For the past 10 years, my guitar playing has focused on live covers while my songwriting has been purely solo material. However, shortly after the re-emergence of Harson Robkus, I’ve already had a bit of a musical moment. Let me explain.
The joy of Solo Songwriting.
Before I get into collaborative songwriting, I’d like to re-affirm something. In the world of music, be it creation, performance, or production, there’s nothing more satisfying to me than songwriting. Songwriting has and always will be my musical diary, a release valve of my deepest and darkest thoughts. Something unique and personal.
The drawback of this approach is that it becomes self-serving. I get attached to my songs in a way that provides comfort and therapy. If someone else likes them? great, but with my solo efforts it’s mainly been about the pleasure of crafting something from nothing rather than popularity.
The synergy of Collaborative Songwriting.
Collaborative songwriting does have a few pitfalls: Writers get very protective of their own ideas, which tips the fine balance of working as a team to working competitively, or worse, against each other. Ideas often get lost in translation and there’s nothing worse than having your latest and greatest work of genius binned at the first hurdle because, well, the other guy didn’t like it.
I digress, collaborative songwriting is more than politics and squabbles. It’s the element that was always missing from your solo stuff, a second opinion. Seems like a small thing right, but a second opinion is your quality control, your filter, your spit, and polish. Most of all, going back to my ‘moment’, collaborative songwriting helps you get the very best out of even your most embryonic ideas. I had one just the other day, a verse and chorus with a melody over the top. I thought it was good, but a second opinion made it so much better, taking it in directions my own songwriting brain didn’t go.
So what is this synergy of collaborative songwriting? Take the above example. For a start, two heads are always better than one. Each of you will have your own strengths and weaknesses. For example, words have never been my strong suit, but I know how to put a song together and perform the song in its entirety. In this scenario having an accomplished wordsmith fills a lot of gaps and saves a lot of time. From the other angle, the wordsmith can flesh out his work a lot easier.
But the real magic comes in that middle ground where you’re both contributing, taking ideas into the stratosphere. The best of all worlds. It’s at this point that new goals get set, it’s no longer about such trivial things as personal satisfaction or musical diaries, it becomes about putting out quality original music that’s already been signed off as good by at least another person.
Conclusion
The synergy of collaborative songwriting makes the songwriting process easier, quicker, and more fun, resulting in an end product of much higher quality than what could have been accomplished by any individual member.
Songwriting is the most rewarding part of my musical journey and collaborative songwriting is the most effective way to do it.
Queen are better than any one of us.
Brian May