Structure

I was listening to some XTC yesterday (a great and highly underrated group) and reading an interview with principal songwriter and lead singer Andy Partridge, and something he said struck me as interesting.

If you want to become a better songwriter, you should pick apart your favorite songs and analyze why they work, structurally. Eventually, you'll come upon formulas that will help you express what you want in your own writing.

I realize that this isn't something I've ever done consciously, but I've always done because that's just the way I am - I pick things apart to better understand them as a whole.

I think that's why when I listen to even the first songs I ever wrote they had good structure - distinct musical themes, good bridges between sections, the strongest hooks in the chorus, etc.

I guess it's just the way I always thought songs should work, and so when I started writing, that's how they came out. I even plot out rhyme schemes sometimes.

I wish I could have the same discipline with my technique. Then I'd be able to execute the songs a whole lot better.

Guitar World magazine just published Steve Vai's 1990 workout again, which I'm going to accept as a sign that it's time for me to really get into practicing guitar again and getting my fretboard memorization together. I want to shred. I'm tired of being a half-assed guitar player. I have all the relative and perfect pitch lessons (the David L. Burge stuff), and I want to work on those, too, especially the relative pitch lessons, because not only do they teach you great relative pitch, it's a rigorous theory curriculum as well.

So in concert with the discipline I've always had as a songwriter, it's time to achieve it as an instrumentalist.

After I tackle all that stuff (especially the fretboard memorization), I'll work on reading music again.