The process of songs being created and brought into our familiar world is efficiently managed in the mechanics of the Play It Strange songwriting competitions. We gather them with care and attention and boy – they get a good listening to.
Hundreds of songs are realised as a result of the wheels of attentive listening and the existence of the various competitions drawn from New Zealand’s secondary schools. With time passing, the volume of entries and recordings of finalist songs is extraordinary, and it is joy to witness.
Then comes the listening to them.
It’s an ideal format – songs are begun with either music, lyrics, or both – and from there, they materialise as completed songs; generally in an amateur setting, and then recorded and performed. There is a ‘chance’ element in songwriting, whereby formal education and studious construction take a back seat, leaving the harmonious wonder of a young student’s imagination to hold fort, thereby yielding the student’s adventures in bringing forward that one, special song.
The group of judges at the receiving end – usually 3 or 4 practicing music industry professionals for each competition – spend time assessing each song in the group of tracks that they receive and the premier songs are fixed to a final grouping. It’s a simple process and yet it is often the powerful start to a songwriting adventure or even a career. And the gentle fingers of fate shift and favour the incoming songs and from that motion the upshot attention works its magic.
Autograph Hunters grab the soft rails – gentle in their willingness to hold a place and to orbit the stage. The audience –the crowd – closes in. And in this spacing of a seemingly random and fluid population, a rigid stance is held, it exists, then evolves and all is in order.
All is in order.
And with a magical assembly of connected people, we then have it... Play It Strange flourished as it moved onwards and upwards through time. More than 21 years now.
There are a number of specific pointers that are easy to include as the writing wheel turns... all relevant from when the songs are begun. Here are some of these principal factors.
Pauses. Repetition. Introductions. Metaphors. Questions. Instrumental Breaks. Vocal Middle Eights
For example, if we take an alumni song – well, let’s take HOME by Annah Mac. This song was placed third in the 2007 National Songwriting Competition.
She uses an Introduction, Pauses, Instrumental Breaks, a vocal middle eight and Repetitions to real affect – take a listen:
These carry weight in what weaves Annah’s song through an inventive framework. And they forge much within the lyrical structure.
Now make it your turn… Fix on bringing those six parameters to the body of whichever song you’re writing. It can work really well!
Annah Mac (centre) – Trustees (David Boyle, Hilary Poole ), CEO Stephanie Brown, Author Mike Chunn
