KERL >>
Song Writing
Consultation
Develop the creative powerhouse within
£25 p/h
Are you a budding song writer?
Hello, I'm Chris Kerley. I've been making music for over twenty years and I'm now offering song writing consultation sessions where I offer you guidance, techniques and feedback to aid your own song writing journey. Make no mistake, it is a journey. There's no short cut to getting good at anything.
First things first... My view on song writing
Don't know how to read & write notation, music? That's okay neither do I. Don't worry about it though. You're part of the overwhelming majority of pop & rock song makers over the decades who also couldn't read music, including legends like Paul McCartney when he was banging out his biggest hits.
Reading/writing notation is largely about documenting a piece of music and being able to easily communicate it with other musicians. In orchestral music is pretty vital, rock/pop... not so much.
You can't teach someone how to write great songs but you can teach an already creative and imaginative person how to hone their ideas and maybe quality songs will come out of it.
All about the ideas
I can't stress this enough, song writing (when it comes to the pop/rock arena) is about having bountiful ideas. And because music is largely subjective that will boil down to how worthwhile you believe your ideas to be. The rest is execution. All the theory in the world isn't going to spawn great instrumental, melodic and structural ideas into your head. The best art is driven by your imagination and there are certain techniques and motivating factors that will allow you to tap into and utilise this. That's where I come in.
Music is a language and the objective should always be to find your voice. At the start it will all be about taking raw ideas and trying to construct something solid out of it but like anything else the more songs you write, the better you'll "technically" get at it. Just as importantly the more you use your imagination the more elastic & fluid that part of your brain will become.
Collaboration
If I were learning song writing from someone I would need to respect the music that that person had already created. You should be no different. You'll find some of mine here.
I sing and play the drums when it comes to performance but when it comes to writing I wrote nearly every guitar riff, bass lick, drum beat and vocal melody you'll hear.
Though I personally have always leaned towards solo writing and refining it with the group you may find yourself stronger in a collaborative writing process. Working with others can be a great experience. Without the skills of the musicians I've worked with I couldn't have realised most of my musical adventures thus far.
Experimentation is a large part of the beauty and the fun of song writing!