Collaborating remotely presents some challenges and quite a few advantages. Over the last year or so, Chad and I have gotten into a routine that works pretty well. Once I've got a song written and I'm pretty comfortable with the structure, I'll record a very simple guitar/vocal demo and upload it to a server that Chad and I use for project work. Chad will then listen and share any notes he has on song structure and we'll talk about our ideas. Next, Chad will get to work on drums and bass and save those tracks back to the server. I'll import them and use them with the original demo to record "real" guitar tracks and vocals. These tracks then go back up to the server so Chad can add his guitar magic. We'll bounce tracks back and forth like that until we feel that the instrumentation and arrangement is as close to what we're after as we can get, and there's a lot of back and forth discussion.
Sometimes the character of the song will change as it goes through this process. "Blue Skies" is a good example. The demo was just acoustic guitar and a lead vocal line, and it had a pretty typical "sad-about-a-break-up-wish-it-wasn't-over" feel to it. After Chad sent me his initial drum and synth takes, though, it started to take on a darker tone. At some point I started hearing the talking break in my head as I played it back, I think because the tune had a touch of a sinister undercurrent at this point. The addition of those tracks kind of solidified the new direction for the song and in turn began to influence how Chad produced it. At a certain point in the development of each song we seem to reach a certain distinct place where we both feel it has turned the corner or gone to another level. It's amazing how the littlest touches can make that happen.
Some songwriters are very particular about how their vision for a tune is realized, but most of the time that's not the case with me. (Obviously that's more true with some pieces than with others. On a very personal song such as "Like You", for example, I may come in with a more rigidly defined set of expectations, but I will still want to hear Chad's ideas out because more often than not, they make my stuff significantly better.) I tend to think that the song is mine only when I'm writing it, and it becomes 'ours' when both Chad and I start developing it.
So I don't have a problem if a tune takes on a new direction during that time, as long as we honor the song. (That's probably easier for me to say than for some others, though, because I trust Chad implicitly and I know he's always going to do what's right for the song.) I really enjoy it, in fact. It can be really exciting! This is where I have the most fun in the creative process. It's kind of like the song is a person who speaks a foreign language trying to give you directions - it wants to tell you where to go, if only you can figure out what it's saying.
