). Finding your inner voice through song: reaching adolescents with techniques common to poetry therapy and music therapy. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 21(4), 219 - 229.
From this article, I am understanding that creative activities can be very therapeutic but also can help you understand yourself on different levels. For me, music helps your physical body release emotion - it's super helpful for this because you don't need to put words to anything! But songwriting/poetry pulls things out of you that maybe you didn't know were there and so they're very useful in understanding yourself - probably anything using written word would help with this except maybe fiction novels? But probably even then..
This is interesting for my project because it confirms my suspicions that you are going to come through in your music, regardless of your attempts not to come through. Also, I don't think you can control aesthetic - it's going to be different for different people and so all you can do is change something in hopes of changing the sound.
I found these helpful techniques for exploring the self:
- read existing poetry/listen to existing songs or music!
- use metaphors
- narratives
- 3 different "modes" : receptive/perceptive (listening, reading), expressive/creative (writing, practicing), and symbolic/ceremonial (I'm assuming performance, presentation)
So I am using these music therapy tips for my own songwriting to create a process of listening - writing (a lot, for practice) - honing in on the songs to present then working on them - performance. I feel this is a methodical enough way for me to actually make some progress for my recital; as much as I hate to say it, you can't work on inspiration when you have a deadline.
Hoppenjans, K. (2020). Cross-voice influence: the relationship between the singing voice and the songwriting voice. Journal of Singing, 77(1), 47.
So this article is talking about the singer-songwriter and how important it is for this type of artist to express their own perspective, their "authentic" self, and while it's healthy to use correct singing technique, it's important for the artist to use their own voice - as in the sound of their own voice, the timbre. It is seen as an integral part of the songwriting form. It is linked with authenticity but also vulnerability.
From this, I got the idea of "diving deep" as a part of my practice. So I have decided to start journalling, singing in 'my own' voice and writing poems as a part of my practice, to be a better songwriter. I'm going to add these to my process which looks something like this:
Step 1 - Daily practice of listening and journalling.
Step 2 - Incorporating poem writing to my journal practice.
Step 3 - Songwriting on guitar (guitar/voice).
Step 4 - Transfer, elaborate, compose, arrange for piano (and other needed instruments).
Step 5 - Record (on Ableton) so that I have recorded versions.
Step 6 - Rehearse with whoever I'm playing with (I want to keep it small - maybe 2 or 3 people at most. Maybe just myself).
Step 7 - Perform the polished versions for my recital.