seth swirsky

Usually what I will do is sit around with a guitar and start strumming a few things.

I string some chords together. Its a mood-thing really -- A mood where the chords kind of tell you what the song will be. If I like the chords I've put together, I try and sing a melody over it. I try and make what I sing fit the mood to translate what I'm feeling -- down through my arms, to my hands, to my guitar or piano. In this way, good songwriters are good translators of their moods.

If a melody I like pops out over the chords, I sing nonsense lyrics, or any words that come out at that moment. It's how the words feel coming out of your mouth that matter. The lyrics don't have to make sense right away. You refine them later. It's all about the feeling you're trying to convey. "Thinking" shouldn't play such a big part when you first start to write a song.

I like to think that there are two people in me: the child that wants to fingerpaint without anyone telling me what to do or what kind of a mess I'm making and the editor, whose job it is is to be rational and conscious off all the mistakes. It's not good to have my editor in the same "room" with my creative self. So, I have this little game: I tell my inner editor, "Hey, time for you to go get a coffee down at Starbucks -- don't come back for at least 3 hours.Then, you can judge my work!" That little "conversation" frees me from editing my work at the same time I'm trying to create it in a free, non-judgmental fashion.

The creation of songs, and music in general, is still the least understood and most mysterious art form. You can't really teach a person how to be a good songwriter: It's as instinctive as a baseball player knowing how to hit a 95 mile per hour baseball. You can become a better songwriter by writing a lot, writing with others, etc. But songwriting is mostly an inborn thing.

I'm inspired by many things. If I meet a beautiful girl, just to hear her talk about her world, I can get into that space of what it feels like to just fall for her. It's innocent, but it provides for a feeling that allows for a song to be written. Whatever works, you know?

If I am just stuck for ideas, I may pick up a random book and just turn to any page and sing the words before me. I wrote a song called "Herman Cherry". The lyrics and idea came from a book ..ers I picked up in a used book store. I just opened to a page and read about a character named Herman Cherry -- the name grabbed me right away. I read that he was a "very tiny man" and had a "walrus mustache and an ever-present cigar." I just picked up my guitar and sang those words and a song named "Herman Cherry" spilled out.

Influences comes from all places, at different times. For example the other day I saw an interesting phrase in an article on the internet: "She grows where she is planted." I thought it was an usual, melodic phrase. That's when I instinctively take out my guitar and try to put a melody to that phrase and see if it starts leading to a song.

Writing melodies is like fishing. You "catch" good melodies, like you catch big fish. Like fishing, writing good hooks requires patience.Eventually, a "fish" will bite. Melodies are the key to great songs. They are the thing that make you want to hear the lyric. Lyrics rarely, if ever, hook you, Melodies do. No one would have heard Dylan or Springsteen's brilliant lyrics if they weren't first turned on to their melodies and their sound. Lyrics adourn melodies as furniture and books adourn beautiful rooms. Melody first, lyrics second. Throw in "sound" and "vibe" and you have the makings of a great song.

Starting a new song is really an exciting feeling, like kissing somebody for the first time. But, finishing is what is most rewarding. When you find a great melody, you ride the wave of it until you get hooked on your own hook. There's no greater feeling than listenng back to a well-rendered version of a new song I wrote.Recording a newly-written song is a feeling of discovery for me: I love experimenting while "making" the song demo. It's like...fingerpainting!

I didn't know I wanted to write songs growing up, but I was always incredibly immersed in music. I had a lot of albums, I listened to a wide array of music, took guitar lessons -- Succinctly, music was omnipresent in my life since I was at least two years old. For me, my musical life, in terms of influence, begins and ends with The Beatles. I listen to them as much now as I did when I was very young. Timeless melodies, rendered beautifully. There's other great music, but no one comes close to the Beatles consistent canon of melodic and interesting songs. Still.

I enjoy looking at the paintings of Pierre August Renoir. With his expressive colors and subjects, his work makes me feel as if I could be in his paintings. Its life. Renoir is life. Similiarly, The Beatles are life. Life affirming art, life affirming people. Human beings are naturally life affirming. We WANT to live and thus look for things in art that affirm that truth back to us.

At about 15 I started writing and finishing and recording songs. During college, I started writing more and before I knew it, one of my songs was taken by Chappell Music, then, the biggest music publisher in the world. They really liked my song for Barbra Streisand. I was 19. Although Streisand eventually chose an Andrew Lloyd Webber song over mine, it gave me a lot of confidence that I could compete in the big leagues.

My first cover, was with the group Air Supply. I looked at the album credits about a hundred times, not believing that they actually recorded a song of mine (Bob Ezrin, producer of Pink Floyd's, The Wall, produced it). Growing up, I never really thought about what I was going to do with my life but somehow it was always going to be about music. I just lived life, with music always playing. It's always been a part of me.