Writing in the Style You’re Best At

I get folks now and then who ask me why my blog is primarily geared towards music for film and TV, and why almost all my music is instrumental. Some people think it’s because I can’t write regular vocal oriented pop songs, but the fact is that for over 20 years that was the only type of music I use to write.

I’ve always been more comfortable writing melodies than lyrics. However, some of the best pop and country songs I’ve written have been with co-writers who excel in writing lyrics. So that’s why I tend to focus more on instrumental pieces when I write alone. As for writing for TV and films, I love the freedom that side of the industry provides. I have always enjoyed listening and playing all different styles of music. Rock, Latin, Pop, Country, even some classical or orchestral tunes. Writing for film & TV allows me to experiment with all those different genres.

Of course I can write primarily vocal oriented songs and submit them to TV and film projects. There is no shortage of request for them, but for me writing lyrics takes a lot of time. While I can write, arrange and record an instrumental piece in a few hours, with lyrics it can easily take me about a week until I’m completely satisfied with the final version. Then I have to record and mix it. The whole process of writing and recording a song with vocals can easily take me over a week to finish just one song. I don’t like to take that long on projects.

Part of the reason is because I have a very busy life. I work a regular 9 to 5 day job, have a wife and love spending time riding my cruiser and just plain enjoying life. I currently have about 3 hours a day, 4 days a week to dedicate to my music. So every time I sit down to write, it has to be very productive. Sure I might sit for about 2 hours just strumming or plucking my guitar, but what I’m actually doing is putting together the basics to a piece that will eventually become a finalized tune by the end of the week.

That’s being productive. Spending the same amount of time writing lyrics is also productive, but as I mentioned before, that process take too long for me.

I’ve also discovered that there are more request for instrumental music for TV projects than there is for songs with vocals. That’s usually because vocals can get in the way of the dialog in a commercial or program. Movies seem to be ok with this but TV tends to stay away from songs with vocals. Unless of course you’re talking about shows like Grey’s Anatomy which has created its own special, original style by having songs with vocals playing under the dialog.

Then of course there is the success factor. I have yet to place a song with vocals on any film or TV project, but have had several nice placements with instrumentals that have produced good incomes. When you break it down to where you can write more songs and have more placement with a particular style, it makes sense to continue to write the type of music you’re best at.