lyric
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 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
Reading Books For Lyrical Inspiration
We have so much information around us these days, so why is it that we can’t we find anything to write about?
I sincerely believe that there are so many ways in which a songwriter can gain flashes of inspiration.
One of the ways is immersing yourself in the media that we are exposed to every day like newspapers, TV and magazines.
It’s not what media you use that inspires but how you use it. Today I’m talking about books.
Now, I’ll admit it. I don’t read enough. In fact, I think generally, we as a society don’t read enough. There are many reasons for this but for me personally, when I start reading a book I start to feel guilty.
It’s very strange I know, but when I start to read a book I start feeling that there should be something else that I can do besides taking time out for myself, sitting in a comfortable chair and do nothing but read.
This is a great example of my inner critic hard at work.
I was talking to a songwriting friend of mine about this recently and he made a suggestion that was remarkable.
He said to me “why don’t you use reading a book as part of what you do as a songwriter”.
I never thought of reading a book in that way but the more we discussed this concept the more excited I become. I knew that this was going to open some doors for my own songwriting process.
Simply put, use books as a reference library of words, phrases, quotes, statements and sentences that you can use for your songs.
Now, I’m not talking about plagarism here, just a shifting of your perspective by using other peoples words to form newly created perspectives in your own mind.
It’s from these new perspectives that you write your songs from.
I’m going to start experimenting with this technique. Here’s what I’ll be doing.
1. I start off with my book, a writing pad plus a highlighter pen (only use the highlighter it if the book is yours).
2. I read one chapter at a time rather than as many pages as I can in one sitting.
3. As I’m reading, any phrase, words or sentence that either jumps out at me or I feel some affinity with, I write it down or highlight with my pen. I then re-read the sentence so I don’t lose track of the story.
4. If there’s a passage that moves me I stop and write down what I’m feeling at the time. Some questions I’d be asking of myself could be:
How do I relate to this?
Is there a story for a song in this?
5. At the end of the chapter I write a synopsis of it in my journal.
6. If one of my captured lyrical ideas has a melody attached to it, I then get my guitar out and start formulating something with it.
At the moment this experiment is purely theoretical. It is not perfect by any means but if I can read my favourite book and gain songwriting ideas at the same time that’s got to be a good thing.
I’ll let you know how I go with this.
As with any songwriting process, one songwriters way of doing things will be different to another. All I can do is try it out and see what happens.
However, if you have any suggestions on how to improve this fledgling songwriting technique let me know.
I’m excited…
Until next time, happy writing,
Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician
Keywords: songwriting tip, songwriting, song writing, singer songwriter, songwriting news, songwriting idea, songwriting help, songwriting blog, corey stewart
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