My Failed Attempt At Songwriting

Before we were all forced into remote learning, I took this in-person songwriting class. My reason was very simple – I wanted to learn how to write songs. My second hope was to write ones that would become theme songs in Disney/Pixar movies. Any would be fine. Even if they were for a movie that couldn’t break half the cost it took to produce. Making a profit is overrated in America. And Disney stocks are resilient. My third hope was that these future songs would inspire people to change some habits, like making the world a better place.

For example, people would be inspired to stop using reusable grocery bags. Instead, they wouldn’t even purchase produce. They would learn to grow their own food, in their own home, especially the ones who became homeless as a result of the health pandemic. Besides carpooling with at least three other people, people would plane pool. Forget about blocking the middle seat on aircrafts. To increase energy efficiency, airlines would overbook flights and ask passengers to sit on each other’s laps. Buy one ticket, get one other passenger. 

I was pre-confident that my future songs would to be a hit until I sat in on my first class, on a Thursday, in a building in Time Square, during dinner hours. 

It didn’t take too long for me to learn that my classmates could do at least one of the following: sing, write songs, play a musical instrument. They not only knew how to but they did it well. I couldn’t do any. Sure, I took piano lessons before all my baby teeth fell out and stopped after I learned how to spell “cheese.” Information was not retained. Almost 30 thirty years later, I couldn’t recall what a flat was or a sharp was. How many keys were there anyway in an instrument? 

“Alright so does everybody see the assonance in this song?” our instructor asked, a man who bought in a Bose sound bar to play the music he prepared. 

What was an assonance again?

Before I could even ask that question, my classmates, all wearing outfits as comfortable as camping gears pointed them out, “Kettles. Copper,” “wild geese,” and “that fly.” 

Stop. I couldn’t even find those words on the handout that the Bose customer just passed out. 

“Yes, those are alliterations,” the man said, looking to be in his mid-40s. 

Oh, now we switched to pointing out alliterations.

“Everybody hear the pre-chorus” Too-Fast-For-Me-Instructor added. It wasn’t even a question; it was an expectation. What was a chorus?! The others who looked to be in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, bobbed their head to the rhythm, tapped their spring boots on the carpeted floor while I thought about how crowded the E train, which would later take me home be at ten past ten in the evening.

“For our first assignment, write a song using the 12 bar blues form,” Songwriting Instructor added, after playing examples of them. 

Everyone looked at him like he just told us that we were to press the “down” button to go down the elevators and exit the 30 stories tall building. 

Twelve bar? What was that? No one else had these questions that were marching in my head. 

“Next class, bring in songs that you wrote and we can start workshopping them.” 

That was like asking me to bring in a meal that I made when I never even touched a bread knife. I didn’t need to worry too much though because half the class already jumped in to schedule their slots. Someone already had a song that she wrote, sang, and worked with a sound engineer to produce. 

Her name was Frank. 

Two weeks later, I became a little more confident, acknowledging that the “up” button at the elevators to get to the classroom was indeed taking me upward. In our third class, I even read aloud the assignment I completed, a song that I wrote, following the rhythm of a sample.

“Tiffany, could you sing it?” Instructor-Not-Teaching-a-Novice-Class asked.

I gave him a glare. No. Ask Frank. 

People laughed. So did he. 

I was not going to sing a song, making myself vulnerable to classmates who were paid singers.

“Ok, or not, you can read it then.”

On the third month of this year, Walt Disney Pictures released the music video to its live action movie, Mulan, sung by second time singer of the movie, Christina Aguilera. Using the skills I developed from my eight weeks of songwriting class (I had to miss two because I was trying to learn the French horn), I dissected the lyrics to Loyal Brave True.

War is not freedom (5) Over my shoulder (5) I see a clearer view (6)

All for my family (6) Reason I’m breathing (5) Everything to lose (5)

Should I ask myself in the water (9) What a warrior would do? (7) Tell me, underneath my armor (8) Am I loyal, brave and true? (7) Am I loyal, brave and true? (7)

Losing is easy (5) Winning takes bravery (6) I am a tiger’s fool (6)

Out in the open (5) No one to save me (5) The kindest of whispers are cruel (8)

Cold is the morning (5) Warm is the dream (4) Chasing the answers (5) ‘Til I can’t sleep (4) Will I be stronger (5) Or will I be weak (5) When you’re not with me? (5)

Who am I without my armor? (8) Standing in my father’s shoes (7) All I know is that it’s harder (8) To be loyal, brave and true (6)

If my Finds-Tiffany-Funny Instructor was still in my life, I would ask him: “The kindest of whispers are cruel” has 8 beats, how does that fit into the pattern of 5-5-6 beats? What really does a “tiger’s fool” mean? Does it have meaning or the writers just threw in an animal that they felt could be associated to the Chinese culture? Why “warm is the dream?” Was it to complement “cold in the morning”? 

As we approach the twelfth month of this year, would Mulan break even? With a budget of $200 million, the box office so far made $69.9 million. They should have used the French horn in the movie or bread knives.