One of the big things in the songwriting class I took online from Pat Pattison was the concept preserving the natural shape of language in your songwriting. I pay attention to how language sounds and hear it really well, so that aspect of songwriting has always been a strength of mine. I’m not likely, for instance, to end up with the emphasis on the wrong syllable, a standard newbie songwriting problem (that is surprisingly common – and distracting – even among seasoned writers). Even within that tendency I learned a lot from Pat on that score, especially watching the video of a master class he posted; it’s always possible to make the language you’re singing fit more naturally within the melody you’re singing, and small tweaks can make a big difference. Still, because this skill is something I think of myself as pretty good at, I wasn’t expecting anything I did on this issue to matter all that much. Another strength of mine is that I have an uncanny sense of rhythm – someone once called me a “human metronome,” because once I get started in a tempo I stay in it really solidly, and keep my singing and playing clearly in line wit that tempo. But what I hadn’t realized is that those two strengths put together can actually add up to a weakness. Today I was working with Vance Gilbert on a song of mine that I think is well-written (“Where the Words and Music Meet”) but that I don’t feel good about performing – the last time I pulled it out in performance, at the end of last month, it felt kind of boring. And it’s not a boring song; it’s heartfelt, and it has lyrics that songwriters I respect have praised. But he agreed that it sounded boring in its presentation, and what we identified as the problem was the regularity with which I sang it. The meter of the words was right, and my rhythm was spot on – and, in a way, that was the problem. It was too predicable. There’s more to matching the natural sound of language, it turns out, than getting the meter and melody to fit the way words are emphasized. People don’t speak that regularly. They have pauses, and bits that are faster or slower than others, and adhering rigidly to a melodic line (which stays the same across multiple verses or choruses) in that way doesn’t actually match the way phrasing sounds when you speak it. We started working with the song by having me speak some lines and sing some lines (in part just to interrupt my habits with the song) – it was harder than I expected. And then we started trying to match some of the pauses, or parts that speed up, to the way you’d say those lines if having a conversation with friends. So a line like “When I get the chance I’ll raise a glass and lift my voice in song” might want a pause after chance, after glass, and the last part of that line might come a little faster than the chords/melody would suggest.” Singing it – and other lines – that way makes it sound much freer and much more natural. And much less boring! It’s strange that such a little adjustment can make such a big difference, but it feels like magic, and I’m excited about it – and excited to play the song in concern in the near future to see how it feels and sounds in front of an audience.