Song Writing
You don't see many custom bodyboard
manufacturers who also advertise their songwriting skills on the
web. Face it, no one is going to get rich making bodyboards or
rescue sleds-especially when one billion Chinese copy your
innovations and start making
them. My real skill that could be a long term thing is my
songwriting. I learned to play drums in 5th grade in Japan and when I
was in 6th grade I learned to play guitar in Texas. While not
being the greatest guitar player, bass player, or drummer, - I
can play them all fairly well-and can sing at the same time
while I'm playing them- which is kind of unusual. I usually play
rhythm guitar when playing with other people. These songs
were written starting in 1970. Some of the live songs were recorded
down at the Kenu bodyboard factory with a bunch of other guys-and sound like it.
Some of the songs I recorded alone by myself and I played all
instruments and did all the singing.
Check out my below copyrighted
songs- check back often because I am always writing more and
adding and improving the songs. I will be working hard to get it so you can
click on some of the below songs and hear part of the song. I
will then get a way for you to buy the full song if you want it.
How do I write a song? Scroll down
under these songs to learn more.
Click
on a song that is underlined to play.
(Left Click! - If that doesn't work then:
Right click, "Save Target As")
1.
Can't You
See
2.
The One
3. Happy
4. Forever
5.
Sailing to the Sun
6.
Let's Dance
7.
All Night long
8.
Continuously
9.
I Need You
10. I Wanna Love Ya
11.
I was Alone
12.
Lover man
13.
You and Me
14. You are the Star
15. Heartache
16.
She's So Fine
17. Train
18. Ikaw Ay Magunda
19. You're Not Forgotten
20. Out of my heart
21. Be What I can
22. That is That
23. Country Song
24. Girls Hot Tonight
25. Kona Town
26. True Love
27. Boo You Stink
28. Together
29. Far Away
30. I was a fool
31. Down and Low
32. Kissing You
33. I'm So Lonely
34. Good Times
35. Late One Night
36. Fool fell in Love
37. We Can't Run
38. It seems
39. Lonely time in November
40. All we want is a song |
41. Bad Girl
42. Butterfly
43. City Women
44. Darkened by the Night
45. Learn how to feel
46. If the chick is a goat
47. I'm on my way
48. I'll show you
49. It's too Hard
50. Little Golf Cart things
51. One Surplus Ancient Boat
52. Shelly Baby
53. Feels good feels fine
54. You are my Lover
55. Whenever You want me
56. Tammy
57. The Goodtimes
58. Hot Stuff
59. No Bother Blues
60. I think of Love
61. I need Love
62. Happiness Is
63. You Can't
64. Electrified
65. My Baby
66. Waiting for Love
67. Baby don't rock me
68. Seems Like
69. Give me everything
70. I'm Hungry
71. I own Waikiki
72. Foolin
73. Monster Monster
74. King Dog
75. Waiting For Love
76. You
77. Lisa
78. Fallin Down
79. If You Lie
80. Make Things Better |
81. Breakin
Up 82. Baby, I want you
83. Gotta Get Away
84. Rodeo
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Writing Songs
Paul McCartney of the Beatles said
that when he wrote one of the most extremely popular and recorded songs-- "Yesterday"- he woke
up one morning and there it was- he just got out of bed and started
writing down what was coming out of his head. According to
legend, his working title for the song was "scrambled eggs" instead
of "Yesterday". This worked for him on
that song, but he said other songs took longer- sometimes weeks or
years longer to finish. I'm not going to go into too much detail
here, except to tell the way that I write songs that is easy for me.
Let's face it, you have to have some kind of god given talent for
this- but researching songwriting and putting some effort and
practice into it will certainly help. Sometimes I won't write a song
for months or years- other times I write several songs a day. Some
people are good at writing lyrics, and some people are good at
writing and playing the music- Elton John and Bernie Taupin are an
example of this partnership in writing popular songs.
It's weird, sometimes just hearing one note plucked on a guitar
string or a drum beat will set me off on writing a new song.
What I usually do is play my guitar and hum the melody until I start coming
up with some of the words. I then go over and over the song from start to
finish playing the guitar, singing the words I do know and humming
the areas I don't know until the humming sounds like words that make
sense for the song - and then I just write it down and fill in
the blanks as I find the words. It is rare that a song just comes to
me in its entirety at one time. It might take playing the song
from start to finish 10 times or more to get it right. Study how
song structure goes- intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, ending,
etc.
The worse thing to do is try to rhyme everything- just let it flow
and try to use your other part of your brain- you'll be surprised
sometimes with where the song eventually ends up in the wording.
Also, if you play the guitar, you are probably not that great and
are stuck in a rut playing simple chords that you play all the time.
Try just humming or singing the words into a recorder- then go back
and match chords to the song- rather than matching a song to chords
you know. Find a good chord book and practice weird chords you
have never seen before to make unique sounds. This is one of the
reasons the Beatles were so good- a lot of their chords were weird
and had a unique sound!!! Go buy an early Beatle songbook to
see their chords. Go to Google and type in song writing to
learn more.
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Ken's advice for
beginning songwriters: 1.
guitars- never mind the brand of guitar, get one that looks and
sounds cool- and stays in tune!!
2. other musicians- hang out with guys who
play better than you-and learn from them. Study early Beatle
songbooks for wild chords.
3. amplifiers- never mind the brand of
amp, get one that looks and sounds cool and doesn't buzz or
break.
4. Sound and noise- always wear hearing
protection when playing or listening to loud music- hearing
damage is cumulative- protect your hearing!!! Don't play with
guys who can't, or refuse to control their volume levels. Keep
your distance from loud drummers. Protect your ears from any
loud sound that is high pitched.- drills, blenders, ambulances,
hammers, saws, wives, etc. |
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