Songwriting Tool – Oblique Strategies

Oblique Strategies (with the subtitle “over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas”) is a set of published cards first created in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.

It was designed to break creative deadlock by generating thought, discussion and inspiration from randomly chosen phrases or a cryptic remarks written on seperate cards. Oblique Strategies is now in its fifth edition.

I’ve mentioned Brian Eno before in my blog post “Favourite Songs – “By This River” By Brian Eno”.

In the post I mentioned that the song “… shows that Eno is a songwriter of extreme confidence”. Why wouldn’t he be confident with a songwriting tool like Oblique Strategies at his disposal.

A number of songwriters have used the concept of randomness as a songwriting idea generator.

Most notable of these writers is David Bowie who used the technique of cutting up words, throwing them up in the air and creating lyrics from the end result.

If my general knowledge is correct the songs that were written in this way are featured in his albums “Low” (1977), “Lodger” (1979) and “Scary Monsters” (1980).

I have been facinated by the Oblique Strategies concept for a long time and even though I’ve never used it as yet, I can see how they would be very helpful in my own songwriting process.

Like everyone else, I have songwriting ideas in my archive that I can’t seem to progress any further because I’ve set the idea in concrete. Every time I revisit the idea I find myself playing the same things over and over again.

It’s in these types of situations that I’d find the Oblique Strategies concept useful.

If you have taken my advice in my blog post “Brainstorming Possible Song Titles” and “Expanding On Your Possible Song Titles” you’d have a very large collection of lines, phrases and semi completed songs at your disposal.

Look at this list as your own personal set of Oblique Strategies.

Even if one line from your list sparks an idea that finishes a song that you’ve been agonising over for ages, it would’ve been well worth the effort.

Personally, I have a huge list that I add to every week. Pages and pages of random lines and phrases that I get from all sorts of places. I wonder if there’s a way I can share them with you.

Maybe we can create our own collective list of strategies and work on them together. What do you think?

In the meantime, here are some other Oblique Strategies links for you to look at:

Oblique Strategies – Wiki

The Oblique Strategies

Oblique Strategies Widget For MAC

Oblique Strategies – Web Version 1

Oblique Strategies – Web Version 2

Oblique Strategies – Web Version 3

Oblique Strategies – Web Version 4

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: david bowie, brian eno, oblique strategies, songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting tool, songwriting help, songwriting idea, songwriting blog, corey stewart

Tags: brian eno, Corey Stewart, Creativity, david bowie, journal, lyric, music, oblique strategies, song, Songwriter, Songwriting, songwriting blog, songwriting tip, Songwriting Zen, writing

Saturday, June 14th, 2008 Songwriting Tools

2 Comments to Songwriting Tool – Oblique Strategies

Romero Jules says:

June 16, 2008 at 8:33 am

thanxs 4 the oblique strats and Brainstorming Possible Song Titles. speaking of random and eno, i found this which might interest you:

http://shanesblog-o-sphere.blogspot.com/2006/10/favorite-music-about-public.html

songwritingzen says:

June 16, 2008 at 10:04 am

Thanks for the feedback Romeo and thank you for the link to “Shanes Blog-O-Sphere” very well written. I really loved the quote from the Mayor of Bogota.