Music Smorgasbord? What you talking ’bout?
Rock/Guitar Music is my favourite style to write in. However, as my knowledge of music has grown over the years, so have my influences. I now find that writing music in different styles is a must for keeping the creative brain ticking. Variety is the spice of musical life. Constantly writing in one style can become monotonous and result in re-hatching the same idea several times over. I feel that this can also result in one being Pidgeon-holed into one genre. Now I understand that for most musicians this is not a problem. In fact, there is a common train of thought that one should concentrate on one genre to gain a foothold in a chosen market and with that, a particular set of followers. Absolutely nowt wrong with that. If that is what floats your boat, then go for it.
Music – the spice of life
For me, I like to write and listen to music in different styles. It not only adds a bit of spice to the process, but it also freshens up my ears. It also allows me to experiment with different sounds, instruments, feels and musical subjects. For example, I cannot see me writing a sweet musical delicacy about flowers on the mountainside in the same style as a Metallica song. Although Thin Lizzy’s Black Rose comes to mind when you talk about heavy rock songs with flowers in the title, I don’t think I will be attempting the acoustic version too soon. Likewise I don’t think Scott McKenzie had Black Roses in mind when he suggested to “Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”.I don’t listen to an Eminem song in the same way as I would listen to a Damien Rice ditty. Nor a Dream Theatre shred fest to a Don McClean American Pie epic. Likewise, I feel that playing different styles opens up a different way of writing and styling a song or a piece of music. Indeed, I got myself into the habit of just writing instrumental music for a long time. And yes, I really enjoyed it with all the shredding riffs and heavy drum and bass laden musically accented head banging stuff that you would expect. But then I started playing with acoustic styled easy listening and classically sounding music. It just gets you listening instead of jumping around the kitchen spilling your tea all over the place.
Never throw old lyrics away… trust me
So recently I came across some lyrics I wrote many moons ago. They are written on all sorts of pieces of paper – including the back of old cigarette packets… I kid you not. They say that musicians are their own worst critics. When I found these titbits I went back in time to when I wrote them and realised I just never liked my lyrics. Now, with the passing of time I find that they have a whole new meaning. They are inspiring me in ways that I could never have imagined when I wrote them. Inspiring me to take a different approach…Noel.
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