« I'll Be Back | Main | House Concert - August 5, 2006 »
August 07, 2006
Song Virgins
I had a couple of ladies in the studio last week that came in to record a simple song demo.
The lady who initially called me had seen our number in the yellow pages, and called to inquire if we were really a recording studio. After receiving assurance that we really did record people, she made an appointment for herself and her partner. It turns out she was the lyricist, and her partner, a singer and keyboardist, would be the actual performer of the song.
They came over and ending up recording the song, and it was not bad.
It was only after the session that I found out it was the first song that either of the ladies had written. They were “song virgins.”
I was impressed. They had done very well for their first attempt.
It caused me to think back on the first song I ever wrote.
I was 13, and a group of churches in the Los Angeles area where I grew up decided to hold a music festival. As part of the festivities, they planned to put on a songwriting contest.
I fancied myself a serious composer at that age, having written some pieces that I fondly called “sonatas,” or “piano pieces”. I dutifully attached opus numbers to each of my compositions (e.g. “Theme and Variations for Piano by Leon Olguin, op. 1”)
I decided to enter the songwriting competition, even though I considered songwriting to be a lower art form, when placed next to serious classical composition. I thought it might be fun and easy, and since I was a composer already, I believed I stood a good chance of winning. Words? How hard could that be? I would think up some lyrics to this magnum opus, no problem.
I wrote my first song, and I mean I actually wrote it out: words, melody, and every note of the detailed piano accompaniment in full score.
I turned it in to the judges, and also had one the better singers from our church perform it the competition. Certainly my superior abilities would be recognized.
I didn’t win.
I didn’t place.
The judges’ comments were along the lines of: “That was………….interesting.”
The song, which mercifully no one remembers except me (and I have no intentions of performing it for anyone ever), was a grand exercise in youthful pretension. I attempted to make a grand philosophical statement through the lyrics, and create music for the ages that would stand alongside the best of the masters.
That song was so bad that it could have been used as a sort of aural punishment for hardened criminals. “I won’t do it again! Just stop playing that song!!!!”
Fortunately, over time I learned what songwriting was really all about, and my songs have improved a bit since “the early days.”
Now here were two fledgling songwriters who had nervously come to my studio with their first attempt at serious songwriting, and they certainly did not embarrass themselves.
Will the song be a hit? Probably not. But they had definite potential as songwriters.
I really hope they stick with it. It will fun to watch them grow as songwriters and collaborators.
Maybe they will write a hit song someday, and I’ll be able to say, “I was there at the beginning!”
Posted by leon at August 7, 2006 12:10 PM