Songwriters of Wisconsin Presentation

Thank you Songwriters of Wisconsin for having me as a guest speaker last weekend. Hopefully you enjoyed some of my road stories and got some useful information regarding writing great songs. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and I hope to keep in touch with all of you as we continue our life-long journeys to becoming better and better songwriters.

Deciding to be confident

Reader's Digest had an article recently that said most people tend to think they are better than they really are... except depressed people... they tend to be realists.  I think it's the other way around and being a realist makes it easier to become depressed!  Still, I think it's fair to make the following statements and really believe them:

1.  Goals worth achieving take time.

2.  Working a little bit every day on writing will make it get better over time.

3.  Singers like to sing great songs and are always looking for them.

4.  I may not get any cuts.

5.  I may get lots of cuts.

6.  There are song-writers that are better than me.

7.  There are song-writers that I'm better than.

8.  Sometimes my desire to be heard short-circuits my desire to say something worth saying.

9.  Every successful song-writer has had to overcome obstacles.

There are probably more but these are the first that come to mind.  Okay here is where I think it's time to make the switch.  My favorite song-writers have a certain confidence about them, an ego really.  I think if I adopt that mind-set I'll have more success too.  Maybe we all will.  We can be realists about bills or the fact we need to work out and a million other things in life that seem to require that.  But I'm going to be confident about my writing.  I'm going to have a bit more ego about my writing.  Just typing this make me feel better.  And besides, I am damn good.  (say it with me..."I am damn good")  At least that's what I'm telling myself for a few weeks here.  If it doesn't yield better songs I'm sure the realist in me will point that out with great satisfaction. 

Rick Beresford's 7 things that make a great song:

In order of importance:

1.  Entertaining

2.  Universal Emotion/Story

3.  Told in unique way

4.  Compelling, deep emotional impact

5.  Singable

6.  Memorable lyric/melody

7.  Strikes you as honest

These are tough to get all in one song.  I've found if I focus on one that I'm weakest at, the others tend to be better too.  What are your strengths and weaknesses here?  I welcome comments and suggestions.