songwriting...

...last Saturday I took part in a mutual 'listen and discuss' session with about fourteen other songwriters.  It was and interesting exercise in which a song was played either live or from a recording and critiqued in a formulated way - 'what I really liked about this song is....', followed by, 'If it were my song, I might have another look at....'

I played one live song and one from a CD.  The live one, 'The Sum of the Parts', was brand new and one I'm totally fired up on, having spent a couple of months refining it.  The recorded song, 'I Can't Hear You', is about 10 years old and just about wrote itself over a cup of coffee.  Everybody had suggestions as to what I might do with the new song to make it a better song - in their view and just about everybody told me to leave the older song as it was.  

I also listened to about 25 or so songs and loved a lot of what I heard and, hopefully learned something from suggestions on where they might be improved.

What I didn't learn though was how to change my mind when I feel that something is just right.  Maybe that's why I still need a day job.

Here's some sound advice from Arlo Guthrie;