My Journey into Songwriting

As if I don’t have enough to do already? This idea of songwriting has been creeping into my brain for some time now. What was I thinking? There are movie scripts to hustle, plays that need a venue to perform at and a dozen other projects that are begging for my time and attention.

That being said, I’m finding myself spending more time delving into the always challenging, chaotic and usually frustrating exercise of putting words (called lyrics) into some kind of melodic form sans the rich coat of many sounds to accompany it. Talk about a new experience all together.

Reflecting back on a lifetime of skirting the edges of this stress-induced exercise, I’ve often tried to add music to a lot of my writing projects. Back when I was a younger man, I produced two travel documentaries of my children’s study abroad programs. Brian went around the world on his program and Melanie spent time in Ireland. I added musical numbers to both films; Irish music for Melanie’s travelogue and the ‘Smashing Pumpkins’ music for Brian's.

The first three plays I had produced at the Steeple Center in Rosemount had music as an integral part of their storyline.

‘Hair’ was the climatic song in ‘Riot at Sage Corner.’ It solidified the collective rioting of gray grannies and hopping old men against senior management. The actors really got into the swing of things and the audience loved it too.

For Club Two Ten, I had an accomplished singer songwriter write two original songs for the play. The songs best illustrated the still simmering feelings between old classmates. The songs were a welcome reprise for the scene and added to its depth and emotional clarity.

‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ was the theme song for my last play in Rosemount, ‘The Last Sentinel.’ It perfectly encapsulated the comradery felt by the three old women nearing the end of their stay on earth. It was a song-along that the audience really got into themselves.

In California, my award-winning play ‘Widow’s Waltz’ ended with a performance of ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’ It proved the perfect musical wrapping for my two actors finally accepting their relationship. ‘By the Salton Sea,’ is another play I’m shopping around the Coachella Valley. It has the old classic ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ as its climatic piece. ‘Tangled Roots’ is a musical concert wrapped around a storyline (a play) that is heavy on Americana music. Another play written around the same time, ‘Wake; the Musical’ has a number of song (lyrics only) that still need music added.

When both families gather in Palm Springs, we started a tradition of hosting a staged reading. Papa writes a new play each year and the children perform it for family, friends and neighbors. Over the last half dozen years or so, we’ve added music to the plays. Maya and Samantha choose the song and everyone sings along. It’s a group effort and their harmony is really quite good.

When I decided to add original music to my play ‘PTV’ I knew I would need to find an accomplished musician to help create the melody to accompany my song lyrics. I had asked my editor for some recommendations for songwriters she might know. She is into the musical scene in town and knew a lot of the players. After describing a number of them, their area of interest, expertise, and talent, I added one more caveat. I told her: “They can’t be assholes.” She didn’t know a one I’d want to work with.

Fortunately, another friend had meet someone in college who seemed to fit the bill. He was very talented, smart and a pleasure to work with. I gave him a call and it turned out to be the best call I ever made for that purpose.

When we first meet, I felt it was important to lay down some of the ground rules. My caveats were simple enough. I can’t read music and I’m not going to learn. I don’t play a musical instrument and I’m not going to learn how to. I can’t speak music language but I believe I can communicate what I’m feeling/thinking how the music should go/feel/accompany/add to the scene.

I told my friend that I was willing to learn anything and everything there was to know about composing a song….as long as it meets my criteria and reaches the conclusion, I felt it needed to communicate with my audience about the core message within. This was especially important for my PTV audience because each song had to emulate/continue/enhance/augment/and reinforce the emotions felt by my characters in that particular scene.

Lastly, I said that while I absolutely respected the talent and dedication of the musicians I would be working with, I also expected (no, demanded) that same respect toward me as the lyricist of the songs. If we couldn’t work together in mutual respect, then we couldn’t work together… period.

The results, I am happy to report, are nine original songs written just for ‘PTV.’ My musical collaborator, AJ Scheiber, was able to absolutely capture the mood of each scene, cloaking each with the musical intricacies of that time period. I couldn’t have been happier with the results.

The real test came when AJ took my lyrics, rewrote some of them to fit his melody and then agreed to let me tinker with particular words he had changed. In the end, it was his melody and my words (mostly) that accomplished what each song was meant to do.

Music is now an essential part of any new writing project of mine. My latest movie script ‘Rock the Tree of Life’ is about a country western singer-songwriter down on his luck. Part of my job is to write the lyrics for some of his new songs and then watch as my heroine Ariella, plays the role of co-writer for his new material.

Working with a couple of talented artists as they go about writing new songs is going to be a real challenge for me. Yet if I’m going to step into this new role of songwriter, I can’t think of a nicer couple to do it with.

So says my imagination.

Cousins

Several years ago, Sharon did the whole Ancestry thing. She was able to trace her lineage back to Germany in the mid-eighteenth century. She even found a picture (supposedly) of the clipper ship that her ancestors came over on. My own family tree began and ended abruptly in Canada with no ‘came from’ or ‘went to’ ancestral lines past that spot on the map.

My own mother’s reluctance to talk about her past (well documented in past blogs) left me with little tangible facts or rumors to go on. She had left her past history cold and unforgiving except for those rare moments of clarity or lapses of revelation when something from the past was revealed. So, what I had to go on was the fact that four women, all sisters, were born in Sterns County, Minnesota on a small farm just outside of the small hamlet of St. Martin.

The four sisters were part of a family of eight; four brothers, four sisters. Each with their own hopes, promises and secrets. Never really very close was the common thread between them. Their children, the cousins, followed suit and never established strong inter-family bonds. That lack of kinship is a sad yet realistic result of ‘family dynamics’ so common among many families.

I always had the impression that my mother was a lot closer to her dad than her mother. She spoke more often of her girlfriends growing up than time spent on the farm. All four sisters ended up getting married and settled in different neighborhoods of Saint Paul. Two ended up in Highland Park, one in the Como area and the fourth in East Saint Paul.

From those four sisters came eight children, all cousins with little in common and less time for making acquaintances. There were a few family gatherings but not enough to solidify a sense of community among the group. Family secrets were still there but kept hidden as per their rural German Catholic culture.

All of which leaves many unanswered questions and fewer answers. For a while one of the cousins, Dr. Ron Pizinger, began collecting information on the Noll family and its many mutations since leaving the farm. He held several extended family gatherings and produced some fascinating information about our elders sailing over from Germany and settling eventually in Sterns County. Unfortunately, his early unexpected demise left many unanswered questions that have never been addressed or resolved.

Since then, offspring from the four cousins continue to grow, abet far apart and seldom in communication with one another. Whatever bonds began with the four sisters at the turn of the century has long since dissipated and faded away with the years passed.

I’m guessing this is probably more normal than not. For generations to continue a bond of friendship and familiarity in this era of constant moving, evolving interests and social changes must be a monumental challenge. Old bonds grow weak, splinter, and fail. New interests supersede old ones and new directions are followed by some and ignored by others. Nothing remains as it was. Nothing stays the same.

And as the cliché says: Life goes on.