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A passionate introduction

The first rule of song writing is that there are no rules for song writing. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. The words and sounds you make are yours and so are your songs. No matter what kind of words and/or sound you put out there, you’ll find minds on that wavelength.

In this post I’m going to attempt to describe a way to put together lyrics for a song.

Songs, just like people, come in many different shapes, sizes, and personalities. Some songs are scribbled out on diner napkins at 4am and others are methodically written with a feathered pen upon staff paper. Anyone who writes, or has a ever written a song has their own very unique method for this magical process. It’s difficult to even suggest a process per-say (even though I will attempt to do so in a later post) as while I think it’s great to be able to sit down and say ok I’m going to write for three hours; many times you’ll be dozing off to sleep to have an idea race through your head and the next thing you know you’re scribbling for ten minutes to the light of the moon. And boom next thing you know you’ve got a song you really like in that ten minutes after days or weeks of writer’s block.

The one thing that all songs share is the goal to convey some type of an emotion or state of mind. For me personally, this is the key essence and all encompassing greatness of writing and listening to music. When I hear a song that I connect with it’s like I’m being communicated with on a level more primal than language. It’s the like the state of mind and emotions of the creator of the song are being imprinted into my mind just by hearing that certain arrangement of sounds and words. Having the state of your mind changed through hearing sounds and words, it’s like the best drugs you don’t even need to smoke dude!

How to generate ideas for song lyrics

The simplest way to begin writing a song is to put your pen/paper down or take your fingers off the keyboard. Take a moment to focus on something in your mind. It can be an image, an emotion, a person, a situation, anything that catches your focus. You’ll most likely focus on something that will trigger a variety of emotions, memories, smells, sounds, this is great; let all of these things fill your mind and start writing and/or making sounds. You can write sentences, words, detailed or abstract descriptions, even draw some pictures to express what’s going on in your mind on paper. Go crazy with this as nothing will come out of your mind as a clean, detailed, straight-forward product. Just like the biological structure of the mind, emotions and thoughts are messy and complicated.

As you go through what I will call the ‘mind idea-vomit’ process, take note of things that are repeating. Words, imagery, sounds that keep coming up is what you’ll want to incorporate into your song. That stuff is what keeps coming up and it will be the easiest and most fundamental way to convey the emotions and state of mind you’re trying to convey.

Arranging the words and phrases into a song

Once you have a some things down on paper you can begin to arrange them into parts. Most songs have some types of unique sections called verses and some type or types of a section which usually repeats itself throughout the song called a chorus. There are also other parts that have specific names that we can discuss in another post. If you notice that some type of word or phrase repeats itself way more often than other stuff in what you have written you might consider building your chorus around that word or phrase.

You can arrange other pieces of what you have written into verses. Sometimes verses flow together to tell some kind of a story or describe some type of a situation but they definitely don’t have to. Whatever makes sense to you will work. Also remember there are plenty of songs that have no distinguishable ‘choruses’ and/or ‘verses’.

Rhyming

Most songs you’ll hear incorporate some type of rhyming.

Example:
The tree that they saw was tall and green,
and the dog tied to it was crazy and mean!

Lines don’t have to rhyme, and many songs don’t but if you’re just getting started this rhyming the lines or groups of lines of your song will seem natural because most of the music you hear rhymes. There are many rhyming dictionaries online that can help if you’re stuck finding a rhyme, just Google ’rhyme dictionary’.

With all of that you should be able to get cracking on a song or two or 100. Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions regarding the song writing process below.

As is expected to be the case when learning a foreign language, one encounters many sounds and spellings that are simply hilarious. One such German word for me was/is ‘fährt’. It’s pronounced kind of like ‘fehrt’ but ignoring the ä (which changes the pronunciation to ‘eh’ instead of ‘a’) one could easily pronounce it as fart.

This is a conjugation of the word ‘fahren’ which means to drive. FÄHRT (hehehe) is used when you say he/she/it is driving as in “Er fährt” (He drives).

The roads are filled with Ausfahrt (exit) signs. Notice the lack of ä means you say it like you see it, Ausfart! I’m always saying in the car, hmm there’s a cool castle we can check out, I think I’ll just ‘ausFAHRT’ right here. Also, driving through the freshly manured air of Spring one might say that ‘ausFAHRT’ 20 minutes ago was not such a great idea.

Good times.

I took this horseback riding tour during the rainy season, Octoberish…it was awesome. Muddy and super wet and can’t swim in the waterfall cause there’s so much water kind of awesome.  I’ve heard it’s even more awesome during the dry season and you can swim in the falls.  Dry season in Costa Rica runs January through May.

The horses are taken care of, calm, and responsive; it was my first time riding a horse unassisted with basically no previous experience and it was an amazing way to learn to ride and to see the falls and surrounding area.  Breakfast and lunch are included in the price of the tour, both meals were outstanding.  Typical, deliciously prepared Costa Rican dishes that I still fondly remember the smell and taste of to this day.  Great way to recharge before and in between the treks on horseback.

Check out the tours via the following website:

http://www.cataratasnauyaca.com/

Traveling by bus through Costa Rica is safe (assuming common sense is present), fun, and very cost effective.  Traveling by bus can be considerably slower than public/private tourist shuttles so the small print is you’ll need to have plenty of time on your hands to make this worthwhile.  Here’s a simple guide to get you where you want to go for nearly pennies on the dollar compared to tourist-centered transportation options like shuttles and taxis.

Buses in Costa Rica are operated by a variety of private companies and sometimes the company consists of a dude that drives a bus…it’s all good!

Here are the 5 steps to get you rockin’ across this beautiful country like a boss:

1. Figure out where you are and where you need to go.  You need city names.
2. Get an idea of what bus companies have routes that run from where you are to where you need to go.  The best resource I’ve found is here: http://thebusschedule.com/EN/cr/ Main things to note when using this site is bus company names and phone numbers that are displayed as a result.
3. THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP!  CALL or have someone who speaks Spanish call the number that you find to verify if the bus runs the route that you need, what times it runs, and where it stops in your town.  Even if a Costa Rican tells you that the bus will be somewhere at sometime still CALL the number of the bus company!  The times and destinations change and the most up to date and reliable information will come from the company.  You do not want to find out that the bus company no longer departs from the Coca Cola terminal in San Jose, it’s not enjoyable or advisable to wander around seedy bus stations looking lost and asking for information.
4. Arrive at the stop 30 minutes early.  If the bus shows up early, it will take off early.
5. If you need to change buses in non major cities make sure you or someone that speaks Spanish speaks with the driver so that they can let you know when to get off the bus.  This might seem daunting for people who don’t speak Spanish but you can literally have someone write what you need to say on a piece of paper and show it to the driver.  Again, a small inconvenience in order to save up to $100s of dollars for a trip as well as get a chance to zoom around Costa Rica (and beyond) like a Costa Rican.

Good luck and happy travels!

After surviving my first week in Dominical I finally woke up early enough to catch some waves (white wash to be exact) before the afternoon/evening showers set in. It’s been over nine months since I’ve been on a board and it was refreshingly frustrating to go through a long overdue wash cycle courtesy of the majestic cleaning lady known as the Pacific Ocean. The current at this beach is ridiculous, it moves south and takes everything it can with it. The locals understand the current well, made very obvious by their calm paddling out in the northern part of the beach, surfing and exit at the south, followed by a pleasant walk along the shore back up north for another set of rides.

My ‘captain insano’ attempts at paddling out diagonally against the current while fighting white wash from many directions must have been a fantastic dose of comic relief to the moments of deep introspection being enjoyed by locals and tourists alike. In my mind I was going to dominate that current and the white wash with my dolphin like paddling, hop the first ride-able wave I could, and carve it like a boss. The reality was more along the lines of a soaped up gorilla having a Logrolling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logrolling_(sport)) competition with itself…Ok maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was pretty ridiculous.

I’m ready to buckle down and take it day by day to improve. It’s worth it…to me surfing is an activity that slowly and peacefully allows the wisdom, power, and reality of the ocean to broaden and hopefully enhance the mind. The process of learning to surf continues to be my physical metaphor for being a living, conscious entity. You’re in the middle of something absolutely limitless and infinitely complex, the rules and conditions change constantly, the best that can hoped for is a glimpse of understanding or at least an idea about what’s coming.  Past that just ride it out and hope for the best.  Hopefully it will be fun. And maybe, just maybe, there’ll be a chance to ride again!

I’ll be sure to take some pictures and possibly some video once I move into the mildly interesting instead of painfully goofy category of surfing expertise

P.S. I also tried a Papaya for the first time, no idea how I’ve never tried this amazing fruit before. I’d describe it as a cross between a mango and a (water?)melon and absolutely delicious.

I’ve been enchanted by the hypnotic vocal stylings and intricate instrumental melodies of Iron and Wine for quite sometime now. However, my admiration of this band was taken to a whole new level during a live set I was lucky enough to catch at the ZMF music festival in Freiburg.

Upon my fashionably late arrival I was greeted by the humid embrace of the carni tent in which the band was making the magic happen. Let me clarify that I’m not using the word magic to poke fun at Sam’s majestic beard…which is second in majesty only to his music…but I digress.

I knew most of the songs…or at least I thought I did. The lyrics were familiar but through hauntingly delicious builds and tidal retreats of acoustic and synthesized sound the meanings, moods, auras, what-have-you of the songs were crafted into something that I’d like to describe as existentially orgasmic. The lyrics were there to comfort you, but were merely threads in a carpet being masterfully woven by the wizard orchestra busy at work in that steamy tent. The result was an elevation to new and sometimes overwhelming levels of self (re)discovery for all involved.

The magicians on stage took the happily swaying, dancing, kissing, drinking audience on a sonic journey through a parallel universe or 2, or 10…I found my body and soul joyfully dancing to songs that I previously fell asleep to and quietly questioning my very existence to the intimately soothing combo of voice and guitar that replaced the synths and heaviy rythms I had just days prior bobbed my head to.

I won’t bother going into specific song names as I’d like to think of the entire show as a singular entity of positive energy that was released into the world for the benefit of all of existence. There were bluesy grooves, and there were surprise free-jazz jam outs that culminated into some mind bending noise-rock. The band sang, played, moved as one majestic thing, a perfectly synchronized organism. Apart from several thank yous and a bit of mic feedback here and there, the show was banter free and focused perfectly on the music. It all worked and it was all very beautiful.

This was my first time seeing the band live and I couldn’t be happier that it happened this way. I left the show with a new appreciation for the band and their sound. This show is a re-affirmation of the reason I enjoy experiencing live music. In live shows as in life, nothing is static. There is always a different perspective, always a new way to understand and experience something. A glimpse into the different ways an idea or emotion or what-have-you can be expressed spontaneously is what I cherish and enjoy most about experiencing and creating music.

I highly recommend catching a live show if they are playing close to where you live your life.

Iron and Wine official site:
http://www.ironandwine.com/

ZMF:
www.zmf.de

*I’ll post a few pics of the show soon.

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