MUSIC ANCESTRY
What is the first tune you learned to sing or play? Which instrument? What was the first poem you ever recited or loved read to you as a child? Which was the first one you ever wrote? What was the first essay you wrote about that got you a top grade? Did your parents play any instruments, played in any bands, or write any tunes, even if just for you? Did any of your grandparents or even earlier ancestors have a musical heritage? These may not seem too important, but many of us find that the instruments we have the most talent for are the ones we learned earliest, even if we may despise those as being too simple and not enough of a challenge. If anything, that is often the very instrument that you can jam the easiest on, and can doodle on without even thinking, and might be the one you should be playing, even if you may think you kick more butt on another one. Songs you learned as a child are also often in the public domain by now, and you can use those by retooling and modernizing them, parodying them, or just doing such a fantastic job on them from sheer familiarity that you put a lot of your newer stuff to shame. Reworked arrangements are often great album fillers, for you and others, so don't overlook those gems from your grade school camp songbook.
FAVORITE EXERCISES
If you find that you just love certain music exercises, perhaps that is something you should consider writing songs around. If you really like breaking into arpeggios, have you tried working those into your songs, yet? If you really love using a comedy rave-up of top opera singers, have you tried putting one of those bits of arias into an ad-lib, yet? I used to love holding notes for a long time on clarinet, and used to be one of the last three to fade out in marching band, so we would work long notes into the ends of our songs in my hard rock group, and the audience would really get into it. The other band members would just keep playing, and playing, looking at their watches, putting instruments down and walking offstage with hands in the air to have a soda and so forth as the audience laughed and I tried to keep a straight face. Drummers who can do some great final solos, guitarists who can really do scales until the cows come home, or a keyboardist or bassist who can get the floor dancing before anyone else starts in can all put their little bit of fun into numbers just by being themselves. Try doing the jazz round-robin thing and letting everyone in the band have a solo around the main theme in some song, and you can probably get a lot of fan reaction, at least in a live setting. Practice this on a regular basis, and you will probably find stuff everyone loves doing, and can get an idea of what everyone's "sound" is and work in duets to up the ante next time around.
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