AUTHOR
BOOK | BLOG
What makes Harriet Schock truly special is her willingness to share her hard-won songwriting knowledge with others. She does this with her songwriting classes, private consultations, online courses and in her seminal book, becoming remarkable.
The book is an extensive collection of articles written for the songwriting community and was originally published as a regular column in the Los Angeles Songwriter’s Showcase Musepaper, and later in the periodicals of the National Academy of Songwriters.
becoming remarkable, which includes Harriet’s Rosebud CD, is available here.
A listing of what’s inside…
becoming remarkable
for songwriters and those who love songs
by Harriet Schock
FRONT MATTER
Table of Contents
Foreword by Nik Venet
About the Chapters…
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I – INTEGRITY
Step One: Touch Somebody
If You’re Doing It for the Money,
You May Not Make Any
The Art & Craft of Songwriting
Songwriters … A Community
Do We Know Where We’re Coming From?
Stop and Look at Who’s Listening
Straight Lines
Reality: The Training Wheels
Chimera Is Curable
Writing from the Inside
Songwriters Say It All
Art and Romance: An Analogy
Do You Read?
Cookies or Newspapers?
The New Literacy
Burning Desire to Communicate
Some Points to View on Viewpoints
PART II – CLARITY
Truth vs. Facts in Songwriting
When Little Things Mean a Lot
Listen & Learn
Character Studies
You Talkin’ to Me?
Judging Your Own Material
Everyday Treasures
Finding the Pony
He Says, She Says
Listeners Vote for Communication
That’s Entertainment
Smoke and Mirrors
PART III – TECHNOLOGY
Words or Music … That Is the Question
Writing Words to Music
What, Me Study?
Melody – The Unsung Hero
The Rhythm of the Melody
Reading Music
Playing It by Ear
Customs & Critics & Rules (Oh, My)
But What Do Strangers Think?
Is There Life Between Songs?
“That Sounds Like It Belongs in a Movie”
Subject Matters
Titles: The Heart of the Matter
You Oughta Be Write in Pictures
Writing in the Margins
Writing in Space
Playing the Symbols Well
Cleverness and Subtlety
Starting with the Song
APPENDICES
Publication Dates
Topical Guide
Lyrics
About the Author
becoming remarkable, which includes Harriet’s Rosebud CD, is available here.
Listen, I just HAVE to tell you: I read your book, and all along I got the eerie feeling that you wrote it just for me (of course not, but that’s what it felt like). Every single songwriter should read your book. In fact, it should be considered required reading material for all (and especially for all the open-mikers out there!) For the last few weeks, I’ve been reading passages to my writer friends over the phone, showing them the book in person and basically (at the risk of sounding too “gushy”)… GUSHING about how pertinent it is.
I started re-reading your book on the plane and I’m appreciating and enjoying it even more the second time. You’re a truly wonderful writer and artist. I hadn’t heard your CD previously. All I can say (without gushing) is that you’ve definitely got a new fan. You are truly an amazing writer and I’m so glad we got a chance to connect.
I have to say that I opened your book and just re-read the very beginning areas. I cannot put it down. I think I may have to re-read the entire book again. Reading it gives me a joy that washes over me. Thank you — again.
Harriet Schock’s Blog
Songwriters Say It All
Songwriters reveal so much about themselves, perhaps it’s a blessing that the ones who reveal unpleasant things are usually oblivious to it. The very qualities that help make a great writer—powers of observation, interest in something outside him/herself, ability to feel, willingness to reveal and communicate, and facility with the language of words and music—these qualities usually come across in the songs, making the songwriter seem attractive and likable, someone you would want to know.
The qualities often found in a person you wouldn’t naturally be drawn to are the same characteristics that cripple his work as a songwriter—unconsciousness of anything outside himself, insensitivity to the details of life, being cut off from his own emotions and an unwillingness to let others actually see who he is, plus an ineptness with the tools of communication. The catch 22 is that a person like this will reveal all these attributes without knowing it, because his powers of perception and communication are limited to begin with. He or she will rail at a lover or parent or friend for all those dreadful things that we may believe or understand actually happened, but we rarely come away enlightened from it. And without the understanding and wisdom a great writer would add to the same song, the “unattractive” writer just looks like a victim or a nag. Even though his intention was to get us to agree about the lover, we seldom dislike the lover as much as the writer in those instances.
I have been in the audience when some of my students have performed, and I have seen the effect of well-crafted revelation. Steve Wagner writes:
“She asks him ‘how was your day’
And he answers ‘okay’
but he doesn’t give any details.
And it never occurs to him
To ask about hers
’Cause he’s too busy reading the mail.
He rises once to kiss her
But all he really gives her
Is an intimate clue
That only one of the two is in love.”
This plot in less skillful hands could be (and has been) a disaster, but Steve’s song develops beautifully giving true insight into the pain felt by both sides when one loves but is not in love with his partner. The melody is also hauntingly powerful, and I have seen a roomful of noisy people quiet down by the end of the first verse.
Jim Dean, a recognizable actor who, I predict, will soon be a recognized songwriter, sets his song (“The Last Supper”) at a restaurant as he and the woman he still loves find it impossible to talk to each other in any meaningful way:
“You pull your angel hair
I stab my Caesar
I’ll always have your smile
Taped to my freezer.”
As he unravels his story in pictures, we discover his wit, his vulnerability, his loyalty and, perhaps, his Achilles heel. At the end of the song, we like him. He’s human. We can see ourselves in there. There’s room for us—not in the gaping holes of logic that so often occur in songs—but in the specific pictures that look familiar to us. Len Brunson (w/Richard White) wrote a song so vividly depicting a specific woman as such bad news, we all feel we either know her or are her by the end of the song. He isn’t complaining about “women,” he’s describing one particular woman. He sets it to a gorgeous, dark, classic jazz-blues melody:
“She’s a hopeless situation
In her tight silk dress
She’s a needless complication
She’s a heartbreak at best
And if you wanna find her
Put on your walking shoes
She’s just around the corner from the blues.”
In the last verse, he takes responsibility for getting himself into this fine mess, becoming a three dimensional character, himself, and therefore even more likable.
“A fool with both his eyes closed
He could’ve read the signs
But I did what I always do
Temptation made me blind
Now she’s left me here with nothing
And nothing left to lose
Just around the corner from the blues.”
Cheryl Foster has grown so much as a writer in the past year, not only in craft, but in the courage to reveal. This song would have to be heard in its entirety to show her courage for revelation, but her first verse illustrates the point about powers of observation and how interesting someone can be when they’re interested:
“I keep some clownfish in my aquarium
And I watch them swimming every day
I keep them safe from harm
In my tropical display
And I can see my own face reflecting off
The glass and in their black eyes
I can sense they’re really bored
And I can sympathize.”
Naturally, I’ve given examples of good writing where the songwriter reveals truthful, human situations and qualities which attract us to him or her. At open mike nights, you will see the full spectrum. You will hear the other kind of writers, the oblivious, self-centered kind, but you probably won’t meet them. You’ll be too busy talking to the charismatic one who is genuinely interested in you.