• Josh Dodes
• Josh Dodes Band
• VH1
• This Is Your Song
• Ritchie Valens's Donna
• Donna Freitas's song
• Songwriting software
• Online songwriting classes

This Is Your Song

You've probably had the experience of feeling that a song on the radio was written just for you. . . .

Well, what if it were written just for you?

Those who want to pen their own songs but don't know how can call up Josh Dodes, whose band was featured on VH1's Bands on the Run. Dodes and fellow songwriter Ian Mitchell run This Is Your Song, a company that creates tuneful gifts. These contemporary Cyrano de Bergeracs will interview you, then write and record a personalized tune from scratch in about two weeks.

"We'd both done these kinds of songs for friends over the years, and had become good at drawing out the details we needed to capture the relationship in a meaningful way in song," says Dodes. "It's a fun process for us, working with the client and then going off to put the puzzle together in a creative way."

Charlie Stewart recently commissioned Dodes and Mitchell to perform a custom-written song at his Brazilian wedding. The tune chronicled how he first met his wife, Caterina, at a restaurant but was too nervous to actually speak to her in person . . . so he called after he left the restaurant and asked the waiter to put her on the phone.

And you know the song Donna? Dodes thought he could make a better song built around the name, so when he married Donna Freitas in 2003, he performed a song written just for her. Guests got to hear the details of the couple's courtship all in sung verse. Freitas couldn't stop grinning.

If you've got the inclination to attempt this feat without hiring the pros, there's software you can get to help make the whole process a little less daunting. There are also online classes such as Successful Lyric Writing, where even total novices can learn how to craft a tune from scratch.

However you choose to pen a melody, keep in mind Dodes's advice for songwriting hopefuls:

• Use specific details - they're what make your relationship, and a good song about it, unique.




• Pick lyrics that sound natural with the melody. Beautiful words will be ruined if the melody accents the wrong syllables.




• Keep melodies in your range. There's no need to have a "when it's time to change" voice-cracking moment as in The Brady Bunch.

Most important, find someone who won't mind hearing you sing.

 

Posted on May 08, 2006