Musi­cians have an edge when it comes to attract­ing oth­ers. I’d have to say that many gui­tarists pick up the instru­ment with this goal in mind, for some that’s the only rea­son they play. If your aim is to impress then lis­ten up, there are impor­tant prin­ci­ples at work. You want to use your play­ing to its max­i­mum effect so don’t let your song choices detract from your goals

Of para­mount impor­tance is not to play some­thing that is overtly sex­ual. Con­fus­ing sex­ual con­tent with sex­i­ness is sure to leave you all by your lone­some. ‘The Bad Touch’ is not a sexy song. It just isn’t. There is no way that the one you’re singing this to is going to look over at you with big puppy-dog eyes, a glow­ing smile and think to their self, “Yes. This is the one I want to be with.”

Equally inef­fec­tive at charm­ing are the overt and sappy attempts to pour your heart out like but­tery syrup on a heart shaped pan­cake. These should be avoided because they are just as trans­par­ent as the sex­ual songs. Songs like ‘To Be With You’ by Mr. Big, or ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’ by Poi­son are exam­ples of what not to sing. When you so openly declare your intent with­out regard to the inter­play of attrac­tion it ruins the fun for every­one. Un-sexy.

(On a side note: ‘More Than Words’ by Extreme plays on both sides of the fence. It sounds all sappy on the casual lis­ten, and most peo­ple assume it to be just that. It has the fin­ger­prints of gooey love all over the arrange­ment and instru­men­ta­tion; lone acoustic gui­tar strum­ming thought­fully in a bare room. What gets me is how many peo­ple don’t ever lis­ten closely enough to the lyrics. I mean we’ve all heard this song count­less times at high school dances, house par­ties, karaōke bars, and wed­dings. I would think more peo­ple would catch on to the intent of the singer. He is clearly pres­sur­ing his girl­friend to put out. That’s the all there is to it, yet time and again I hear about how ‘sweet’ this song is.)

Soul­ful rules the roost here. In the arena of woo­ing with music you need to give the front of being deep and a bit dam­aged, but fix­able… through love. The idea here is to build intrigue with lay­ers and com­pli­ca­tions. The eas­ily obtain­able prize is no prize at all, so the songs you play must hint at the singer keep­ing their dis­tance emo­tion­ally, either through the lyric or the music. There may also be a hint of redemp­tion for the singer in the lyrics, if only the right per­son were made avail­able. Don’t be a lost cause, just one that needs a lit­tle help to love again.

The best song to impress with is the one you wrote your­self. It is the ulti­mate musi­cal gift of atten­tion and care. It shows off your tal­ent, not only in play­ing music, but in con­struct­ing it as well. The time and effort that you put into it will pay off in dividends.

Here are some songs to get you started. They all have strengths in dif­fer­ent areas. Use this list as a jump­ing off point when build­ing a reper­toire that will make the right impact.

Hold On — Tom Waits
Get the tab …

See My Ships — The Vio­lent Femmes
Get the tab …

Bob­cay­geon — The Trag­i­cally Hip
Get the tab …

Thun­der Road — Bruce Spring­steen
Get the tab …

Light­ning Crashes — Live
Get the tab …

The Drugs Don’t Work — The Verve
Get the tab …

Exit Music (For a Film) — Radio­head
Get the tab …

200 More Miles — The Cow­boy Junkies
Get the tab …

Set Fire to the Third Bar — Snow Patrol
Get the tab …

Heaven Com­ing Down — The Tea Party
Get the tab …

Tags: Fun, Playing, Sex, Songwriting

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 6:19 am and is filed under Everything Else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.