Why Amateur Songwriters Should Write to Their Audience

For those of you amateur musicians who are creating original songs, what kinds of things do you think about when writing music?

You might be thinking, “I want to write a song that moves people’s hearts,” or “I want to write a song that gets everyone moving,” and there are probably many different ideas like that—but do you take into account the fact that you are an amateur when you write your songs?

One difference from professionals at live houses is that many people in the audience aren’t there because they are your fans.
You have to perform for people who came to see a different artist, or people who only came because a friend invited them.

With the exception of amateurs who have already gained enough fans to hold one-man shows, this is the situation for most amateur musicians.

In other words, there are very few audience members who will watch you with full enthusiasm, so it is of the utmost importance to bring an impact that captivates them even in a short amount of time. So let’s take a look at what points you should pay attention to when writing songs in order to achieve that.

■ Write Every Song as if It Were a Single

When you listen to a professional full-length album, there are points in the middle to later part where the energy dips in a good way.
These are songs that exist precisely because it’s an album, and they’re the kind of tracks that only core fans tend to appreciate.

For amateur musicians who have at most around 30 minutes of stage time, songs like these can be a bit risky to play live.
If, while you’re performing one of these songs, someone happens to wander into the venue just to check things out, it could end up being a missed opportunity.
Without fully conveying your true appeal, that audience member might leave thinking, “This isn’t very interesting.”

■ Use Words that Create an Impact

Do you remember the lyrics of original songs played by bands you’ve seen at live houses?
Most people probably don’t.
With the volume so loud that it’s hard to hear clearly, you often can’t even tell what the song is about.

In that situation, if even just one easy-to-hear word is placed on a catchy melody, it can leave a strong impression on the audience.
This is also a point that professional musicians consciously focus on when writing singles.

For example, Official HIGE DANdism’s “Pretender” grabs attention with the opening word of the chorus, “Goodbye,” and then follows with the high-pitched line, “The person destined for you isn’t me.” Even people who aren’t HIGE DAN fans often remember this part, right?
Even if you don’t fully understand the lyrics as a whole, it’s immediately clear that it’s some kind of bittersweet love song.

B’z’s “Ultra Soul” is another good example, right? You don’t really know what it means, but it’s an incredibly powerful phrase.

■ Keep the Length to 3–4 Minutes

Songs with endlessly long solos that run six or seven minutes, like some ’70s rock, aren’t very suitable for amateur musicians.
Most people will get bored.

If you’re an ultra-technical band and that kind of technique is your main attraction, that can work—but for most vocal-driven music, it probably won’t be well received.

You don’t have to force every song to end at just over three minutes, but if a song does become long, you need to think carefully about arrangements that won’t let the listener lose interest.

■ Don’t Overdo New Songs

It’s not that writing new songs is a bad thing—on the contrary, continuously creating new material leads to growth.
If you don’t yet have a song that really serves as a highlight, having the determination to keep writing until you create your hit song is important.

That said, are you creating new songs for every live show and neglecting your existing ones?

Songs become more and more refined as you perform them hundreds, even thousands of times.
You might think, “Wouldn’t I get bored playing them that much?” but you can’t even imagine how many times Southern All Stars have played “Katte ni Shindobaddo,” right?
That’s why professional musicians are so good at both performing and presentation.

Don’t forget to raise the level of completion of your existing songs and to add new arrangements to them.

By the way, at amateur band shows, you often hear MCs like, “Okay, the next song is a new one.”
For someone seeing you for the first time, they don’t know or care whether it’s new or not, so that kind of MC is unnecessary.

Even if a song feels old or overplayed to you, for someone who just happened to be in the live house, every song is new.
Always perform with full effort, and continue to nurture your existing songs.

■ Don’t Overdo Recording Either

Compared to the days when MTRs were the norm, it’s now possible to do recording cheaper than before. Not only is it cheaper, but it’s also easy to achieve high sound quality and detailed editing.

That’s a good thing, but more and more people are relying on this too much and releasing recordings that don’t match their actual playing ability.

Adding synth parts that aren’t in the band or overdubbing guitars is still relatively harmless.
Thinking of recordings and live performances as separate things and raising the quality of recordings isn’t inherently bad.

However, once pitch correction, timing correction, and choruses created solely through pitch correction are added, the finished recording can end up being far removed from one’s true ability.

When professionals do this kind of work, it’s not a problem because they can reproduce it on stage or deliver a strong performance with alternative arrangements.
But for amateurs who create recordings beyond their actual skill level, what remains is a negative gap between the recording and the live performance.

Even if a carefully made recording gains attention on Twitter or YouTube and brings people out to see the live show, those who watch the actual performance will likely be disappointed.

If you’re going to spend time recording just to deceive yourself, wouldn’t that time be better spent practicing instead?

■ Summary

The above are the points on songwriting that I want amateur musicians to know.
Needless to say, I myself am also an amateur, and I wrote this based on my own experiences and things I’ve heard from others.

There are many aspects of professional work that are wonderful and should serve as models for us amateurs, but it’s also true that there are strategies unique to amateurs.
Let's compete using strategies that fit with our own field while learning from professionals.

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