06.24.07 Alternate Tuning

I don’t tune my guitar in the standard way.  And this confuses a lot of people.  I get asked “How’s your guitar tuned?” more than anything else.  More than “How’d you get your hair to do that?” or “Are you related to Sara Groves?”

So, here’s the answer.  Here’s how I tune my guitar and how to play a few simple chords in that tuning.

06.15.07 iLike

Check out iLike.  Installing iLike’s “sidebar” on your computer uploads a list of your most played artists to their website and promotes those artists on the thousands of facebook and myspace users that have added an iLike widget to their pages.

06.14.07 This Is What It Feels Like

...to hear your song on the radio for the first time.  Congratulations to Gotee‘s newest artist, Stephanie Smith. 

I’m hoping to interview her for a podcast in the future.  She’s reportedly an amazing girl - only 23 - working at a Starbucks in Franklin, Tennessee and wooing radio at the same time.  She spent three months working with a tribe in Africa before moving to Nashville, living on $1 a day, and getting her head put on straight.  Now it’s in the music business.  What a contrast.  What a great conversation could be had.

06.13.07 She Don’t Know It Yet

The co-write with Brian White and Don Poythress went well today.  I brought them a completed chorus melody with hook and the basic premise of the song and we wrote from there.  The hook is “She Don’t Know It Yet.”

Apparently, grammatically incorrect is good in country music.  But sappy is not.  So we struggled with how to write a song about a girl at age two, age seventeen, and age twenty-something, about her transformation from a carefree child to a teen full of insecurities and into a confident woman in love.  How do you do that without being sappy?

We settled on being a little emotional but not to a Butterfly Kisses degree.  I learned that sap keeps songs off the heavily male influenced country radio stations these days.  I also learned that positive is bad at country radio.  We had to add some darkness to the first chorus because of that, which meant sacrificing some of my own preferences and plans for the song, but that’s co-writing. 

You give and you give up and you hope you gave and gave up the right stuff.  And you never know.  That’s possibly the hardest part of a co-write for me.  I always wonder if I could have done just as well or better by myself - not because I’m a great writer - I’m not - but because I’m a different writer from the guy(s) I’m in the room with.  It’s hard to give up on my original vision and trust someone else’s vision instead.

This is probably why I don’t co-write often.  OK, I haven’t co-written anything in seven years.  I took a break.  But I’m back.  And I think what we came up with, when it’s finished next week, could be something great.  We’ll see.  I’ll post audio when I get it.  For now, here’s the first verse and chorus.  I forgot to write down the second one, which is my favorite.

She Don’t Know It Yet
Words and Music by Brian White, Don Poythress, Shaun Groves (Copyright 2007)

Verse 1:
A miracle in flip flops
In the yard Spinning like a top
Two years old and not a care
Golden hair

Wonder in her big brown eyes
Purple snowcone smile
She stands on daddy’s feet to dance
Around her room
She’ll grow up so soon

Chorus 1:
She don’t know it yet
Ponytails don’t last
Or games of hide and seek
And riding piggy back
She don’t know it yet
This tiny heart of hers
Is gonna learn to love
Is gonna learn to hurt
Daisy chains and swings ain’t all we get
But she don’t know it yet

06.13.07 Country Today

I’m writing country music today.  This afternoon I’ll sit in a small room with my guitar and a piano and two great writers: Brian White (Rough and Ready and Watching You) and Don Poythress (You Remain and Comfort Me).

Between them they’ve written for everyone from Willie Nelson and Trace Adkins to Sheryl Crow and Sir Cliff Richard to Avalon and Michael English.  I’m out of my league and I know it.  And thankful I have friends like Brian White willing to take a risk on me like this.

I’m coming prepared with a couple melodies and a couple lyrical hooks to write around.  My hope is something I bring to these guys will jump start the makings of a great song.  You never know though.  That’s the frustrating thing about co-writing for me.  Sometimes lightning strikes and two or three guys whip out a song faster and better than they could alone.  Other times the chemistry isn’t right, the ideas fly but fall short again and again, and you leave with nothing to show for hours of music making.

I’ll post later this week about how it goes and maybe even be able to post a rough draft of whatever we create.  Let’s see how it goes first.