songwriting process

There's so many ways of writing songs .. To cover show music: Sullivan wrote out the melodies and extemporised on the piano until it was time to orchestrate, Rodgers switched from mostly writing music first with Hart to mostly lyrics first with Hammerstein. Sondheim and Porter more or less wrote out music and lyrics at the same time, but neither could orchestrate. Bock and Harnick were the ultimate team: a truly seamless collaboration, and a total mix .. Bock would send music-only demos, with rough ideas of which character, then Harnick might pick a tune for a different character and try lyrics. Then Harnick might write lyrics-only, and give it to Bock to set. Because Harnick was a musician too .. that's not true of most lyric writers. He was a music major in college who played violin in bands until he got some kind of nervous condition that made him unable to play professionally. Several of his famous early tunes, like "Garbage" and "Isms" were music by Harnick too.

I have a whole book on them... - I know every composer, not just Sondheim: Jerry Herman is the only major show composer I don't really give a shit about. When I say I'm an expert, I'm saying that Americans give a shit about my opinions on these scores because I know them, and my scores reflect that. - Kern's a grey area: though his piano scores show some of the counterpoint and voice-leading, it's likely that his orchestrators invented parts. He was the first show composer to claim a legit background who didn't write exclusively operetta. For example: nobody has heard of Victor Herbert today, but he was seriously famous in the first half of the 20th Century, and that's because he wrote operetta. - As for pop songs: there's infinite methods of generating lyrics/music. Re: the Mutton Birds - The Heater is the tune which fascinates me because the band invented it. Most of those songs were either Don or Alan Gregg, but I remember David Long saying the Heater was built by the band. I also remember David Long saying that it was mostly a dictatorship... - As for me: you can transcribe my tunes if you like, but I'm not going to endorse that. I'm not arranging any of my waltzes for orchestra - just play the POAK scores, but I will not step on the stage with any of you. No means no. And it means forever: nothing can persuade me, and please stop asking about my potential as a singer/concert performer: I don't give a flying shit - I want other people to sing my songs. I'm a composer, and anything that involved live gigs would detract from that: like Don's career, where he never wrote a major piece of 'classical' orchestral music (other than the Rugby World Cup). - I'd be fascinated to read the transcriptions, but I don't really care. I can always make up another tune...