Vic Garcia's Blog

Neil Young: “I don’t force it. If you don’t have an idea and you don’t hear anything going over and over in your head, don’t sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn…My songs speak for themselves.

Bob Dylan: “My best songs were written very quickly. Just about as much time as it takes to write it down is about as long as it takes to write it…In writing songs I’ve learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie…It’s not me, it’s the songs. I’m just the postman, I deliver the songs…I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.” 

Paul McCartney: “Somebody said to me, But the Beatles were anti-materialistic. That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, Now, let’s write a swimming pool.” 

So one of the big things I’ll be doing while back in Miami is song-writing. I’ve already been approached by a few people who want to set up a session, I’ll keep you posted.

I get asked often what my process is to composing. I usually get asked “do you write the words first or the music?” another popular question is “what does this song mean?” Well, I answer things as best and polite as possible, but I really hate explain a song to anyone. I hate the restrictions of having some kind of formula, like writing lyrics first or wearing your lucky baseball cap. BUT if you’d like to know a little bit about where my mind is when I start writing, here it is:

I’m a firm believer that if inspiration isn’t coming, then don’t fight for it. Meaning, if you’re writing crap for 20 mins, you might as well go “mow the lawn,” as Neil Young put it. Song-writing is a craft and it’s work. You first start with finding a comfortable spot, couch, beach, wherever you’d like. I usually have my guitar or a piano that I’ll start playing some chords on. Normally, I try to over-complicate the song at first, I’ll experiment with odd time signatures and cool voicings and weird chord progressions. Eventually, I’ll find a pattern that I like and simplify it to make it a little more accessible to people. Next, I’ll start signing to the progression. I’ll try melodies sung in falsetto and chest voice, to see where the vocal feels best. If something sparks and I’m digging it, then I’ll take it to the next phase.

At this point, I’ll have some kind of verse/chorus and I’ll start messing with the transitions. Does this song need a pre-chorus? where can I take it in the bridge? is the verse too long? Tom Petty says that his motto is “don’t bore us, show us the chorus.” This is great advice, as we’d all love to have long, elaborate intros and build epic songs, but the truth is that the listener wants to enjoy the song and if you take too long to give them the pay-off, they might get bored. So, once I have some basic structure of a song with a strong melody, I’ll start to consider topics for the lyrics. Usually, I’ll let the song rest anywhere between 30 minutes to a few days and come back to it to write the lyrics. Sometimes, I’ll jot down a bunch of lines and try to plug them into the melody, Other times the song just writes itself very rapidly. 

I’ve heard a lot of songwriters say that their best work was written in a matter of minutes, this is true for me as well, but these songs then require days or months of tweaking. Song-writing is a craft that takes patience and dedication. The more open-minded you are to criticism, the better. Its always a good idea to record the song in its early stages and listen to it about 20 times to see if something clicks, to make sure you’ve got a good song on your hands. If you can’t stand listening to your song 20 times, then its probably not good. I don’t write music for money, fame, whatever… I write music that I like to listen to. I write music that I like to play. I write music because I wanna turn on the radio and hear my song, because that’s the kinda music I love listening to.