Category: FASTER & BETTER

365 Sparks: The Songs of Daveit Ferris

Daveit Ferris

Songwriter Daveit Ferris has taken on the challenge of writing, performing, and recording a song a day for a year. He calls his project 365 Sparks. While he’s not the only brave or crazy artist to undertake the Everest of songwriting, he’s the best and most consistently good I’ve ever come across. Every song I’ve heard has its own quirky, emotional, fun, dark, sweet, thoughtful, or just-plain-catchy appeal.

I’ve had to write fast in my life – I once had a  three-year gig that required me to write three to four songs a week for a TV series. But I got paid for it and I didn’t have to perform it and record it myself, so I feel like a loafer compared to this guy.  In any case, I can’t help asking: How does anyone do this? WHY does anyone do this? And what happens after the first 100 or so days?

Instead of just wondering, I decided to ask. And he answered. How he found the time to answer, I don’t know. He’s got songs to write. In case you want to listen while you read, he posts his songs on Soundcloud.

What did you set out to do with your 365 Sparks project?

Daveit Ferris: My goal with 365 Sparks was to try and do something extraordinary that would truly test my skills as a songwriter, musician and producer; in that order. The project itself was inspired by a near-death experience that I went through in October 2013 that made me realise I could have left this earth with hard drives full of hundreds of half-finished projects (songs, poetry books, albums, novel ideas, scripts etc.). I decided on that hospital bed that my next project was going to be A) grand and B) completed.

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A Three-Stage Rocket to Lyric Writing

When NASA blasts a rocket into orbit, they do it in stages: The big lift-off, a second stage to get the payload into orbit and a third to fine tune the direction. So, what’s this got to do with writing lyrics? You can think of the lyric writing process in three stages:

  •  1. Getting started. (Lift off)
  •  2. Developing your idea. (Getting into orbit)
  •  3. Rewriting (Fine tune it)

=> STAGE ONE: GET STARTED

BEGIN WITH A TITLE

Starting the lyric writing process with a title can give you a beacon that will keep your song lyric focused. That’s very important if you want to keep listeners involved. Any short phrase you find emotionally intriguing—or simply an honest statement of how you feel—can work as a title. Make it something you want to write about.

Then make a list of questions the phrase suggests. These are the questions you’re going to answer in your song. Try questions like: What does this mean? Why do I need to say it? How does it feel? How did it happen?  What do I think the consequences will be? Every phrase suggests different questions. And every songwriter will find different ones to ask. 

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Elmore Leonard’s Advice to Songwriters

When I hear great fiction writers talk about their craft, I’m often struck by how easily these insights can be applied to songwriting.  We can learn a lot about our own craft by stepping outside and looking at it from another angle. For example, the late, great novelist Elmore Leonard said this in an interview with WritersDigest:

A writer has to read. Read all the time. Decide who you like then study that author’s style. Take the author’s book or story and break it down to see how he put it together. 

If you apply this to songwriting you get:

A songwriter has to listen. Listen all the time. Decide who you like then study that songwriter’s style. Take the songwriter’s songs break them down to see how they’re put together.

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Tip: Stockpile Ideas for Songs

Problem: You don’t have big chunks of time to spend on your songwriting. (Not many of us do.)  So when you finally do get an afternoon to work on your songs – or at least a couple of uninterrupted hours – you need to get the most  from it. You don’t need to be spending the first hour or two just trying to find an idea you want to work on.

Here are three BIG songwriting tips that can help you avoid wasting hours!

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