Songs For The Deaf?

It's a Queens of the Stone Age reference.

The past two days, Luke has given me a few tasks to help better my skills in songwriting which, by the way, is what I want to focus on in STAC for at least the remainder of this year.

Yesterday, I was handed a sheet of paper. This paper had a guitar chord progression on it, complete with sections specific to each part of a song including the verses, choruses, and pre-choruses. My task was to write an entirely original song, minus the part about the already existing chord progression, complete with my own written lyrics for each part of the song. I had less than three periods to make it, perform it, and record it live in one take.

Today, Luke gave me a similar mission to yesterday's, except this time, the lyrics for the song were already written. Using the lyrics given to me, I was required to write my own chord progression to accompany them as well as a melody for the vocal part. I also had about three periods to write, perform, and record this song as well. Oh, and did I mention that, unlike yesterday's agenda, there was no specific verse, chorus, or any other musical section specified in these lyrics. For all I cared I could have written a spoken word poem with a simple G to C and back to G chord progression to complement it and the song would have been acceptable.

I am not complaining. I actually really enjoyed this project. I think that, even though I have never done something like this before, it has been a real learning experience and one of the more unorthodox, yet innovative and effective ways of getting my songwriting mana juices a flowin'.

As far as my final products are concerned, I am pretty content with the quality of each. However, I think my lyrics for the fist song could have been a little more progressive, for lack of a better word, and less forced-to-fit-the-melody kind of lyrics. I know that I could have done better and I know that if I had more than an hour and fifty minutes to write better lyrics, I would. I also need to work on my singing. I know that I am pretty capable of singing fairly mediocre tunes and nothing spectacular, but I would really like to have a better understanding of my vocal range and more comfort with my technique which, come due time, will hopefully eventually occur to an extent.

-Peter

P.S. Those are my initials
P.S.S. That's what I would name my boat...if I had one
P.S.S.S. I am deeply sorry for aligning my signature on the right instead of the left on my last post. I am very angry at myself for this.