dear diary,
now it is time for us to review once more the different groups into
which i classified the songs i have written in order that i would be
able to send them to you in a more or less organized manner. i could not
send them to you in a chronological order since i was and i am no longer
sure whether or not i wrote them in my notebook based on the date i
wrote them.
and i so, it appeared to me that the best i could do was to send them to
you on the basis of the following groupings:
1. The first song i ever wrote in collaboration with ka art p. madulid;
2. the second song that i ever wrote all by myself;
3. my first narration in tagalog;
4. songs included in the christmas way demo tape which we made as
project of the Foundation for active christian evangelization and
service (FACES);
5. songs included in the search for your dreams album which we recorded
also as a project of the Foundation for active christian evangelization
and service (FACES);
6. songs from the cassette demo tape i brought back with me from the
philippines;
7. songs included in the cd which raf made from the cassette demo tape
that i have in the philippines - (a)the don't be afraid to fall in love
cd and (b) the how i say you love me cd.
8. songs that are not included in any cassette demo tape or cd but whose
melodies i can still recall;
9. songs that are not included in any cassette demo tape or cd but whose
melodies i can no longer recall.
i could have further classified the songs into other sub-groupings like
english and tagalog songs, inspirational songs, lovesongs, and the like.
but that would have take me more time.
however, in the process of sending the songs to you based on the
groupings that i followed, i also managed to further classify the songs
into those i did not revise and those that i revised. consequently, i
was able to put into my diary the subject of song revision as a topic
for study or discussion.
thus, i had the chance to make a further sub-grouping at the end into
which i sent you the original lyrics of the songs i did revise to serve
as basis for comparison with the revised lyrics of the said songs.
in fine, therefore, this diary can well be taken as a short course on
how to write songs or on how i taught myself, with the initial guidance
of my friend, ka arthur p. madulid, everything i know about songwriting,
and making song revisions.
the method i was able to learn is what i would call as the mechanical
way of writing a song. for instance, the first song that i wrote in
collaboration with ka art started when i wrote on a sheet of paper
several combination of notes like do re mi, mi re do, do sol fa, fa sol
do, me re do, mi do re and so on.
i wrote so many such combinations and i asked ka art to find out which
combination would sound good to start a song. so he played the
combinations on the piano at home in morning breeze, caloocan one finger
at a time, he finally concluded that the combination of mi re do, mi do
re was the right combination. so we made this the starting point of the
song.
then we proceeded to find another combination of notes in groups of 6
notes that would sound good to follow the first 6 notes, and continued
with the process until we were able to complete a verse of melody
composed of 4 lines of 6 notes per line.
for the chorus, we used a grouping of 8 notes for the first line, and a
grouping of 7 notes for the next three lines. we did this because we
were trying to make sure that the chorous or refrain will be different
from the main verse.
it took us a while that night to find the combinations of notes in each
of the above groupings that we wanted. after that, we recorded the notes
in a cassette tape. and i listened to the melody that we were thus able
to form and i asked ka art if that tune sounded original and not like
any song we have ever heard before. and he said yes.
we went to sleep after that. and when i woke up early next morning, i
started replaying the melody on the tape, while at the same time trying
to write down the words that would match the six note combinations in
the main verse and the 8 notes in the first line of the chorous and the
7 notes combinations in the nex three lines thereof.
again, this took a while. but by noon, i think i had completed writing
the first draft of the lyrics of the song. and i asked ka art to
memorize the tune and sing the lyrics in accordance with that tune. and
as they say, the rest is history. maybe not quite. anyway, the lyrics of
the song went this way -
i will love you so much - 6 notes
you're my joy you're my life -6 notes
i'll be there when you're sad - 6 notes
care for you oh my love - 6 notes
love me too with all of your heart - 8 notes
care for me when i am sad - 7 notes
laugh with me when i am glad - 7 notes
stay, stay with me oh my love - 7 notes
and so forth and so on. so everything was done mechanically. from
finding the combination of six notes to form the first line of the
verse. then finding the next combination of six notes to be the second
line of the verse, and using the same process until the whole verse of
four lines is complete and using the same mechanical process to form the
chorous of the song.
then finding the combinations of six words or syllables to match the
notes of the melody of the song to form sentences or phrases to complete
the lyrics thereof. all done mechanically.
so, it seems all we did was fill in the blanks in a quiz. we decided we
had to form a pattern of six notes to a line, and to have four lines for
the main verse. and we decided to have four lines of a chorous composed
of 7 notes for each line. we ended up with 8 notes for the first line to
accomodate the lyrics i wrote for this line.
this in reality is the mechanical way of writing a song.
isn't it funny that after all, this is all you do in writing a song. just
start a pattern for making the combinations of notes. and then fill in
the blanks in this pattern. the lyrics should just match these notes.
it would have been easier if i knew how to write the songs in a musical
sheet in which case i would not have had to make an audio recording in
order to have a transcript so to speak of the melody of the songs i've
written.
by the way,let me just repeat for the sake of clarity, ka art is a
clarinetist and a wind instrument instructor like i said before. which
is why he became the director of the musical training program of FACES
purely on a voluntary basis and without compensation.
of course, the songs i've written using this mechanical method were
just for my personal consumption. for i could never have hoped to become
a professional songwriter of any sort without any natural ability for it
or any formal training or any musical background. i took it up more as a
hobby.
but i also would like to share everything i've done with others. i hope
there's nothing wrong with this. although of course in doing that i will
have to face up to the consequences thereof. there may be those who
might consider what i have done as mediocre for instance,, or not worth
it, or a pure waste of time. which is why i am having serious thoughts
about sending unsolicited copies of this diary at all.
december 11. 2009
bomboy · ·
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