Songwriting

I’ve never really figured out how to write songs.  Of course, I must now elaborate a little.  My musical skills are rudimentary.  I was in Jr. High band and I play a little guitar.  (No, I don’t mean a ukulele.)  I know what do-re-mi and an octave is, though I don’t understand why music has an octave.  Why not a septave?  A decatave? I can read music somewhat; mostly I read cheat-sheet lyrics & chords so I can play oldies on my guitar.

Anyway, I don’t understand writing songs.  I can play chords and I can write words, but I don’t get how they fit together.  In fact, I tried my part at being a lyricist back in college when I wrote the lyrics to several songs hoping musically talented friends of mine could add the music. I’m not sure why that didn’t turn out. I mean, who wouldn’t want to finish a song called “The Attack of the Killer Sporks”?  Hey!  It’s hard to come up with something to write about!  I tried silly love songs (“I’ve Got Better Things To Do”), introspection disguised as humor (“Happy Stop Signs”), psychedelic rock (“Psychedelic Elevator”), humor disguised as introspection (“Happy Stop Signs”), and I even began an epic composition called “Acetylsalicylic Nightmare”.  But nothing was really good, no matter what topic I picked.  I always wanted to write something cool about things I love like sports or gaming.  But everything I thought of sounded dorky.  Well…I’m sure everything I managed to write was pretty dorky, too.  (And don’t ask for the lyrics to the songs above, I lost them long ago and remember them not.)

So, what I’m getting to with all the above rambling is how totally impressed I am with the Pretty in Geek theme song “Roll the Dice”.  “Roll the Dice” is an excellent little song about gaming that is cool and not the least bit dorky.  This is just totally amazing to me because I would never be able to write a song about such a topic, even though I love gaming.  I wouldn't know where to start!  And "Roll the Dice" is just an excellent hook! It’s sung by a Toronto group called Nerd with Guitars and….it’s been nominated for an award!  Well, technically the opening sequence of Pretty in Geek got nominated, but the song really carries the sequence.  At least I think so!  So give it a look and listen and be sure to check out the series here.  You can also buy the song from amazon. The award nomination mentioned above is from the folks at the Indie Soap Awards.  And by the way, Out With Dad (which I may have mentioned here a time or two) got a bunch of nominations too!

And Huzzah!!  to Nerds with Guitars!