I would say the hardest part to writing any creative writing piece, is coming up with a title. I find that unless the title comes first or there's an obvious chorus/line to name your work after, it is nearly impossible to come up with a name; by yourself at least.
Both my creative writing teachers said: "Naming your piece "untitled" is like throwing your kid out into the world without a name." While I agree with them, sometimes I wish I could name my piece "untitled".
In my opinion, there are two ways to title a song: chorus titles and non-chorus titles. They are fairly self explanatory, chorus titles are songs named after their repeating line or chorus; non-chorus titles are songs named after anything other than the chorus. I am very particular about the names of my pieces. They have to entirely encapsulate the piece in 1-5 words, I prefer for them not to be the chorus of my song, and they have to make you think deeper about the song after listening.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. I say "white noise" in the chorus of my song "White Noise", and "victims of circumstance" in the chorus of "Victims of Circumstance". There are some songs where the repeating line or chorus work as a title and others that don't. This makes picking a title the most difficult part of the creative writing process.
I have a song called, "My Only Defense". The last line of the song is: "don't let my music stop," and at first I wanted it to be my title, but there was something about it that didn't fit right. I had my teacher read through the piece to help me. The main problem was the chorus wasn't really a "titling chorus". There were no repeating lines or words that stuck out as the main meaning of the song. My teacher and I decided upon the second to last line in the second verse: "It's my only defense/against what doesn't make sense." The whole song is about the fear of writer's block or the fear of running out of content. The reason "My Only Defense" works for the title is because while the song is about fear my defense against that fear, and any other phobias I have is music writing. This title is between one and five words, isn't the chorus line, and makes me think when I play the song.
When done right, titling is a very satisfying process. I am a very rational person. I never make decisions because of my emotions. However, titles have to feel right. If I name a piece, and it feels wrong or unsatisfying then the piece is not finished, and it certainly is not ready to be shared with anyone. "My Only Defense" felt right, "Don't Let My Music Stop" didn't. Same goes for any other options I had for "Victims of Circumstance" and "White Noise". "Little Nobody" and "Let's Live for Tonight" were both named after their choruses, in the coming weeks I plan to share a few songs that were not named after their choruses and elaborate more on those types of song titles, because those are my favorite types.
I hope you enjoyed my tangent on titles.
Until next time,
Thanks for yielding!
Alexis
Σχόλια