I was once writing up with one of my lovely co-writers, who was always able to make the co-writes fun and productive, and we always finished a song by the end of the 2-3 hours we co-wrote. Even despite the horrendous traffic that once caused her to arrive far behind schedule - this sometimes happens in Nashville - we were still able to compose a full song together. This is because, as I found later on as we more co-wrote together, she does this: Pre-Writing.
What is Pre-Writing?
In my first book, Song Maps, I talked about how to map a song title from an overall idea to a Writable Idea before writing a full draft lyric. This is before finishing the whole song, including the lyric with the music in a co-write. Well, Pre-Writing is taking a Writable Idea to a new level, actually writing an entire draft lyric before getting into the co-write session.
Pre-Writing is writing an entire draft lyric before a co-write
Many co-writers do this with their ideas, even if they don’t share the entire Pre-Written lyric with the writing room. It could even be a complete song that’s been written on our own if we want to bring a strong idea to another writer in a co-write.
It’s a great thing to do sometimes, but there are positives and negatives.
POSITIVES
Having Pre-Written your idea you’ll know that it has the potential to be an epic song when used with a certain co-writer with whom you’d love to work together.
Sometimes, if I’ve written a song on my own, I turn my ‘finished song’ into a Pre-Written song, and I might share it with a co-writer who might be interested in writing a Pre-Written draft lyric. When that happens, it can be incredibly productive while capturing my co-writer's magic creativity into the song. I once co-wrote with an icon songwriter who loved working like this, and we finished three songs in a two-hour session. Nice.
If there are timing issues (and traffic is sometimes a big issue in Nashville), revealing a number of different sections of the idea are always a great way of getting to a finished song in a shorter time.
NEGATIVES
Some co-writers prefer to work on less developed ideas. They enjoy the hunt for where the song could go in their creativity. And that’s fine with me. I aim primarily to serve my co-writer, not try to make me look like Mr. Smartypants.
When you finally finish a Pre-Written song with a co-writer, there is a risk that it might not end up as good as it was before. This can happen. But in my experience, 9 out of 10 songs co-written turn out better.
So, do I always Pre-Write? Basically, no. I almost always turn up to my co-writes with my entire Idea Bank (500 ideas) on my iPad, having scanned them all before and decided the ideas I’d like to share. But if I had a song I’ve written on my own before a co-write, I might bring one of these onto the table to see if they are interested in working on it too.
As I’ve always said about songwriting, there are no rules, just tools. And Pre-Writing is one of these tools to have in your songwriter's toolbox.
Question
Here are a few questions:
Do you have any songs you’ve already mostly finished that you could usefully bring into a co-write?
Are there certain parts of songs you’ve already Pre-Written that you could gradually reveal to your co-writer?
You may have certain co-writers that wouldn’t like to write using a Pre-Written song. So how about bringing a section (a chorus or verse 1) of one of your Pre-Written songs that they would love to play with?
Hope this helps!
Simon