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Sound Thinking with Hooktheory
Hooktheory's "Sound Thinking" podcast is a series featuring interviews with musicians, composers, and creators who discuss music theory, songwriting, and creativity in an accessible way.
Sound Thinking with Hooktheory
Sound Thinking with How To Write Songs
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Join two of our founders, Ryan and Dave, as they chat with Keppie and Benny from @htws, creators of How To Write Songs — a thriving ecosystem of tools, processes, and community for songwriters.
We dive into practical ways to get unstuck (like song mapping), how to balance lyrics and music, and how they protect time to write and release their own band project, Names of Birds.
Keppy and Benny, thanks so much for uh for taking the time to sit down with us.
SPEAKER_00I'm so happy to be.
SPEAKER_03So your channel is called How to Write Songs. Um I know that you both had super rich journeys as songwriters and as academics before starting this channel. I was just curious maybe if you could start by taking us back to the moment when you first realized you wanted to team up, not just as musicians, but as educators and build this channel together.
SPEAKER_00That story goes back more than 20 years, um, I would say. I mean, there was kind of a moment about three years ago, but yeah, it was sort of 21 years in the making. So Benny and I have been friends for that long. So we met at about midnight on the slumping couch of a mutual friend who Benny was sharehousing with, and I was at that moment going to law school and you know, um sort of coming back to the house to hang out, and our mutual friend said, Benny plays the guitar, Kebby, you play the guitar, you guys should talk. And Benny and I have been talking for the last 21 years, basically, about music and songwriting, and we've essentially sort of had parallel um careers in that respect. We both started out on completely different tracks. So I started out at law school thinking I was gonna be a lawyer, Benny started out in industrial design thinking he was gonna be like a furniture maker or a toaster designer, I don't even know, something like that. And but both of us just had a burning passion for music, which was sort of undeniable. And so both of us actually kind of like abandoned those much more um sure thing careers for our passion, which was music. Um, and since then we've both had, you know, careers as songwriters, composers, um, and a variety of things. But um both of us also started teaching and having um the opportunity to teach in universities and colleges um all along the way. And I think for both of us that was all also an equal and parallel passion was communicating this and um teaching, putting these tools in the hands of um other songwriters and other musicians who really wanted them. Um so both of us did that for over 10 years, and then probably, yeah, about four or five years ago, we just sort of started the conversation about the idea that these are concepts and tools and processes and methods that really do exist and really can help. And in a university and college setting, that stuff is obvious. Like people have elected into that, you know. But we also are aware that there's a very powerful sort of cultural mythology outside of these institutions of training, particularly around songwriting, that it's you're just sort of channeling, you're you're channeling the muse, you're channeling the gods, and sort of like you've either got it or you don't, you know, like that songwriting is just a thing that some people are sort of touched by the gods with and others aren't, you know? And our experience both as practitioners and teachers is like absolutely anything else, there is of course going to be a natural spectrum of talent. You know, people are going to kind of just spill out on a natural spectrum of talent, but wherever you spill on that spectrum, there's room to move, you know, and there's dramatic room to move based on your how you know your knowledge of the skills and the tools of the craft and your willingness to practice um those things. And we, you know, we're putting those tools in the hands of college and university students, but we really wanted to put the tools in the hands of absolutely anyone anywhere in the world. And at that particular moment, um, you know, having had careers in music means we actually have sort of the skills in, let's say, like audio technology. And we looked at YouTube as a viable option for kind of putting these tools out in the world and just realized that there was kind of a hole in YouTube, which is a magic moment for anyone where you sort of go, look, there's lots of people educating about music and music theory and doing it really well. But there's no one speaking directly to songwriters, you know? And we sort of realized that we as songwriters and songwriting teachers sort of were weirdly um at this perfect intersection of being able to fill that space that didn't currently exist in the YouTube space. So we decided that YouTube was going to be the sort of primary medium through which we would kind of communicate that publicly to the world, essentially, and started doing that. So we started doing that in 2021 and sort of did it a little bit flailingly in 2021. Um, and even through 2022, we're just still kind of figuring it out. But then in 2023, we sort of figured it out. We sort of figured out how to do it and how to make it um sustainable and um and how to make high-quality content and do it on a regular basis. Um so that was kind of the journey. And um, but but part of that journey as well was sort of um doing that and then kind of taking the plunge to actually do that full-time, and that we both went full-time in 2023 doing that, and then on the back of that, also offering um courses and programs and songwriting sprints and a membership community for songwriters around the world who who want to engage a little more and actually do things in sort of a sequenced way or in a supported way, or do it in community, or you know, be able to share their work and get some feedback as well. So that's that's the story.
SPEAKER_03That's really great. I mean, I think just watching the evolution of your channel, you know, one thing that really stands out is just how well produced your videos are. I think anyone who's tried to make a video knows how hard it is to decide what you're gonna say. And, you know, you wanna say it clearly and and correctly and approachably, but I'm really impressed with the way that, you know, your videos always are very clear and they have high production value and it and it it feels like the concepts are really articulated. I'm curious, you know, where these ideas come from. Or do you have jam sessions with with Benny and you're like, you know what would be a really good video? Let's let's talk about this bit. How does that work?
SPEAKER_01YouTube Strategy is like its own, it it feels like a full-time job, YouTube strategy. Like Kep and I, we were really in it for a year when we were trying to build the channel. And when I mean in it, like it's you become obsessed. You're lying in bed at 11:30 at night thinking about scripting and you're thinking about the hook. How how grabby is this in the first 30 seconds? You know, can I can I retain the engagement? And then how do I structure the chapters? Like you're just in it so obsessively that it it kind of you've got to be careful. Um, and we've had to, we've had to really kind of balance YouTube with all the other things we need to think about, like building the business, running the business, engaging meaningfully with our community members, still making time to be practitioners in our own songwriting and composition, because if we lose that, then, you know, it it kind of it just it doesn't feel great. Um, but we were really lucky going back to going back to the story Ket was just telling. We were really lucky when we were in Unis lecturing. We weren't, we weren't just delivering content that was given to us. We were we were very lucky to be in a position where our heads of department and the people we were working with really trusted us to start creating some of this content. You know, we started developing units, we started uh making the content that we had to then deliver and other lecturers had to deliver. And I think going through that process, you know, suddenly looking at a at a unit outline that's been given to you and saying, here's the rubric, here's the here's the parameters, here's the outcomes. Can you now design a 12-week experience or a year-long experience, whatever it is, for for all these students? And that that was amazing. Like looking back, I don't I don't think we realize how amazing that was. But looking back, that was incredible as a training program for us because to look at a unit outline and say, how am I gonna bring this to life? How am I gonna bring it to life? How am I gonna structure it sequentially so it makes sense? How am I gonna make it entertaining so that 18-year-olds aren't falling asleep or walking out of the room? How are we gonna do all of those things? And and most importantly, how are you gonna make it clear, concise, compelling? Uh you know, make it so that people really want to come back. I I can't think of a better way to train for YouTube. The only difference with YouTube is that we we really took all of those concepts, coming back to your question, our strategy is really just working through the endless well of information that we have, that we developed, like the endless amounts of IP and concepts that we developed over those university days and working out how to chunk it or how to how to structure it appropriately for YouTube. Because instead of doing a three-hour lecture, you're suddenly thinking, what makes a great 15-minute video? So, in a way, our YouTube strategy is looking at what works on YouTube, like look acknowledging that it is a different platform, a different format, but really drawing on all the things we know how to talk about really well and just continually revisiting those concepts and thinking about how to bring them to life in the YouTube format.
SPEAKER_02I find the university background really interesting. Can you tell me more about how how you got involved in that and what uh what the class was about, how many students was it, uh, which university it was?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, well, we were, I mean, Kep was um Kep in Australia, Keppy was doing the uh at a college called JMC Academy. Uh Kepp, you were running the songwriting courses there, and actually Kep actually helped develop some of the songwriting courses. And and at JMC Academy, there's it's one of the contemporary music colleges where uh you know there's a few others. There's the Australian Institute of Music, um, and I was at the Australian Institute of Music, Keppy was at JMC, Kep had to leave JMC, I took over the songwriting course, and then these other songwriting units came in. There's a Melbourne, Brisbane, um, Sydney campus, so they share IP and con you know content, but it really was kind of um yeah, it was it was really interesting in the sense that all of this course material was being passed around, and then we were expected to just modify it, develop it, you know, make it our own. But Kep uh has also been online. Kep, you you should talk about being online with Berkeley and that experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my my um story sort of predates that a little bit, goes a little back a little bit further. So when I ditched my law degree, I sort of ran away and joined the circus, so to speak. So I had been visiting my sister in Boston, who she was doing like a semester at Harvard in Boston, and I as a young person went to visit her with my mum and just went there for, you know, like a week to go and say hi. And I had studied guitar, you know, since I was 11 years old, and a few years pre-dating that, had had a teacher who had studied at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston when in like the 70s. So I knew the name Berkeley College of Music. Um, and when I just happened to be in Boston, I remember opening up literally a paper map of Boston one day and seeing the Berkeley College of Music on the map and not even realizing that it was in Boston. And I had one afternoon left in Boston, and I was like, oh my God, the Berkeley College of Music is in Boston. So I walked myself from, I think we were staying in Cambridge near Harvard, I walked myself all the way down Massav, all the way across the Charles River Bridge and and um all the way down to Berkeley. Um, and it was a Saturday afternoon, so there wasn't really anyone there except for one person, you know, sort of standing at a kiosk with a bunch of the like prospectuses. And I was like, what if what can you show me? And this person sort of handed me a prospectus and sort of took me on an unofficial tour around Berkeley. And I flipped through the prospectus and just sort of made the made the immediate life decision that is only, you know, capable for a 21-year-old to be like, this is where I will go. I will I don't even need to sing anymore. You know, I'm convinced it has taken me five minutes to make this gigantic life decision. Um, and so I had to come back to Sydney and get my portfolio together and released a record in the meantime and put together a full-on application and um and got in. So I actually went and studied at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston between 2005 and 2007. Um, and my trajectory there was was fast in the sense that I really put myself in in the path of um a lot of the faculty and um just knocked on every door at every kind of office hour and sat with some of the songwriting faculty and really just wanted to like soak it up as much as I could. I then was very, very fortunate the year after I graduated to be invited to sit in um well, to be a part of a group of um sort of hand-picked songwriters to be mentored by John Mayer for a week. So John Mayer came to Berkeley in 2008 and his goal was to sort of mentor a small group of songwriters. So I was invited to be part of that group and then was lucky enough to be one of the kind of few who he um handpicked to produce um one of their songs. So I had this extraordinary experience, which just kind of um I think like solidified some of my relationship to the songwriting department. And then shortly after that, a faculty position became open in the songwriting department at Berkeley. Um, and I was invited to uh take that position essentially at the tender age of 26. So for me, you know, it was one of those funny things where, you know, I'd had such an extraordinary experience learning um the tools and of the craft from my teachers. And then when I became faculty, I went to all my teachers and were like, Can you give me your lecture notes? And had this funny experience where they would be like, uh, we don't really have lecture notes. Like, you know, and they would hand me a single A4 page with five bullet points, and each bullet point had one word. You know, it was like, talk about lyrics, talk about melody, talk about chords. So um, you know, they were just drawing on their decades of experience. They didn't really have lecture notes. So again, it's one of those things in retrospect that is so formative because what I had to do was actually figure it out for myself. I was like, how do I figure out how I'm gonna teach this, take their information, get my own examples, draw from my own experience, you know. So rather than being able to just read what they wrote, you know, I really had to kind of compile all my own notes, all my own experience and put it together. Um, so I started lecturing, yeah, when I was 26 at the Berkeley College of Music, basically, and um and and have been teaching ever since. So shortly after that, then kind of moved to LA um to work in the music, you know, to sort of do songwriting there and then um and then came back to Sydney eventually. And I came back to Sydney right at the time when these colleges, like the Australian Institute of Music and the James E Academy, you know, they had all that they're in the world of contemporary music, um, and they had just kind of figured out that people wanted, you know, that that a lot of their students were songwriters and were desperately trying to piece together all these different elements. You know, they were like, okay, I'm learning music theory here, I'm learning audio production there, but there was no songwriting course, even though that's what all of them were doing. And then I sort of arrived on the scene and was like, I can teach songwriting. And so they all said, come and teach songwriting. So I was lucky enough to sort of cut come in the door prepared. And so um got, yeah, started teaching songwriting and created some of the first lyric writing classes in Australia, and then sort of from that popped around to all the different colleges um in Australia. So taught at James C, the Australian Institute of Music, um, the Australian College of the Arts in Melbourne, the Sydney Conservatorium, Open Academy, and then the whole time was teaching for Berkeley online as well. So Berkeley has a big online um school and um was teaching multiple courses for them as well online that whole time. So, you know, in these different environments, live online, all these different kinds of courses, kind of piecing together all this information. So again, you know, coming back to what Benning was saying, the idea of like, you know, where do you come up with these ideas? It's just like, well, it's just 15 years of talking and talking and figuring out how to explain it and refining the concepts over that amount of time is like really finding the best way to explain this concept, you know, in in this most simple way. And I think, you know, like all that concept of, you know, the best design is 99% invisible. It seems so simple when you sort of come out with it, but a lot of these concepts are like, okay, because we spent 15 years cutting, trimming the fat, you know what I mean? Saying, like, what is the most like simple and transformative way that is gonna have someone just get this one concept in 10 minutes, you know? So um that's that's kind of my story there.
SPEAKER_03I'd love to get back to the to the John Mayer story in a in a second. But first, you know, I wanted to ask, Benny, you had mentioned that sometimes when you're preparing for these videos, um, sometimes that can give you some clarity because you do have to go through, you know, how are we gonna say this? And, you know, in in what we're why is this impactful? And I'm just curious, as a songwriter, have you found that your own preparation for this channel and for your teaching has taught you anything about songwriting? Does that influence your your own songwriting, this experience?
SPEAKER_01Um I would say that I mean Kep and I could essentially, if you asked us to talk about mele, how do we feel about melody writing? You know, melody writing is one of my favorite topics to talk about. I find composition of melody just this endless game. But it's also an endless thing you could talk about. So if you wound us up and let us go, we could be here for six, seven hours. We had we'd have to break to go to the toilet and have a coffee, but we'd just keep going. So that's great in terms of having all this material to draw from. The the the discipline of YouTube, and I and the discipline of any kind of educational act is to distill it. And so when we're writing our scripts, we've we've made a real habit of saying, okay, we're gonna create a hook, and the hook is really there, you know, the hook is really there to get you interested in the video because if you can't get people interested in the video, no one's gonna watch it and you've wasted all that time and effort. And, you know, we want people to watch the video. But the real work that comes is sitting there and then scripting out what is the flow of information that you're about to present. And I I always learn something by trying to structure or by trying to work out what is the optimum order of events in a video. So I'm gonna talk about this particular component of melody writing, or I've got this idea and I'm gonna go, oh, that's great. That's a that's a that's an easy idea to talk about. The every time you think it's an easy idea to talk about and you sit down to do the script, you realize how how quickly it can descend into different rabbit holes. You could go this way, you could go this way, you could show this example. The real discipline for me, and the thing I have learned most about my songwriting through this process is it's actually easy to get complex. Like it's easy to it's easy to go into music theory. Kep and I both have a lot of music theory background, we both have a lot of terminology we can draw on. And every time you draw on complex terminology, you you create a gap that's bigger between you and the people who don't understand that terminology. And I think we learned this in uni as well. Like if I if I say modulation, let's talk about modulation, most people don't know what modulation means, but if I say, let's talk about changing key, a lot of people go, oh, okay, changing key. I I've I've heard of that. Like it it reduces the gap between the people who have the, you know, who who have the terminology and those who don't. So trying to simplify complex uh complex ideas down into everyday language and then illustrate it and then bring it to life practically that that has taught me so much about songwriting just in terms of simplicity, because my my default is to go to complex, you know, to go to let's use all the chords, let's use all the different techniques. When you have to sit in a songwriting session and say, what is the simplest way to bring this idea to life? Like what is the most elegant, beautiful way to express this idea? I I think that that is what every songwriter, that's what every artist is kind of aiming for. Simplicity is really, it's really hard to do. So yeah, I would say ref finding an idea down to simplicity has been the big learning.
SPEAKER_02Your videos certainly target like a range of songwriters' abilities from beginners to more advanced. And I was kind of wondering, you know, you go through different processes. Do you start with the lyrics first, you start with the chords first? What is your songwriting process? Do you do you follow that exactly or or or do you have kind of your own that's kind of informed by your experience and background?
SPEAKER_01Kemp and I have very we we should talk about our songwriting processes differently because we're we're lucky enough to be working together for the first time uh on a collaborative project. We've launched a band finally called Names of Birds together. And and and it's been joyful. It's been so delightful to actually take a friendship that's been going over 20 years. And you know, we've collaborated on music projects before, but we're now writing together. So we're bringing our two songwriting processes together. Um so I'll let Kep talk about her process, uh, but my process is and I talk I talk to our community members about this. My my process is very diverse, like deliberately diverse. I don't have one way of starting a song because I I refuse to acknowledge or or I refuse to let writer's block be a thing. You know, I I think that if you have multiple ways of starting, then writer's block never happens. So one day it'll be working to a drum groove, one day it'll be sitting with chords on the guitar, the next day a lyrical idea will come and I'll develop the idea lyrically first. Um I I really do bounce around between different methods and I really do collect all of my song ideas in different formats and sort of document them and and refer back to them uh and structure them in different uh formats. But I do that very strategically so that on any one day I've got something I can do that that'll work. Because some days you're not feeling like writing lyrics. Some days you're like, I just it's not happening. And on those days, having chords, having having a melody thing you want to develop, that's that's the moment where you go to those. So my my my challenge is to try and actually wrangle all of the different things I collect. You know, my my notes system is a disaster. It's just it's it's organized, but it's it's I'm drowning in I'm drowning in material, which is its own problem. But yeah, it's it's it's I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. Um Kev.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say um, you know, the the the classic thing that um new songwriters or people who are not songwriters but are interested in what songwriters do, the classic question is like, do you start with the lyrics or the music? Um and the the genuine answer to that question is always yes. You know, it's sort of the wrong question to ask. You know, like I think a genuine process is not actually about like the specifics of where you start. The the process is something else entirely. It's kind of like what you do with wherever it is that you've started. You know, I think that is, you know, where you actually get an insight into people's processes. So my process, again, similar to Benny, you know, like a song can really start sort of anywhere. I would say I'm very lyrically driven, you know, like I'm a songwriter who um loves lyrics, loves words, loves language, loves imagery, um, loves story, um, that, you know, because that's what I love. You know what I mean? So I sort of, you know, am doing the things that have moved me. Um, so I would say generally, you know, um probably what's different about my process and than someone else's is that lyrics are a higher priority, like a higher order priority. And I would find it diff more difficult to sort of move down the process pathway before I've got a lyrical concept going, you know, and a bit of a tone and an image and it sort of, you know, a kind of clear, clear idea of um what I'm going for. But that doesn't mean that I need that clear idea to start a song. You know, sometimes it I will still just sit down and play through a chord progression or learn a chord progression, steal a chord progression from another song, change it in some way, change the key, change the tempo, change the time signature, grab another, you know. So it there's the the how a song starts is a grab bag. You know, it's just like bit of this, bit of that. And, you know, um one of the things we teach inside, you know, a variety of our different courses is really this idea of idea generation and and which really comes from collecting different kinds of ideas. So if you look inside my, you know, notes for ideas, you know, I've got a note that's just titles, like song titles. I've got a note that's just lines, like just lines of lyric, I've got a note that's chords, chord progressions, songs. You know, if I listen to a song and I go, oh, I loved that chord progression, I'll just stick it in that note. Um, or it might be some like concept, you know, or or it might be some song form thing. I've listened to a song and I've gone, oh my God, they started with half the second half of the pre-chorus as the intro, and then you only hear the first half of the chorus, and then they skip the, you know, it's sort of like just noticing things from other songs and being like, I'm gonna try that. So it's, you know, collecting this grab bag. So a song can start in any of those ways. But for me, the very next step down that process is like generally trying as quickly as I can, which is sometimes slow, sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow. But as soon as I can, I'm looking for that kind of lyrical concept or that lyrical angle. You know, it's sort of like not just what am I writing about, but how am I writing about it in this song? What's the tone? What's the perspective? What's the image set? Is this narrative or is it non-narrative? Like I just sort of want a bit of clarity. And sometimes that clarity only comes through actually writing, you know what I mean? Like I might do some free writing or some sense writing, or I might actually write like two or three verses and then get clarity and then go, okay, now I now I get it. And I can go back and I can delete that verse because I realized that was, you know, different in nature to what has actually emerged as the key thing. So I sort of seek that clarity. And then there are, you know, once you've got the idea, then it's about like developing the idea. And developing an idea is where I think um the skill and the craft comes into songwriting, you know. So then that's a moment at which I will, you know, engage different tools and techniques of developing an idea. So um, and that might be continue to be expansive lyrically. And, you know, I've got a set of different kind of lyric writing go-to exercises that help me fill pages and pages of of raw material for lyrics. Um, and then there are other kind of decisions that are helpful to kind of shape a song and move it forward, you know. So kind of deciding on song form, understanding that that will still be malleable, um, but but deciding on it in the first instance kind of helps progress a song and move it towards the end state. Um, and then also, you know, tools like song mapping, which is just kind of like at a certain critical moment in a song, once you kind of know what the song is and and what it's about, song mapping is just a tool for kind of having a bit of a plan for how the song's gonna start, develop, and then finish. Um, so you know, there are different song maps, and I'll just try out different ideas and then kind of progress along that idea. But um one of the things in that process, which I think just comes from um experience, which again is not um, it's not inaccessible to anyone. It's just about doing it again and again, is that the the reality of the songwriting process, and I think Benny would um agree with this, and I'm sure you guys do too, is like at a certain point the song itself becomes a co-writer in the song, and you actually have to listen to what the song is telling you. You know, you can try and impose your will upon a song, but you know, part of the big becoming a experienced songwriter is becoming sensitive to when you're actually trying to do something to the song that it does not want to have done to it. You know what I mean? So part of being a songwriter is kind of being sensitive to the thing that is emerging and actually just almost like accepting it and listening to the song and then making the decisions about what happens next based on what the song is actually emerging as. I know that sounds a little woo-woo, but I do think that it's accurate to my experience. Benny, do you agree with that?
SPEAKER_01Love, yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, going back to that earlier question, what have we learnt about our our song craft or our songwriting? You I think you just learn as you do more of it to to be with the song in the moment and and not be so belligerent about just, like Kep said, imposing your will. Um, the other thing I think that's really important to talk about is just, you know, we have learned a lot over the last few years working with so many different songwriters who come to our community or or engage with us through different programs, who all have their own process. And I think the delightful thing about songwriting is there for every individual, there is a different process. And learning about those processes, hearing people articulate their process is really fascinating. Like the nuances and the subtleties of it. I think what we've discovered though is and the thing that keeps uh me so fascinated by songwriting is that songwriting is a really unique art form. And we really need to acknowledge the uniqueness of it in the sense that there are people who come to our communities who feel really comfortable writing lyrics, and they write whole, you know, whole pages or pages and pages of lyrics. And they're essentially identifying as poets in some situations. And then there are other people who come and they've got incredible musical knowledge and they can write these beautiful sweeping instrumental compositions. The challenge of songwriting is that songwriting is trying to bring together these two independent art forms. It's trying to bring together instrumental music and poetry and get them to play nicely together. And that is all of the work in songwriting, you know, to take these two beautiful independent art forms and kind of smoosh them together and get them to collaborate, and you're in the middle trying to get them to give ground sometimes and compromise. You know, you've got a lyric you love, but there's too many syllables, and the melody's like, well, I the melody, I'm not changing the melody, and the lyrics are like, well, I'm I'm not changing the lyrics, and you've got this standoff, you know. So I know that sounds ridiculous giving them personalities, but that's what it feels like as a songwriter in the middle, where you've got a melody and a set of lyrics kind of butting up against each other, and you're trying to be the peacekeeper. So for me, I think anyone who's trying to get serious about songwriting has to acknowledge this fundamental truth that your job is to bring together lyrics and music in a very meaningful and collaborative way, so that hopefully when when it goes well, they enhance each other. It's not a compromise where they both get weaker. But that work of getting them to work together really is all the all the work in the middle of the songwriting process. Like getting an idea, being inspired, starting an idea, that's great. If you write too many lyrics without bringing music into the equation, you shut the door on the music. You don't leave any space for the music. If you write a complete musical composition and then lyrics have to come in later on, again, you've shut the door. It's like someone's, you know, arrived to the party four hours late and and just it's not a great feeling. So we're learning, Kep and I are learning in our process that you know, the the idea can't become too developed in either direction. It can't be too developed when we're working together musically or lyrically, because it shuts the door on the other, on the other half of the equation. And that that has been a huge, I'd say that's been a pretty big revelation for me in my process over the last you know few years.
SPEAKER_00But I will say that, you know, the like acknowledging that everyone's process is different. There are definitely songwriters out there who will absolutely write an entire track with the entire melody and then bring in someone to like write the lyrics. Or, you know, so there's very different um processes in different circles and different genres and that kind of stuff. But certainly for Benny and I, like we we want our music and lyrics to start dancing together at the party pretty quickly. You know, we don't want them arriving hours separately. We want them arriving kind of within like half an hour to 45 minutes of each other, you know what I mean? So they can kind of real start the dance. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I love that. Benny, I really like the way that you talk about these merging of art forms. I think that, you know, one of the John Mayer for me is is someone who I think really has nailed that craft. I think when you listen to some of his songs, it's kind of like all of the parts really make sense together. I remember there's this this um the song he has on on continuum called Stop This Train, where the pulse of the song sounds like a train. And, you know, it's like the lyrics and the melody and the and the chord progression just all feel like they were composed together almost. And that's when it really clicked um to me at least, oh, how, you know, the interplay of all of these things. And, you know, I was, I just wanted to ask, I know that, you know, you run these, these clinics and these these sprints, and probably some people who follow you maybe are, as you mentioned, stronger in one element than others. I'm curious, are there any creators that have kind of put this together and had any surprising or memorable experiences or breakthroughs kind of connecting these things as a result of of this training?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say a kind of notable one, give you maybe two examples from different kind of ends of the spectrum. So um, on one end of the spectrum, uh I I would say, as you said on the YouTube channel, that we kind of speak to beginners and we also speak to more advanced songwriters and we also like attract those, that spectrum of people into our different programs and offerings. So we encounter kind of beginners and we also encounter some people who are actually quite like far along the path of being professional songwriters. So um an interesting one recently is a songwriter who, you know, has um co was a co-writer on one of like Ariana Grande's like Billboard Number One songs. She's signed to Warner Chapel in LA. She's constantly in like songwriting rooms in LA. Like she's and she's just had like K-pop placements and she's she's really, really in it. Um and but what's so fascinating is you know, the way she got into it is because she's a really, really talented violin player and a really talented singer. So she was actually invited into some of these kind of sessions as an instrumentalist. But standing in the room, because she's a wonderful, like really, really good singer and has such an incredible sense of melody, she was in the room and kind of making some melody suggestions that suddenly like Ariana Grande was like, that's a great suggestion. And so suddenly she's a co-writer and brought into all these spaces. And she's a wonderful lyricist in the sense that she has um a lot to say and is really open and kind of free-flowing. But she came to us because she sort of said, you know, I'm in these rooms, but I struggle to know how to take and she's like, I can write hooks. I can really write hooks, I can write a whole chorus, but I really struggle with how to flesh those out into like verses, you know, or I can write one verse, um, but I really struggle to know how to build that out. And and both in those kind of co-writing rooms, but also for herself, you know, as a, you know, finding her own voice and and really wanting to express her own artistry, not just as a kind of commercial songwriter for other people, but really for herself. So she did our six-week accelerator program, and so much of part of that, like there are very specific tools, you know, that you can kind of implement to help you. So, like one of those tools is song mapping. And I gave a kind of very brief outline of song mapping there. It's very simple as a concept. It's really kind of plotting out, you know, where a song starts, how it develops, and how it finishes, the more sort of complex or or or um songwriterly aspect of that is. Okay, it's not just that, but it's also then useful as a tool because it's it's that, it's beginning, middle, and end. But it's also okay, but how do those things all target and relate back to the hook in a way that grows the meaning of the hook? It doesn't kill the hook through repetition, right? So that's why song mapping is a wonderful tool. Now, if you dive deeper into song mapping, there are kind of uh a set of what we could even think of as like universal song maps that will work in any situation or environment, right? So we kind of showed her these universal song maps. They're like, okay, you can bring these three song maps into any co-writing situation, and one of them is gonna work, right? And the work of the moment is again like listening to the idea and listening to the song and saying, Okay, which of these song maps is appropriate to this idea?
SPEAKER_01I just want to add that I think Kepp's example there, that that particular person, it's it's such a great example of really the challenge that a lot of people face, uh, regardless of their level, which is we we write instinctively. We write with passion and and we we have something we want to say. That's so often how a lot of songs start, as they should, you know, connecting to a moment, connecting to a feeling, taking an idea that you're excited about, that's that's the ideal way to begin an idea because you're energized by it, you're excited by it. Um we so often get into trouble halfway through the process, you know, where we get stuck. We're like, okay, cool, I was excited and now it's not working. Though those are the moments where your craft comes to save you. Like those are the those are the moments where having the tools, you know, in the in the tool belt that you can dig into and saying, right, I I'm stuck. I don't know why I'm stuck, but I have a I have appropriate diagnostic tools to actually identify where the blockage is or what the problem is. And then I've got other tools to get me out of the problem. That's really where Kepp and I spend a lot of time and take a lot of joy in spending a lot of time with some of these artists who are incredible artists, but just aren't sure what to do when they get stuck in certain situations. And that's that's a very empowering thing to be able to transfer that information, to see, to see some writers who have beautiful ideas and beautiful songs, to then give them these tools to help them get unstuck and to see that frustration leave them, or to see that, to see that, you know, that frustration no longer be the thing that derails the whole, the whole project or the whole songwriting process. So that's that's a lot of what we do and and a lot of what we really enjoy doing.
SPEAKER_02I think maybe it's going exactly where you're about to go. You'd mentioned you had two examples, and I thought that was a really, really great example of this advanced person. And I definitely wanted to make sure we heard about the someone on the other side of the spectrum.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So so the other example that springs to mind immediately is uh a member of our um songwriting community who's an older gent called Don. Um and one of the things that Don was saying is, you know, he's been a lifelong uh sort of hobbyist songwriter, but he joined our community because he wanted to level up. And in his own words, he said, you know, I'm sort of a bit um sick of the sort of like polite endorsements of my family who just seemed to kind of pat me on the back regardless of whatever I did. Um, and he was very, very motivated to write songs that actually moved people rather than just getting like the polite pat on the back from his, you know, wife and and and children. Um and one of the things that particularly motivated him was he was coming up to his college's 50-year anniversary. And um, he was really motivated to write a song for this, and particularly because, you know, as a 50-year college anniversary, you know, like they're in an age bracket where there are a number of their college like class people who have passed away, you know, and he really wanted to write a song that kind of acknowledged that and sort of acknowledged both the relationships, but was also something that was a kind of tribute, I guess, to um their friends and classmates who were no longer with them. So, you know, he was very motivated by this particular thing and just generally motivated to really want to like write, write something that moved people. And so he came to us and he's, you know, taken um, you know, set in sat in on all like all of our workshops that we offer inside our songwriting community, but we also do like weekly song feedback sessions. So he would bring these songs and we would give him specific feedback. Um, and you know, to be honest, I can't remember the specific feedback to any of them. I've but from Don's report, he ended up writing this song for his college's 50th anniversary that he said not only did they play and that the room was full of like, you know, grown men, you know, in their 70s, like crying. Um, but the song was then passed around to other colleges who have asked if they could play his song at their college reunion because it's so beautiful and so moving. So he was just reporting back that like these tools that can seem you're so crafty, crafty, whatever. But it the whole point of the craft is how do you take something and actually communicate emotion to someone else rather than just kind of as a catharsis for you, which is a totally great and valid part of the songwriting process. But how do you go to the next level, which is not just about catharsis, but about communication and not even just like communication, I would say communion. You know, it's like how do you turn the song not just into something that sits over here in your heart, but something that you kind of send off into the world that actually other people can grab onto as readily as as as you can. So um it in the end, it is all about emotion, it but it's emotion through communion and communication. And so that was really, really powerful to hear that um, you know, the application of these ideas and these skills and these tools and implementing the feedback um has really resulted in, you know, a shift in his process of, you know, and and this story particularly is so moving about this song that he played for his um 50 year anniversary and that he posted on SoundCloud and has like hundreds and hundreds of listens, right? Which which might sound like, oh, but you know, hundreds of listens, that doesn't sound great. You know, but for someone who who previously it was really his like family and friends, you know, like a group of seven or eight people being like, that's nice, dad, you know, to then suddenly have hundreds and hundreds of people listening and then this song being passed around to these different colleges. I mean, that's where it's at, you know. That's that's a very powerful story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Being able to share that with with your community and building this community and you know, sharing the love of of creation and then what starts off as just kind of maybe not just transferring knowledge, but sharing sharing your knowledge can turn into something so special. Um but yeah, maybe that's a good segue. Um, you know, to your own music. I clearly you are devoting your lives to spreading the gospel of of proper songwriting techniques, but does that give you enough space for your own creative pursuits in your own music?
SPEAKER_01You know, it doesn't it doesn't leave time. for the music unless we make it leave time for the music. You know, it's you guys know, like running a business, building a business, building a community. Like our community is global. We we do sessions all round the clock. A lot of our sessions are very early in the morning or late at night. Keppy and I both have our own families. We've each got two small kids. It's if we don't make time for music, if we don't really carve out time and commit to it, it it it's the thing that gets left because all of these other things feel really urgent. And I think that I think that represents the struggle of anyone trying to engage in their own in their own art continually. Like we've got a lot of friends who we went to music college with I I mean I keep running into friends that I have who I studied music with who are now 20 years later they're like I'm done with music or I'm retraining in this or I'm like and I don't blame them. I'm not saying that's that's a terrible thing but it's like keeping it going and staying staying in your own craft requires requires commitment. It requires like it requires you prioritizing it week in, week out. And so we made the decision and I think I suffer from this a little more than Kep, but I I suffer from a real imposter syndrome. If I'm talking to people about songcraft, if I'm talking to them about how to get better at songwriting and I'm not really actively involved in the act of making songs and the act of making music, I don't feel great about that. You know, I need to be really in the trenches with them. I need to get my hands dirty every week with them. So we made a we made a decision once we launched the bands uh we made a decision we were going to carve out time each week we were going to treat it seriously as a project that needed time scheduled in each week we have a roster of songs we're working on um we you know we've got some in pre-production we've got some at the end of production about to go into release we're working on release strategy we're working on content we've got video ideas you know it it's like we're really we're really thinking about all the moving parts which is so exciting it's so much fun getting to the end of the week and having some of those activities sprinkled throughout the week so it's not just talking about songs it's actually making it's actually making songs as well. So yeah I'll let Kepp talk in more detail about that. But it it is for me incredibly exciting to be at this point and and really going for it.
SPEAKER_00It is and I think um you know one one really important thing about the project is that we're also really specific about the music that we wanted to create you know and it's really like the music that we love listening to and just sort of defining that. And I mean when I say love listening to I mean obviously like anyone who listen to a huge broad range of music. But if I'm really honest like there's a pretty narrow band of stuff that like is the is the Venn diagram of the things that I like to listen to and that I like to create you know but really leaning into that. And so what that is is a very like sort of cinematic modern Americana with obviously a very like Australian like slight tang to it um that is immersive lyrically and with lush harmonies. Like that's the other thing like part of the songwriting process between Benny and I which I think is unique fret from other songwriting we've done is when we sit down to write the song there are certain uh moments in the songwriting process where the melody is the harmony the the two voices like it's almost like a counterpoint you know what I mean that's what makes the melody of that moment you know and normally if you sit down and write a song by yourself you're just like really thinking about your you're like the the melody line and maybe background harmonies like come in to like support that and that's part of it too but our co-writing process is like you know our our guiding lights are like Gillian Welsh and David Rawlings you know like when we hear those two sing together you know there's just moments where it is the harmony. It's the counterpoint of two melodies that creates the moment. And we really wanted to to dive into that. So that's certainly a flavor of the music that we've been writing together. The other interesting thing part of our songwriting process which I think is um yeah interesting and has really really worked for me I think and for us is you know we write regularly we make time every single week literally like in the calendar is Friday. Like if I opened up my Google calendar you would see every single Friday blocked out for music making you know that's just Friday you know but we also go on little like three and four day songwriting retreats just us, you know, and we sort of go away, block out the rest of the world our respective partners sort of give us the green light and we we go and we kind of lock ourselves away and we just write songs for three days. And that's a great process you know and I think for me it's really important to kind of be able to immerse myself completely and not be doing the laundry you know um and uh yeah and so that's worked really well and and that sort of becomes increasingly generative you know like now if we go away for three days we can kind of anticipate sort of writing at least three songs like a song a new song a day and we might even like finish off two or three other songs that have been half written, you know, so it's sort of getting into that ongoing space is a great way to kind of do that um big dose of songwriting and then it's the weekly um carve out that then progresses the songs because you know otherwise we'd just be writing new songs you know we could write a hundred songs and move none of them any further down sort of the pipeline to actually sharing them with the world in a in a way that we want them to be heard. So the weekly thing is is you know a different kind of the process of carving, revising refining production you know pre-production process you know we use that time to create scratch tracks and then talk you know all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02So it's actually like the work of moving a song through the pipeline essentially I'm sure it takes a different amount of time for every every song but is there like an average like how long does it I don't know how much work is it? How long does it take you guys to go from start to finish?
SPEAKER_01Such that's yeah oh yeah every song is different. It's true. Like so Kep and I have realized we have what we call our struggle songs. You know and I don't know if it's one in every three or four but they're just they're just a real pain. Oh mate I would say it's three out of every four is well there's just there's I think the ratio is a lot higher of struggle to flow. I think what we're trying I I think what we're trying to do because we're writing together we're bringing together two different processes and and even though we know each other really well we know each other's we know each other's um approach to songwriting about as intimately as you can know another you know songwriter because we we spend all of our time working on the business, talking about songwriting, making YouTube videos together like we we talk about this stuff all the time. So we know how each other feels about the craft, you know, the art and the craft of songwriting. But even then you get in a room together and there's just different approaches to a melody there's different approaches to where the chords should go, where the narrative should go. There's there's infinite possibilities of where a lyric, a lyrical idea could go. So working through that, you know, just takes time and and sometimes we just we hit these moments where we're like you know there was a there was a great moment when we were down at this little bush retreat where we we hit a a point in the middle of the song where we're like I don't know I don't know where this is going to go. And Kip was like I don't know where this is going to go. So we have to retreat to our own rooms and just write for an hour, just make notes and just get clarity for ourselves and then we come back and share the ideas and it's like okay so we could go we could go with that or we could go with that. Like it's it's pulling apart, coming back together, trying this, trying that it it it flows but it flows in this really weird kind of staggery you know zigzaggy walk kind of way that's that's a weird metaphor but you you you just yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it sort of the that to answer your question like how long does it take to write a new song on average I mean again it just depends on the context in which we're doing it. So when we give ourselves those three or four days I mean I could say maybe it takes a day and a half to write one song from start to finish but in terms of actual hours like if you were to take the hours that it took and then spread that out into regular life, I mean that might take you six months, you know what I mean? If you're just working on a song like for an hour here or two hours there, but we like give ourselves the moment to just cluster it into a day and a half. But the interesting thing as well is like to me the thing that I think is really important um in my own process and I and I want to share this with others is that I I think of the way that I've classified these songs is like there's the struggle songs, which might take longer. And then there's the flow songs which maybe take like an hour to write right like songs just really just like flow out. But to me this type of song the struggle and the flow it's a binary star system. These things orbit around each other and the flow songs don't exist without the struggle songs. And our experience particularly in the retreat setting where we're just doing this is that now we've like we've learned to actually relish the struggle songs like relish the ones that are like you know because what we know is there's the binary star and like that little flow song that's gonna pop out in 48 hours like if we commit to working through this one and like struggling through it, it's great. It's like passing a kidney stone or something. You know what I mean? It's like because then we're gonna be able to like flush out the other song. But that little flow song that pops out it does not exist without the commitment to working through the struggle song. So the idea of saying well that song took us an hour to write well no it didn't take us an hour to write it it it it only exists because of the two days of this other song.
SPEAKER_01And Dave I I say too the the reason we're sort of dancing around this answer of how long it takes to write a song like we even if we even if we get through a struggle song um there's a great song um like sorry there's a song that's a great example which is a song called 28 names for longleaf pines which we're working on at the moment and we've been working on it and producing it it's about to it's about to go as a release and we're really happy with it. But you know like we struggled through the lyrics and the form like the we struggled through the craft of that song for two days. That's the one where we had to separate come back. So you've got to make sure you're happy with the the themes are the themes really what we want to talk about are the chords and the melodies you know memorable engaging supporting the lyrics is the form compelling all the way through so there's no point at which you disengage like we're we're we're really trying to make it so that this this coalescence of elements is is a beautiful thing. You know that's what we're trying to do. And then if we were going and just playing that live like just playing guitar and singing great you go and play that the you know the next day but to create a recorded version this is what we're starting to find like because we're trying to create what is essentially this cinematic folk kind of genre you know we then take it back to the studio and it's like okay two guitar parts uh are we going to play around with some different tunings on the guitars and get them to blend like get some different frequencies happening where is the banjo going to go am I going to chop the Mando or is it like and then drum parts like should we go with a tom thing make it more you know like rolling toms or like you know so then we we start going through pre-production and then as I said to Kep like I had a real problem with drums on that track. I spent literally 25 hours over the course of months trying to get the drums to mix right. I called friends I sent files to people I had phase issues so then you're in this world of like we're really happy with the song we've written the song we think the song's beautiful now we're grappling with the arrangement the recording the production the mixing just to get it to get close to the original dream you know the original vision I I I think Hitchcock nailed it when he said you know the film you end up shooting is ultimately disappointing compared to the vision you had in your head. It's it's it's always going to be disappointing. You're just trying to get close to that beautiful dream you have. So that for me is like where even if the song falls out in an hour, I know there's going to be months of arrangement and pre-production and mixing ahead. So it's like it's just a journey. Each song is such a journey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and even with that song as an example like that song was finished after two days right like we sort of like had the finished form but then it was like two or three weeks later when I was sort of like you know I don't really like the bridge like you know it's just not doing it for me. You know like and and that's an interesting moment where like we sort of like engaged the tools of songwriting. So coming back to like music theory for example to be like let's start on a different chord let's you know change the harmonic rhythm let's introduce a non-diatonic chord to create like you know employed all these like technical things that theoretically should work but ultimately the end of the day I was like I just don't like it. Like you know it's not doing it for me. Like the journey of the song at this moment like the original bridge kind of like brought it the whole energy down and I was like I want the energy to go up you know so we need to just scrap that and try again. So that's about listening to the song as well and going like well you know no I always in feedback sessions I sort of encourage other songwriters to um firstly acknowledge you don't need to be an ex expert songwriter, an expert giver of feedback to give excellent feedback. And giving feedback to other people is also the best training to do this for yourself. And this is the reason why we can acknowledge that moment in a song because giving great feedback is simply about paying attention to what you pay attention to and paying attention to what you don't pay attention to or like what what is disengaging, right? And so just tuning into that and like for me turning that voice up in your head and saying okay like turn the voice up that's going, I just feel a little bit uncomfortable about that. You know? And so for me it was like two weeks of playing this song where that voice was kind of quiet and then suddenly I was like let me just turn that dial up a little bit turn that voice up and the voice was going this bridge is wrong. Like this bridge doesn't feel right. This bridge is energetically different than what your body wants this story to this song to do right now. And so going oh thank you little voice on that weird channel like you know I hear you I hear you I acknowledge you like message received and uh and then doing something about it.
SPEAKER_01But that voice is not there. I think this is so important for for all songwriters to talk about which we do talk about in you know in our sessions you know that voice is not there when you're in the songwriting process. Like when we were in the songwriting process, we spent hours on that bridge. Like we really tried to problem solve it and just getting a bridge in place, you're high fiving yourself going, yes, we solved the problem. Like we did it. Okay, great, job done. It's only weeks later where you've got some distance from it and then you go, ah, it's not right. And at that point it's really tempting to say, yeah, but we put all that work into it. You know, the sunk cost fallacy where we've put all this work in so we need to keep it it's it's hard in those moments to say we put all of this work in and we still need to abandon it. And we're not we're not abandoning it to repurpose it somewhere else. We're just never going to hear it again because it's just not it's not quite it's not right. And then you've got to open the door again on the song and say, right now we've got to dive back into the song and uh and do a another bridge. But once you've heard it, once you've seen it, once you've felt it you have to do something about it. And it's the same with a line of lyric, you know, that you're trying to pretend you're okay with when you know you're not you know you always hear it at a gig when someone hates a line of lyric because they just mumble that line. You know they're they're singing and there's that one line that comes along and they just kind of mumble that one because they're trying to quickly get through it. They knew they weren't happy with it through the different iterations. So it's it's it's this it's this beautiful process of refining and revisiting an idea and then ultimately deciding when enough is enough and you've got to stop polishing. You know at some point you have to let it go.
SPEAKER_03Well thanks so much you both for for sharing all of these stories and your inspirations and your process we can't wait to uh to hear that track. Maybe we we can uh we can link it when it comes out um just to close off a final question I was wondering if maybe both of you could just name a songwriter that maybe um our audiences may may not be aware of that you find particularly inspiring to to check out there is an artist called Bahamas that I think is just such such a beautiful artist um quirky character like there's interviews with him where I just I find him so charming and self-deprecating.
SPEAKER_01He's got a dry sense of humor. But his approach to songwriting is this he makes it feel and sound effortless. He does that thing we're all aspiring to which is you hear the song and you go, oh yeah that was written in half an hour or that just fell out or like it because it has that kind of feeling to it. But he's really a beautiful, a beautiful songwriter with beautiful sensibilities, incredible musicianship and he also changes gears, which is what I love. Like he changes gears from um and and hops around different genres from very almost traditional folk and country and Americana into what is some really jangly, you know, electric kind of productions he he bounces around and seems to not take himself too seriously doing it like just has a lot of fun doing it. But on a purely sonic level the musicianship the songwriting you can just listen to all his albums and they're all just so much fun and and just a delight. So Bahamas is my recommendation for anyone who hasn't gone there.
SPEAKER_03All right Kepi and Benny thanks so much for joining us it was really a pleasure thank you so much for having us it's been so much fun