Overview of this week's blog:

Week 6, SAC Songwriting Challenge 2014 

(Compose 6 songs in 6 weeks)

 Overview of this week's blog:

1. LISTEN to "Cosmic Rays" song (sound link)
2. Lyrics

3. Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process
4. The assignment for week #6

LISTEN to my song:

  "Cosmic Rays"

  on Soundcloud

(Click on the song title, above) 

Lyrics:

Cosmic Rays

© Copyright March 30, 2014, 

words and lyrics by Shira Katz,

Music by: Martin Clarke
Singer: Shera Shakera

Bleeding heart, there’s a spaceship

Fly with me like a rocket

We’ll float around like stars orbiting Mars

And all the planets

All night

Laser blast wars like the Martians

Not knowing what next will happen

Blasting fears with time

(e)’clipsing moonshine

Make cosmic rays

Exploding hurts like a rocket

Bleeding heart, there’s a spaceship

Fear, pain, and grief

Blasted like meteors

In the sky

Stars dressed like magic

Flash dreams,

Rays cosmic

Twilight, dreams we’ll generate

Stars sparkle, make tears buckle, have faith

I’ll dry your tears,

Smash your fears into a space

Put your heart in my spaceship

The universe has large

Cosmic Rays

If I had three wishes

I’d put them into my spaceship

Faith, your hopes and dreams

Launched like galaxies

In the sky

Bleeding heart, there’s a spaceship

Stars dressed like magic

Flash dreams,

Rays cosmic

Twilight, dreams we’ll generate

Stars sparkle, make tears buckle, have faith

I’ll dry your tears,

Shine some faith into that space

Listening to hopes, and all the words that you say

Mean so much

If I had three wishes

I’d put them into my spaceship

Faith, your hopes and dreams

Launched like galaxies

Into the sky

If I had three wishes

I’d put them into my spaceship

Flash faith

Then shine

Hopes

Make dreams

Cosmic rays

Enjoy the song & feedback and reposting on soundcloud is always appreciated!

Peace/luv from: Shera Shakera

Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process

Week #6 – SAC Challenge 2014

© Written by Shira Katz

Wow, I can’t believe the six weeks is over, it went so fast, but I am forever grateful to Ms. Lily Cheng from SAC and Mr. Christopher Ward (co-songwriter of the song “Black Velvet by Alannah Myles) for giving us this opportunity to write six songs in six weeks and blog about our experiences! Thank you!

I can definitely say that week 6 was the biggest challenge. We were only given a week’s notice to find out what the challenge was, and it was to collaborate with someone on a song. It was up to us to decide who to collaborate with, how to organize it, and what to write about.

 Initially, an SAC member that I have never met (Mr. Kevin Roach) so kindly offered for me to send him my original song lyrics on any topic. The plan was for him to create a musical composition to accompany my words, so I took about a half a week to write a song. It was too hard for me to “just write lyrics” so I created my own music to go with my words, so that the phrasing and lyrics would sound very musical, but then the plan was to send only the lyrics, thereby not letting the music influence his ideas on how he would perceive the creating background music. Due to some technical glitches with email, and timing problems, we decided to drop our collaboration for now, and focus our energies instead on finishing our other collaborations, as we both already knew that we were each involved with other, separate song collaborations for week #6.

At this point I decided to just put all my time, focus and energy into my main collaboration that I was working on, which turned out to be fantastic!

I contacted a local musician, Mr. Martin Clarke, in week #5, as soon as we had been given this challenge. He had organized an SAC meeting last year, where I’d had the privilege of meeting our very talented and wonderful SAC member,  Ms. Angela Saini.  I had discussed doing a future collaboration with Martin, but had yet to follow up on it.

This challenge gave us a perfect excuse to collaborate, and on such a short notice! We met up, and the collaboration was amazing! I listened to some of his previous compositions, where he had ideas of themes and stories to accompany most of his brilliant musical compositions. I was not used to the idea of fitting lyrics into someone else’s completed composition, especially those that were written with a theme and background stories in mind.

I was used to writing lyrics and improvising words with music, then editing and collaborating on improvement of the words and phrasing to match the music, as in my previous collaboration with another SAC member (Mr. Jimmy Alloul, also a very talented and phenomenal songwriter and musician).

For this week #6’s collaborating challenge, I had a song idea about comparing different generations as if each one feels the other is from outer space. I had recently written about this topic during our brainstorming & stream-of-consciousness writing challenge in week #5. I challenged Martin to compose music that matched my theme and ideas, and I came up with a song title, “Generation Alien,” but I later changed that title to “Cosmic Rays.”

He challenged me to use the software called “prezi”, to brainstorm words related to generations and aliens and outer space. Then, he let his fingers do the talking, creating a piano composition that in his perception, sounded like being in the clouds. He recommended painting a description, and rhyming, and getting inspiration from songwriter Bernie Taupin.

I started to improvise some lyrics and voice arrangements to go with the sounds, arranging my voice in ways that sounded nice to accompany his piano arrangements, and trying to come up with good lyrics was a difficult challenge.

Thinking about week#3 in our songwriting challenge, where we had to “think outside the box” by writing in a way that deviates from our normal patterns of songwriting, I suggested that he change up some sounds in order to add an element of surprise, so he agreed and added a “space” sound effect, which sounded like the twilight zone, and it totally worked and gave the music more of a feeling about being in another galaxy!

This was absolutely wonderful, and I improvised by singing some words, phrasing and voicing them to go with the music, but I needed more time to work on it. I also suggested for him to copy and paste parts of the music that I really liked, in order to extend the song.

Time went fast, and after about three hours I knew from experience that it was time for us to stop, even though the lyrics were not set and the song was not complete. In my own experience, sleeping on an idea will bring new life and improvements to it the following day. I wanted to let it sink in so that I could get a feel of possible lyrics, phrasing and voice arrangements to accompany Martin’s piano arrangements.

Martin sent me the music track via email and I finished a full draft of lyrics, sang them and created a voice tune to go with his music. I had to listen to the music many times, including my own recordings, taking notes on lines that I created that I felt I could improve on, by painting more of a descriptive picture, coming up with more memorable words and better phrasings.

After sleeping on it again, I listened to the instrumental composition a few more times, and started improvising more words, by singing and arranging my voice with my original lyrics to accompany the composition. I found it very difficult to find the appropriate phrasing. I had to record myself several times, but it felt as if my lyrics were improving with each improvised recording, and I was also taking notes, listening to my recordings, reviewing them, improving them, and researching topics, to come up with more appropriate words to match the theme of the song with regards to aliens in outer space.

I slept on it again, and then thought about the lyrics in every spare moment of my “free” time the next day  (while eating, showering, waiting in a lineup, and during transportation time), and then tweaked the words again at the end of each day.

I finished writing the song, and then he sent me a more complete version of the background music, which sounded fantastic!

I decided to start from scratch all over again because the full background composition gave me more ideas, and I listened to it many more times.

I researched the Internet to come up with words and ideas related to being in outer space, galaxies, etc. For example, in researching words related to the galaxy and outer space, I saw the word “cosmic” and “solar rays” and then I thought, to change it around, as we learned to do in week #4 (changing clichés), I thought of the term “cosmic rays” and then, when I sang it, the word “rays” has a “zzz” sound at the end, as if going into outer space, and matching the sound effect that was created by Martin! Genius song moment!

I also dropped the idea about generations, and decided to write about dreams, hopes, and faith, because the background music reminded me of the cliché “when you wish upon a star” and it sounded dreamy, a bit like a Disney song, and had a similar style of music to “Circle of Life” (Elton John) because of the primary instrument, the piano, that was used for the composition.

I revised my first draft and wrote a brand new draft of the song, paying careful attention to phrasing, and carefully inserting words related to the space theme and ideas about hopes, dreams, fears, tears and faith. I was also thinking personally about someone who recently had a health scare, and how I wish I could send out a message of faith to the stars to help my friend get through this difficult time, so this is where my emotion comes into the song.

I decided to combine the idea of hopes and fears with sending them into outer space, carrying emotions in a spaceship, blasting fears, letting hope shine with the stars, and using those analogies and images, I had found better words and better vocal arrangements, all on my own, to suit the music. I collaborated with myself, as an editor of my own lyrics, phrasings and vocal arrangements, by listening and re-recording and rewriting the song several times, until time ran out and I had to finalize it.

The most difficult part was finalizing the lyrics, because I still have many ideas on how each line could potentially be tweaked or changed. One can take the same musical composition and write ten different sets of lyrics and themes to match the same composition! So it’s amazing how quickly humans can become so attached to certain words to accompany a musical composition, rarely or never thinking to change up those words! Can you imagine what The Beatles “She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” would sound like if those words were replaced by “Don’t Give Up, No, No, No” (Instead of: “She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah”?

Extra Notes: Here are some lyric ideas I played around with while writing the song:

I had a bunch of ideas for writing lyrics, and played around with potential opening lines, and had to make a decision. I decided that the words “twilight dreams” is the most memorable in my brain compared to other potential lines that could work, as I was brainstorming ideas for lyrics.

Final version:

Twilight, dreams will generate (Initially, it was “Twilight, dreams can escape”)

Stars sparkle, make tears buckle, have faith

Here is another idea I had for interchanging those two lines:

Life’s hard, lone star have faith

Dream’s gone, don’t lose your rays

And another idea of mine for those two lines:

One heart, star lost its ray

I believe in you star, have faith

Another idea of mine for those two lines: 
Lone star, you’ve lost your ray

Dream’s gone, find another day

And on and on it goes, as the potential to change the lyrics is a never-ending process!

I settled for the most unusual sounding, obscure words because when I looked away from my lyrics, the phrase “Twilight dreams” was the most memorable in my mind, I found that the sparkle/buckle line sounds catchy.

Thank you very much, again, to Lily Cheng, Christopher Ward, everyone at SAC for making this happen, my collaborator on week #6, Martin Clarke, and all the members of SAC that participated in this challenge, supporting me with your wonderful comments and encouragement!

Lovely people, I hope to meet you all some day!

Until then, may your dreams shine like: Cosmic Rays!

Best wishes/love from:

Shera Shakera

The Challenge – Week 6 – Collaboration

March 18, 2014

tags: Christopher Ward, S.A.C. Songwriting & Blogging Challenge 2014, Songwriters Association of Canada

by Christopher Ward

Congratulations you’ve made it to the sixth challenge.   Most of you know that no songwriter is an island.  Collaboration is not just a buzzword.  You would have a hard time finding any top 10 songs with only one songwriter.  In fact, some songs have over 10 names attached to its creation.  Furthermore, collaborating is also an important part of building your network.

This week’s challenge:
By now you’ve gotten the opportunity to listen to songs from the other participants in the challenge.  Connect with those whom you feel compliment your skills and style.  In groups of 2 or more, collaborate on a song.   You can decide if you will do it in real time via Skype or by sending tracks and lyrics to each other via email.  Please blog about your experience, the highlights and the challenges.
Deadline:  April 1st

 

Week 5, SAC Songwriting Challenge 2014

Week 5, SAC Challenge 2014 

(Compose 6 songs in 6 weeks)

 Overview of this week's blog:

1. LISTEN to "Knock Your Brains Out" song (sound link)
2. Lyrics

3. Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process
4. The assignment for week 5

LISTEN to my song:

  "Knock Your Brains Out"

  on Soundcloud

(Click on the song title, above) 

Lyrics:

Knock Your Brains Out

© Copyright music and lyrics by S. Katz, March 20, 2014

Artist/singer: Shera Shakera

Verse

Are you really fishing for me to say,

I’m hooked on you, earthworm,

You’re really okay!

Can you say something confident,

Give your soil a chance to regenerate,

Or else just say/don’t say

Silence (music stops),

Don’t even whisper

Silence (music stops),

Bury self-doubt beneath the earth

Chorus

Your idea was born,

Digested, then by you, torn,

Let opinions form,

You knocked your brains out!

You knocked your brains out,

Then kicked them, self-doubt

Right into the ground

Can I dig them out,

Can I dig them out?

Verse

You threw an avalanche in my face

Not letting me see,

That you’re really okay!

But beneath that white blanket,

Will you give yourself a chance,

Melt the snow

Let me see your green grasses show

Or else just say/don’t say

Silence (music stops),

Don’t even whisper

Be quieter than an earthworm

Chorus

Your idea was born,

Digested, then by you, torn,

Let opinions form,

You knocked your brains out!

Bridge

If I may dig holes into your work

At least you made an effort

Let your ideas circulate the earth…

Allow, allow, allow (2 x)

Give me your brain!

Allow, allow, allow (2 x)

Give me your brain

You’re smarter than a worm,

You’re really okay!

Chorus

Your idea was born, oh yeah,

Your idea was born, oh yeah, how nice

Your idea was born

But, but

Your idea was born

Digested, then by you, torn,

Let opinions form,

You knocked your brains out!

 (repeat last 4 lines, above)

You knocked your brains out

Then kicked them, self-doubt

Right into the ground

Can I dig them out,

Can I dig them out?

Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process

For this week’s challenge, the exercise was to write in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, for ten minutes a day, for five days.

Day 1 (Tues. March 18, 2014):

I allowed ideas to come to my head, and wrote them down in note form. I ended up taking notes on five different topics, and organized the ideas as I was thinking them, into those topics.

The five topics were:

1.A news story (the plane that disappeared),

2.A recent film,

3.Artists’ discussions on lack of confidence in their work (self-doubt),

4. Thoughts about songs in my head,

5. Being so busy all the time

  

I liked the topic about artists’ discussions on lack of confidence in their work, and started to write a song on the theme of self-doubt.

Day 2 (Wed. March 19, 2014):

I found the exercise was similar to the exercise on writing 10 minutes a day, but this time, instead of being very observant of everything around me, I noticed that my writing was focused on my to-do list. In this case, I spent less time observing everything around me, and more time allowing thoughts about the past and future to permeate my writing, hence I allowed the pen to travel in time with ideas about the past, present and future. I did not come up with any brilliant song lines, but the ideas could be turned into a theme for a song, such as the idea of being so busy all the time, as in theme #5 from my yesterday’s writing.

Day 3 (Thurs. March 20, 2014):

I continued with this flow of writing, not censoring any thoughts, and wrote in sentences, but the exercise seemed to be getting easier. It takes practice, and a discipline, but it’s really fun! By not censoring any thoughts and without making judgments, I was unintentionally coming up with ideas that could be turned into song lines that could possibly sound awesome in a song! When I finished the exercise, I reread all the sentences that I liked, and underlined them as potential ideas for a future song. I noticed I had written more ideas about artists’ lack of confidence, and finished my song about it and recorded a draft on it. Here was the line that inspired my song:

“Never put yourself down as an artist.”

I continued to work on my song, using the line above as the theme.

Day 4 (Fri. March 21, 2014):

The exercise got even easier. I continued with the uninterrupted flow of writing, allowed it to go anywhere it needed to, and then reread it, underlining all the lines that are good ideas for songs. I noticed a lot of details came out in the writing, making it easier to write a future song.

Here are some great lines that came out of it:

“Should I try to focus on my day or else allow my mind to concentrate on yesterday”

“Hey, I looked at the clock, that was fast, 10 minutes is up!”

I will keep these ideas as song lines for a future song!

]

Day 5 (Sat. March 22, 2014):

It is just becoming so much easier to do this, the more I do it, the easier it gets! A recent acquaintance shared some personal news and in my stream of consciousness writing, I came up with a line that I like, and will keep as an idea for a song line in a future song:

“You have a sunny disposition that drew me to you, and though the blinds are going down, I’ll help you pull through.”

After the five days, I revisited all the lines that I underlined, and was thinking about either writing a new song, or reworking the song I already was working on during the week.

I finished the song, and after reading some discussion forums in SAC about songwriting, while being inspired by a week’s worth of stream-of-consciousness writing, I decided to get more creative by going with an earth worm analogy in my song.

I researched the life of an earth worm, and it gave me ideas about using analogies such as comparing a human brain with an earth worm’s brain, fishing for a compliment (reworking that cliché as per week #4’s exercise), which I changed to: “fishing for me to say, I’m hooked on you, worm”. I initially had the title of “Don’t Knock Yourself Down” but it’s in the negative and not original, so I changed it to: “Knock your brains out” which sounds more interesting. I also threw in the avalanche analogy, which goes with nature and the Canadian idea of snow.

Last week, I deviated extremely from my usual patterns in songwriting, but this week I decided to bring back some typical, maybe even cliché song structures back into my work, because they make the songs sound good (eg. having a repetitive chorus). However, I incorporated what I learned in weeks 1 through 5 of this songwriting challenge. I thought about the theme (an artist’s self-doubt), original opening line and title for the song (week 1), I tried to incorporate some observations (week 2) (this time deemed from online discussions), tried to deviate from typical song structures (week 3) (by lengthening the chorus, and mixing minor and major keys (B minor and D major), threw in the unpredictable idea of silences), and reworked a cliché (eg, instead of knock yourself down, I used “knock your brains out,” and instead of “fishing for a compliment” I opened with “are you really fishing for me to say”).

Enjoy the song & feedback is always appreciated!

Peace/luv from: Shera Shakera

 

The Challenge – Week 5 – Trusting the subconscious 

March 18, 2014

by Christopher Ward

“Are you ready for Week 5?  Only 2 more challenges to go.  This week we will explore trusting the subconscious.
Every writer has had the experience of coming up with a good idea and having no idea where it came from. We might try to recapture the magic by wearing the lucky t-shirt or using the magic pen, but is there a way to tap into that vast reservoir of ideas that live below the surface of the conscious? You can try stream-of-consciousness writing where you write, without stopping, judging or editing until you run out of ideas or your hand gets tired.
This week’s challenge:
Watch the video below.  Then, for the next five days, spend at least 10 minutes (or until your hands get tired) writing from your stream of consciousness.  At the end of the week, review what you have written and look for at least 5 ideas that could become songs.  Choose one to bring to fruition.

Deadline:  Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Please post the following:
1.  The theme you chose to write about.
2.  Your blog link.
3.  Your SoundCloud Link.”

-Christopher Ward

Week 4, SAC Songwriting Challenge 2014

  Week #4, SAC Challenge 2014 (Compose 6 songs in 6 weeks)

 Overview of this week's blog:

1. Listen to the "NIGHT LIGHTS AND LEMONADE" song (link)
2. Lyrics for song #4

3. Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process
4. Ten clichés and new ways to state them

4. The assignment for week #4

Listen to the song "Night Lights and Lemonade":

 https://soundcloud.com/sherashakera/nightlightsandlemonadesong

  Lyrics for song #4

  Night Lights and Lemonade   

music & lyrics by S. Katz, singer/artist: Shera Shakera

Night Lights and Lemonaid
 

© Music & Lyrics by S. Katz, March 15, 2014

If the lights are broken we’ll find a candle

If the chairs are broken we’ll find some legs

If the buttons are torn we’ll get a needle and thread now

But if our hearts are broken

What will we get?

Just one night owl ready to hit the town

Chorus

In the darkness we’ll find light

In the darkness we’ll make light

‘Cause night owls really give a hoot

We’re all night lights,

Night Lights!

Just one night owl ready to hit the town

Ordered some drinks got sour lemons

These don’t taste like lemonade at all

Dancing shoes with feet as sore as…

lemons

Dancing fun helps us to forget it all

But we’re squeezed together like lemons on the floor

(piano keys sound like feet pounding)

‘Cause night owls really give a hoot

We’re all night lights, night lights, night lights

Even without the night lights

When night owls really don’t give a hoot

Hearts broken like sour lemons

And dancing’s lemonade

Make it last the whole night through

Even with our broken shoes

Dancing’s fun, it helps us to forget it all

‘Cause night owls really give a hoot

We’ll make night lights and

lemonaid

Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process

© by S. Katz, March 15, 2014

The above song that I wrote was inspired by the challenge of trying to incorporate a cliché into a song, by seeing the cliché from a new perspective.

For week 4, I incorporated all the lessons learned from the first three weeks of the song challenge, that is, coming up with an original title and opening first line, providing details on observations in the song, and changing up the typical song structure (I did this by speeding up the song during the dancing part, and also by adding an oddball line before and after the chorus, “Just one night owl ready to hit the town.” Also, the chorus is only sung one time in the song, although parts of it are reused throughout the song. If I choose to continue to remix this song in the future, perhaps I will duplicate the chorus into another part of the song (I haven’t figured out how to do this yet with software).

In order to write this song, I started the creative process by thinking of the first ten clichés, or most common types of phrases that came into my head. I wrote them down, and then tried to rewrite some of them in a new way. By doing this exercise, I found that a lot of the clichés I was thinking about have already been used in so many songs.

For example, “Tell Me About It.” This common cliché made me think about Billy Joel’s song, “Tell Her About It.”

Another example, I thought of the cliché “You only live once.” Then my mind started thinking about songs that have used this cliché in a novel way, such as “Live and Let Die” (Bon Jovi) and lyrics such as “One love, One Life” in the song “One” by U2.

After creating my list of ten clichés, I started to work with some of them, in terms of finding a new perspective for each cliché.

For my song, I initially was thinking about of my favorite clichés, “If you get a lemon, make lemonade.”

For the songwriting process, I found that I was working out song lyrics in my head every day of the week. I recorded some ideas, then slept on it, then came up with more ideas each day, at any time I had a spare moment to reflect (e.g. when waiting in line, on the bus, etc.).

I started out by writing a children’s song about lemonade, but got stuck. I decided to research common clichés online to see if I could get some more ideas for the song.

I thought of another cliché for my song, “There’s a Light at the End of The Tunnel” and I changed the words to:  “In the darkness, find a light.”I decided that this will be the main adaptation of a cliché that I will use for my song.

Reflecting on these two ideas of finding a light in the darkness and making lemonade from lemons, I was thinking of lines to get people out of dark situations.

I thought about how a person would deal with darkness and a burned out lightbulb, and the solution would be to find a candle. Then, to change it up a bit, instead of saying that the lightbulb is burned out, I thought, what if the lightbulb is broken, just as a heart can be broken, hence my first line of the song, “If the lightbulbs are broken we’ll find a candle.”

I thought of other situations and how people could deal with a problem, such as a broken chair, torn clothing. But these would be analogies leading up to the meat of my song, about a broken heart. I thought that one way that some people can try to forget about their problems such as a broken heart is to go out on the town, dancing in a crowd until their feet get sore.

At this point, I started to think of so many popular songs that I enjoy, such as Adam Lambert’s “We are Young”…where the stress is on the word “Tonight” and the focus of the song is on finding some light, as he sings, “…so we set the night on fire, we could get higher than the sun”.

I thought I would try to do something different from my common patterns, by writing in the plural tense (“we”), while working with the idea that there is a community of people one can join on the dance floor to not feel so lost and alone from a broken heart, even when one’s shoes are broken.

Other songs have lines about light and are written in the plural tense (using “we”) such as “We’re Beautiful like Diamonds in the Sky, Shine Bright Like a Diamond” by Rihanna. I wanted to create a song about the joy of going out and dancing and I thought that being around a group of dancing humans can “lighten” up any bad feelings, hence I came up with “We’re all night lights.”

I thought of the idea of being a night owl, and the owl makes a “hoot” sound, then I thought of the cliché “I really don’t give a hoot.” I thought, what if I turn that around and write “Cause night owls really (do) give a hoot,” as if to say, we really do care, that’s why we are night owls.

Instead of “light up the night,” I thought of the idea, “we’ll make light in the darkness” which can mean so many things, principally making something positive together out of a bad experience. Then I added the ideas of sour lemons and “squeezed” together (like lemons), “feet sore (instead of sour) as lemons.”

For the title, to make it original, I added the word “lemonade” to “Night Lights” to get the listener’s attention, and added that title idea as the last line of the song, hinting that you can make lemonade from sour lemons (and with the idea that dancing feet are like lemons on the floor, making lemonade with the feet).

Finally, in order to remain true to the idea of the song, I decided for the final recording, to  record this song in total darkness, at night, with only a small night light in the room.

For the future, I would definitely consider repeating the chorus again a few more times in the song, (when remixing/redoing it), and I would also consider going to a bar where people are actually dancing, taking down some observations/notes, and bringing them back to perhaps continue rewriting a verse, to give more details and authenticity (a recommended technique from week #2 of the song challenge.

-© By S. Katz, March 15, 2014

Ten clichés & new ways to state them

© by S. Katz, March 15, 2014

1. Cliché: Tell me about it

My new way to say it: Did you have to tell me about it

2. Cliché: Better off Dead

My new way to say it: Better Off Alive

3. Cliché: If you have a lemon, make lemonade

*Rewritten as a new idea for my song:

I can make a lemon with lemonade was for my first idea, but by I decided for this week’s challenge to combine this idea with #9 and #10, below:

My new way to say it: “We’re all night lights and lemonade”

4. Cliché: You only live once

My new way to say it: You may live twice

5. Cliché: Over the Hill

My new way to say it: Over the underpass

6. Cliché: A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush

My new way to say it: “A bird on the hand is worth stopping to see”

7. Cliché: I told you so

My new way to say it: Don’t tell me so, I know

8. Cliché: It takes one to know one

My new way to say it: “It takes two to know you”

9. Cliché: There’s a light at the end of the tunnel

My new idea used for my song: “In the darkness, we’ll make light, we’re all night lights”

10. Cliché:  I don’t give a hoot

My new idea used for my song: “Night owls really give a hoot” and also “When Night Owls don’t really give a hoot” (for the bridge)

-© By S. Katz, March 15, 2014

The Challenge – Week 4 – Rock The Cliché

-Christopher Ward

Songwriter Christopher Ward says that songwriters get bored easily and we “have a love/hate relationship with clichés. They can sound tired and shopworn or tried and true, depending on the circumstances and how lazy we feel.”

Sometimes we should consider “not avoiding the obvious,” according to Ward

This week’s assignment from Christopher Ward:

“Pick 10 cliches and brainstorm ways each could be interpreted from a different perspective.

Pick one to expand into a song.

Deadline: March 17
Please post the following:
1. Which cliche you chose to use.
2. A link to your blog”

-Christopher Ward

Week 3, SAC Challenge 2014

2014 SAC Challenge, Week 2 March 1, 2014

 

SAC Challenge 2014, WEEK #3, compose 6 songs in 6 weeks 

Overview of this week's blog:

1. Listen to the "BATH CAT OPERA" song (link)
2. Lyrics for song #3

3. Epiphanies about the songwriting process

4. The assignment for week #3

Listen to the song "Bath Cat Opera":

https://soundcloud.com/sherashakera/bathcatopera-bysherashakera

Lyrics for song #3

 Bath Cat Opera  music & lyrics by S. Katz, singer/artist: Shera Shakera

You give yourself a bath

You look so happy and relaxed

I’ll look after you today

Please don’t ever run away

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow

I love you like that

Because you’re my cat

You’re breath is a purring

So sweet and alluring

What, you want to play?

Okay

I have a puppet on a stick

(I’ll) throw it,

you can grab it

Now you’re content

Hey, don’t walk away

you want to eat now,

that’s okay

I’ll give you anything you want

I’ll even clean your box

‘Cause you’re so sweet and soft

You’re my cat

Meow meow meow meow

Meow meow meow meow

Meow

So cute and cuddly

you can sit on my lap anytime

that you want

any time at all

meow meow meow meow

(real cat meows)

Epiphanies about the songwriting process 

For week 3, the challenge is to create a song that has a different structure than a typical pop song.

In order to complete the task, I started to think about songs that could inspire me to do this, such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen.

The song “Bohemian Rhapsody” doesn’t have an obvious chorus, and the song goes all over the map in terms of musicality. The repetitious chant of “Hit me where the wind blows” is included, if you want to call that a chorus. There are other chants such as “Mama mia let me go” followed by some nonsense word that sounds like “beelzibub” followed by a very high pitched voice saying “…for me, for me, for me”, and an awesome guitar riff, where the music speeds up, then later slows down.

Don’t Stop Me Now has several versus of very well-written metaphors, before getting to the chorus of “Don’t Stop Me Now”, which is followed by three lines of “Don’t Stop Me, post-chorus, where the music speeds up, and this is followed by some awesome guitar riffs.

I am thinking of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel, which is a much-longer than the usual format type of song. This song sounds like a storybook that has a beginning, middle and end regarding a person’s love life, and it all starts with a bottle of wine in a restaurant. What makes it strong is that the opening verse and final climaxing verse have the common idea of meeting in a restaurant. There song is divided into parts that speed up and then slow down, as if divided into chapters in a person’s life.

These are some of my favorite songs of all time.

These three songs are definitely are constructed in a way that is different from the typical popular strong structure of c/v/c/v/b/c (where c=chorus, v=verse, and b=bridge). The music in each song has parts that speed up to a climax and slow down, and some awesome guitar riffs.

More Comments & Epiphanies

I noticed that my own common songwriting ruts include:

1. Going with the common format of Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Chorus when it would be fun to change it up a bit
2. Making great efforts to have a lot of rhymes  (but I have been getting away from this pattern more lately) when this is not always necessary
3. Being too general instead of giving more details
4. Composing with piano/keyboard instruments, instead of guitar

I decided that for this song, I will break all of the above rules.

Building on the first two weeks of songwriting, I learned that a catchy title and catchy first line are important, but also based on helpful feedback on week 2’s song, in which I left out a lot of the details, I decided I will include all the details of how I feel for ten minutes in a specific place and time.

I decided to try to do a song with guitar instead of piano. I created some riffs, while observing the cat, and started to jam all of my present observations. Then, I recorded these observations while singing, and using some of the riffs I created.

A few days later, I picked up the guitar again and did the same thing. I tried to incorporate the idea of having several different types of recognizable sounds/guitar motifs in the song, but cutting some of them in the middle, going back and around them but not in any particular order, speeding up and slowing down, and highlighting the meow meow meow part, up to a high sopranic crescendo towards the end, then slowing down again for the ending parts.

In fact, the part where it goes “you’re my cat”…I would like to redo singing the word “Cat” next time, and really stress the word cat, while singing that word over several pitches of high notes within the voice. It is meant to be the most explosive part of the song…and this was inspired by  the unique structure of the song in “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, where the words “for me” are similarly followed by a speedup in the music. This song is also inspired by the originality of Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much”, where she uses the word “Okay,” before making a statement.

I also tried to write lines that could be applied to humans, such as “you give yourself a bath”, such that anyone listening to the song might think I am calling out to a cat, but humans have many things in common with a cat, so it can imply that I am calling out to a human instead of a cat.

I added the real cat’s meow at the end. I was going to add it to the beginning as well, but decided against this idea because I wanted to keep it as a surprise for the end of the song.

I was having difficulty editing, and due to time constraints, was not able to do everything I wanted to do with the song. I have so much to learn!

I used audacity to add in the cat’s meow, and can’t even remember how I accomplished that, hence I was unable to do any more due to time constraints. So much to learn!

 I finally did figure out how to delete something in audacity, which took forever to figure out. The key is to press the stop button before deleting, as you can’t delete something if it’s on “pause”. Saving from audacity into a .wav file is also tricky and the key here is to rename the file by adding the .wav extension after saving it.

Trying to get the cat to meow was tricky too, but I have experience & love cats!

Peace & smiles from

Shera Shakera

The Challenge – Week 3 – Time to experiment!

The challenge this week is “to do something different, e.g. starting with a chorus, using odd line lengths or unexpected rhyme schemes, etc.

1.  Identify your common songwriting ruts.  Why are these structures/forms comfortable for you?
2.  Write a song that breaks 1 or more of these “rules.”
3.  Have fun writing outside the box!”

-Christopher Ward, songwriter

 

 

2014 SAC Challenge, Week 2 March 1, 2014

 

SAC Challenge 2014, WEEK #2, compose 6 songs in 6 weeks

Overview of this week's blog:

1. Listen to the song (link)
2. Lyrics for song #2

3. Epiphanies about the songwriting process

4. The assignment for week #2 

Listen to the song:

 https://soundcloud.com/sherashakera/thewayyoudress-bysherashakera-mp3

Lyrics for song #2

The way you dress 

 Artist: Shera Shakera

 Lyrics & Music by: S. Katz

 Intro:

I love the way you dress

Verse:

Was it intentional or just a coincidence

We both dressed in red today

And I haven’t seen you since (you’re red)

When our paths do meet again

Will our clothes be matched again

Our friendship rules, coincidence or not

Chorus

I love the way you dress

I love the way you dress

Red, green or blue

No one’s like you

I love the way you dress

Verse

Was it a miracle or just a coincidence

We picked up the phone today

At the very same time

I had just gone shopping now

You had just gone shopping too

Couldn’t wait to see you again

Chorus

I love the way you dress

I love the way you dress

Red, green or blue

You look so cool

I love the way you dress

Bridge

Even when you’re not dressed up

Static hair, the morning blues

Doesn’t matter, I love you

Doesn’t matter, I love you

Verse:

But it’s just a miracle, not just a coincidence

Your shoes match my shirt today

My socks match your hat

We have surface clothing love

Even though you’re so unique

Our friendship rules, cause we love our planet

Chorus

I love the way you dress

I love the way you dress

Red, green or blue

Cause vintage rules

I love the way you dress

Extro

Oooh Oooh

What will you wear today

Will our clothes be matched again

I love you when we don’t match too

Our friendship rules, coincidence or not.

And I love the way you dress.

Epiphanies about the songwriting process:

The song came about after 10-minutes of observations in the dungeons of Montreal, that is, the metro trains, otherwise known as the “subway”.

I took notes on everything in the metro with regards to my senses:

Everything I saw, smelled, heard, and wrote about how I felt about it, for exactly ten minutes.

Towards the end of the 10 minutes, my last observation was about how two people who appeared to be so different, were wearing the exact same colour, red.

Right away, I thought of a chorus for a song, “I love the way you dress.”

I reflected on how I liked the way the woman in red was dressed, and how it would be a coincidence if I would run into a friend and be dressed in a similar color (it’s happened to me before), and we both were happy with our clothing choices.

I also thought about how clothes are superficial and wanted to reflect that they don’t tell you enough about a person, they just reflect the surface, and a good friend would look good to me even when not dressed up, like just getting out of bed, so I added those ideas to the song.

I also wanted to throw in a little environmental message, hence I added the idea of hinting about vintage clothing and our planet, but did not want to get overly political because I want more people to be able to relate to the general idea of the song, e.g. loving the way a person dresses even if you are dressed similarly and loving them for who they are no matter how they dress.

Here are my initial observations that sparked this song (I wrote these notes when I was in the metro):

“In the distance, I see red, a woman with a pierced ear and bangs dyed in red, that matches her red headphones and purse, her fingers tattooed, her tiger print skirt matches her glasses and she stares into the distance, what is she thinking…

An old man with a furry hat and red coat get up and stands next to the young lady in red, their clothes match but they look like they have nothing else in common, his hands are shaking but it appears as if he intentionally dressed that way to match the lady in red.”

Just as an aside, I decided not to type up all the notes for all the observations that I made over a five day period, but I am keeping them in a notebook for they can be used later to provide a rich amount of content for future songs. Or perhaps in the future I will add more of them here, but due to the time constraints of getting it all done in one week, this is what I have decided.
 
I will tell you that the five places I chose included: 
1. My bedroom
2. The bus
3. The library
4. The café (coffee shop)
5. The metro (or subway)

I started writing a song about the bus, but I decided to focus on a song based on my fifth day of observations, based on a metro (subway) underground experience.

Another epiphany I had regarding these 10 minute-a-day observations is that in each location, it's not just about what I see. There are feelings attached to being in a location (how do I feel about what's going on around me). There is a lot to hear, sometimes smell, and even the idea of taste (if someone is eating), and finally touch (e.g. the way my body feels touching the seat). 

By the fifth day, I started to crave my 10-minute time, because it felt like a positive, meditative experience that forced me to stop, breathe, and just totally be with myself in the present moment.

 The assignment for week #2

Having an antennae on you means that you are an observer & you are focused on observation.

According to songwriter Christopher Ward:

"Spend 10 minutes a day for the next 5 days in 5 different places, i.e. subway, take-out counter, coffee shop, etc., and turn on your antennae.  Jot down some song ideas based on each of those 10 minutes.  Then, at the end of the week, choose your favourite and write a song."
-Christopher Ward

 
Cheers, Peace & Love from:

Shera Shakera