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| 0 | Premise?
What Premise?
by James Linderman
| I
had a hard time learning the lesson…that all of my writing has an underlying premise.
Sadly, it was a lesson I learned from many mistakes rather than a lesson
I learned from learning. Now that I've fully, yet painfully, learned it, I will
endeavor to now write this column about it, to see if it is as relevant for you,
as it has come to be for me. | The
lesson of premise is that you are responsible for what your lyric implies, regardless
of your intent. In other words, you can write words with no intention of passing
on any pearls of wisdom but listeners will search for premise in every word that
crosses their eardrum.
In the words of Pat Pattison, Head of the Lyric
Writing Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston and author of Writing
Better Lyrics, "We are as responsible for what we do not intend in our lyric message
as we are for what we do intend". |
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So,
after writing many strange little songs, I can now see that, unbeknownst to me,
they expressed many a strange premise to my listener.
It also now occurs
to me that if I were to write from a solid premise and work on my lyrics from
there, then my listener would feel the impact of my single, universal message
and it would be a message that I had intended, and one that every word in my lyrics
could be written to support.
There are a lot of premises to write from
but a few of my favorites are listed below.
"
Don't judge a book by its cover. "
" To
live big, you have to dream big "
" We miss
most, what we no longer have"
" People
who live in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones"
Once we have established
a premise we need to determine what we want our verse materials to describe.
Don't judge a book by its cover could start with
a description of a subject - He wore a polyester
suit, 2 sizes too big and his hands were weathered
and dirty.
To live big, you have to dream
big could begin with a description of a particular
time - It was January 6th 1910 and the new world stood just beyond
the starboard bow.
We miss most what we
no longer have could start with a description of a setting
- It was a half dead farm house held together with old paint and rusty
nails at the end of a road no one ever drove down anymore.
People
who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones could begin with a
description of relationship. The other parents of the PTA in Harper Valley looked
down on someone because…hmmm, that one sounds awfully familiar!
Once the descriptive material in the first verse is locked in, we now
need to connect our listener emotionally with some personal, narrative perspective.
Don't
judge a book by its cover with our subject - He wore tattered and dirty
clothes but my grandfather meant the world to me.
To live big, you have to dream big with our description of a particular time
- We left everything we knew, to start a new life for our family in the
new world.
We miss most what we no longer have with
our description of a setting - The old farmhouse was where
I grew up and now that I live in the city, I miss the
honesty and innocence that place represents.
People
who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones with a description of
relationship - Try an internet search for the lyrics to Harper Valley PTA by
Jeannie C. Riley sometime and you will see how premise can build a message
into a lyric that can resonate across universal cultural, social or generational
boundaries.
The wonderful thing about writing from premise is that we,
as artists can influence how our audience will respond to our song based solely
on our intent to influence them but we can also instill in our songs a way of
thinking or a particular morality that we would like to see become more prevalent.
Some would call this cultural manipulation but we have seen this sort of influence
help bring about some wonderful shifts in contemporary thinking too.
Some
examples of songs that have done this from an obvious cultural premise would be
tunes like…
Southern Man by Neil Young
Blowing
in the Wind by Bob Dylan
Imagine by John Lennon
American Woman by The Guess Who
Where
Have All the Flowers Gone - Traditional
America
by Paul Simon
The Universal Soldier by Buffy
Sainte-Marie
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
by Gordon Lightfoot
Allentown by Billy Joel
Father and Son by Cat Stevens
Four
Strong Winds by Ian Tyson
There are thousands of examples we could list
(and these kind of just came off the top of my head) but they do represent, fairly
well, how writing from premise can make art that instills a soundtrack to a cultural
phenomenon.
In this regard premise influences public perspective, public
perspective gets woven into the popular culture of the day, and the popular culture
of the day marks a page in human history.
James
Linderman: Bio
James Linderman lives and works at theharmonyhouse,
a music lesson, songwriting and recording preproduction facility in Newmarket,
Ontario. James conducted an academic audit for the online songwriting program
at The Berklee School of Music in Boston in 2004-2005. In April of 2006 James
was selected for a 20 member, international, off campus, academic advisory board
for Berklee known as Berkleemusic Ambassadors which advises Berklee administrators
and professors on issues such as learning management systems, online course strategies,
and curriculum based technologies.
James is also the co-moderator of the
CCM Club at SongU, a Nashville based songwriting resource and is co host of Radio
Muse, an internet radio program specifically about songwriters and their work,
with a global audience of over 1 million listeners. http://www.musesmuse.com/radiomuse.html.
James writes monthly songwriting articles and music book reviews for The Muse's
Muse web magazine, www.musesmuse.com (3 million readers monthly), Canadian Musician
Magazine (current songwriting / recording columnist) and is the feature journalist
for the Australian Songwriters Association members magazine.
James has
also written feature articles for Galaris Independent Music website, Professional
Musician Magazine, The Ontario Bluegrass Association Newsletter, Songwriters of
Wisconsin International, The Fort Worth Songwriting Association, The Baltimore
Songwriters Association, and The Dallas Songwriters Association and for many other
regional and international print and online periodicals. His writing is also featured
in the James Linderman Wing of the library at SongU in Nashville www.songu.com.
It has been determined by the EOSC Music Alumni Association that James Linderman
was the most widely read academic music journalist in the world in 2004, 2005
and 2006.
James has been a freelance lead guitarist for TACF, Tehillah
Toronto Worship Band, GOHOP and was the worship team electric lead guitarist for
the 2006 Global Day of Prayer celebrations at The Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
James cowrote a song in 2004 that was on hold for Bonnie Raitt, cowrote "Lead
Me There" for Stephanie Israelson which is presently on national Christian radio
and is presently writing towards a publishing deal with Warner Chappell Canada.
James has current writing projects with Canadian Idol singer Gary Beals,
Toronto Independent Blues Artist of the Year Liz Tansey, national touring artist
Suzie Vinnick, EMI recording artist Wendy Lands, and Toronto singer songwriters
David Leask, Andrea England, Matthew Tishler, Susan Markle, Lorna McDougall (Tehillah
Toronto) and Lorraine Lawson. He is an active member of the Urban Music Association
of Canada, The Canadian Gospel Music Association, The Ontario Council of Folk
Festivals, The Canadian Country Music Association, and SOCAN and does music jury
work for the CCMA and FACTOR.
James has a Canadian University and American
College education in music theory, composition, and journalism and is also pretty
good at playing the guitar and making up songs.
Contact James at: theharmonyhouse@rogers.com
or jlinderman@berkleemusic.com | | |
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