Thoughts on Songwriting

Thoughts on Songwriting Songwriting is a very big part of my life. I am very pleased to have been able to write over 100 sets of lyrics in 2005 and am working hard to keep it up through 2006. There is so little time with my schedule to pursue music and songwriting, but thankfully - I have been riding the train back and forth to work for the last 5 1/2 years or so and have been able to use my laptop onboard in route (coming home sometimes) to work on arrangements and ideas and it is always easy to carry a steno-pad along the pull out when lyric-writing is possible. I have found songwriting and music must be a passion to accomplish anything with it (and in our case we can only practice every couple of weeks at present as a group) - but the rest of the time I try to do at least ONE thing each day toward accomplishing goals - and it is very hard to stay on track (no pun intended, because of the train ) and keep moving forward. I don't entertain any ideas of being some kind of star or anything like that - but I do have the goal to write music and continue putting it out there for people to listen to and hopefully - something is special to someone or I can entertain someone for a few moments. Music is emotional - people want to FEEL something from music. That is why music exists. If you can touch people (ballads are good for this) and especially if you can story-tell - you are on the right track. So much music today is negative and destructive. I feel that this is not a good trend - the idea is to heal others and lift them up - not to talk about killing or dying or any of the rest of the some of the things that are common in hip-hop and street music today. I think that these mediums will be around for a long time - and perhaps those who write things like that are trying to get somewhere or understand something - but at some point it is important to stop, take inventory and ask: how can I make things better? This, of course, is not the only things that I do lyrically - but lately this is something that weighs in heavily on my mind. ALSO - I have put up a new Songwriter's Books resource at http://www.garytittle.com/songwriting1.htm - drop by and take a look when you have a chance. Cheers! -Gary