My experiences so far with NSAI

Since May 2009 I've been attending the monthly meetings of the local workshop of NSAI, the Nashville Songwriters Association International.  It was a very vulnerable thing for me to do. 

For 15 years I had been writing songs that my family and friends, and even a few strangers, had liked.  But my songwriting gift, as well as the songs I had already written, had begun to feel like a burden.  I was busy with a wife and kids, being the sole breadwinner, keeping up friendships, and other minor hobbies that occupied my time.  There were times that I wanted to forget the songs, forget I had a gift, and just live a "normal" life.  But I knew better--the songs had value, my gift had value, and I bore a responsibility to "do something" with all of them.

A close friend helped me understand that the guidance, advice, and support of my friends, at least regarding the actual songwriting process, had run its course.  They had done all they could to help me improve.  I could remain, along with my songs, within the relatively small circle of my acquaintances, and probably never significantly improve as a songwriter.  Or I could go looking for people that could help me move up to the next level.

So, with great trepidation, on May 2, 2009, I went to the local library, where the monthly meetings of the local NSAI workshop take place.  My great fear came from knowing that these people were likely to know more about songwriting than probably anyone I had personally known before.  If my friends had just been nice and naive, and said nice things about my songs because they liked me and didn't know any better, then these songwriters might rip the songs to shreds.  I didn't know, with certainty, the quality or value of my own songs, so I didn't know what would happen.  But my friend was right.  I had to go.  I would never really improve without going there.

So I went.  And things went well.  I don't write songs with their commercial potential in mind.  I write songs to communicate something that's important to me.  So I'm not sure that the songwriters there that day knew exactly what to do with my intellectual, poetic takes on biblical characters and scriptural ideas.  They did have suggestions about the weaknesses they heard, but the overall tone was encouraging.  Much to my ego's relief, they didn't rip me or my songs to shreds.

I have managed to make it to all but two of the monthly meetings since.  I almost always found it difficult to decide what I would take, what I would play for them.  When I started going, I had about 100 songs completed.  In the meetings I've played something like 15-18 of those songs (maybe two or three have been newly-written).  Some of the songwriters there have been completely positive in their comments about my songs; others have been more challenging.  But none of them have given me reason to believe that my friends and family were completely wrong; none of the NSAI members have suggested that I don't have a songwriting gift.

...Which leads me up to this past weekend.  The annual membership fee that I paid to NSAI in July includes 12 song evaluations (submitted and received via the Internet) and two one-on-one mentoring meetings (for which one has to go to Nashville).  I had a Friday off, and it was convenient to drive to Nashville.  So I called and made an appointment.  I asked the receptionist what would happen, and what I needed to do to prepare for the meeting.  She said the mentor would ask me questions about me and my songwriting, get to know me, then listen to three of my songs, and help me make a business plan.

My first thought was, "a business plan?"  But I've learned over the past seven-plus months that it's appropriate to the nature of NSAI (and just about every other songwriting resource out there) to focus almost exclusively on helping songwriters sell their songs (that is, get a recording/performing artist to record their songs).  Though the goal of such resources is not to turn the songwriter into a soulless, money-grubbing machine, most songwriters (like most people) would like to get some kind of payment for doing what they love.  And with songwriting, it's possible (though oh-so-very-unlikely) to get Lots and Lots of money for doing what one loves.

At first, I was afraid the mentor would hear my songs and then push me to find a genre and cram myself into it.  This is relatively common advice in songwriting resources, with some good reason--genres are an efficient way to match up a certain kind of song with a certain kind of artist and listener.  If you don't take advantage of that efficiency, you'll be trying to sell your songs to the wrong people.

As it turned out, the mentor didn't do that at all.  After asking a number of questions about me and my songs, he asked something like "What is your goal, songwriting-wise?"  I hemmed and hawed: "I think my songs have value, that they can help and teach people.  But I don't know which people they can help, and I don't know how to find those people."  He replied, "So you're looking for your audience."  I sat for a second and said "Yes, I guess that's an accurate way of putting it."

I told him I hadn't picked my songs exactly yet.  I had narrowed the list down to 25, but wasn't sure beyond that.  He told me to play something I really liked.  So I played Coming Back Broken, a song attempting to depict the apostle Peter's thoughts as he waited in the courtyard while Jesus went through his trial with the Sanhedrin.  The song also pulls concepts from Psalm 139 for good measure.

Of course, I didn't tell the mentor any of this--in these situations one is not supposed to explain anything up front.  If the song is good, one shouldn't have to explain anything.  After I was done, he and I discussed his impressions and responses.  I had told him in the interview that lyrics, more than music, are my strength.  What blew me away was how, in this and the other two songs, he raved about the melodies of the songs more than the lyrics.  He also largely liked the structure of the songs, the contrast between verses, chorus, and bridge, and other basic songwriting concerns.

Coming Back Broken, though, is meant to be played only within the context of a cantata or other church setting where who is singing (Peter) and when he's singing (the Easter story) are already obvious to the listener.  Those points are not explicitly clear within the song itself (as he pointed out very clearly).  In the end, I conditionally agreed with him: the song needs a lot of clarification and narrative detail to let the listener know what's going on if one wants to play/sing the song outside of a cantata.  Since I don't really plan for that to happen, though, I think I'm satisfied with it as it is.

When I told him I had written about 16 or so of the same category (biblical character first-person songs), I offered to sing one from outside that category, and he agreed.  So I played The Size of the Sky.  The local workshop had really liked that one, raving about its poetic beauty, even as they readily acknowledged it was "too beautiful" for any radio station to want to play it.  The NSAI mentor really liked the melodies, but just as he had with the first song, he read the lyrics out loud in such a way that even I could see that the average person listening to this song, even if they liked the poetics, would have no clue what the song was really about.  It will be a good challenge to go back and work on that one.

For the last one I played Sing a New Song, the newest song I've written, for him.  He said this, more than the other two, actually has a chance of being recorded by another artist.  He had two suggestions--get rid of the word "doldrums"--"too big for the average Joe."  The second: shorten the "bridge" to just two lines or so.  Of course, when I wrote the song, I didn't think of that section as a bridge.  I invented a term and called it a "crescendo" section.  The local workshop had said the exact same thing--that section is too long.  But they all gave helpful suggestions as to how to cut it down to size--changes will be forthcoming.

Overall, it was a very positive experience.  He acknowledged the value in what I've done, and what I want to do, without giving me any false hope that I'm going to make any real money from any of it.  He showed me the weaknesses in my songs without leaving me feeling less for it.  Maybe it's because I've been reading similar advice and ideas from other songwriting resources, but once I saw the same flaws he did, I was relieved and excited to learn ways to correct the flaws, and improve the songs.

The most interesting suggestion he made (at least twice) was that I should consider starting my own band: he called it "The Brian West Project."  I think he was saying that my playing and singing is good enough to play in front of the public (several within the local workshop gave me similar compliments).  I also think he was pointing towards the idea that other singers aren't likely to sing these songs; thus, starting a band (and possibly then singing them myself) may be the only way I'm going to really "find my audience."

Things have been pretty crazy at work and around the house since that Friday meeting with my NSAI mentor, so I haven't had any time to really work on the things he and I talked about.  But I'm looking forward to going back to the three songs I played for him, but also all my other songs, to see how they can be improved, focused, and boiled down.  If I can do that well, then the messages and insights I valued in those songs when I wrote them might have a better chance of actually reaching more people, connecting with them, and hopefully teaching them more about God, life, and the world He put us in.

Now THAT excites me.