CREATIVITY – it’s challenge number one for a songwriter – are you inspired? Do you feel playful and imaginative, deeply in love, heart broken, at the start of a great adventure in life or simply horribly lost, staring deeply into the void. Either way it has to be there -some heartfelt emotion to jump start you into action. You have to harness that elusive creativity through inspiration to even start writing.

Songwriting

Some of the best or most famous songs ever written have been produced by spontaneous outbursts of feeling or ideas – inspiration. Then worked on to reach a perfection. It’s something to contemplate before you even begin trying to write songs.How and where in life do I get inspiration from?

Paul McCartney, for example,  famously claims that “Yesterday” arrived in his head in a dream as a melody. He spent some times singing “ham and eggs” or “scrambled eggs” to a piano trying to keep hold of the idea waiting for the lyrics to come later.

Then he took it to the other Beatles hoping it wasn’t something he’d lifted from another artist. “It was like handing in something you’d found at the police station and waiting to see if anyone claimed it.”

It’s disputed but apparently John Lennon came up with the title and they spent months on the song getting it right, making it catchy but not gooey.

You don’t have to be famous though to be inspired and write a decent song. Any songwriter at any level can relate to the notion of starting off with a song melody or a few words that are emotionally inspired or almost mystical in the way they turn up in your brain and sing themselves or speak themselves to you.

Of course – the tools of writing a song, the guitar techniques have to be there. The chords, finger picking, use of a capo, ideas of structure and poetry, maybe even a few melodies rolling around from previous songwriting sessions. That means you need to be a ble to play and it helps if you can sing.

Plus you need patience and confidence in your own ability to complete a song without succumbing to frustration and doubt. Not an easy state of mind to be in at all.

But you can do it!

My Own Personal Slant on Songwriting having written many songs (none of which are famous like the Beatles obviously) is this…

If I didn’t mean it. If I don’t mean it. I don’t want the song. The songs I really love to sing are the ones that the emotions are written into the lines, etched into the melody, so each time you sing it, it comes out again and every audience worth playing to is the one that shares the emotion you’re expressing.

I honestly believe that if you set out writing a song with only the intention of selling it and being impressive, to the point where it dominates your feelings it’ll taint the meaning for the listener – it’ll ruin it. If you’re a cold to the song. If you use it to further your calculated ambition to impress or sell – sure you can use the trickery, the imagery, the techniques but somehow it won’t be real. It’ll be in there somewhere . A fake song made to sell is always going to be a fake.

Be true to yourself. It’s a more important lesson in life than the songwriting and it’s worth not caring about failure for. If you can’t write an honest song – then don’t bother writing one at all. I, for one, don’t wish to be insulted by its deception. Unless it’s powerfully dark and dishonest in a devilishly effective manner of course.

Magic. In songwriting. Exists.
 

It’s not only about who you are and finding out how you feel, it’s also about the life you lead, physically in space and time. Here are some great states and places to be in to write a song. Don’t try and manufacture them, that’s like chatting some one up, telling them what they want to hear, doing the musical on them and  then dumping them. Don’t be a swine. Just know it. Let it happen.

Places and feelings to inspire songwriting

• just after you wake up – , just like Paul McCartney, you can have your guitar, pen, paper next to your bed in your studio flat or bedroom. Write when it’s fresh, maybe straight from a dream,  and try not to censor yourself. If it doesn’t happen quickly let it go – you don’t want to be a zombie all day missing conversations and nearly getting run over by a bus as you hum in your head without looking where you’re going
• after a break up – deep misery and despair is brilliant for dragging up naturally occurring poetic imagery and capitalising on your own hurt
• when you’re crazy about someone – you just want to spill it out, let everyone know, celebrate the wild joy of existence – go for it!
• memories of travel – you have to live life to be able to have something to say about life in a song – adventures in South America, near death experiences in Nepal, a good kicking in Leeds – tell your story in a song
• places – one of my favourite topics is the claustrophobia of dirty bars and a life of poverty where you feel like a prisoner in a life…the chorus always has to be the escape for me

Most importantly thought -stick to the themes of your life, the person you are, the passions you always have. Your drives, desires, issues. You’re the one who truly knows what’s going on in your head and your heart. So you can read through the examples in the list above and then come up with  an equivalent bunch of your own.

Butterfly

Here’s a song that I wrote in my Preston flat close to Avenham Park following a break up of a 13 year relationship. The way I felt about my former girlfriend came out naturally and the context of all the other relationships I’d ever been  in.

LYRICS:

Like a butterfly

You rested on me

With all of your colours

You left on the wind

And it feels like…such a long, long , time ago now

On a cliff edge of reasonlessness

I was ready to dive

On a wing and prayer

Oh I’m so glad that I’m still alive

All of my lovers

They come and they go

I thought that you and I had transcended

the life that we know

And if feels like such a long, long time ago now

I had to do this

I had to get low

To squeeze out all my pride

and come out the other side

And it feels like such a long, long time ago now.

To see a live performance of this song click on the video link below…

Butterfly by Mike Kneafsey

THE FIRST port of call for learning this using online resources has to be the every youthful justinguitar.com the Tasmanian charmer with a corner in the youtube guitar lesson market – Justin Guitar Free Lesson why not- the guy has done us all a good service.

You’ll notice though that he down tunes his top string to E flat (the thinnest string tuned down one semi tone) and uses barre chords and I know that will throw many of my students, including the Clitheroe Guitar Group that I run on Tuesday nights – it’ll throw them. So it might be a hard place to start.

I’ve been playing for over 30 years and I didn’t bother starting there. I simply slapped the capo on the third fret and started using open chords – a G shape, a D suspended second shape and a large C , as I call it , with an extra finger fretting the bottom string (6th string). An Em in the chorus – are you with me on this yet?

You know what…I can’t find it anywhere on ultimate guitar for the way I play it and to be honest I just bang it out where I like to sing it, where it feels nice, where I can flow with my vocals and feel the emotion of the song.

Try it on any of these and see which you like…I realise not everybody even sings…the main thing is to achieve that driving eight timing which I describe as “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” a strum on every half beat of a four beat bar. Check out the alternatives by googling “coldplay yellow chords”.

Looks at this one. PLaying yellow using open G on capo 4  This is where I play it ( though don’t forget we can play together using different chord shapes but placing the capo on different frets). But why this lesson uses an up and down strum when the eighth timing, all down strums, all powering along, is really what makes this a sweet song to learn.

Really you need to come along on a Tuesday night and join us upstairs at the Ale House in Clitheroe in Lancashire in the north of England at 8pm. The craft ales and real ales at the bar downstairs at this independent micro pub are amazing. I can vouch for that because I’ve been drinking beer as long as I’ve played the guitar.

I charge £10 per person for lesson as I am full time teacher and musician.

Catch you soon.

Mike

ADMIT IT – y’can’t keep playing mid 70s rock and the blues forever! At some point you might have to sneak your guitar learning into the 21st century. No really, it might do you some good.

I know, the kicking and screaming has already begun but I’m going to persevere. First and foremost for my younger students and for the world out there, people who have, in fact, listened to and enjoyed a band as massively successful and popular as Coldplay.

This track – Yellow – was their first major success back in the year 2000 and so it has, just, sneaked into a category of a song to be learned from this century. For me, it provides the perfect opportunity to introduce more techniques into my guitar workshops – eighth timing, a chugging downward strum, a break away from the rules of traditional rock pop formats by jumping in early on all the verses and using suspended chords for a droning sweet melancholic sound.

The risk is that the older generations have all the money, the redundancy payments, the pensions, the expensive guitars, the property and the money for lessons and so The Eagles-tendency appears to be something I’m frighteningly stuck with.

A small amount of commercial self harming then for a guitar teacher, such as myself, to try and introduce Coldplay to friends who prefer more manly music in the tradition of the macho 70s. One great bass player that I gig with on occasion has even described such indie music as “bed wetter” music .

At the risk of sounding boring though…I’m not going to keep rolling over the same boring sounds that turned me into a punk-reggae fan in the late 70s forever, it just kills my appetite for learning and teaching. Eventually I’ll simply quit out of misery.

The Beatles, Coldplay, The Verve, The Coral, The Doors, Morcheeba, The Everly Brothers, Dodgy, Oasis, Blur, The Stranglers, Blondie, The Specials, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, Third World, Small Faces, Velvet Underground – are just some of the great bands that brought me the joy of listening to music. Beyond the white Tory suburbs of the 21st century was a world of very famous, very successful bands on a global scale who probably seem like drug using leftie, art loving,  pansies to your average Brexiter guitar hero – but so what.

So off we go!

WE are rolling again and rocking – from tomorrow Tuesday January the 26th – Clitheroe Guitar Group 2016 will meet upstairs at the The Ale House, Clitheroe to play songs together, chat, drink a pint and improve our guitar playing.

We’ll meet just before 8pm, play for an hour or so and then relax, even more so than we were in the first place. You don’t need to be able to sing or play lead guitar, or fingerpick, not yet anyway. You do need to be able to play and change basic open major, minor and seventh chords to keep up with the group.

The first and most important thing is to remember to bring a capo and we can share our tuners and plectrums if anyone forgets. Here is the list of songs we’ll be working on.

Bad Moon Rising

Take It Easy by the Eagles

(Sittin On the) Dock of The Bay

Brown Eyed Girl

Norwegian Wood

Tear My Stillhouse Down (trad)

First of all, please note that the list of people wanting to join the Guitar Workshops in Clitheroe is growing but, although I want to keep the groups fairly intimate, there is room for more. If necessary we’ll start a second group to deal with the numbers please e mail mikegkneafsey@gmail.com if you want to be put on a mailing list and kept up to date with everything.

Directions for the venue are at these sites accessible by clicking on the links below. We meet at The Ale House, which is an independent micro pub on 12-14 Market Place https://www.facebook.com/The-A%C5%82e-House-Clitheroe-1535941033345720/.

Park anywhere you can find on the main street through Clitheroe or I would recommend parking on Lowergate car park opposite the Key Street bar (the one with the green guitars embellishing its front) because it’s free after 6pm and you can walk round the corner to the bar http://carparkmaps.co.uk/carparks /view/18671

It is important to emphasize that these workshops are not open to the public and not free, though the public can listen in. If you pay in advance then you get one workshop free (five workshops for £40) with no refunds for absentees otherwise it’s £10 per session. I am registered with the Inland Revenue and CRB checked.

I hope you appreciate that I have to do this as I earn my living as a full time professional musician and guitar teacher on a daily basis. I happen to think it will work much better and we’ll improve together if we’re more focused and committed. Though it’s essential we have fun!

I also recommend getting a lift or walk if you live locally so that you get chance to sample some of the excellent craft beers and real ales on rotation at the bar. But that comes with a warning…they are really nice.

Click on the link to listen to the track Dunedin To Skye taken from the live acoustic album “Colourful Language”  by songwriter Mike Kneafsey and guitarist Oliver Day recorded last summer |Dunedin To Skye from the Ep Colourful Language

So which songs are we going to do…?

We need to start as simply as we can to sound effective as a group before we find out who gets the complex lead guitar parts and who likes to sing, if ever, and who hates or loves The Eagles (for example). So if you can keep a 4/4 time and swap between the D, A and G we’re off. We can belt out Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clearwater. https://youtu.be/w6iRNVwslM4 as our warm up song. If you want to sing it and find that John Fogerty has one of those high rockin out rock n roll voices that’s too high for your liking we can always transpose it to a different key and swap between A, E and D.

To begin with. Famous songs we are all likely to know, which are tried and tested, will also work better. I’ve added Norwegian Wood because it’s in 3/4 time and has a catchy sitar-style riff if you want to learn it but we need capos for this. Dock of The Bay allows us to introduce some bass and strum. Take It Easy is a mega long rock song which enforces intense concentration until you’ve “got it” and are used to complete songs with lots of changes. Brown Eyed Girl requires lots of changes and energy too.

I might just add some more to see what you like and surprise you…but the list should give you a heads up..

Looking forward to getting going again…

Mike Kneafsey

PS Feedback very welcome

TRYING to anticipate the favourite songs of a random group of music lovers who have come together as strangers to meet up and play the guitar is always a fun guessing game.

You know,as a tutor or workshop organiser,  that each individual has a strong opinions on which songs evoke the kind of magical feelings which attracted them to the six strong glory of the instrument, the guitar,  in the first place.

A tutor should be sensitive to the feelings and sensibilities of his group, their social needs – be it beer, a good laugh or a set of songs we all love.

The tutor could also be aware of the contemporary myth for suggesting that there is no way of second guessing a group interest or tastes of a group judging by age or class backgrounds – very much a taboo idea in the age of consumer lifestyle choices as the mainstream ideology – apparently we’re all free thinking, free choosing individuals who determine the outcome of our own lives independently of society.

Of course, as anybody working in advertising or marketing knows, that’s complete idealistic tosh. It’s entirely predictable and the entire industry is based on second guessing the tastes of large groups of so-called individuals even when calling them individuals as a group. I include myself in that, if you know my background and age you’d know what my music tastes are likely to be, or have been, or which phases I might have been through. You’d be right. I choose freely but you can predict lots of my passions.

Consequently over the years I can guarantee that the Eagles will be more popular among my male suburban clientele over 40 than younger people and women are often indifferent to their music. I’m sure there’ll be people willing to argue against this notion,  like those who smoke and don’t have cancer saying smoking and cancer don’t have a correlation.

So a big upset then that guitarist Glenn Frey, the Eagles guitarist died this week, aged 67. Take It Easy is one of those songs with its fast paced open chords and Californian cowboy sensibilities that I always teach.  It’s easier to pick up than many hits. Plus it has that free love 1960s/70s vibe and it mentions cars and picking up open minded women. Embarrassing but true, a depiction of days gone by. I won’t be popular for pointing it out!

Personally I’ve been learning song after song, day after day for the past eight years and my favourite cover was an acoustic version of Mathematics by Cherry Ghost which I picked up off You Tube. But once upon a time it would’ve been The Pogues, The Beatles, The Levellers, The Everly Brothers, The Doors, The Velvet Underground, Christy Moore in that 60s-80s world of rebellion, melody, art  and poetry familiar to the northern offspring of Irish Catholics. Nowadays it’s anything I can find. Roll on.

Each to their own.