When I'm composing or working on the rhythms and the words--as opposed to presenting--I remember whole songs and sing them to myself. All the while I'm trying to think of other words, sharper images or a cooler, more musical word or phrase.
There comes a time, however, in the writing of a song where I leave off singing it to it to revise it, but learn to sing it. These are the things I do after the turn to performing.
I call this the "turn to performing."
Typing the lyrics on a page. I go ahead and type the lyrics onto a page and make them as big as possible, like 16 or 18 points. I don't put any chords, just the words with as little punctuation as possible. Usually at this point the measures or beats are shaping up. These go into the "songs" folder I keep in Dropbox and I print a copy. I used to compose by writing the song in a book. The original book, the "Chicago" book, is now full (no empty pages) so I write on whatever paper I have handy or use Notepad (a phone app) to compose or draft ideas.
Start to think of distinctive intros and instrumentals. A lot of my songs follow a very similar measure formula. This is because it's easy to teach them to the band and to myself. But I try to have a unique intro and instrumental solo for each song. This stops me from getting them confused most of the time. Sometimes I start to sing a song, but if I've done one before in the same key, I find myself singing the chorus for the previous song. This generally throws me off and I have to start the song over. In sets I don't put these songs right after one another, but in practice sometimes it happens.
- The default intro is an instrumental melody that follows the last line of the chorus. Like for "I'm in the Mood" the intro would be the notes for "I'm in the mood for a love song, cause I'm in the mood for love." This is usually the hook for the song.
- The second default intro is to pick the melody for the verse all the way through. I do this on, say, "I Found a Ring" because it helps the bass and the piano players remember and get into the song. "Post War Years" and "Little Driver" both start this way.
- The third and simplest intro is just to strum a couple of measures of the song and then kick into the verse. "Tears in the Writer" starts this way.
Learning the lyrics, singing the same words every time. Often the words I sing to perform the song will differ from what's on the page. This is because I have found that I can usually abridge the line, and sometimes just sing one or two words. So the page might say "But listen to my song, Cause now we get along" but I only sing "Listen to my song, now we get along." This is because all you really need are the words that fall on the first and third beat in the measure and you don't need the other words. Oddly, the message of the song gets through anyway, without the subtleties of "but" and "cause." So much for contradiction and causation.
Working on the phrasing of every line. What happens when you sing and play the song over and over again is that you start getting the phrasing consistently. So if a line starts with an off beat, like "This life we live..." versus the on beat, like "Love is where it ends" you learn this and sing it right. In writing I use both line starts, but try to follow some pattern. It's a pet peeve to me to learn somebody else's song and have to take out these stumbling blocks. Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch" as an example, has tons of them. I just take the lyrics and rewrite them so the meter is solid and I don't have to remember to cram a bunch of useless words in just to get to the end of the line.
Getting the chords right. When you want to start performing a song you have to get the chords right from beginning to end (not changing them along the way) and from performance to performance. Because my style is to use well known chord patterns there is always the chance that I'll revert to a basic pattern in a song that really has a different pattern. The goal is to play the same chords all the time.
The other element of performing is how I'm going to play the chords. Do I use the "folk" D on the first four frets, or the "barre" D on the fifth fret, or the "C7-shape" D on the fourth fret? Being more or less consistent here is useful during performance so that I can make the changes consistently and give the song a consistent backup tone.
Singing and playing the melody at the same time. This is a trick I use sometimes to get myself used to the melody of a song. I've taught myself to follow my voice with the melody notes, most of the time. It's useful because I get ideas for solos from this exercise.
Trying out different keys. I sing so many songs in G or E and sometimes I just write in these keys. But I know that my voice likes to sing in D and that sometimes if I raise the pitch a whole step, like from G to A, I'm able to hook my voice onto the higher notes and they come out a little clearer. I don't stick to one key all the time for many songs because I like to do them differently and try out new deliveries. Unless a song has the chords built into it as a pattern, like "Only Love" (D...E...F#m...D...A...E...D) then I move around. "Live Music" is like this because I play in the key of E but up on the fifth fret, using minor 7 chords all in the fourth and fifth frets. Most songs stay in the same key all the time, like "Post War Years" which I always play in G. It's easier on the band to do it this way.
The take-away from these musings is that once I start playing a song to perform it, I try to do it consistently so that the spirit of the song or it's tone or message is consistent. How this works out in performing is always a surprise because performing is stressful and the experience depends on the audience. You want the audience to respond, and when they do you know the song is cooking. The way the song ends up when you have somebody actually listening is the way the song needs to go. That's what I shoot for.
