trying to write hits :|
rakmanenuff
I'm a producer/musician, so coming up with backing
tracks is the easiest thing in the world for me,
I can knock out 5 a day and hundreds of them without
running out of ideas. I usually send singers backing tracks
then let them write/record whatever they want on top.
Finished production is not AS easy, IMO u usually have to mold
your track/mix around the singers and their quirks.
Or, alternatively force the singer to sing a certain way,
most singers are too incompetent to be "produced",
so I usually let them away with their way of doing it,
then work around it.
On the rare occasions where I don't have any ideas
for beats I just dissect some old 70s track in the
computer, keep the overall groove, replace all the
chord progressions, replace fender rhodes or organ
with a trance/electro synth etc... I'm a good thief,
and people might never know what I did.
And before some of u guys get angry, I'm sure I could pinpoint
YOUR influences and where you "took" "your ideas"
from just by listening to your stuff. There's no such
thing as originality really, IMO. Other than each
person's unique character, temperament, voice and
combination of influences/experiences shining through.
Top line writing is a completely different story.
POP is something that many people listen to but few people
make. Most musicians choose either rap, being in a rock band,
retro soul/jazz, or some obscure form of dance music.
The artists who choose pop can at times be more
like girl group clones, models, people into glamour,
fame etc, or really non-creative people. Highly annoying,
I want to make pop music, not listen to some jazz
singer disappearing up their own.... listen to some
rapper getting all verbose, or listen to some boring
rock band person's introspective whingeing.
Some of the singers I know are good at melody,
others good at rhythm, some good at lyrics.
Some good at uptempos, some good at ballads,
some good at several things, but none of them good
at *everything*.
Unfortunately none of them are knowledgeable or
flexible enough to ***co-write*** with me in the
real sense of the word. They're all stuck in their
respective musical genres, eras, perspectives
etc and just can't cope with, or relate to, a
different opinion/outlook/set of ideas/vibe.
I'm no different, while I'm quite productive, ie
one song a day when I set aside time to just
write top line, there are a million things wrong
with most of my songs that stop them from being
something I could pitch to top artists.
I find it very hard to stay consistently in ONE
person's perspective. If, for instance, I try to write to
write a song from a young Asian-American girl's perspective,
there are usually words in there that either sound like
they came from a rapper, from Iggy Pop, from
an older woman, from a man, from a British person,
etc...
I believe that a really unique artist with a strong
character could make even the most ridiculous and
contradictory lyrics "their own" and make them work,
but most most artists are not like that, nor do people
want them to be.
So.. To cope with that, I'd have to either write in bursts
then come back to multiple revisions later, co-write
(in the given example) with a female writer who doesn't write
like an old chick, doesn't write like a French person etc.
What am I supposed to do, follow the tabloids, watch
teenage soaps, watch High School Musical a hundred
time and pretend to be a teenage girl? Leave myself
at the mercy of some older female co-writer who adds all
her own crap in there instead of just writing what's
required? Leave myself at the mercy of a young female
co-writer who's pretty much clueless?
And yeah finding good vocal melodies doesn't come
easy to me at all. If I knock out a song there may
be some good lines in there but never a whole song.
The amount of patience and self-belief/self-motivation...
and painful self-scrutiny/revisions/editing required is
enough to drive anyone crazy.
Either that or having the patience with other writers
and their long list of limitations.....
Gosh. I've always thought that communication is
the key, co-writing but communicating, to get the best
out of all writers involved, and I do think a lot of hits are written
this way (according to writing credits, often 4-5 names,
either that or long-term writing partnerships).
But in my experience the people I've encountered are
stuck in their own way of thinking, lazy,
and not open to real communication at all.
Gill Smith
news:8b97d53b-b9d6-48cf...@h18g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
You're the pro so who am I to argue.
but......
to my way of thinking, if you strip the vocal line off of any hit, you'll
still have a kickass track that is easily distinguishable from all others
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/
rakmanenuff
wrote:
> You're the pro so who am I to argue.
I don't divide the music world into pro and amateur,
I've been on both sides of the spectrum and have
never seen any clear cut connection between quailty
and payment. Music is music, I've never understood the
whole hierarchical thinking I see in some newsgroups.
> to my way of thinking, if you strip the vocal line off of any hit, you'll
> still have a kickass track that is easily distinguishable from all others
Yes and no. In dance music or rap a good instrumental
with a weak song can work, it can also work in pop, but
only if it's done by a well known/big producer.
From my perspective it still comes back to the "writing
of hits" in the end.
aluode
> Long post alert.
>
> I'm a producer/musician, so coming up with backing
> tracks is the easiest thing in the world for me,
> I can knock out 5 a day and hundreds of them without
> running out of ideas. I usually send singers backing tracks
> then let them write/record whatever they want on top.
Welcome and I hope you stay.
>
> And yeah finding good vocal melodies doesn't come
> easy to me at all. If I knock out a song there may
> be some good lines in there but never a whole song.
>
> The amount of patience and self-belief/self-motivation...
> and painful self-scrutiny/revisions/editing required is
> enough to drive anyone crazy.
Yep.
Antti
Richard Heathfield
> "rakmanenuff" <rakma...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> <snip>
>> On the rare occasions where I don't have any ideas
>> for beats I just dissect some old 70s track in the
>> computer, keep the overall groove, replace all the
>> chord progressions, replace fender rhodes or organ
>> with a trance/electro synth etc... I'm a good thief,
>> and people might never know what I did.
<snip>
> to my way of thinking, if you strip the vocal line off of any hit,
> you'll still have a kickass track that is easily distinguishable
> from all others
But surely removing the melody *AND* replacing the chord progression
(see above) should be sufficient?
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Forged article? See
http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/usenet/comp.lang.c/msgauth.php
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
rakmanenuff
Can you hear the Iron Maiden ripoff in this:
Richard Heathfield
No, I can't.
(There are no speakers on this PC.)
Gill Smith
> > Jun 29, 6:15 pm, Richard Heathfield
>
> Can you hear the Iron Maiden ripoff in this:
>
> http://www.filefreak.com/files/31138_3jm1a/Maiden.mp3
"Access denied"
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/
rakmanenuff
wrote:
> >http://www.filefreak.com/files/31138_3jm1a/Maiden.mp3
>
> "Access denied"
>
> --http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/
What's going on with Filefreak.....?
That was for Britchard really, but yeah here's
the rough Iron Maiden via computer thingyt:
Gill Smith
Not being an IM fan I must confess I'm not the best judge
But strikes me that this wouldn't be toooooooo difficult to create from
scratch with MIDi and and few FX would it?
my on approach is Total Musical Control i.e. none of this loops mularkey.
Make every note count. Crotchet crochet.
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/
Sean
A bit crotchety today, are we?
Rick Paul
I'm in a huge time crunch at the moment. A few quick thoughts, though:
First, I think you've hit the nail on the head that collaboration can be a
key to finding the strengths to complement your strengths to come up with
something that is better than the sum of its parts. I'm also someone who
can "do it all" to the degree I need to, but I'm incredibly slow on some
things, like producing full arrangements, while other things, such as melody
writing, come much more quickly. Lyrics are somewhere in between the two.
Part of why I'm so slow on tracks is because I basically sing and play piano
(and other keyboards to somewhat lesser degrees). I'm not a guitarist or
bassist or even drummer, so I have to spend a lot more time figuring out
what to do in those areas, overcoming my limitations to in those areas to
make thing sound more realistic (e.g. doing a lot of MIDI editing to make a
guitar sample sound more like a real guitar), and so on.
I also have been heavily frustrated by collaborations many times. You are
absolutely right that communication is key, but sometimes we "artistic
types" have way too fragile egos, and that impedes communication, especially
efficient communications. Also, some people are control freaks, and that
can destroy collaborations. I'm probably guilty of that to a degree, but
only to the degree that I feel a "final product" must meet the standards of
all collaborators, including me. I'm happy to compromise on specifics of
the song or recording, but not happy to compromise on something that doesn't
meet my standards just to say I compromised. In a 2-way collaboration, if
it doesn't meet either or our standards yet, we both have to be willing to
change to get to something that does. That may end up being something
different than either of us would have envisioned, but, when it does happen,
often the results are much better than they would have been otherwise.
Long distance collaboration can be especially frustrating as it tends to
require starting and stopping the creative engines, and switching back and
forth between creative and critical modes, more or less at will. Not
everyone can do that. Also, the time delays between back and forths can be
frustrating compared to those found in real-time collaborations. On the
other hand, those time delays can also often provide the opportunity to
consider something much more deeply than could happen in a real-time
collaboration, and that may yield stronger results.
There is a popular saying in songwriting circles that goes something like,
"great songs aren't written, they are rewritten." I believe this is true
more often than not. It's important to capture the muse on the
inspirational front, but most of the time, those raw thoughts need editing
to make them more effective. Even people who express themselves well in
stream-of-consciousness mode can generally improve upon that through
editing.
With respect to the writing in a consistent voice, I see a lot of issues in
that area when looking at lyrics for critiquing. It's not even so much the
issue of perspective (although that can be it, too), but even differences in
language levels -- e.g. one someone who talks like a blue collar guy in a
bar one moment also express themselves philosophically and poetically the
next? If you're trying to get a handle on how to do better on that
yourself, it might be worth taking some acting lessons, especially ones
geared toward character acting. The key to doing that successfully tends to
be to be able to immerse yourself in a character and try to consider what
the character does and doesn't know, what views he/she holds, how he/she
would talk, etc.
That said, funnily enough, some of the songs I'd written or co-written with
fairly mature points of view in mind, where all I was seeing was the
interpretation I'd been going with during the writing, also ended up
registering with some teenage female singers, who recorded those same songs,
either on their artist demos or, in some cases, on their independent CDs.
Once I registered the interest, I looked back at those songs to try and
"get" why they were finding the song compelling when the viewpoint was
certainly not one I'd have expected them to have. For example, in one case,
my understanding of the basis of the song was two married people having an
affair with one another (and I think that is what the lyricist intended,
too, not just my understanding of it), but several teenage female singers
really identified with it. Well, when I took their perspective into
context, and looked at the words with that in mind, I could see how they
could read another meaning into it -- being in love with someone who's still
in love with someone else, a much more universal perspective that almost
anyone of any age could identify with. The lyrics weren't actually as
explicit as I'd imagined they were based on the mental scenario I'd been
working against when writing the melody and helping the lyricist revise the
lyrics. I guess what I'm getting at is sometimes the key isn't so much
getting a specific singer's perspective down pat, but getting a consistent
model scenario in mind that holds together within itself, and making the
words universal enough that multiple individuals of different backgrounds
can identify with them in different ways. Or, to put it another way, write
a great, universal song, and there are bound to be singers (and listeners)
who think it is expressing just what they want to say. ;-)
Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================
"rakmanenuff" <rakma...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8b97d53b-b9d6-48cf...@h18g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
Tom Hendricks
You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
credit that composer even though
the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
based on
Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
rakmanenuff
> You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
> classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
> credit that composer even though
> the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
> based on
> Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
Ok. Got any examples of that?
S Club 7 used Fauré in a good way, but the melody was in
the backing track, not in their vocal part.
I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
can often have classical-sounding melodies.
That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
more like a death march. (Russians)
Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
happen if they haven't already happened.
Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
Honcho
Eric Carmen's All By Myself (Rachmaninoff)
Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale (JS Bach)
are a couple more that spring to mind, but neither are contempory pop.
I am sure there are many more, if only from a starting point of being
"heavily influenced."
BTW Your first post on this thread was one of the best and most
thought provoking posts I've seen at RMMS for many a year. Thank you
for that.
Richard
Sean
> On 30 June, 23:32, rakmanenuff <rakmanen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 30, 4:31 pm, Tom Hendricks <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
>>> classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
>>> credit that composer even though
>>> the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
>>> based on
>>> Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
>> Ok. Got any examples of that?
>>
>> the backing track, not in their vocal part.
>> I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
>> Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
>> There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
>> but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
>>
>> The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
>> Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
>> can often have classical-sounding melodies.
>> That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
>> more like a death march. (Russians)
>>
>> Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
>> Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
>> happen if they haven't already happened.
>>
>> Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
>> too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
>> for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
>
> Eric Carmen's All By Myself (Rachmaninoff)
> Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale (JS Bach)
>
> are a couple more that spring to mind, but neither are contempory pop.
> I am sure there are many more, if only from a starting point of being
> "heavily influenced."
About a million or so are based on Pachelbel's Canon in D. Here's a guy
driven insane by that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
rakmanenuff
> Honcho wrote:
> > On 30 June, 23:32, rakmanenuff <rakmanen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Jun 30, 4:31 pm, Tom Hendricks <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote:
>
> >>> You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
> >>> classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
> >>> credit that composer even though
> >>> the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
> >>> based on
> >>> Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
> >> Ok. Got any examples of that?
>
> >> the backing track, not in their vocal part.
> >> I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
> >> Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
> >> There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
> >> but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
>
> >> The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
> >> Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
> >> can often have classical-sounding melodies.
> >> That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
> >> more like a death march. (Russians)
>
> >> Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
> >> Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
> >> happen if they haven't already happened.
>
> >> Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
> >> too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
> >> for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
>
> > Eric Carmen's All By Myself (Rachmaninoff)
> > Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale (JS Bach)
>
> > are a couple more that spring to mind, but neither are contempory pop.
> > I am sure there are many more, if only from a starting point of being
> > "heavily influenced."
>
> About a million or so are based on Pachelbel's Canon in D. Here's a guy
> driven insane by that:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
Lol. Excellent. But that's a chord progression not
a melody.
Gill Smith
>
> > You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
> > classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
> > credit that composer even though
> > the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
> > based on
> > Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
>
> Ok. Got any examples of that?
>
> the backing track, not in their vocal part.
> I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
> Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
> There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
> but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
>
> The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
> Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
> can often have classical-sounding melodies.
> That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
> more like a death march. (Russians)
>
> Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
> Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
> happen if they haven't already happened.
>
> Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
> too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
> for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
I often wonder why Beethoven didn't discover disco, given how much stuff he
anticipated
And, arguably, given that the end of his last piano sonata can vaguely be
said to embrace syncopation
But he never even gave so much as a nod to Spanish rhythms in his own works
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/
Honcho
> Honcho wrote:
> > On 30 June, 23:32, rakmanenuff <rakmanen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Jun 30, 4:31 pm, Tom Hendricks <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote:
>
> >>> You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
> >>> classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
> >>> credit that composer even though
> >>> the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
> >>> based on
> >>> Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
> >> Ok. Got any examples of that?
>
> >> the backing track, not in their vocal part.
> >> I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
> >> Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
> >> There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
> >> but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
>
> >> The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
> >> Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
> >> can often have classical-sounding melodies.
> >> That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
> >> more like a death march. (Russians)
>
> >> Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
> >> Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
> >> happen if they haven't already happened.
>
> >> Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
> >> too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
> >> for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
>
> > Eric Carmen's All By Myself (Rachmaninoff)
> > Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale (JS Bach)
>
> > are a couple more that spring to mind, but neither are contempory pop.
> > I am sure there are many more, if only from a starting point of being
> > "heavily influenced."
>
> About a million or so are based on Pachelbel's Canon in D. Here's a guy
>
> - Show quoted text -
wonderful.
Richard
Honcho
> On 30 June, 23:32, rakmanenuff <rakmanen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 30, 4:31 pm, Tom Hendricks <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote:
>
> > > You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
> > > classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
> > > credit that composer even though
> > > the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
> > > based on
> > > Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
>
> > Ok. Got any examples of that?
>
> > the backing track, not in their vocal part.
> > I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
> > Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
> > There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
> > but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
>
> > The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
> > Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
> > can often have classical-sounding melodies.
> > That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
> > more like a death march. (Russians)
>
> > Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
> > Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
> > happen if they haven't already happened.
>
> > Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
> > too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
> > for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
>
> I often wonder why Beethoven didn't discover disco, given how much stuff he
> anticipated
>
> And, arguably, given that the end of his last piano sonata can vaguely be
> said to embrace syncopation
>
> But he never even gave so much as a nod to Spanish rhythms in his own works
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
What do you mean? He did loads of disco, it's just that the recording
techniques hadn't caught up with him ;)
Richard
Gill Smith
> On 1 July, 21:04, "Gill Smith" <gill.smith....@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 30 June, 23:32, rakmanenuff <rakmanen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jun 30, 4:31 pm, Tom Hendricks <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote:
>
> > > > You can build your melody on classical works. Take a favorite
> > > > classical work and use it as a base for your song. But be sure to
> > > > credit that composer even though
> > > > the works are in Public Domain. Some of the better popular songs are
> > > > based on
> > > > Bach or Chopin etc. It's one idea to consider.
>
> > > Ok. Got any examples of that?
>
> > > the backing track, not in their vocal part.
> > > I think Fugees used Carl Philip E Bach (album track, not single).
> > > Not their biggest hit for either artist though.
> > > There was a dance version of Barber's Adagio,
> > > but that's an instrumental, not a pop song with vocals.
>
> > > The melody for "I'm a Barbie girl" sounded like
> > > Baroque I suppose....? :S Euro Dance songs
> > > can often have classical-sounding melodies.
> > > That Sting one didn't really sound like "pop" did it,
> > > more like a death march. (Russians)
>
> > > Hip Hop versions of Swan Lake or Flight of the
> > > Bumblebee could probably work just fine and will probably
> > > happen if they haven't already happened.
>
> > > Classical Melodies seem too dramatic and either
> > > too slow or too busy, rhythmically, to be used as vocal melodies
> > > for pop IMO, but please enlighten us further...
>
> > I often wonder why Beethoven didn't discover disco, given how much stuff
> > he
> > anticipated
>
> > And, arguably, given that the end of his last piano sonata can vaguely
> > be
> > said to embrace syncopation
>
> > But he never even gave so much as a nod to Spanish rhythms in his own
> > works
>
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> What do you mean? He did loads of disco, it's just that the recording
> techniques hadn't caught up with him ;)
By 'recording techniques' I take it you mean the custard-filled sock.
a giant leap indeed for music. And mankind.
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/