by Mike Errico | May 11, 2020 | Lessons, Teaching
Songwriting Prompt No. 5: Not a prompt, just an observation: Some of the “demos” you’ve decided to release during this time rank among your best work, in my opinion. In fact, some of these “demos” are suspicious—suspiciously awesome, and suspiciously ambitious. Don’t forget, I listen to a lot of demos, and these? These are not demos. They aren’t Voice Notes of you on the side of your bed with your inconsiderate roommate washing frying pans in a nearby sink. They get me wondering: Are these “demos” really songs you wanted to put out but didn’t because you felt they were “off-brand?” Does it take a pandemic for you to admit that MAYBE you don’t know what your brand is? Or better: that your brand is YOU and you’ve been amputating parts of yourself in order to appear orderly? Because that’s nuts. Are you slapping the word “demo” on a track as if it’s a “might delete later” post, or an admission you’ll be able to deny? Well, fine. If that helps for now, knock yourselves out. But know that the sharing you’re doing is not only helping others, it’s maybe helping you to widen your definition of yourself. So keep on doing it. And what a great opportunity to retire two jerseys to the dust bin of your personal histories: #0 “DEMO;” #00 “BRAND”...
by Mike Errico | May 4, 2020 | Lessons, Teaching
Songwriting Prompt Four: Shhh You’ve heard that “music is the universal language.” That’s false. Music has never done the job of being universal, and in fact, it does the opposite. It groups subsections of people together; it accessorizes a particular aesthetic; it excludes. Writers antagonize each other via dis tracks. High schools have battles of the bands. TV networks pit musicians against each other in competition shows where contestants try to…what? Out-music one another? So, what is universal? Silence. It’s our resting state. It’s a consensual act that can be broken by any individual. Silence is where we came from, and it’s where we’re going. How does this apply to songwriting? 1) What almost always improves work is editing, which means the elimination of parts of the song. More silence. 2) Feedback like “your song is so short” can be seen as a compliment—the listener wanted more!—whereas “your song is so long” is never good. Ever. Why? Because it implies you left in stuff that did not improve upon silence. So: If you don’t have something to say that improves on silence, don’t say it. Revise by adding silence. Produce by framing silence. Write by writing as little as possible. Consider that maybe we already have it all, and that our real job is to lose as little of it as...
by Mike Errico | Apr 27, 2020 | Lessons, Teaching
Songwriting Prompt Three: Kick the Bucket Genre is a method of file management. It’s marketing. It’s not writing. And yet, you might think of yourself as a specialist in one, to the exclusion of others. You may have conjured a barbed wire fence that separates “pop” and “R&B” in your mind. By now, you’ve even adapted to the surrealism of Spotify’s utility-based playlisting, and see yourself more as “Morning Coffeehouse,” but probably not “Evening Coffeehouse.” You’ve been trained to find your lane. Your brand. That word, “brand”—it makes you sound like you’re expressing a personal style, but are you? Or are you expressing the bucket you hope to be dropped into? I mean, let’s be honest: Getting on “Morning Coffeehouse” or “Caviar Bedtime Toothbrushing Ritual” or whatever means you go from >1000 streams to 500k overnight. So what do you do? You write for the bucket. The bucket starts writing your songs. Is the bucket writing your songs? The most maligned track I’ve ever played in class, by a long stretch, is “Meant to Be,” by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line. The song spent a year on the charts, but that did not impress. Together, we watched the video through tears of laughter: she’d never work in a roadside diner; she’d never hitchhike in four pounds of makeup; she’d never hitchhike anywhere, ever. She’d ping an Uber or summon her helicopter, and poof. End of country-pop nightmare. Consider this: Bebe was down for the challenge of writing outside her pop specialty, and Florida Georgia Line pulled from outside of their country specialty. It’s almost as if “specialization” is...
by Mike Errico | Apr 22, 2020 | Lessons, Teaching
SONGWRITING PROMPT TWO: FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED So much taking stock going on out here. So much reassessing. So many projects put off for a thousand years finally getting done. I think it’s time to open up that “UNFINISHED SONG” folder and just…listen. Maybe some time has passed and you can hear the tracks a little differently. Maybe two of them are really parts of one song you conceived at different moments. Maybe it’s time to stitch them together, finally. So: Sit back and listen to what you have, and move one (or more) of them to the “FINISHED SONG”...
by Mike Errico | Apr 17, 2020 | Lessons, Teaching
Some students asked for songwriting prompts to get them through this time and keep them inspired. I’m going to add them here, hoping they help you, too. NOTE: They don’t have to be for songs. I’m sure you can apply them to other creative projects. SONGWRITING PROMPT ONE: I’ve always loved the fact that Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote the classic “Let it Snow” in the middle of a hot July summer. The song provided what their actual circumstances did not. (Snow.) I’m hearing some you are writing songs that reflect our current reality, which is great, but what if you could provide what our actual circumstances do not? We’re isolated; write about being together. We’re freaked out; write about resilience, or confidence, or add some anger and write about defiance. I’m not talking about drugging us with sunshine and rainbows, or living in denial of what’s going on. I’m talking about putting yourself in the listener’s place and thinking about what they need from you as a creator. It’s probably not news headlines, and maybe not a mirror to the moment, either. They’re getting plenty of that. This prompt is about providing them with a tool they need to see past it. So: Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne made it snow in July. What’s our version of that? THAT. Write that. Feel free to post drafts, if you like. I hope you’re all...
by Mike Errico | Nov 7, 2018 | Books, Stories, Teaching, Text Journalism
I have been putting Tallboy magazine out for years. It went digital for a while (we called them “blogs”), but that never felt right. This special four-issue, 164-page series was part of a crowdfunding campaign for my 2017 release, “Minor Fits.” In it, you’ll find short fiction (some of which I’ve told on stage); backstories about my most well-known songs; and confessions from the music industry—so it’s funny and full of idiots. Now that “Minor Fits” is out in the world, I’m offering the entire series on Bandcamp. I’ve put the same craft and quality into this that I’ve put into my music, and I hope you’ll check it out. Includes unlimited streaming of You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC cover) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. BUY TALLBOY MAGAZINE AT...
