Repeated Shuffling
The first song I wrote on the piano was in 2018 --"The Hilltop Killers." After writing exclusively on the guitar for ten years, I spent about a year getting passably mediocre on the ivories (or the plastics, I guess) so that I could open an additional avenue by which to write songs.
Full disclosure, I don't like that song all that much. Lyrics are alright, melody isn't terrible, but it needs a chorus, or something to break up the stale dynamics, which remain mostly unchanged throughout. I think I was so anxious to complete my first song on the piano that I rushed it to the finish line. Not the most objectionable thing, I suppose, but I probably left a few points out on the field with that one.
The story gets brighter, however. Since, I have written "Werewolves," "The Lights of the Baker Bridge," "Phoenix Rising," "Whatever That Violin Sang," and "The Little Bird Shuffle" on the piano. To my ears, that is a much stronger batch of songs. I contend that it might be easier to write songs on the piano because the visual representation is so much more straightforward than on the guitar. It's easier to see how chords fit together, how melodies flow, and to have the ability to play both simultaneously. I am not a music theory savant by any stretch of the imagination, so my compositions are often created by a ton of trial and error. The straightforward visuals of the piano make that process easier to track.
Sometimes my compositions are like testing out every letter on a crossword puzzle and running a "check letter" each time to see if it's right until it is. You didn't really know the answer, but you ultimately got to it. Without the reservoir of musical knowledge to inherently know what should be working, or what might create something unique, I offer an educated guess to put me in the right ballpark, and then hopefully get a little lucky.
That isn't to say that it's a prospect of luck though. It's more to say that every song is like having a bunch of ingredients but not a formal recipe. As you combine different ingredients in varying quantities, you hope the final product tastes good. Over time, you develop some internal markers that suggest what's going to work, but ultimately have to try it out in action.
Here, Luck is a stand-in for the unknown synthesis, how something mysteriously does, or doesn't, come together in a given instance. So, while I might sound slightly critical of my process, the takeaway is that I, or any songwriter, gets the credit because they showed up to the kitchen that day and started playing around.
"The Little Bird Shuffle" is unique among that group because it is the only song that I have written on the piano, but then recorded on the guitar. The move was driven more by my keyboard's recording limitations than by preferring the guitar to the piano. The piano version --of which I have a demo that perhaps I'll share at some point-- has a vibe that I don't think I was fully able to recapture on the guitar, but had the song sounding a bit muddy, even before adding the violin and bass. I could see the piano rendition becoming the live standard, should I ever move back into that arena.
Hearing "Little Bird" in both arrangements makes it apparent to me that I would not have been able to write the same song on the guitar --the chorus in particular-- which echoes the earlier sentiments of the piano being easier to build melody on. I haven't always been the most intentional when crafting melody, inasmuch as I don't painstakingly build it one note at a time. Usually I start to hum, add in a little movement, and build from there.
But not on "Little Bird." The verses, yes, were more of the hum-and-add exercise, but the melody of the chorus was built note by note. While it may or may not be a great melody, I love it, because I was making conscious, intelligent decisions as I went. That chorus melody feels like a well-built building --something my melodies can't always lay claim to. It might be a strip mall, or it might be a skyscraper, but either way it's not going to fall over.
The song itself is a pretty big curiosity to me at this juncture. I can hear some road imagery, which is no doubt influenced by my blood courier job, but after that I'm not so sure. There is that familiar element of ostracization that is often present in my music, but there definitely exists some antagonism in this one. The difference is here there is a form of warning rather than chastisement. "Train City" talks around a lack of ownership, where "Little Bird Shuffle" seems to center around "You can do this if you want, but just so you know, it's going to be ugly":
Hey, little bird, see the blood upon the road? It isn't yours, it could be yours, it might be yours tomorrow.
Other than that exposition, the song is just a twisted menagerie of imagery (playing cards, coyotes and chickens, stardust lighting the roads, skyrocketing rents, phoenix ashes, etc.) that I don't really know what to do with. But I've also come to understand that what a song offers is often (always?) beyond its perceived subject matter. And that might mean a theme, or a place, or even just a feeling. "The Little Bird Shuffle" feels pointed, but in that pointed-ness feels confident, perhaps even defiant. Regardless of where it settles for me or anyone else, it doesn't have the sound of someone who is done asking the questions, just busy shuffling them around until it feels right.