Episode 23: Polish, Record, Release!

In this episode of the Face Your Ears podcast, hosts Justin Hochella and Rich Bozic delve into the intricacies of songwriting. The conversation covers the process of polishing a song, from initial sketches to the final touches, highlighting the organic and flexible nature of songwriting. Rich shares insights on working with lyrics, melodies, and chord progressions, and the importance of overcoming self-doubt and perfectionism. They also emphasize the need for releasing finished songs and leveraging modern resources to ensure music reaches its audience. The episode is packed with valuable advice for songwriters at all stages of their creative journey.

00:00 Welcome to Face Your Ears Podcast
00:26 Joining the Social Media Bandwagon
01:17 Diving into Song Polishing with Rich
03:03 The Art of Songwriting: Techniques and Challenges
16:38 The Journey from Creation to Release
18:55 Navigating Perfectionism and Self-Doubt in Music
26:57 Wrapping Up: Insights and Resources

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For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

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For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

Justin 0:05

hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. My name is Justin Hoschella, and I'm joined once again by, with Rich Bozek. We should really look that up. I think it's with. Anyway, Rich is here. Hi, Rich.

Rich 0:24

Hello. Hello. We meet again.

Justin 0:26

One thing I wanted to mention at the top here is that we are now on Facebook. So we have joined the ranks of the 2009 teenager and we are now on Facebook, but kidding aside, we are glad to be there and connect, with our listeners and in a new way. So definitely check us out on Facebook. We'll put the link in our show description. You can. Comment, subscribe, all those good things over there on Facebook and we'll of course put links to our other social media there as well

Rich 1:03

Yeah, please If you're on those platforms, we're also on Instagram and other places Feel free to reach out leave a comment

Justin 1:12

controversial or otherwise.

Rich 1:14

what are we here to talk about today Justin

Justin 1:17

Rich, today we're diving into a topic near and dear to your heart, polishing a song out of the gate. I'm curious to understand. How do you start the process? So you work with a lot of singer songwriters, folks that come in with like sketches of an idea of a song. How does that start? Do you listen to a song with a student or on your own or does that matter?

Rich 1:51

a lot of people bring things in various states of construction with regard to their songs. Do I listen on my own or with them? I guess it all depends on the timing of things. Some clients, Wait till they come into a session and say, Hey, I got this thing here. Can we look at this? And then that's when that happens. Or they'll mention offhand, Oh, I write a little bit. And then I'll be like, can I hear something? And then some people know that I like to work in that capacity. So they'll send me material ahead of time and be like, can you look at this before we meet? But it doesn't matter either way.

Justin 2:29

So you don't have a preference necessarily. It's just organic,

Rich 2:32

Yeah. Yeah. As it, As it comes something, I guess that's more fleshed out that already has some stuff happening. It's sometimes nice to hear it ahead of time. So I could kind of ponder if they're going to ask me, like, how can I expand upon this, then I can listen ahead of time and get some ideas come when it comes to the table, but it's all a messy process. really either or can work.

Justin 2:56

Yes. Get your audio smock on. It is a messy process. something else I'm curious to learn about is what is it your students are bringing. So more specifically, you touched on this a bit. Are they demos or melodies, perhaps lyrics? talk to us about the different states, the songs come to you and whether it's just like primordial ooze or 95 percent ready.

Rich 3:22

Yeah. All of the above. Recently some students have already begun to flesh out some ideas, so they will have a basic skeleton of the song maybe a basic chord progression and a melody because I work with a lot of singers, a lot of times. There'll be a melody established and the things they need filled in are the chord progression or ideas for where to take the structure of the song. Sometimes people will be at a place of where they'll have a melody in their head and there'll be like, what can I do with this? I don't have lyrics. I don't have anything. I just have this melody. So with someone like that, We would try to figure out where the melody sits by figuring it out on the piano, maybe. And then I would start to show them maybe with random lyrics that we make up on the spot. This is how you could go about setting lyrics to this kind of melody. So oftentimes I'm adapting to whatever they bring to the table in the moment. I have some students, like I said, who are way further along. And then what we do with the song is look at the way that they're delivering things vocally and we go through it. Almost word by word and I helped to paint the picture of the song through the way that the lyrics are delivered via tone articulation, phrasing, word stress, things like that.

Justin 4:51

Awesome. There's a lot to dig into there.

Rich 4:53

I mean it, there's so many case by case scenarios of things

Justin 4:57

I think what I'm taking from that for sure is that it isn't a one size fits all. And that makes sense because I think each person is unique. Each song. Is unique, even the same chord progression from one song to another. Those two songs are going to be different, right? How many millions of songs have been written with the same three courts, But they stand on their own as their own unique song. So I think what you said really highlights that. talk to us about what it's like when something is. Less fleshed out. And a little bit more basic how do you approach things then?

Rich 5:32

What I'll try to do is because it's a lesson on top of us working on their music I try to incorporate some sort of concept that they could learn from the process to be able to take to other songs. if someone comes in and they're like, I have this line. Of lyrics or let's say it's a client who's new to writing, and they want to learn about the process Maybe the assignment is, okay, write some lyrics for me this week that you think you'd want to use for a song, or pick something out that you have. So they'll bring it in, and then what I'll do is break things down with regard to the way the lyrics are structured. And what rhythms naturally occur with the words they've chosen and maybe talk a little bit about how they have written the lyrics with regard to rhyme scheme or maybe a lack of a rhyme scheme and how that can affect the way they set that to music or a melody. depending on the style, they're trying to write in how those lyrics might fit in with the kind of tendencies that would be in that style. it's a deep, big topic. A lot of the things that I'll probably be mentioning today will be very case by case, it's like the wild west when people bring stuff in with regard to what's Going on and there are no rules. It's just it's literally like I attack it with each Individual song.

Justin 7:03

that's really interesting. And one thing that I was thinking about as you were describing that was the situation in which the lyrics don't rhyme. I think we're so used to that. I am, I'll call myself out that I'm just so used to hearing that in song lyrics that like, Oh, they have to rhyme. It just sounds pleasing to the ear, that sort of thing. But I don't know that that's always the case, Because words. Have a sort of sound to them and I think you were kind of touching on that too, that just the sound of the words can create a melodic idea or a rhythmic idea. And so it does allow the artist to just go in an infinite number of directions. Rhyming is just one possibility, but it isn't a necessity when writing lyrics.

Rich 7:53

Not at all. I think if you know Where you want to go with it rhythmically or you have good melodic ideas sometimes The rhyming is just like a cherry on top You know, especially if you're writing a pop song or something like that to make it catchier or whatever, but I don't really you try to box things in that way. I view my job also in this to help inspire creativity in people and hope that things will go in a different way and that not everything has to be so formulaic and the same as everything that you might hear out there. Unless someone comes to me and they're like, I want to write a song that's like a pop song that will be something that will just be mainstream and all that. And then we work in those parameters. But if people are open to it, I try to pull them in other directions. I think that is important for teachers people who are working with songwriting Because it kind of shapes, what people are putting out there a little bit. If everyone's trying to coach people to write the same kind of song that's like the big hit formula, I think things can get boring. So we need to show people there are other options

Justin 9:01

Yeah.

Rich 9:02

that can sound good.

Justin 9:04

it's like, it's a commodity at that point, like a tube of toothpaste or a folding chair. It's like a thing

Rich 9:10

There's a place for that, and I understand, and there's some people who need that to happen. I get it, and I'll work within that construct. But I tend to like to, go other avenues.

Justin 9:23

Yeah. The artistic endeavor being creative, I think is what you're leaning into here.

Rich 9:29

Oh yeah.

Justin 9:31

This conversation reminds me of our conversation with Josh in our last episode, which dear listener, if you haven't checked it out, you should. It was excellent. It is excellent. And one of the things he had talked about, I believe was this idea of you don't have lyrics out. You've got this cool Melody or this song structure or whatever chord progression and you just write gibberish To like the words, just the sounds of what would sound good and then you go back and actually fill in words that would fit whatever her like gibberish you sort of came up with and I Actually came across the same approach from Rick Rubin famous You Record producer talked about that approach as well of just get something down some, even if it's just nonsense, just record it and so that you can get the cadence of it, the rhythm of it, and then go back later and fill in with actual real words,

Rich 10:29

yeah, Yeah, totally. I think all bats are off when you're songwriting with regard to how you approach things like it's your creation so you could do what you want with it.

Justin 10:42

What about on the other end of the spectrum? So let's say somebody comes in and it's. Sounded pretty good. They've got lyrics. They've got it pretty much Finished it is more polished, but maybe needs some finishing touches What role do you play then when somebody comes in in that state?

Rich 10:58

So when it's at an almost finished state we'll go through with a fine tooth comb, just double check the setting of the lyrics to the melody, make sure there's nothing funky in there. And if there is pointed out and be like, this is what's happening here. Like you're stressing a weird syllable in this word and it distorts the meaning. Is this what you want? So it's not like I'm searching for things to change. I'm pointing things out that catch my ear And then being like, this is what I hear. What are your thoughts on this? Do you want this? And then we work from

Justin 11:39

Yeah, you and I have worked with mutual clients and sometimes a song is very polished. The lyrics are set and that maybe they have been set for a very long time. And so to them, they've lost all objectivity. Then you or I might come in and hear their lyrics and scratch our heads and be like, Are you sure you want it to say this? It doesn't really make sense. And so to them, they've heard it for the past, who knows how many years. And so it, it can be a tough road sometimes too, to convince people that like this doesn't make sense. Let me explain why. And so I think you do a really good job of that, of helping people. See the light, so to speak, when it's like, Hey, I know this song is near and dear to your heart and these lyrics and everything like that. However, this is probably how people are going to hear it. I think it is a good idea that before recording that you have that conversation with the client and convince them or help them see that their lyrics that they wrote. well, maybe like etched in their heart, the listener, it might sound a little odd.

Rich 12:48

Yeah, Yeah, of course. Sometimes in the process when we're writing lyrics, we might be trying to say something but we use too many words to say it and that can affect the delivery and can cloud the message a bit. So sometimes simplifying And making it more to the point can help declutter the line rhythmically and get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes that can help in certain situations and styles

Justin 13:15

sometimes I've, seen where you have somebody who's got, a ton of lyrics. Let's say you've got You know, four measures. And for whatever reason, they feel compelled to compress all of their lyrics, like two or three measures. And it's like, you've got this whole other chunk of space here where you could stretch those lyrics out. Like maybe we could do that. Maybe it's not necessarily about removing the lyrics, but arranging them. So they're more spread out and they're not rushed or that sort of thing.

Rich 13:50

Yeah, there's so many ways of going about it. I guess I view myself as just the person standing along the path being like, Hey, there's this option too. You can try this. This might sound good. I'm hearing this in this way. What do you think? It's more of that kind of thing, right? Obviously if there's a note that just doesn't fit That's uncharacteristic of the whole song that will be something I might lobby against a little more and be like, Hey, this stands out in a way that doesn't flatter the song or whatever, but ultimately even something like that, it's up to the client to make the final decision.

Justin 14:34

I think that this brings up an important subtext which is trust your clients trust you And so I've seen this happen and working with you if unusual client where you know them a lot better than I do And I might make a suggestion, but then you make the same suggestion and they're like, Oh, okay. Yeah that's a good idea. And it's fine. It makes me chuckle, but it's it is such an important element too and what you're doing. A song is a very intimate thing. It's a creation, something you created and maybe you wrote those lyrics. And having the advice of someone that you trust goes a long way. And I think that as a song coach, that is a really important aspect to build with someone because if they don't trust you there, they might give you lip service, no pun intended, but they might just be like yeah, that's nice and do what they want to do. But I think that establishing a really good relationship, really good trust with them. will help them in the long run. I've seen it happen with the work that we've done together and it's not something to be taken lightly. So I think you do a great job with that.

Rich 15:47

Thank you. Yeah, I always try to help just move the process along and try to get to the finish line and get things polished in a way where it's ready.

Justin 15:58

And sometimes I'm just too nice. Sometimes I'm just like I suggest, and I really think that it might be better and you're just like, Hey, this sounds bad,

Rich 16:10

In my opinion, always, right?

Justin 16:13

Rich is a lot more direct and sometimes that's the recipe for success. sometimes people just need to hear it. Direct and pull the band aid off and then that yields the best results. But yeah, each situation is unique. Like we were saying before. oftentimes people are intimidated by creating a body of work. What do you say to people that face that kind of dilemma that they think they have to come up with an album or an EP or something?

Rich 16:41

always start small. whether it be writing or I have people who want to play out and do gigs before you can play that huge concert or release that full length album, you got to start with your first initial creation. I'm always encouraging people who want to get into writing who might have some trouble getting the ball rolling to just start off with something simple like bring in some lyric ideas every night write something for a week and by the time you come in next time you'll have a few things we could look at and maybe we'll take one of those and you start learning about the process of setting those lyrics to a melody and then messing around with the chord progression and sometimes that could lead to more ideas and maybe fleshing out the song more. the main point being is start small, start generating some ideas and don't filter yourself too much in that process. Let it be messy. And then we can build from that.

Justin 17:45

It's funny. It's something you and I, I think I've talked about before, is that people have these bizarre expectations of perfection very early on. And you're saying the opposite, which is just right. Just come up with stuff. And you know, I think a lot of times it's colored by self doubt that somebody thinks Oh, this is no good, whatever. While it may not be at its best yet, it still could be a good idea. It could be a really solid seed to grow and become something really interesting later on. So don't limit yourself keep capturing things and see what happens. And I think for me, it's also like, share it with people, like get feedback. I think that's a great way to overcome some of that self doubt and question yourself and you thinking that Oh, my stuff is no good show it to people. They may change your mind. They may help you understand that Oh, what I'm coming up with is pretty good and I should keep going. Speaking of that, what are some of the obstacles that you help your students work through? Specifically, I'm thinking about those types of things like human nature, like self doubt, perfectionism, lack of focus, et cetera.

Rich 18:55

this is a big, topic. This comes up a lot. Because I deal in the creative realm with people you get people who are all in different places in their journey. Some people are just starting out, and are not very confident in what they're able to do or might even be further along and not confident in their capabilities. So it's all about figuring out what their goal is with it and what motivates them But also let's talk about specifics. So, like, Someone who might be a perfectionist for example that kind of person is, sometimes very hesitant to bring ideas to the table because they're too worried that it's not going to be up to par. It's got to be like almost a finished product before they show you the song, but they don't have the skill set yet to record it and to, finish it on that other side of things. So it's this self defeating cycle. Or sometimes we will have Recorded it and finished it and it sounds fantastic and they still think that it's not good enough and wanna keep going in and revising and revising and and that could be that could be difficult sometimes ultimately you gotta let people Do what they need to do to get the job done. But that, that's definitely something that, that comes into play. This idea of uh, perfectionism or people recording something and then wanting to go back and revise endlessly and we now have that capability oftentimes with home studios and whatnot, but after a while, you've got to finish. and move on to new projects so you don't get too bogged down with the current project. with regards to the self doubt, we talked about that earlier oftentimes depends where people are at in their musical journey, and oftentimes what they're trying to achieve. If it's too lofty and huge of a goal, and they don't have the skill set yet, that can be a problem. I'm always trying to figure out this balance between where they're at and what they're capable of and coupling that with what they're trying to do when they're putting the song together. Other things could be like creative people oftentimes are disorganized. So I'll have someone who's an amazing musician and who is just an amazing vocalist and clearly has all of the skills needed to write but Everything's all over the place. There's no cohesive ideas that are laid down in one place. Like they'll have a little bit on their phone. They'll have a little bit written in a notepad. They'll have something written on a piece of paper at home. So it's all over the place. And so that with that kind of person, it's like a different approach. It's almost like, corralling and herding the cats and being like, all right. bring everything at once and let's sit down and let's just get it all in one place first and then focus. And hopefully we can nail down an idea.

Justin 22:03

Yeah, it seems like this is a big obstacle to songwriting as human nature because it is such an intimate Thing. And a lot of people are expressing very deep personal feelings or experiences through their songs. And it's interesting. There's this sort of opposite side of art and music, which is work. And so that's kind of what we're talking about is like just getting down to it and doing the work and letting it speak for itself. And that does take time. to build that kind of confidence, to build that kind of skill set, that kind of focus. And it does take a great coach and a great teacher like yourself to help get there. Some people can do that on their own. That's great. Some people, most people, I think need partnership and help to develop their songs and to mold their songs into something worthy of being released. And speaking of releasing songs, something I've seen happen time and time again is that. Someone gets to the point where they've got the great lyrics, melodies, the song is finished, it's polished, it's ready to go, but it sits on their hard drive, quote unquote, collecting dusts. And what are your thoughts on that? On people not releasing their music? You've got a finished product and it just never gets out into the world.

Rich 23:24

Yeah, I've seen that happen. I think a lot of it comes down to some of those other issues we were talking about. It could be an issue of perfectionism. It could be an issue of too much self doubt. obviously people got to feel ready when it's time to release, but There is also something to be said about this idea we talked about earlier about the body of work. You gotta also put things in perspective. If you're new at the game and no one knows who you are yet you gotta build that audience and you gotta have material for people to hear, to know who you are. think about this. We all write and want to release music when we have the intention of releasing music, we do it because we want to share it. And we want people to enjoy what we're doing Not everyone's going to love it. We know that. But no one can get to know what you're doing and start to like what you're doing if you don't put it out and it just sits there. I've had clients who will record a song. They'll sit on it forever. And then it'd be like well, I'm, so much better now. And it's like, well, yeah. Uh, I mean, and that's like, for me, an argument why soon after you're done recording and it's all done, if you have an intention of releasing, just release, don't wait because you're going to evolve as a musician and things are going to Everything you do before your most current song is going to be different than what you're currently doing and, and you'll, I mean, hopefully you'll be in a better place as you evolve and learn new things. You gotta let go a little bit. Some people are too delicate about that too. We've all been guilty of, these things and on a certain level we're all human, right?

Justin 25:02

One thing that compounds this is people fall back on this ignorance of, Oh, I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to release my music on Spotify or Apple music. don't know what to do. And it's like, man, if that's your excuse in this day and age, you can literally go onto Google right now and type in the question, how do I use my music on Spotify or how do I release my music on Apple music, whatever, and it will tell you there's a bazillion companies out there more than happy to take your money and get your stuff published on these different platforms. distro kids, CD baby. There's so many that, that exists nowadays. And on top of that, we also now live in the age of AI. So in terms of coming up with a plan for like, how could I do this incorporating social media? If you need help building at a complex release plan or strategy. Go to chat GPT and ask it how to do that. And it can help you create a plan to be like, Oh, okay. I'm going to do these five things to go release my song. And I'm just, all I'm saying is that there are resources today. That we couldn't have even conceived of So I think musicians are more empowered than ever. Whatever tools they want to use. I'm not advocating these tools one way or the other. I'm just saying there are these great tools and resources available to help. Steer things to a place where the songs are getting released. I think that about wraps things up for us. Rich, thank you so much for your insight being a songwriting coach and songwriter yourself. Just to recap, so we've talked about what it's like to work with the small elements of a song that's being put together. We talked about what it's like to Take something that is more refined and polished and put some of those finishing touches on it. We also talked about how you can help people through this intimidating. idea of having a body of work and how to navigate that and get started on that journey. And we also talked about overcoming some of those personal obstacles, like self doubt, perfectionism that sort of thing. I think this was a great way. Conversation, some really great insight and we'll include some links in our show description to our Facebook and other places where you can tap into some resources. And with that, we'll wrap things up. And last thing I'll mention is We have some episodes on this podcast, speaking of resources talking about creativity and focus and things like that. For instance, we have episode nine from seed to song, episode 14, introspection, injection, and episode 19 cultivating creativity. So we'll put links to those shows in the show description, and you can check those out as well. So rich, once again, thank you so much. And with that, I'll sign off and say bye for now. Thanks, everyone.

Rich 28:15

Alright. Bye bye.