Well… I got to the end of the month here and had only one complete song for the month: “Down in the Desert”, which I wrote on February 1st, start to finish in about 2 hours (including lyrics, song structure, harmony and lead guitar even). Then… I got nothing for about 10 days and when I finally stopped beating myself up over it I started back in on my mostly nightly work of improving for about a half an hour until a song emerges and then record it.
So, I started doing that on the 10th every other night or so until I realized just today that I had 13 other songs that are structurally complete (though they will probably go through edits before being finalized), just with no lyrics. Which, now I’m realizing is still part of the “game” of FAWM. I was looking to create songs in a specific way, but I think it’s ok for now that I just have sketches. That’s the way these songs have started to emerge. And, now I have a record of the work this month that I can now return to and refine.
But, here’s the scary part. These “sketches” of songs I have are filled with a particular way I write songs… which is to say I have these mumbly half-words and a faux glossalalia that serves as placeholders so I can create a melody before any concrete words and phrases start to appear. They’re not great, they’re not perfect, and I go out of tune quite a lot. But, they are what they are: songs in the process of emerging. I’m doing something different (and scary) here and giving y’all a link to these proto-songs. I hope that there are other songwriters and creative artists that recognize this process and use it or a form of it, too. I’d love to hear how you efficiently move from this stage to the next!
My full FAWM profile for tracyshaun is up for you to listen to… please let me know which one or more you think should start to have some lyrics generated. I’d love to know!
tracyshaun 