Naming your songs
HotchkissTrio
instrumental piece. It seems a song with words should be easy to name, i.e
"Love for Sale" or a hundred other tunes named after the first line, or the
chorus.
But how to name a instrumental song? I guess I could name a song after a
drug dealer (Moose the Mooch), or perhaps nuclear physics (Isotope). Or you
can go the Monk route and name tunes after friends (In Walked Bud) or just
make up words (what the heck is an Epistrophy? Is it like an Epiphany, or
an Apostrophe?)
Thoughts?
Charlie Robinson
I name a lot of mine for people. But I'll also use things like unusual
juxtapositions of words, double entendres, phrases that evoke certain
visions,etc. Most of this usually is meant to convey some sort of feeling that
relates to the tune. When I studied composition with Joanne Brackeen she used
to say that the hardest part about any of this is writing them down and
thinking of names. My worst habits are not checking to see if there is another
tune by the same name and naming more than one tune the same thing.
Charlie Robinson Jazz Guitarist, Composer
You can hear and see me online (video) at:
http://66.194.153.49/~ramon/RamonPooser.swf
Soundclips:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/robinsonchazz
or http://www.soundclick.com/bands/rmmgj_music.htm
Unknown
<paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote:
>Just curious how people go about naming there songs,especially if it is an
>instrumental piece.
On my last CD, I named one song after my friend Tom(Tomba Romba), one
after my pet pig, Norton (Nortonomy), one after my wife (Dr. Now), one
is a pun on the use of diminished chords (Diminished Returns), one
after my mother (Grandma's Waltz), one after a word used by
statisticians (Statisticulatin), one after my dog (BB), one because I
happen to noticed 11:11 on the clock a lot (11:11 Blues), and one
because one day in the shower, I was singing it and these syllables
came out when singing the first three notes (Dot Deeyoh). On another
set of tunes, I named one after the candy I happened to be eating
while writing it (Spice Drop), one after the name of the woman, Sarah
Farr, who called and interrupted me while writing it (That's Far
Enough), one because I do a lot of "sketches" and sequentially number
them (Sketch 11).
So, be sure to follow my highly systematic method of randomly choosing
names based on whatever the heck pops into my head at the moment that
I need to think up a name.
Tim
http://timberens.com
A Website for Guitarists
Learn something...Have some fun
timb at erinet dot com
Jurupari
>after my pet pig, Norton (Nortonomy)
cool! I wrote an aria for my dog called Pigoletto.
I liked your names - they pique the imagination.
Wow, Charlie studied comp with Joanne Brackeen - she's amazing!
Clif
tomw
juru...@aol.com says...
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
Keith Freeman
words. One piece started with a syncopated pair of chords, which
suggested the words "One Time" to me. Or the way the piece is
constructed: another composition was a circular form, so I called it
"Circle Line" (my English pianist - now departed, unfortunately - ribbed
me that I was presumably going to call my next work "Bakerloo").
I don't really see why Waltz No. 1 etc. shouldn't be OK, the classical
composers got away with it all the time...
-Keith
Music samples, tips, Portable Changes at
http://home.wanadoo.nl/keith.freeman/
E-mail: keith DOT freeman AT wanadoo DOT nl
paul
<paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote:
>Just curious how people go about naming there songs,especially if it is an
>instrumental piece.
two of the best song titiles I ever thought up were standards that I
had never even heard of, september in the rain and if I had you. I was
annoyed someone had beat me to the punch!
like most people, I write songs about a certain feeling, so I try to
pick a word or phrase that evokes that same feeling for me (not
necessarily for other people). for a very open sounding piece that
reminds me a lot of open sky, I chose "prospect" for the title because
it reminds me of how I feel hanging out in prospect park in brooklyn.
one song that's sort of unsettled is "on thin ice", "73" I named
because it was 73 degrees outside, "manhattan ave" because it's a fast
and manic piece and I almost got run over on manhattan ave once, etc.
I just think it's important to pick a title that means something to
you, not necessarily to anyone else.
--paul
Alan Smith
alan
Jim Kroger
Jim
On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:33:56 -0700, "HotchkissTrio"
<paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote:
Tom Lippincott
paul <pcsanwa...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:bnbg8059tqvple3kk...@4ax.com...
I'd agree with this. I often agonize for a long time over tune titles, and
have even changed titles several times when one didn't quite seem to have
the right "feel." I also like the idea of a title that might do a good job
of evoking the feel of the tune for me, but that's vague enough that it
might mean something else entirely to someone else. Everyone's experiences
are different, and rather than "force" my image on someone by calling a tune
"Watching the Clouds" I might be more likely to use something like "Sky
Above" that's a little more "open to interpretation" even though my own
image might be the idea of sitting in a sunlit field on a lazy afternoon
watching clouds in the sky.
I recently did a "mini-clinic" at U of Miami for my friend's rhythm section
class. He's a bass player and he, a drummer and I played some tunes. He
told me to bring an original tune, and I thought about it and realized I
didn't really have any recent ones that wouldn't require some rehearsal
first, so I wrote one specifically for the occasion that was a fairly simple
24 bar minor blues. I was thinking it would be funny to name it something
that was two words that started with "U" and "M" for U of Miami, and
suddenly I realized the Bill Evans term "Universal Mind" fit the bill
perfectly (no pun intended), so that's what I named the tune.
steve
On 22-Apr-2004, "HotchkissTrio" <paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote:
> Thoughts?
Odd phrases from films or where ever they pop up...especially errors. Heard
a dopey politician (sorry to be redundant) on sunday morning TV say "Howard
Dean is just on a different wavelink"...so now I have a song called
"Different Wavelink".
Phrases from films that Ive used as song titles:
"How Can I be Alone if You're With Me?" (Sullivans Travels)
"Explosive Gorilla" (Three Stooges episode description)
"Remind Me to Kill You Later" (Three Stooges...Moe, of course)
"Rocco Wants More" (Key Largo)
"Don't Bone Me" (The Asphalt Jungle)
"Squeezing the Goat" (Gentlemen Prefer Blonds)
"Running Amock" (The Seven Year Itch)
"Operation Experiment" (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms)
"Frustrating the Natural Order" (Ulysses...as in the James Joyce
novel...and, yes, its a movie and it's great)
Plays on words:
"Reptile Disfunction"
"Yin and Yank"
"Jerry Mathers Eats a Beaver"
"Sending Monkey"
Just stuff that sounds cool:
"Ostensibly"
"Futility"
"Eat at Joes"
"Hitler's Mustache"
steve (and..Please dont steal my song titles.)
--
"A man was severely injured today in the Knutsford area."
Benny Hill
Joe Finn
"HotchkissTrio" <paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote in message
news:c68vm4$uf8$1...@news01.intel.com...
When I'm working on a composition I just give it a working title like Swing
Minor 32 or Long Form 2.4 and then if I ever have to record it I'll come up
with something that makes more sense in the context of the project's theme.
........joe
--
Visit me on the web www.joefinn.net
>
>
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Ted Vieira
My tunes are usually named for what visually comes to mind when I hear them
or from a feeling I get when I listen to them, or when I came up with the
concept of the piece. As "new-agey" as that sounds I also come up with
titles for obvious reasons...
- I wrote two tunes one day... the second tune was a little better than the
first one so I called it "A Little Better." (I should've named the first one
"It Sucks" but it just went away and was never thought of again.)
- I wrote one tune for my daughter and son when they ages 4 and 3
(respectively) called "You Ate My Lunch." Simply a description of what
happened one afternoon.
- I wrote one tune on a lunch break (12:00pm) at a day job I had years ago
called "Noon." Pretty imaginative, eh?
Ted Vieira
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
http://TedVieira.com
Bio Info, Free Online Guitar Instruction,
Instructional Books, Articles, hear my CDs and more...
--
Warm jazz guitar combined with latin & funk:
Check out my CD, "Perfect Night"
at: http://tedvieira.com/cd.html
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Unknown
>Tim, just one question. How do your pet pig and dog get along? Seriously.
>
>alan
We've had 3 dogs and 3 pigs since 1990 in various combinations.
Overall they get along quite well. One pair, Jake and Norton (the one
the song was written for) had several battles before they called an
uneasy truce. As long as there was no food involved, they just left
each other alone.
One of our dogs, a cattle dog mix, loves the pigs. She sits and
guards them all day long during the summer. And our lab Charlie is
quite indifferent to them. He'd rather have a good nap than bother
with a pig.
Unknown
>>On my last CD, I named one song after my friend Tom(Tomba Romba), one
>>after my pet pig, Norton (Nortonomy)
>
>cool! I wrote an aria for my dog called Pigoletto.
>
>I liked your names - they pique the imagination.
>
Thanks for the kind words. I wish my names would pique the
pocketbooks of more people. I still have boxes of CDs I can't sell.
Jurupari
>pocketbooks of more people. I still have boxes of CDs I can't sell.
..which is why I haven't tried to produce one. I think it's about like that all
over.
I do have some friends here (not jazz players) who sell their CD's from the
bandstand and usually manage to sell out most of a 1000 or 2000 CD run. That's
a pretty healthy profit, but from what I read here, that isn't usually
happening with indy jazz releases, even when they're excellent, as many from ng
members unquestionably are.
Clif
josh
(what the heck is an Epistrophy? Is it like an Epiphany, or manganese
(the original name for
> an Apostrophe?)
>
> Thoughts?
maybe its similiar to epistrophe?
epistrophe
n : repetition of the ends of two or more successive sentences,
verses, etc. [syn: epiphora]
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
Bob Agnew
unfortunate titles as:
1) "Phibius Frug "
First verse starts "Phibius Frug was a foul smellin' stud, with hair
on the bottom of his feet, .. "
2) "Caught in a DO Loop"
Problem -- Not many Fortran programmers listen to or understand Jazz
;-)
3) "Concerto for Two, for Arab and Jew, for Kazoo and Flue in C# minor"
Problem -- There's no such instrument as a Flue, but it rhymes. Then
we have to get the two
muscians to sit beside each other for the duration of the piece. This
piece was written long before the
current conflict.
4) "If You were the Only Girl in the World and I were the Only Boy, OK, but
for now ...Hit the Road"
Problem -- Already used.
No flames please, I am not sensitive enough to understand them anyway.
"HotchkissTrio" <paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote in message
news:c68vm4$uf8$1...@news01.intel.com...
Bob Agnew
Tenth Dimension ":
"Wherever You Go, There You Are"
"steve" <st...@steve.com> wrote in message
news:40891d56$0$28916$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
David Kotschessa
I write down stupid stuff that comes to me when I'm not doing anything
music related. Sometimes something I write later will match up.
Sometimes I'll look at the list and something will immediately bring
something musically to mind. Incidentally, those are usually the best
pieces...
One title I came up with once that immediately resulted in music was
called "burnin' tires and sniffin' glue." I used to know a lot of punk
rockers....
Steve Carter
<paul.c.h...@intel.com> wrote:
>Just curious how people go about naming there songs,especially if it is an
>instrumental piece.
Sometimes the name comes first.
Here's the story of one of my tunes, "Blues Eyes". (I'll be performing
this tune at my daughter's wedding next weekend, and telling this
story.)
In the early 70's I was playing bass with a fold-rock trio called
Xbalba. We had a weekend gig at a hotel in New Hampshire, and we took
Sheri, who was about two at the time, along. Before the Friday night
gig, we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. The waitress, who had
clearly been sampling the wares at the hotel bar all afternoon, took
one look at Sheri's Shirley-Temple curls and bright blue eyes and
said, "What beautiful bluesshh eyesshh.!"
I said that would be a good title for a song, "Blues Eyes."
Saturday afternoon, as Sheri ran around the hotel charming everyone
with her blue eyes, and her mother chased after her, trying to prevent
calamities to teetering vases and flowerpots as the young whirlwind
passed by, I went to the hotel bar, sat at the piano, and composed
"Blues Eyes."
Steve
Steve Carter
www.frogstoryrecords.com
Bob Agnew
name. You know, the one that goes "..beautiful, beautiful blue eyes, I'll
never love green eyes again."
"Steve Carter" <swca...@frogstoryrecords.com> wrote in message
news:jqrn805tcbqk35tpv...@4ax.com...
Bob Agnew
"Bob Agnew" <rag...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:XETic.32543$L75.9126@fed1read06...
Jurupari
>name. You know, the one that goes "..beautiful, beautiful blue eyes, I'll
>never love green eyes again."
I learned that as beautiful beautiful brown eyes - was I brainwashed? :o)
Blues eyes seems original, but Elton john had a song called Blue Eyes, or maybe
Baby's Got Blue Eyes. We used to sing it Baby eats dead flies.
Clif
Bob Agnew
set in until I was 65. I guess I'm early.
"Jurupari" <juru...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040425225045...@mb-m01.aol.com...
Kevin Van Sant
message <40891d56$0$28916$61fe...@news.rcn.com> :
>
>Odd phrases from films or where ever they pop up...especially errors. Heard
>a dopey politician (sorry to be redundant) on sunday morning TV say "Howard
>Dean is just on a different wavelink"...so now I have a song called
>"Different Wavelink".
For some reason the Alan Greenspan phrase "Irrational Exuberance" kept
lingering in my head so I eventually used it as a song title.
_________________________________________
Kevin Van Sant
jazz guitar
http://www.kevinvansant.com
to buy my CDs, listen to sound clips, and get more info.
Alternate site for recent soundclips
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/kevinvansant_music.htm
flat9
wrote:
>On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 13:42:46 GMT, "steve" <st...@steve.com> wrote in
>message <40891d56$0$28916$61fe...@news.rcn.com> :
>
>>
>>Odd phrases from films or where ever they pop up...especially errors. Heard
>>a dopey politician (sorry to be redundant) on sunday morning TV say "Howard
>>Dean is just on a different wavelink"...so now I have a song called
>>"Different Wavelink".
>
>
>For some reason the Alan Greenspan phrase "Irrational Exuberance" kept
>lingering in my head so I eventually used it as a song title.
>
I always thought Nuclear Watchdog would be a great name for a band.
steve
On 28-Apr-2004, fl...@comcast.net (flat9) wrote:
> >
> >For some reason the Alan Greenspan phrase "Irrational Exuberance" kept
> >lingering in my head so I eventually used it as a song title.
> >
>
> I always thought Nuclear Watchdog would be a great name for a band.
Pronounced "Nuke-u-ler"...drives me nuts.
steve
fl...@comcast.net
wrote:
>I have not had too much luck at naming pieces, coming up with such
>unfortunate titles as:
>
>1) "Phibius Frug "
>
> First verse starts "Phibius Frug was a foul smellin' stud, with hair
>on the bottom of his feet, .. "
>
>2) "Caught in a DO Loop"
>
> Problem -- Not many Fortran programmers listen to or understand Jazz
>;-)
I got it ;)
But I guess I'm dating myself.
Even though I now program in more 'current' languages, I still use
i,j, and k as loop indexes. Force of habit, I guess.
Frank
Frank Milewski
http://home.comcast.net/~corpsofdiscovery
Greger Hoel
>
>
>On 28-Apr-2004, fl...@comcast.net (flat9) wrote:
>
>> >
>> >For some reason the Alan Greenspan phrase "Irrational Exuberance" kept
>> >lingering in my head so I eventually used it as a song title.
>> >
>>
>> I always thought Nuclear Watchdog would be a great name for a band.
>
>Pronounced "Nuke-u-ler"...drives me nuts.
Georgie and the Nukular Watchdogs
--
______________________________________________
What's up Chuck?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jurupari
>lingering in my head so I eventually used it as a song title.
>
Just so long as it's not irrational exuberance over reckless precision.
hey, how about weapons of reckless precision?
Lumpy
> Georgie and the Nukular Watchdogs
With special guests:
"Shock and Awe"
Lumpy
--
In Your Ears for 40 Years
http://www.lumpymusic.com
Bob Agnew
seem to mind 32 character variable names these days.
<fl...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:40902b85....@news.pa.comcast.giganews.com...
pataud
> Greger Hoel wrote:
>
>>Georgie and the Nukular Watchdogs
>
>
> With special guests:
> "Shock and Awe"
>
Live at the Jazz-Related Program Activities Theatre
steve
With special guests...The Patriot Act!
Max Leggett
>
>On 29-Apr-2004, pataud <pat...@jazzandjava.com> wrote:
>
>> Lumpy wrote:
>> > Greger Hoel wrote:
>> >
>> >>Georgie and the Nukular Watchdogs
>> >
>> >
>> > With special guests:
>> > "Shock and Awe"
>> >
>>
>> Live at the Jazz-Related Program Activities Theatre
>
>With special guests...The Patriot Act!
I think you're all being really unfair to His Majesty the President.
It is a simple fact that during Mr Bush's tenure in the National
Guard, not one inch of Texas soil was ceded to the Viet Cong. The mere
mention of the name 'Bush' was enough to strike terror into pinko
hearts.
Jurupari
>The mere
>mention of the name 'Bush' was enough to strike terror into pinko
>hearts.
Well, it was either that or the lack of any evidence of 'actionable
intelligence'
Lumpy
> > > > Georgie and the Nukular Watchdogs
> > > With special guests:
> > > "Shock and Awe"
> > Live at the Jazz-Related Program Activities Theatre
> With special guests...The Patriot Act!
Seats available now at Tikrit masters.