Slouching Towards Tin Pan Alley

I’ve begun teaching a songwriting course to high school seniors. What I’ve discovered building and refining the curriculum is that so much of the “teaching” of songwriting is wrapped up in what I am trying to “unteach” myself as a songwriter. 

First, expertise in academia is all about semantics. It’s not so much about what you know or your intuitions; it’s all about wielding the language of expertise — words and definitions that musicians have developed over the years only so that they can communicate with other musicians and other songwriters in a common tongue. This language in-and-of-itself, however, is not essential to the songwriting process. Music, afterall, preceded  language.  

Still, in teaching my students about songwriting, I’ve found myself hammering home vocabulary more than talking about the orphic process of songwriting. I’ve had to define musical concepts like melody and meter and syncopation. I’ve had to explain and clarify the elements of song structures: verse, chorus, bridge, pre-chorus (whatever a pre-chorus is). Sadly, I’ve been reducing the feel, the instinct, the mystery of songwriting to formulas. All the while I know that great drummers don’t need a textbook to tell them what “swing” is and that great lyricists don’t need a dictionary to define the musicality of alliteration. They just do it because it feels and sounds right. 

I’ve been plagued by a sort of double consciousness as I stand before my students. Ultimately, I don’t even think you can teach songwriting. I agree with Mary Gauthier who wrote in her brilliant memoir Saved by a Song: “I don’t know of a single songwriting rule that can be universally applied. There are no absolutes in songwriting, and no one holds a monopoly on how it should be done.” She’s even more right when she admits, “I learned how to write songs by writing them.” I’d humbly add that I learned how to write songs by listening over and over and over again to the best songwriters in every era and every genre. I study music as if my life depends on it. Great art is mimicry fused with particularity. Only you can write the songs you write, but it’s best to be in musical dialogue with those who came before you.    

Allow me to wander a bit: I picked up Dostoevsky’s instructive novella Notes from Underground the other day. It’s a book I taught for a few years and a book I fell in love with as a cynical undergraduate. I won’t drone on about the storyline (you should read the book), but, in summary, it’s about someone who refuses to accept the many, many formulas we’ve devised to help ground ourselves in reality, constructs we’ve invented  to save us from the chaos and randomness and meaninglessness that underpins our existence. The underground man has read all the science that attempts to put everything in order, that attempts to categorize and name all things. He’s read all the philosophy about reason and beauty and truth. And what he discovers is that the truth of 2x2=4 has not unburdened him from the “sickness” — no formula will ever resolve his existential crisis of being. 

Now, I’m not arguing that math and science aren’t true. I believe in the scientific method and that mathematical proofs are our only way of discovering objective facts. What I am saying is that facts alone are often not enough in response to the paradox of being. (Has the groundbreaking discovery of genetic sequencing ever helped you get through a bad day at work?) We know more and more about so much more, and yet we find the more we know the less we know about all there is to know. You see, art offers a complementary and contemplative narrative in juxtaposition to reason alone. 

And this is where great songs are born, in the space where established knowledge implodes under the weight of its own limits, where great artists shatter pre-existing molds through creative inquiry. Art, if it serves any function at all, offers emotional and intellectual guidance in an existence devoid of absolute answers — in an existence where, most likely, there are no answers but only more questions. 

So how should I teach my students to write songs? I’ve decided to teach them the rules and language of songwriting and insist that they break those rules and invent a new language. I am going to invite them to listen to the greatest songwriters I’ve communed with these many years and encourage them to discover the inspired and diverse ways songs can be assembled. 

The craft of songwriting is about so much more than strophic or ternary song forms. It’s about more than rhyme or pitch or downbeats. I’ll admit: I can’t teach my students how to write a song, but I can certainly advise them on how not to write a song. Or, just maybe, I can offer them a calling that will help them reflect on the mystery of being.