Songwriting Without Boundaries: Lyric Writing Exercises for Finding Your Voice

385 Pages·2012·1.35 MB·English

by  Pat Pattison

SONGWRITING
WITHOUT
BOUNDARIES
LYRIC WRITING EXERCISES
FOR FINDING YOUR VOICE
PAT PATTISON
AUTHOR OF WRITING BETTER LYRICS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pat Pattison is a professor at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches lyric
writing and poetry. His books Writing Better Lyrics, The Essential Guide to
Lyric Form and Structure, and The Essential Guide to Rhyming are considered
definitive in their genre and have earned many ecstatic reviews. In addition, Pat
has developed four lyric writing courses for Berklee’s online school, available
through patpattison.com, and has written more than thirty articles for a variety of
industry publications. His internationally successful students include multiple
Grammy winners John Mayer and Gillian Welch. He continues to present
songwriting clinics across the globe.
Pat’s website is: http://patpattison.com.
THANK YOU
My deepest gratitude to the many writers who participated in these challenges.
You’ve set a high bar, and your work will both instruct and inspire. You’ve
marked out an enchanting path for writers to follow, and as they do these
challenges, they surely will fall in love with your writing. I did.
To my many students. Your passion, curiosity, and creativity continue to
embiggen me on a daily basis.
To the songwriters, artists, and industry professionals who participate in my
annual student Spring Break Trip to Nashville. Your generosity over the last two
and a half decades has transformed so many lives.
To my colleagues at Berklee College of Music. Your drive to find a stronger,
clearer way to say it continues to enlighten me.
To Mike. You write a mean foreword, buddy.
To Jason, Suzanne, Maia, Olivia, and Holly, just for being you.
To my wife, Clare. You make everything better.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Foreword by Mike Reid
Introduction
Challenge #1: Object Writing
DAYS 1-5:“What Writing”
DAYS 6-8:“Who Writing”
DAYS 9-11“When Writing”
DAYS 12-14:“Where Writing”
Challenge #2: Metaphor
DAY 1:Adjective-Noun Collisions
DAY 2:Finding Nouns From Adjectives
DAY 3:Finding Adjectives From Nouns
DAY 4:Noun-Verb Collisions
DAY 5:Finding Verbs From Nouns
DAY 6:Finding Nouns From Verbs
DAY 7:Expressed Identity: Noun-Noun Collisions
DAY 8:Expressed Identity: Noun-Noun Collisions
DAY 9:Expressed Identity: Finding Nouns from Nouns
DAY 10:Playing in Keys: Using Linking Qualities
DAY 11:Playing in Keys: Using Linking Qualities
DAY 12:Playing in Keys: Finding Linking Qualities
DAY 13:Playing in Keys: Finding Linking Qualities
DAY 14:Simile
Challenge # 3 Object Writing With Metaphor
DAYS 1-3:Linking Qualities to Target Ideas
DAYS 4-7:Working Both Directions
DAYS 8-11:Finding Linking Qualities: Working One Direction
DAYS 12-14:Finding Linking Qualities: Moving Both Directions
Challenge # 4: Writing in Rhythm & Rhyme
DAYS 1-2:Tetrameter Lines
DAYS 3-6:Tetrameter Couplets
DAYS 7-10:Common Meter
DAY 11:Tetrameter and Pentameter
DAYS 12-13:Common Meter and Pentameter
DAY 14:Unstable Structure: abba
Afterword
FOREWORD
I don’t like forewords, afterwords, prefaces, author’s notes, or introductions in
books. But Pat’s been a friend for a long time and against all common sense, he
asked me to do this. I could say no only so many times.
Not long ago I said to Pat, “Why bother with all this when great lyrics don’t
seem to matter anymore?” “They matter to you, don’t they?” he shot back. And
there it was. For reasons beyond my full understanding I had to confess that they
did matter to me. A lot. If they matter to you, buy this book. It won’t tell you
what you should write about. Getting off the couch and out into your own life
will do that. What it will do is teach you how to write. Best of all, it will teach
you how to think like a writer.
Talent is a mystery, a gift, a discovery of oneself. Technique, on the other
hand, is just plain hard work and for me, the single greatest challenge of writing
well has always been in understanding what I mean to say. It’s not what others
think you should be saying, but what you and you alone mean to say.
How, then, do we break through the barriers of the well-ordered conscious
mind and get to where the honest impulses, the richest ideas, the deepest
passions live? Waiting on the muse to ascend is a fool’s errand. If you’re of a
mind to want to get at the best in you, you hold in your hands, at this moment, a
tool of inestimable value. Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right
word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the
lightning bug.” Faithfully following the principles set down in this book will not
only help you find the right word but, more importantly, will be a constant
companion in the lifelong journey toward understanding precisely what it is you
mean to say.
Over the years, Pat and I have disagreed more than a little on many things.
But I take no issue with his deep, abiding desire to help those who choose to
write, write better.
Mike Reid
Nashville, TN
July 2011
INTRODUCTION
For us, there is only the trying.
The rest is not our business.
—T.S. ELIOT (EAST COKER, FROM THE FOUR QUARTETS)
This is a book on writing. And it is a book for writing. For writers of all kinds:
songwriters, poets, playwrights, novelists, bloggers; anyone who loves the taste
of words. It challenges you to take a journey into yourself to discover not only
what you have to say, but also to discover an authentic voice to say it with.
Finding your voice as a writer is a lot like finding your voice as a singer. If
you can carry a tune, you can learn to do it better. You can find, by exploration,
where your voice feels strongest, where it feels the most like you. You try
different styles, different timbres, different approaches and, slowly for some,
more quickly for others, the real you emerges. The feeling you get when you hit
that bulls-eye is like no other feeling. You’re incredibly alive and centered, like
you’ve pushed your roots deep into the earth’s core. But committing to a journey
to find that unique voice takes work; it takes practice.
Even if you have massive talent, you can learn to do it better, and with more
consistency. Great singers use vocal coaches. Even in their prime, they continue
the search.
Writing is like that, too. You have a writing voice, something that feels the
most like you. Your job is to find it.
This book will help you find your writing voice. It will help you do the work
it takes. And, it will help you practice.
I got the idea for this book from observing how effectively 14-day challenges
focused and improved my students’ writing. 14 days is short enough to be
manageable, but long enough that it stretches you, forces you to come up with
ideas, to just write about something, rather than be paralyzed by needing to find
that great idea. In my experience, great ideas are more likely to present
themselves while you’re writing than while you’re not. The 14-day challenge
took the fear out of my students’ writing and put the fun back in. It can do that
for you, too.
I decided to set four 14-day challenges to help you explore your writer’s voice
more fully. Each challenge asks you to concentrate on a different facet of your
writer, to explore, not only how you think, but the stuff of your senses, then to
relate those senses to the outer world, transforming them into metaphor.
The first 14-day challenge, Object Writing, asks you to respond to three
prompts each day, of 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and 90 seconds. It will help you be
more vivid and specific in your writing, and the timed writing will help your