Serve The Song

Center Stage with Aloud - Part 2

Aaron Cheney — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:00:09 +0000

Photo by Annie Burns

In part two of my interview with Aloud, Jen and Henry talk about the recording studio, videos and online promotion, and balancing the business end of their music with creative stuff:

AC: Describe your recording process for me.

JEN: We get a live take that we then begin overdubbing parts on top of. That’s how we did Fan The Fury. I think that retains the feel while you put on the guitar, bass and drum overdubs. Then you’ve got vocals and then what I call the “fun stuff” - which is anything else under the sun. That’s my greatest joy in the studio. That being said that process could all change on the next release.

HENRY: With some of the stuff we’re currently working on we’re doing everything backwards and adding things like drum and bass at the end of the process. It’s working out surprisingly well, and it’s forcing us to think of this stuff differently than in the past.

AC: Are you selling more downloads or physical CDs of Fan the Fury?

HENRY: Downloads, for sure. In fact, I think we’ve only sold CDs at live shows recently. Even at our level, things are changing.

JEN: Digital sales are by far in the lead. It’s certainly an eye opener to approach any future pressings or albums in a totally different way as far as reproduction. Maybe you make a small run for shows, or maybe you go all digital and have special limited edition packs the hard core fans can buy. What’s apparent, though, is that doing the same old thing as far as pressings isn’t really worth it.

AC: So what is working?

JEN: The internet is certainly an important tool. Twitter is a very easy way for us to keep folks updated. Henry is a great blog writer and will regularly post on our website. He also runs the site and keeps it as user friendly as possible. We’re on Facebook and MySpace, of course. And I’ve mentioned our YouTube page. That and Twitter are the big ones for us in terms of social networking sites and the like.

HENRY: Yeah, YouTube and Twitter are great, great tools. When we’re on the road we like taking movies and uploading them as soon as possible. I’ve had a lot of folks come up to me and talk about how they’re living vicariously through us while we travel, so I like to get those videos and blogs up about our time on the road.

AC: I loved the video for Julie. It reminded me of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”.

HENRY: I’m so glad you mentioned Peter Gabriel! His video for Sledgehammer was mentioned quite a bit while we were filming. The take we wound up using was filmed twice as slow as the actual recording, so when we sped it up to the proper speed it had have a very stop-motion, jerky quality to it. The first day of filming was fun, which is when we did the main shot with the red background and green screen. Jen and our friend Justin- the pair of hands on the right- as well as Chris March (the director) and Annie kept coming up with ways to torment me. Those kitty whiskers that Jen painted on my face were completely unexpected and we nearly lost the take because I started laughing, but it’s the take we ultimately used. It was one long shot with no cuts through to the middle eight of the song, so I had to wash my face and dry my hair so many times. I have to say, I was very clean that day. But yeah, we had a lot of fun with this video and working with Chris. Behind the camera, Annie and Chris kept egging me on to ham it up. We were all in good spirits, and it felt more like a big group project. The whole idea was kind of silly and it was a really, really fun video to shoot. It’s my favorite Aloud video so far.

AC: How much of your time is spent running the business end of the band, versus making music and doing the fun stuff?

HENRY: It’s a constant tightrope act, because you can’t neglect either. Our manager, Annie Burns, is an enormous help to us and does what she can to ease the burden of the business end of things. But, yeah, sometimes the business side can get very overwhelming. It’s difficult sometimes to focus on writing music you actually care about when your weekly schedule keeps distracting you.

JEN: It can be difficult. The main thing is to be creative with all of it. That’s tough to do all the time of course. If we’re ever taken with a flight of inspiration we stop all we’re doing and work on the song. You also have to set aside time during the week to hang out with friends, do new things or what will you ever have to write about? Generally, idleness is a good thing. It’s where you have space to be creative.

AC: What else do you want people to know about Aloud?

HENRY: Well, we’re planning on another tour by the end of the year, we’re working on writing and recording new material, playing CMJ in October… just generally keeping busy. And who knows, we may even be lucky enough to sneak in a quick vacation in there!

Do it now - check out the Aloud website.

Aaron Cheney is an artMUSICwords-guy living in Seattle, WA.

www.aaroncheney.com

Center Stage with Aloud - Part 1

Aaron Cheney — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:00:25 +0000

Photo by Mick Murray

Jen de la Osa and Henry Beguiristain have been writing, singing, and playing guitar together since they were young. Today they are the core of Boston-based Aloud. The songs on their sophomore album Fan the Fury are an engaging collection of observations, each expressed with urgency and true emotion. Though currently in the midst of writing their third album, Henry and Jen took a break to discuss their music with me:

AC: Describe your songwriting process.

HENRY: It’s a little different each time, but normally the way it works is Jen and I will have stuff we work out on our own- an idea for a song, something nearly completed, and everything in between- and at least once a week we set aside time to finish the song together until we have something. It works wonders on quality control having an extra set of ears!

JEN: Lately, we’ve been a bit more organic about letting the song lead the way. Before, early on at the writing session we’d work out guitar parts and really end up leaving little space by the time we took it to the band. Now it’s more like strum it and we’ll figure out in the studio what the instrumentation will be. That gives it more time to get its own character.

AC: Your lyrics seem to straddle a line between rebellion and contrition.

HENRY: When Jen and I were writing the songs for that around 2006, 2007, we were reading a hell of a lot of news and trying to be more aware of what was going on in the world. We were definitely reacting to things that were happening.

JEN: Yeah, I just think the whole state of the world was unavoidable. It was everywhere you looked, invading your home, so we wrote about it. “Fan The Fury” was the first track we wrote with that in mind and the second we wrote for the record. I think it encapsulates the whole record.

AC: I noticed a reference to Rita in “Hard Up in The 2000s”. Tell me about what the Beatles mean to you.

JEN: The Beatles and their catalog of tunes… it’s just everything a musician aspires to. The way the songwriting developed over time, how it became more subtle or abrasive or artistic or rocking… it just changed all the time. And the way they attacked the studio, refusing to fail in getting the sound heard in their heads. They made plenty of mistakes, undoubtedly, but the songs and the attitude were brilliant. And most of the clothes weren’t bad either.

HENRY: The Beatles are my youth, they’re the reason I picked up a guitar and plucked away on a piano. More than the mythos, though, the approach to the music and how they wrote it and recorded it is what really gets me going. Hell, even when they were angry at each other or when they were downright lazy, they still managed to get something really interesting out of it all.

AC: What are some of your other musical influences?

JEN: The Clash, especially on this last record. The Arcade Fire, Bob Dylan, Kasabian, Motown was huge for me. As of recent Metric and Feist. Just got into Elvis Costello.

HENRY: The Who’s another big one for us, and Oasis is one of our all-time favorite bands for sure, U2… I could go on forever. I just really love music. Lately, I’ve taken to searching for random stuff on Blip to see if anything interesting pops up. Music is alive and constantly evolving. The last thing we want to do is get stuck harping on one thing all of the time.

Stay tuned for part 2 of my interview with Aloud. In the meantime, check out the Aloud website.

Aaron Cheney is an artMUSICwords-guy living in Seattle, WA.

www.aaroncheney.com

What Makes A Song Sound Bad - Part 2

Bobby Oswinski — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:59:56 +0000

In part 2 of exploring what makes a badly written song, we’ll look a bit deeper into some of the most common faults of a novice songwriter. Forgive the references to mostly old songs but I wanted to be sure that everyone has heard them before.

No Bridge - Another common songwriting mistake is no bridge. In songwriting, a bridge is an interlude that connects two parts of that song, building a harmonic connection between those parts. Normally you should have heard the verse at least twice. The bridge may then replace the 3rd verse or precede it. In the latter case, it delays an expected chorus. The chorus after the bridge is usually the last one and is often repeated in order to stress that it is final. If and when you expect a verse or a chorus and you get something that is musically and lyrically different from both verse and chorus, it is most likely the bridge (Van Halen’s Panama comes to mind).

A bridge is important because it provides something that we talked about before - tension and release. It’s sometimes the peak of the song where its at its loudest and most intense (check out the bridge of the Police’s Every Breath You Take), or it could be its quietest and least intense point (The Who’s Baba O’Riley where Pete Townsend sings “…It’s only teenage wasteland,” or The Doobie Brother’s Black Water).

Almost every great song has a bridge but there are the occasional exceptions. Songs that are based on the straight 12 bar blues frequently don’t have bridges but might use dynamics or arrangement to provide the tension and release. An example would be the ZZ Top classic Tush. There’s no bridge in the song, but the snare fill by itself after the last verse into the outro guitar solo supplies the release. Another would be the Guess Who/Lenny Kravitz song American Women where there’s just four bars of a different guitar rhythm and a stop.

And then there are the songs that can get by without a bridge by virtue of the fact of how they’re arranged or how long each section is. Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams has only two verses and three choruses but listen to how everything builds so that the peak of the song is the last chorus.

Poor Arrangement - Even with great songwriters, this is the most common mistake I hear. Usually this means that the guitar or keyboard will play the same lick, chords or rhythm throughout the entire song. Now this can work perfectly well and might even be a great arrangement choice if another instrument plays a counter-line or rhythm, but usually it just means that the arrangement will be boring. You’ve got to make sure that the song stays interesting, and that means the addition of lines and fills. An example where a structure like this does work is American Women again.

No Intro/Outro Hook - If we’re talking about modern popular music (not jazz or classical), most of the songs have an instrumental line (or hook) that you’ll hear at the beginning of the song, maybe again in the chorus, and any time the intro repeats in the song. A great example would be the opening guitar riff to the Stone’s Satisfaction or the piano in Coldplay’s Clocks. If you want to make your producer happy, develop your hooks before you do your demos or hit the studio.

If you’re mindful of the items mentioned in this and my previous post, your songwriting will come up a notch just about overnight. But there’s still that thing they call talent……….

———————-

A long-time veteran of the music industry, Bobby Owsinski has produced and composed for records, motion pictures and television shows along the way. Currently a principle in the DVD production house Surround Associates and content creator 2B Media, Bobby has also penned hundreds of articles for many popular industry trade publications and has authored many books that are now staples in recording programs in colleges around the world including “The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook”, “The Recording Engineer’s Handbook”, “The Audio Mastering Handbook”, “The Drum Recording Handbook”, and “How To Make Your Band Sound Great”. Upcoming books include “The Studio Musician’s Handbook,” “Music 3.0 - A Survival Guide For Making Music in the Internet Age,” and “The Music Producer’s Handbook.”

A frequent moderator, panelist and program producer of a variety of industry conferences, Bobby has served as the longtime producer of the annual Surround Music Awards, and is one of the executive producers for the “Guitar Universe” and “Favorite Music of the Stars” television programs.

Visit Bobby’s Blog at http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/ and his website at http://bobbyowsinski.com

The Freedom of Limitation

Aaron Cheney — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:00:13 +0000

Photo by And-rey

For artists the battle has always raged between the desire for complete artistic freedom and the need (economic or otherwise) to work within a limiting set of rules. While some insist that creativity and limits are mutually exclusive, I would argue the opposite: people are never more creative than when forced to work within limitations. Limitations generate their own kind of creative freedom. They force original thinking - the wellspring of creativity.

As musicians and songwriters we face limitations all the time. They fall into two broad categories: those that are thrust upon us, and those that are self-imposed. In both cases musicians and artists have used these limitations as a springboard to new avenues of thought and art.

Limits Thrust Upon Us

Inadequate equipment, musical ignorance, commercial necessity, and popular expectation are examples of limitations that are often beyond the immediate control of an artist. A poor guitarist may only be able to afford a budget instrument. A musician with a love for jazz may need to perform pop to find an audience. A beginning recordist may only have a single dynamic microphone. Within each of these challenges lies the opportunity for creative thinking. Perhaps the guitarist can develop a new technique or sound to exploit his less-than-ideal instrument. Perhaps the musician can find a way to incorporate jazz into his pop songs. Perhaps the recordist can discover new sounds by using his single microphone in ways others have never tried before.

The lesson is simple: if you are faced with limitations that you cannot easily overcome, work around them. Don’t waste time pining for an expensive microphone, the newest VST plug-in, or a better keyboard. Instead look for creative ways to use what you have now. Don’t wait for the people’s musical tastes to change. Instead, find a way to merge your personal musical goals with what an audience wants. Limitless creative freedom is not necessary for you to make good music today. Exploit what you have now, while looking for ways to move towards your end goal.

Limits Self-Imposed

Often you can enhance your creativity with a self-imposed set of rules. A limitless number of choices can sometimes cause an artist to freeze up - a condition sometimes called “option anxiety” or “analysis paralysis”. Limiting your creative options allows you to focus more keenly in a specific creative direction. Sometimes this can be as simple as writing in a specific genre or song form. Other times the limitation itself becomes a creative choice.

Here are two examples of self-imposed creative limitations:

Alphabetic Africa by Walter Abish is a book in which the first chapter consists entirely of words beginning with the letter “A”. Each successive chapter ads words beginning with the subsequent letter of the alphabet, until at last the author is free to use all words. Then the chapters begin a backwards progression, until finally the author is forced to conclude as he began; using words that begin only with “A”.

Three Thieves’ Tale by…well….me, is a poem I wrote using a similar alliterative constraint. With a lot of thought I was able to create an entire poem that made sense, told a cohesive story, and even rhymed (loosely), using only words that began with the letter “T”.

Think Creatively

We’re all artists, right? Artists are supposed to be creative thinkers, right? Let’s embrace our limitations as an opportunity problem-solve creatively. I maintain that looking for creative solutions to “limitations” is where some of man’s greatest art has come from. I’ve already shown how I used a limitation to come up with something cool. How have you? Bring it.

Aaron Cheney is an artmusicwords guy living in Seattle, WA.

www.aaroncheney.com

The despair of infinity. Or how technology can affect your songwriting. (And what to do about it.)

Jeff Shattuck — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:47:26 +0000

Here’s another guest post from Jeff Shattuck, a former ad man, who suffered a brain injury in 2006 and woke up wanting to do nothing but write songs. You can follow his recovery progress and songwriting efforts at www.cerebellumblues.com.

I first heard this phrase – the despair of infinity – when I was staring a wall of detergents in a grocery store and my wife, Catherine, said it to me with a bemused look on her face. The phrase has stuck with me ever since, and whenever I am faced with a seeming bounty of choice, I think of it.

For example, whenever I open Pro Tools, grab my Variax guitar and set to work on a song.

Pro Tools offers virtually unlimited tracks, multiple plug-ins (each of which can be fiddled with in multiple ways), and, of course, the ability, neigh, the OBLIGATION, to be free from ever committing to anything (hey, man, we can always edit that later).

And the Variax? Well, it can merely conjure a Tele, a Strat, a Les Paul, a Firebird, a Rickenbacker, a 335, a National, a Martin and more, not to mention near endless variations on each. Oh, and run it though one of those aforementioned plug-ins and suddenly you can choose just about any guitar sound your heart desires, from crunchy Marshalls all the way through to clinically clean solid-state models.

Beyond these items, I also have loops, bass tones, keyboard samples, drum machines with numerous kits and on and on. And this is all without any outboard gear.

Add it all up and what do you get? Hint: it’s not a song. Nope, it’s the despair of infinity.

In other words, you are faced with so many choices you simply can’t decide what to do.
And this is a problem, because the songwriting process is already despairingly infinite. Think of all the words you can choose from. The chords to try. The tempos and beats you might explore. Now take this already mind-bending lack of limits, and add a cornucopia of digital doohickeys, all available with but a click, and your brain will surely become highly deserving of intense pity.

What to do? For me, I find that the best solution is to separate my songwriting and recording processes. I do my very best to puzzle out my tunes with nothing more than a guitar and notepad – or sometimes just a cup of coffee – and use my noggin to imagine how I want the song to sound, instead of trying endless plug-ins. When I think I’ve got something, I will finally sit down at the computer to try to achieve what I’m hearing in my head. Sure, the process of recording might lead to something new – and very well might lead to something better – but, to my mind, starting off with a finished song, at the very least, ensures that I know what I think I want. And this can make all the difference, because now all those choices afforded to me by digital become choices with a purpose (achieving my goal) rather than choices for the sake of choice, a sure path to a cul-de-sac of despair.

Of course, some people like to simply create. They’re the novelists who don’t outline, the painters who don’t pencil their idea before grabbing a palette and brush, the songwriters who simply like to dial in a beat, hit Record, and play whatever until something good emerges. For these folks, the infinite choices of digital enrich the creative process, offering up more, more, more, more ways to express ideas. Not for me. I find digital’s bounty to be a labyrinth that sucks me in with a promise of endless fascination — and delivers on its promise, for the fascination is truly endless.

Please don’t take my musings to mean I am against technology. No way, no how! I love technology and do not ever want to go back to my Tascam 8-track and its finicky tape heads, its tendency to get magnetized, its love of all things oxide. However, technology can become the ultimate distraction as you fiddle with your gear instead of working on your song. And consider this: if you have nothing to work with for a song idea, doing everything to it will still yield nothing. Far better to start with something shaped that you can polish rather than something you will merely grind into dust — and along the way learn firsthand the despair of infinity.

Production Workshop: What Makes A Song Bad?

Bobby Oswinski — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:07:20 +0000

Welcome to my first Production Workshop post. Every week we’ll look at a different aspect of music, recording and performance, all with an eye on improving your songs and recordings. Speaking of songs, that’s a good place to start since if you don’t have a good song, not much else matters.

We all know it when we hear a great song because we can’t get enough of it. It makes us move, it makes us listen and it draws us in. But it’s a lot harder to write a great, or even good, song than it seems, as anyone who’s ever tried to write one knows. We can analyze great songs all day long to see what makes them tick, but sometimes can learn just as much by analyzing the ones that aren’t that great as well.

Here are a number of common traits that stick out when an artist or band that’s inexperienced at songwriting and/or arranging first play me their songs. Keep in mind that we’re talking about songs from any genre of music. No matter what it is, from rock to country to goth to rock-a-billy to alien space music, you want the song to be interesting to your particular audience, so most, if not all, of the following will usually apply.

• Too Long - One thing I hear a lot are songs that have sections that are way too long. Two minute intros, three minute guitar solos and five minute outros are almost always boring. The idea is to keep everything interesting and to the point. You are always better off to have a section too short rather than too long. The only exception is if you can actually make a long section interesting, which usually takes a lot of arranging skill and even then still might not keep the audience’s attention. One really long outro that does work, for example, is the outro to Lynard Skynard’s classic Free Bird, (which everyone knows or has heard) with slight arrangement changes, kicks and accents every 16 bars. A great band, great performance and great arrangement keeps the listener’s attention to the very end, and that’s your goal after all.

• No Focus - Beginner songwriters often have no focus to their songs which means that the song meanders from chord to chord without an apparent structure and no clear distinction between sections. This is usually the result of not honing the song enough and thinking it’s finished way before it’s time. Sometimes there’s really a song in there if you peel it back a bit, but usually the only way to fix it is to go back to the drawing board for a major rewrite.

• Weak Chorus - In a lot of songs I hear, it’s hard to tell when the verse stops and the chorus starts, they’re basically the same. An interesting chorus has something different from the verse. It may be just a little different, like just adding background vocals or another instrument, or an accent or anticipation to the same chord changes and melody (like Robert Palmer’s 80’s hit Addicted To Love with the harmony vocals, or Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Crossfire with the horn hits and guitar fill, or Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough with the string pad and horn fill). Or it will be a lot different, like a different set of chord changes or melody combined with the arrangement changes previously mentioned like Vertigo by U2, This Kiss by Faith Hill, or The Eagle’s Hotel California. Either way, something has to change in the chorus to lift the energy and keep the song memorable.

In part 2, we’ll look a few more traits of a bad song.

—

Visit Bobby’s Blog at http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/ and his website at http://bobbyowsinski.com

Developing Creativity

Aaron Cheney — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:00:32 +0000

Photo by tacoekkel

It’s shocking but true: at its genesis creativity is simply copying something you like. Artists usually express it with words like “inspiration” and “influence”, but it means the same thing. True artistry, however, is taking those germs of borrowed “inspiration” and turning them into something only you could have created. Inside you there are thoughts and ideas garnered from your life experiences that are completely unique and interesting. Learning to recall those things and express them in ways that are both understandable and widely relatable is what developing your creativity is all about.

Writing vs. Editing

There are two phases to any artistic endeavor: the creative phase and the analytical phase. For us songwriters, that equates to the writing part and the re-writing, or editing part. One of the most valuable things any artist can learn is that these two phases do not work well in tandem. During the writing phase your “creative hat” should be on and all those unique and wonderful ideas inside you should be roaming freely and unchecked. This kind of creative latitude is only possible if during that same time your “editor’s hat” is hanging in the closet behind a rack of old coats. The minute your editor’s hat starts to make its way out of the closet and towards your head you need to stomp on it, kick it, and put it back in the closet. If it tries to come out again nail it to the wall in the back of the closet and lock the door. It is not the editing hat’s turn yet!

During the creative phase you should capturing your ideas as fast as they come to you, without scrutiny or judgment. Just as a sculptor can’t begin his work until he has a lump of clay before him, a songwriter can’t begin without a page full of words or musical ideas; so let them come, no matter how silly they seem. (And by the way, if they seem silly it’s because your editor’s hat has gotten loose again…) Give yourself words, lines, notes, and melodies to manipulate before letting that editing hat out of the closet!

Discovering Your Unique Lyrical Ideas

Once you’ve learned which hat to wear and when, you will find yourself writing things you’ve never had the courage to write before. Ideas that once seemed too ridiculous to even make the journey from you mind to your pencil will suddenly appear on your paper. These are the very ideas we are after! At first they may be hard to find, but you can nurture your ability to locate them by writing for a short time everyday. Just 10 minutes or so of simple prose with no boundaries. Just pick some ordinary object or situation to muse on. No lines. No rhymes. No pressure. Just write. It might help to pick something funny, quirky, or weird the first few times to trick your mind into thinking that what you’re writing doesn’t matter. Once your creative juices are flowing, switch to something serious.

As you write, don’t tell your story…. show it. Your lines will come alive and others will be able to relate to them like never before. Why say “The attic was dusty”, when instead you could say “I was blowing brown boogars for a week”? See how much more descriptive the latter phrase is? See how much more quickly and deeply you understand? That’s because it hits us all where we live. I mean, let’s be honest… who hasn’t had this experience at least once? The minute a listener hears that line they are immediately taken back to their own experience, and they understand. They relate to your lyrics on a deeper level.

The Same Goes for Music

As with lyrics, discovering new musical ideas requires that you discard your editor’s hat for a while. A wise guitarist once told me that each time I pick up my guitar to practice, before I play a scale or even warm up, I should play something I’ve never played before. Just a few notes or a phrase that my fingers don’t know by rote.

The reason is obvious: as humans we tend to fall into patterns and habits that are familiar and comfortable. We’re like the bobcat or the badger at the zoo, following the same circuit through our pen until we’ve worn a path into the ground. As a person looking in from the outside we just want to shout “Snap out of it you silly badger! For once would you just turn right instead of left!” As you write your songs practice turning right once in a while. Finding something unique requires us to alter our own well-traveled routes and break new ground.

So….how have you managed to turn right instead of left?

Aaron Cheney is an artmusicwords guy living in Seattle, WA.

www.aaroncheney.com

Practicing Your Songwriting

Rob Oxoby — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:00:15 +0000

Photo by Adrian F

This is a guest post from Rob Oxoby.

Like anything, songwriting improves as one practices one’s craft. Practicing songwriting can often be a daunting task not only because it seems odd as a concept (What is the difference between practicing songwriting and being creative by actually engaging in the process of songwriting?) but also because it requires admitting that your own songwriting needs improvement.

Many times, once we write something we have a hard time letting it go, admitting that it needs complete rewriting or that may just not be that good to want a live performance or recording. Many years ago, I read somewhere that Charlotte Cafferty (then guitarist of the Go-Go’s) wrote hundreds of songs that never saw life beyond her notebook. She viewed these is not good enough for live performance and use them as examples to learn and practice what worked and what didn’t work.

Personally, for every 10 songs or so I write, one makes it in front of a band; and for every five that I bring to the band, one makes it to a live performance or recording. While this may suggest that I’m extremely prolific or just plain suck at writing, I take a different view: In a sense, all those bad songs I write are practice for the good songs I write.

In any event, admitting that a song you have written requires rewriting/retooling/rejecting can be difficult. Sometimes when I’m just not in the mood to rework my own material, I turn to the work of others. My approach is this: How many times has a song you don’t particularly like gotten stuck in your head? It happens to me all the time. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and one of my kids’ favorite songs is stuck in my head. Sometimes I (inadvertently) hear a song by an artist I don’t like, only to have the song repeat over and over again in my head throughout the day. There must be something about these songs that makes them “stick.” So, I use these songs as material to practice my songwriting. Literally, I take these songs and start rewriting them, taking them apart to figure out what makes them tick and why they are so catchy. At the same time, I’m honing my own skills with melody, harmony and rhythm.

Deconstructing a Hit

When practicing songwriting, it’s useful to think about what it is that makes these songs (perhaps regrettably) so memorable. Is it the melody? Is it the artist’s phrasing? Is it the rhythm or chord progression? As such, rewriting an existing song can serve several important purposes:

1. By dissecting and rewriting an existing song you can learn a great deal about what makes its melody catchy or its rhythm addictive. I often take an existing song and try to change one aspect (e.g., melody rhythm progression) while keeping everything else constant. This allows me to see how, say, the artist phrasing works within a melodic or harmonic structure. Sometimes I keep the melody and try to change the chords or rhythm in order to understand how a seemingly catchy melody can be supercharged by the right rhythm and harmony to create a monster you can’t get out of your head. Through this, you learn what works and what doesn’t for more general songwriting.

2. This type of work also gives you an opportunity to step outside of your genre. Maybe you can take that goofy Carrie Underwood song about cheating and turn it into a mambo? Maybe you can really stretch out an do what these guys did, converting a Brittany Spears song into a fugue. By stepping out of your genre and writing something really different, you open yourself up to new ways of conceptualizing a song. You hear new rhythms and phrases that may spark ideas for your own original material.

3. Finally, by working from an existing song you are not only learning from an example of a “successful” song, but you’re also practicing your own craft. In re-writings say a Beyonce song or something from the soundtrack to bear in the Big Blue House, it’s impossible for you not to interject your own ideas and style. As such, your songwriting, arranging, and your toolkit of songwriting tricks and ideas can only get better.

Rob Oxoby

robbyoxoby@gmail.com

More Songwriting Tools

Aaron Cheney — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:00:43 +0000

Photo by gadgetgirl

Now that we’ve covered a songwriter’s most important tool - the notebook - let’s talk about some others:

The Rhyming Dictionary

Writing lyrics is hard work. Why waste time looking for rhymes when someone else has already done it for you? Remember, however, that rhyming dictionaries are not fool-proof. Sometimes no perfect rhymes exist. Use your own smarts and look up near-rhymes or false-rhymes. Other times you’ll find words that rhyme but have no relationship to your lyrics. Solve this by making them part of a metaphor. Rhyming dictionaries won’t help you come up with conglomerate rhymes either. (Rhyming “benefit” with “then if it”, for example).

Despite its shortcomings a good rhyming dictionary is an absolute essential to any songwriter. I recommend The New Comprehensive American Rhyming Dictionary by Sue Young. There are also some great rhyming resources online, my favorite being rhymezone.com.

The Dictionary and Thesaurus

Words are power. As a songwriter, you owe it to yourself to have a wide, working vocabulary. You can’t use words you don’t know. Even worse, you can misuse a word you only think you know. For a songwriter there is no greater humiliation. When you come across a word you don’t know, use your dictionary.

Have you ever been stuck trying to cram a word with too many syllables into a line, like somebody over-packing a suitcase? Enter the thesaurus – an instant list of new words and phrases with similar meanings.. Call me weird, but I just love to peruse mine from time to time, trolling for new phrases. I particularly like editions that randomly highlight a group of words and detail the subtle differences in their meanings. Ever wonder what the differences are between stories, tales, fables, anecdotes, and allegories? I have… and now I know.

Musical Instruments

The guitar is the most popular instrument of our time, followed by the piano. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Experienced songwriters will tell you that the instrument you choose to write on will have a profound effect on your songs. Writers often switch between them to break up their songwriting routines and spark fresh ideas. Become a student of your instrument. Just as a large vocabulary will help you write better lyrics, a knowledge of theory (the vocabulary of music) will help you write better music.

Hand-held Recording Devices

Once, long ago in the 1980’s, people used mini-tape decks to record quick bits of audio. Nowadays everything is digital. Almost every phone or personal electronic gadget has a recording function, and they trump notebooks in one aspect: they can capture sound. Carry one. An emergency alternative: phone home. I’ve sung my share of song ideas into my answering machine. My wife always gets a chuckle out of replaying my quirky, off-key, and sometimes rambling “notes-to-self”.

Computers

When I first started making music way back in the olden days, the thought of having a recording studio in your home was unheard of except for the super-rich. Now, thanks to the computer, everybody has one! We live in an amazing time, when musicians can write, record, design, duplicate, and market their music to the world, all via one little gray box.

Writing lyrics on a computer has distinct advantages: your writing is always neat, blocks of text are easy to manipulate and rearrange, and when you’re finished you can easily make multiple copies or email them to someone. My songs may begin life in a notebook, but they all end up in a computer sooner or later.

A word of warning: writing music on the computer should be approached with caution. It’s fine to sing a melody or strum a guitar part into a computer for memory’s sake, but resist the temptation to fully record a song until it is written. The allure of the studio, with all its tempting bells and whistles, can be a real song killer! Make sure you stay focused on songwriting and not recording.

After some trial and error you will find the tools and methods that work best for you. Whatever your approach, the goal is to capture your ideas the instant they occur to you. I would love to hear your tips and advice - what have you found that works for you?

Aaron Cheney is an artmusicwords guy living in Seattle, WA.

www.aaroncheney.com

Advice From The Road: Sometimes It Is About Who You Know

Michael Armentrout — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:29:07 +0000

Here’s another guest post from Michael S. Armentrout - music fan, lover of King’s X and future concert promoter.

This is the final installment in the series about things that typically go wrong and how to best respond. Again, the audience is newer, less experienced artists. The goal is to share experiences so that others would benefit. At the end of the day the focus is on the songs and the performance of those songs. The catchiest hook ever created means nothing if it cannot be shared with others. We have covered sound issues and how others have responded. Were you able to add something to your repertoire? We covered knowing your environment and responding to the unforeseen. Were you able to glean useful information from that? The final piece speaks to the skill of creating genuine rapport with others. You never know when the success of the gig boils down to who you know…

Collette McLafferty - collette@thewinkwinks.com
Lead Singer – edibleRed
http://ediblered.tv/
http://www.myspace.com/ediblered

After touring for years in cafeterias, prisons (Ok only one…Riker’s Island), parties, dive bars etc., we finally got a shot at opening up for our first national act…a LEGENDARY 80’s band…

The show was last minute… there were many details to coordinate and it literally became a full time job setting up the show. I even got the band good openers in other markets and on our own show.

About 36 hours before the show, I got an email from the venue saying that there would be no time to have edibleRed play the show. Earlier in my career, I would have cried and not played the show. But I decided that come hell or high-water, edibleRed was playing!

First, I emailed the venue and explained that we would not have time to “unpromote” the show and that we had so many fans who were expecting us to play. I also gave suggested that the other opener condenses their show so we could play a short set.

Then I wrote to my contact at the national act and nicely explained that after all the work I had put in that not doing the show just wasn’t an option. They agreed! The national act then told the venue that if we were not playing, neither were they!

I never actually told the rest of the band that we were getting bumped until the show was over…I was confident we would play no matter what. And we were going to show up ready to play despite the circumstances.

And the gig was awesome! I ended up bonding with the lead singer from the band and made some great friends that night! If there is anything I can pass on to other bands… learn how to stick up for yourself and do it nicely!

Eric Whittington - ewhittington@piercom.com
Band – Exit 314

In February of this year, we were set to play a corporate function at the House of Blues in Houston, Texas. A couple of days before the show, our bass player had a heart attack and was, of course, totally out of commission. Then, the day before the show, the drummer’s wife became ill and had to be hospitalized, so we lost our drummer less than 24 hours before hitting the road to Houston from San Antonio. Amazingly, we scrambled and lined up a substitute bass player and drummer. Fortunately, the drummer had played with some of us before so he at least had a sense of our style. And the bassist turned out to be extremely talented and versatile, so the show was fine. We found the bassist as a referral from another bassist who had filled in for us several months earlier. So the lesson here is to maintain a network of musicians and phone numbers so you can quickly find someone to fill in. I’m still amazed that we were able to find TWO substitutes for a road trip on such short notice! Keeping all those phone numbers handy really paid off!

Can you relate?

Did you see yourself in any of these situations? Were you able to improvise, adapt and overcome like the artists in this article? Or did you handle the situation differently? If so, share your wealth of experience and knowledge so others may benefit. All artists experience challenges like these, it is how one responds that dictates growth as an artist as well as a human being.