In the early stages of writing something new, I tend to think of the song and its arrangement as two separate things. I concentrate more on the ‘bones’ – the melody, harmony, words… rather than thinking too much about exactly what tempo or groove it will end up being recorded and/or performed at.

But of course the feel of it is often what got me involved in the first place. And I’m usually playing the emerging song at a certain tempo while I work on it, so I get attached to that too.

Then, sometimes, even though I think I may be on to something good, I start to lose my enthusiasm and energy for the piece…

When this happened recently I was working on a song that I thought was promising… but it was also starting to bore me. I think part of the reason was that I was playing it and had conceived it as a ballad in 12/8. I’ve already got more 12/8 ballads than I can use! I guess there’s always room for another if it’s really good, but it was hard to get excited about it.

So after a while I changed the tempo, the time signature, and the feel. I tried playing it faster, and in 4/4. I started playing it as a rhythmic tune with a propulsive feel. This reinvigorated my interest in the ‘bones’ I referred to earlier. The basic idea was strong enough to be played in a completely different way and still have possibilities. That’s a good sign.

But maybe more important, I woke myself up. It didn’t feel like I was writing the same old shit quite so much.

I may still go back to the original 12/8 feel. Or maybe I’ll try it both ways with my band and see which flies… if either does.

But it reminded me that when writing, nothing is written in stone. And by mixing things up, switching them around, I can sometimes bring a promising idea to life. Or back to life.

This post is the ‘groove/feel/tempo version’ of what I say (to myself) in a lot of these posts about other aspects of songwriting – mix it up, don’t be predictable, try something new, continue to develop new moves for your songwriting ’game’.

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