Barbara L. Jordan - Songwriters Playground: Innovative Exercises in Creative Songwriting

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to quote lyrics from:

Vincent (Starry Starry Night). Words and Music by Don McLean. Copyright 1971 Music Corporation of America, Inc., a division of MCA, Inc. and Benny Bird Music. All rights for Benny Bird Music Controlled and Administered by Music Corporation of America, Inc., a division of MCA Inc. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by permission.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the ownership of all copyrighted material included in this book and to obtain appropriate permissions. Any errors or omissions which may have occurred are unintentional and will be corrected upon notice to the publisher.

Copyright 1994 Barbara L. Jordan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo copying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, send email to bjordan@soapsongs.com

This book is based upon pre-existing copyrighted unpublished works solely owned and controlled by Barbara L. Jordan.

First edition1994. Printed in the United States of America.

Cover design by Blackmun Illustration/Design
Illustrations by Molly Brandenburg
Typesetting and Layout by David Willis

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Jordan, Barbara, 1955-

Songwriters playground / Barbara L. Jordan

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Music I. Title.

93-72243

ISBN: 1-4392-0797-6
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-61789-442-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ILL PLAY IT FIRST
AND TELL YOU WHAT IT IS LATER.

Miles Davis

There are many books about the business and craft of songwriting, but as you will soon discover, this is not one of them.

Songwriters Playground is a book you do, not just read. You wont find in it any rules about writing better songs or tips about marketing them. What you will find is a series of provocative improvisatory exercises which will grab you by your creative lapels and propel you directly into songwriting. This book is designed to light your creative firesand it will, if you let it!

As a professional songwriter and music supervisor for films and television, I spend a lot of time writing and listening to songs. Many songs are well-craftedthey follow the rulesbut only a few stand out. The memorable ones have a magic and vitality which the others lack. The question is: Where does this special quality come from?

I can tell you with certainty that it doesnt come from craft alone. Several years ago, while suffering from extended writers block, I worked hard at refining my craft. I read books, I took classes, I analyzed hit songs. And indeed, my craft improvedbut at the expense of the magic. And writing songs was still a struggle.

I finally broke out of my songwriting ruts not by learning more rules but by intentionally setting them aside. Through a variety of techniques designed to set the right mood, stretch the creative muscles and get me writing quickly without any concern for brilliance, I suddenly found myself writing more and better songs faster than ever before. As a consequence, I not only started to enjoy songwriting again, but I began to have consistent success in the music business with my songs. Their newfound freshness and vitality were obviously contagious.

Since organizing the exercises into the Songwriters Playground workshops, I have watched many of my students experience the same transformation. By turning their whole consciousness into a kind of creative pinball machine with an infinite variety of outcomes, participants rediscover the thrill of experimentation and spontaneity in their writing. The workshops liberate songwriters from their struggle to reconcile the demands of the marketplace with their need for unrestricted self-expression. People are freed to just do it. Chronic procrastinators start classes unable to begin writing, and by the end nothing can stop them!

I havent yet found a way to bottle this elixir, but I am constantly asked for some kind of written guide to the Playground method. This book is the result. Like the workshops it has been a labor of much love. But because I am also a creative procrastinator, it is one which would not have been completed without the constant prodding and encouragement of my students. It is for them that I have made this attempt to anchor in book form the mercurial spirit of the workshops. I hope I have succeeded.

Welcome to the Playground!

Barbara Jordan
Los Angeles, CA

In the mind of the beginner, all things are possible,
But in the mind of the expert, only a few.

Zen Master Suzuki-Roshi
Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

M ore than anything else, Songwriters Playground is about getting back into your Beginners Mind where all things are possible, where judgment is intentionally suspended while the creative process is under way. Its about creative spontaneous combustion and the means for inducing it play.

For songwritersindeed, for all creative artistsplay is very serious business! It is the primary pathway to the most fertile fields of the imagination. As children, we run up and down this path without thinking, but as we grow older and learn about all the things that cannot be done, the path becomes cluttered with obstacles. So gradually we use it less and less, until we have almost completely forgotten where it used to take us.

Songwriters Playground is a proven technique for bulldozing the creative pathways clear again. It gets you to do without thinking, to write without editing, to free-associate, experiment, take chancesall without fear or censorship. The Playground method is rooted in the unshakeable belief that you have more than enough good material inside you; you only have to find it and bring it out into the light. The more ideas you come up with, the more gems you will discover in the process. Quantity of output eventually produces qualityand truly vital songwritingas long as you are first given the license to lose your head.

Songwriters Playground is an open, improvisatory environment where you can loosen up and take some chances. Former participants in Playground workshops have found that although it may be difficult at first to shed writing inhibitions, by the end of the sessions their creative absorption is so intense that any blocks they might have been experiencing have dissolved. When you too have achieved this state of controlled abandon, your songs will be infinitely more powerful and exciting than anything you have written previously.

How It Works

Why does this happen? How does this happen? It happens because you are free to write whatever you want as long as you write as much as you can in the time allotted for the Playground exercises. And the time allotted is impossibly short! Thats the creative challenge which the Playground throws at you.

You begin every session by first shedding the persona you brought into the room. If you are self-conscious or overly cerebral to start with, the Icebreaker Exercises will loosen you up. You get a little whack on the side of the head to remind you not to take yourself or your writing too seriously.

In the second stage, the Sense Exercises bring your most vivid perceptions to the surface so that you can enliven your writing with them. Sounds, smells and images are used to trigger feelings and memories which might otherwise be unavailable to your conscious mind.