How Old Are You? Were your songs better than?

[Kristofer Dahl]

This is definitely a phenomenon.

I personally believe this has to do with people practicing and learning lots of new material when they start out. Eventually the accumulated mix of ingredients turns into original tunes.

The artist then tends to think they have "found their niche" and stops learning new stuff which results in stagnation.

If you keep questioning your abilities, stay open to new styles, techniques and sounds - then progress and improvement will come naturally. On the other hand if you tend to think - "I don't need to work more on my singing, I have already got that down" then you will certainly not evolve (even if what you're doing sounds great it will eventually sound boring to you and everybody else, if you don't make a conscious effort to go into new territories).

edit - oh and I am 27. This thread made me realize I am getting old I am definitely still learning though, that's what I live for

[nickfromdtown]

yeah im 16 and i started writing when i was 13
and im just getting better
i havnt gotten worse yet
and my lyrics have evolved from the generic stuff that everyone starts out with to things like "ill carry my curse of pride with shame"

[grantsabbath]

The reason, I think, that most famous writers tend to drop off after their early years is a matter of hunger and focus. It's easier to write a song that someone can relate to when you're hustling for the rent than when you're hustling for a biodeisel tour bus.

 

 

I agree with this, for sure. I imagine it gets quite hard to relate.

[IanAlderman]

I am 22 years old, and I had started out writing when I was 13 or so. A lot of the early works read like poetry or rap- even though I hate rap with a passion. The works changed, the subject matter definitely changed, and I say that I'm growing and maturing as a guitar player and a writer. I know full well that I haven't peaked yet, because I still find that some of the posts I've placed here still have a feel of poetry, and there are a couple pieces that the lines are too short and too rhyme-y. I'm excited to see what kind of songs I'll be churning out when I'm in my mid 20's and early 30's. I'm getting out of the military in about 6 weeks, so there'll probably be more of an urgency since I'll be losing the steady paycheck.

As far as guitar goes, the early original works were not very complex in texture, structure, and overall feel. Somebody who never played drums before could drum to the music- I could play drums to my guitar stuff- it was very simple stuff and a lot of people liked it, and some people were indifferent to it. After maybe 2 spins of our demo- you could've been my band's guitarist! As time went on, the songs got longer, got more complex, and got heavier. There aren't any Hammett-esque or any Hendrixian type things going on, but the playing definitely revolves around texture and having slow buildup with earth shattering release. It's like the songs are mini movies or sex scenes these days.

I'd say the reason for going from 4/4 simple to I don't even know what timing and complicated is that I'm comfy with playing guitar. I'm comfy playing and I'm broadening my horizons so to speak. I'm starting to find my niche as a player and exploiting my talent, just making my music be my music.

[sh944]

47, playing since the 70's. I'm getting better at writing, mostly because I write when I want to, not because I *have* to, and I am writing because I have something I want to say, rather than because I am trying to entertain others or move product. I go in spurts, sometimes I crank out three or four songs in a short period of time, other times I go a while without writing anything at all for a while and then struggle over a single song.

One thing I find that helps the quality of my songs is that I generally won't record it or document much of the song aside from the rough lyrics until its a fairly complete song. I figure that if it doesn't stick in my memory, it wasn't very good to begin with. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for you tho, so please, go your own way!

Regards, ...Scott

[griffstar]

Its been a while since I've posted here. I'm 27. I've been writing songs since I was 12-13. Most of the songs weren't any good. Many were 4-5 chords and had lyrics that sounded like Nirvana rejects. I finally started writing decent songs when I was 16. Songs began using complex finger picking, alternate tunings, and other little tricky bits of guitar playing to make it interesting to me. My lyric writing also got a little bit better. I was using better metaphors and had gotten away from the "contradict myself, just because" crutch I had limped along with in my early adolescents. I don't feel like I really matured as a songwriter until my early 20's. I had a better understanding of music theory and was beginning to understand a little more about chord progressions. I started to find my voice lyrically, which is more conversational than straight storytelling. But even now, I listen to songs I wrote when I was 23 and think "how unrefined" or something else just as condescending. I echo the sentiment of being more prolific when I was younger. I would write 4-5 songs a week, granted only 1 or 2 would be worth the paper they were scribbled on, but they were all finished musical thoughts. Now it tends to take me weeks to write a song and even then its in bursts. I'll write a line here on song A, verse for song B a week later, and come up with a chord progression for new song C 3 days later. Its very erratic and often frustrating, given my prior output. But now there are many more "keepers" and very few "throwaways." I think that right now my songs are better all-around than they have ever been. The challenge is going to be figuring out a way to say that in another 5,10,20 years and mean it.

[TravvyBear]

Quick question, when do you guys feel you've "matured" as a songwriter? I feel like I have evolved a bit, broadened out, and gotten better, but what's your view on maturing as a songwriter?

[IanAlderman]

Maturing as a songwriter..... Well, step back and take a look at what you wrote when you first started and look at what you're coming up with currently. I think that's a surefire way to track progress- I don't think it happens like magick after a set amount of time. It depends on the person, and it depends on how consistent that person has pursued songwriting. I think most people have bursts of energy when they first start out and it slows down, matures and refines as that person gets older, wiser, and more experienced with the songwriting craft.

[Surrealistic]

I've heard variations on the saying that most works of genius are completed before the age of 21, but I really doubt that it's true. As an aside, I do wonder whether people under the age of 21 or so are more likely to acclaim something as a work of genius. I know I felt that way about certain books, movies and albums as a teenager that now I see as flawed (or in some cases, cringeworthy).

In the world of literature I believe most writers get their first book published well into their 30s (I think I read somewhere that 39 was the average age of a first-time novelist). Painters may get noticed a little earlier but almost always after they've completed art school - which already puts them at 21 or over before they really begin as professional artists.

With music, whilst there are certainly countless bands and solo artists who made a decent first album and never improved upon it, there are reasons for that which have nothing to do with age.

Did the Beatles peak at before 21? I doubt there are many who think they did. Their early stuff was (for some) fun, lively and a breath of fresh air but if any of their stuff deserves the label "genius" it certainly isn't to be found on those early albums. I'd say they started hitting their peak at around 25 or so.

[Chicken Monkey]

I've heard variations on the saying that most works of genius are completed before the age of 21, but I really doubt that it's true.

 

 

There was a recent study that determined that most of the great scientific breakthroughs of the last few centuries came from people under the age of 30--there was a certain fluidity of the mind that made this kind of radical thought possible. However, the author of that study made a point to emphasize that artists and writers (among other fields I'm not remembering) make up for their diminishing intellectual fluidity with greater wisdom and experience.

[blue2blue]

 

Maturing as a songwriter..... Well, step back and take a look at what you wrote when you first started and look at what you're coming up with currently. I think that's a surefire way to track progress- I don't think it happens like magick after a set amount of time. It depends on the person, and it depends on how consistent that person has pursued songwriting. I think most people have bursts of energy when they first start out and it slows down, matures and refines as that person gets older, wiser, and more experienced with the songwriting craft.

 

Yeah, I had more energy when I was young, but I didn't know how to focus it. And my emotions were, shall we say, more heroic in their sweep -- and swing. But I'm writing better songs now.

 

But there is no escaping the fact that many of society's favorites seem to peak early rather than late. Some artists keep maturing and deepening -- but, sadly, a lot of youth culture oriented acts don't seem to be able to negotiate the move into middle age and beyond gracefully. Of course, who really wants to see a 50 year old in leather pants shaking his ass around? Hell, I'm not sure I want to see a 30 year old doing it.

 

I'm considerably more heartened by things like Robert Plant's fine work with Alison Krauss, which has pushed the boundaries of alternative country while producing some genuinely enjoyable music. It was a stretch for him (particularly if one surveys his post-Zep solo music), and it's paid off handsomely, I think, in big aesthetic rewards. And it's clearly important enough to him that he wanted to pursue it rather than what would surely have been the financial windfall of a Zep reunion.

 

 

Musical maturity, I think, is what you make of it. Those who managed their money wisely, may well have more options at avoiding the "greatest hits/oldies show" phenomenon that has now overtaken not just boomer acts but even Gen X acts. But you still have to keep making new music that fires people up -- and that's hard at any age. And it's even harder to get lightning to strke in the same place twice...

[fenderbender66]

I am 57 years old. I wrote my first song in the mid '70's. It was about some trees. Since then I have written about cars and car repair, guitars, stars and mars. Also wrote about mountains and rocks, weather....including snow and rain, hurricanes and droughts. Others include life change, loose change and strangers. I seem to recall songs about fishing, wishing (including wishing I was fishing), hiking, biking, striking (a bowling song) and a particular dike that had failed. I have written about grass (both weed and turf), sass and even a pretty crass number about ass. All that said......the only songs that stick with me these days are the ones I wrote about love....

 

 

I think you just wrote another song!

[IanAlderman]

"I am 57 years old.

I wrote my first song in the mid '70's. It was about some trees.

Since then I have written about cars and car repair, guitars, stars and mars.

Also wrote about mountains and rocks, weather....including snow and rain, hurricanes and droughts. Others include life change, loose change and strangers.

I seem to recall songs about fishing, wishing (including wishing I was fishing), hiking, biking, striking (a bowling song) and a particular dike that had failed.

I have written about grass (both weed and turf), sass and even a pretty crass number about ass."

I think that was the intent, to create a song in reply to the post of the original topic. Great job- I liked it!

[2732]

I am 17. I began writing my first songs at about 12, getting really serious at 16. I have improved ridiculously since starting, and I now consider my songwriting to be my strongest musical attribute. It's the one thing about my music I'm not too shy to brag about.

[anandikav]

i am interested in writing essay, i never tried to write songs

in future i will try to write songs

[prolog]

I'm twenty-seven. I only took up guitar a couple of years ago; before that, all the writing I did was poetry. I read a lot of modern poetry, subscribe to a number of literary journals, and used to write it a lot. Lately, I've put it aside to focus on songwriting for myself and my band. It's different than writing poetry, but uses a lot of the same muscles, so to speak. The form might be different, but the things one learns about pace, diction, and so on, all apply.

I've been working on this one poem on and off for about nine years now. I really like it. It's been rejected from a few places after I submitted it as a poem. But the thing is, I really like it, and I really believe in it, so it became the first of my songs that I actually really completed and with which I started to get my voice back into shape.

When I look back at a lot of what I've written, some of it I cringe at, and some I think, years later, "hey, that's pretty good." But I haven't been writing songs long enough to really look back - I've only been at this for barely a year.

[Lee Knight]

This is definitely a phenomenon. I personally believe this has to do with people practicing and learning lots of new material when they start out. Eventually the accumulated mix of ingredients turns into original tunes. The artist then tends to think they have "found their niche" and stops learning new stuff which results in stagnation. If you keep questioning your abilities, stay open to new styles, techniques and sounds - then progress and improvement will come naturally. On the other hand if you tend to think - "I don't need to work more on my singing, I have already got that down" then you will certainly not evolve (even if what you're doing sounds great it will eventually sound boring to you and everybody else, if you don't make a conscious effort to go into new territories). edit - oh and I am 27. This thread made me realize I am getting old I am definitely still learning though, that's what I live for

^^^^^

I totally agree!!! This is such a great point and anyone of... uh-hem... advanced age might do well to read it a few times. I did. I wrote tunes starting at age 19. The first 10 songs I wrote, though in some ways are a bit awkward, were some of my best ideas. The previous 5 years, from the age of 14 or so, were filled with digesting poems and lyrics and orchestral scores and jazz bass and punk bass and trying to pick up upright and trying to write like Elvis Costello and Graham Parker and playing in a big jazz band and playing in a new wave original act and auditioning for signed acts and and and and...

I was on fire.

Then I went professional. And did what was needed to keep working. That isn't always the most creative road. Now many years later... and after finishing my production phase of my life (I think that's what I've decided, no more outside production work), I've been working with a vocal practice CD everyday. I've been putting pen to paper. I've been formulating ideas and really just filling the well.

I'm ready to start soon. 2 more albums to finish up and then that's it. I start writing again and producing my album! I feel 19 again. Hey, why not? Ask Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and even Elvis Costello. Tom Waits for no one, right?

[missouri_picker]

well I am almost 60, to me this is what has happened over the last 50 years of playing/writing. I started out writing and performing for the audience (I loved to hear screaming fans), then I wrote about the music but I felt a change coming as I got older, that being this, I began a journey of writing my style in a way that I became the music as the music was in me. At my age, I don't need or want anything less than to be in the middle of the music. People may like my stuff, they may not, all is ok IF I am inside the song. I hope that makes sense.
Donnell

[LeonardScaper]

Tom Waits for no one, right?

[Mcfontio]

interesting thread idea. i have been told that most works to true genius were completed before the age of 21, and that after that the brain has soaked itself in the hormones of youth for long enough that growth ceases and we begin our slow march toward death. purely second hand mind you.

 

Whoever told you that obviously has no drive to continue to expand and develop. I feel sad for their state of mind. What a waste of life it would be if that were the truth.

 

I'm 22 and just beginning to develop my music idea. I've played guitar for about ten years but that doesn't make me a good musician.

 

I've matured since we've started a real band with all originals but I still can't give a good answer to what music is. -How to make it. There's also a level of just "busting it out" and finding it that way...

[LeonardScaper]

Quick question, when do you guys feel you've "matured" as a songwriter? I feel like I have evolved a bit, broadened out, and gotten better, but what's your view on maturing as a songwriter?

 

 

The songs that have most affected me over the years always seemed to be larger than life and filled with great and deep meaning.

 

I aspire to someday write a song that affects a listener that way.

 

So I keep writing in the hopes that I will eventually 'mature' as a songwriter.

 

The exhuberance of youth is a powerful fuel and has yielded great songs by great writers over the years.......but there is nothing like the experience of life to foster songs that can reach to the depths of the soul.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is.........I wrote my best song ever just last week. And I have one working right now that is definitely going to be my best song ever.

 

Don't stop writing for each song will bring you closer.

[Boydog]

I'm 55 and used to say I was old enough to know better and to young to care,, now I'm old enough to know better and to old to care,, which is probably why I'm in such a slump lyrically. There's no doubt my best work was done in my early years but I think it's mainly because I don't feel the lyrics now as I did then. I've seemingly closed the door to ideas that used to simply flow.
To keep ones writing spirit free one MUST keep the door open to new possibilities and let the words and music come naturally.The passion for it has to thrive and be fed from within to get it to come to the outside where it can be nourished and brought to life.
In doing so the song will generally write itself

below is exceptional advise ( advise I really need to take to heart)

"I personally believe this has to do with people practicing and learning lots of new material when they start out. Eventually the accumulated mix of ingredients turns into original tunes.

The artist then tends to think they have "found their niche" and stops learning new stuff which results in stagnation.

If you keep questioning your abilities, stay open to new styles, techniques and sounds - then progress and improvement will come naturally. On the other hand if you tend to think - "I don't need to work more on my singing, I have already got that down" then you will certainly not evolve (even if what you're doing sounds great it will eventually sound boring to you and everybody else, if you don't make a conscious effort to go into new territories)."

[elsongs]

I'm 37 right now. Looking back in terms of songwriting, I was most prolific when I was around 22-23 years old, towards the end of my college years.

I'm much more skilled musically now, both in terms of instrumental and vocal ability, but I can't quite churn out the tunes like I did back then.

[rhino55]

If you keep questioning your abilities, stay open to new styles, techniques and sounds - then progress and improvement will come naturally. On the other hand if you tend to think - "I don't need to work more on my singing, I have already got that down" then you will certainly not evolve (even if what you're doing sounds great it will eventually sound boring to you and everybody else, if you don't make a conscious effort to go into new territories)."

Very insightful



I think this is very true and a cool way to stay fresh is to learn new instruments. In the process you cant help but learn "new styles, techniques, and sounds." Even if it is not something practical to gig with, for me this is a piano (keyboard would be too much gear to lug around at this point) But the things I have learned on piano end up showing up in my guitar playing. The best example of this is probably inverted chords. A different voicing will go along way to keeping "simple" chord progressions fresh.

[santar]

Im 20...

I very like music.. I listen absolutely all...But I dont write...