Deep into a new song, at some point it becomes hard, almost impossible, to get a clear perspective on what I have. As excited and engaged as I may be, the various alternatives for  Verses, lines, words, melody variations, chord choices, etc. can become a blur.

I’ve found that the best way to hear music and lyrics with fresh ears is to change the medium in which I’m working with them.

For example, when I start on a song I fool around thinking of and singing various lyric ideas and use a notebook and pen to write them down. For me, scribbling away is a less conscious process than typing, so I like working that way. But after I’ve been staring at the same pages for quite a while it gets hard to tell the forest for the trees.

That’s when it’s good for me to type the lyrics that I think have potential into the computer.

Suddenly I see them differently (even though they sound the same). Usually at this point I’m not reinventing the song’s DNA, but I am trying to organize the whole thing better, as well as tighten up sections and improve inadequate lines, phrases, and words.

Many new options appear when I look at the same words typed as opposed to handwritten.

Similarly, since I usually write singing the melody while playing the chords on the guitar, at some point I listen to the melody, without any harmony or words, played in single notes on the guitar. That way the melody has to stand alone, and often various weaknesses emerge.

Or I sing the song while I’m playing bass (like I do when I perform live with my band). Some big weaknesses almost always come out for me there – often in the way the words sing, or the way melody notes sound against bass notes played on an actual bass. And, as I blast away, changes and solutions usually suggest themselves.

I’m sure you get the point. Mix it up! Appearing in a different medium, words and music present themselves differently, exposing in new ways their strengths and weaknesses, proportions and balances, and suggesting unexpected paths and remedies.

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