...where you can "ASK CHRIS" Trapper questions about songwriting, singing, recording, or even, questions about what not to wear.
One question will be selected from each new batch!
Hey Chris,
Hi Chris,
Good idea with the "Ask Chris" page!
I have been a singer songwriter for about 10 years now, I really like your style. my favourite song of yours in "into the bright lights". my question is....why didn't you write a bridge? and do you ever feel pressure to follow the standard intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus format? I've been pushing most of my tunes into that format, hoping to get a radio cut in the process.
So the question is..... do you really need a standard solid predicable songwriting form to get success with a song?
Kind Regards and thanks,
Marty Pawlina, Canada
Marty,
Maybe I'm just lazy.
Sometimes, when I think of the 'bridge' in my songwriting, I feel like the kid who cuts the crust off the bread for his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, in that I just want to get to the good stuff. I have written bridges many times over the years, sometimes good, sometimes forced and...blah...
"Into the bright lights" was a song I wrote to try and get into a movie, so I never really thought of it as being a radio-type song. I thought of it as me trying to show I had an idea for a song, see if the filmmaker liked it, then re-write it later. What heppened was the filmmaker loved the song, then the music budget got cut, so I was left with this idea of a song hanging around that people who had heard it liked. By this time, I had moved off it mentally, and onto something else.
Overall, I think it's best for a songriter to learn the rules, then forget they ever knew them, because the coolest songs are songs that we never heard the likes of before.
