Music Thead Black Hole!

[Jeid]

fair enough, good luck with the covers

[Reev]

as long as that isnt sarcasm jeid, thanks

[Jeid]

sarcasm? me? never...

[Reev]

of course not..................!

[tierce-de-picardie]

I agree very much with early posts that bands should start out on covers for recognition then begin to slip in their own material and slowly build this up. Ive got a few things to say about other posts although the post has been removed. K dragon stated that i am not interestd in doing my own material atall and want to do covers covers and more covers but obviously solo work doesnt count ive got about 4 albums worth of music ive written and recorded myself sitting at home and im currently workin on about 6 different pieces of music one of them a full orchestral gutiar concerto various other pieces a gutiar violin duet and a piece for trumpet so i really dont see how this can be seen as being narrow minded about doing my own material. right thats a bit irrelavant to this current post but i thought ide bring it up.

I know from experience that going out and doing origional work striaght off doesnt work. i agree with ben if they wish to do cover then they should do what they wish. uppiebalad seems to have the impression that all musicians want to make it big. And yes its nice of him expressing his views and giving advice and so forth but really if ben wanted the advice he would ask for it surly i think most musicians know what they want and if they really want to make it big they will try there best to do so. Uppiebalad if you love your music so much and are so opiniated abotu what everyone else is doin then why dont you get a band together and do entirely your own music. Duress obviously do not want to do that. But i do agree strongly on that duress should give their own material a shot because whats there to loose? And jeid you feel strongly that there is no music scene in caithness anymore why dont you instead of sitting on this expressing your opinions why dont you do something about it organise a caithness music comitee os somthing that would be an interesting challenge for yourself. thats only a suggestion of course.

[Reev]

Dude, you Rock!!!

[Uppiebalad]

[quote=tierce-de-picardie]I agree very much with early posts that bands should start out on covers for recognition then begin to slip in their own material and slowly build this up.

Great, excellent idea- go for it because you have to learn music before you can take it in your direction.

doesnt count ive got about 4 albums worth of music ive written and recorded myself sitting at home and im currently workin on about 6 different pieces of music one of them a full orchestral gutiar concerto various other pieces a gutiar violin duet and a piece for trumpet so i really dont see how this can be seen as being narrow minded about doing my own material. right thats a bit irrelavant to this current post but i thought ide bring it up.

Great, excellent, keep up the good work- you must be doing all this for some reason or another???

I know from experience that going out and doing origional work striaght off doesnt work.

Very true and I don't know any band that didn't start without first playing someone elses work.

uppiebalad seems to have the impression that all musicians want to make it big.

Actually I don't hold such impression but I am aware that all bands have an aspect of competition with one another- hence Battle Of The Bands. Now who here hasn't played that gig? (I know some of you won't have but...)


if ben wanted the advice

Ben was never specified as a destination for any of my advice, in fact no one individual has been approached as such.

Uppiebalad if you love your music so much and are so opiniated

Am I not allowed to be opinionated as you are being right here.

then why dont you get a band together and do entirely your own music.

Because I prefer to write the material.

Duress obviously do not want to do that. But i do agree strongly on that duress should give their own material a shot because whats there to loose?

Nothing to loose, only more credit to be gained and more respect (even though they have plenty) for their skills as musicians.

And jeid you feel strongly that there is no music scene in caithness anymore why dont you instead of sitting on this expressing your opinions why dont you do something about it organise a caithness music comitee os somthing that would be an interesting challenge for yourself. thats only a suggestion of course.

Now a music committee, I saw one of those once- gee, the backstabbing and eye clawing that went on. Do you really think that's a good idea? What would it's aims be? What would it be doing for young bands?
More please!

[zebedy]

Doing your own stuff is not as easy as Just doin it like that. Making a tune is hard. Making our tune Inn a Dream took 3 days strait hard work. days lasting from 12 to 7 at night! Some people can;t just crap out lyrics. Although some can. I was in a band a while ago with a very talented young adult. ( K Dragon ). The band went by the name of " Fear Of Faith ". and We had a full set list out own material. And Just comeing of the mark with your own material just does not work. We got a wow responce cause we had so much of our own work.. But it wasnt what people always want to hear. We never had no1 dance to our music. And to have people dancing to music your making is just a great feeling. I finally have that and it feels awesome! And when you play your own song that people soon begin to recognize and they dance to it ( Even if they were a drunk crowd and didnt care ) Still.... Totally Awesome! I feel opinions are beging to get out of hand! People in my case arent looking to make it big. For i am only 15 years of age. And yes you may say AIM HIGH,. I'm in music .. In a band.. Purly for .. " FUn "

[Jeid]

(tierce-de-picardie)Joe i'm guessing? thanks for joining in the conversation.

Setting up a Caithness music committee sounds like an awesome idea. But as Uppie already stated, what would we ideally aim to achieve? this idea interests me greatly. if we can setup an aim of the committee and actually get together around a table and speak like adults then it could work. there seems to be interest finally brewing within this little community at long last!

how about instead of voicing all our opinions on a subject as trivial as this, why not put some of our energy into something that could indeed benefit the community, the music "scene" and all of our talented musicians.

It'd be a challenge, it could work, it could fail... but it'd be worth trying. if we get the right people involved it could be hugely beneficial to all.

Jack, your right, it is hard work writing songs, for some people, it comes naturally. i envy those people. its worth the time and effort though. the results may not please all, but its all risk i guess. I for one wouldn't be in an all out originals band straight away. That'd be something i'd aim for. Hopefully, if all goes well, i can get a band together at the begining of the year and be playing a gig or so by summer, time will tell on that one

[The Pepsi Challenge]

Songwriting, eh? You might want to read this, from a talented chap called Craig Weldon. He talk sense.

The Theory of Songwriting
by Craig Weldon

Coming up with a good song is little more than coming up with a nice chord change, a mean riff, or a neat rhyming couplet, right? After all, listen to songs like The Chemical Brothers' 'Block Rockin' Beats,' or Daft Punk's 'Around the World.' What could be easier than coming up with something similar yourself? And yet, when notes go down on paper/tape/hard drive, suddenly something seems missing.

I'll tell you what is missing, and it is what separates amateur songwriters from the professionals: arrangement. The good news is that, unlike inspiration or hard work, it can be learned.

The first thing I learned in writing this little article is how very little theory I know myself. So with that caveat out of the way, let us begin…

The Golden Rules

The most important thing to learn, codified by The KLF in musician's bible 'The Manual,' [available on this site from the Articles page] are the Golden Rules. Everyone knows the golden rules intuitively, whether they can write them down or not, for modern rock and pop is based so solidly on the foundation of these rules that even the most bizarre and fresh sounding songs often follow, when listened to analytically, these rules. You'll be wanting to know these rules then. You already know, but might not have seen them written down before:

Short intro
Verse1
Chorus
Verse2
Chorus
mid song break
Chorus
Chorus
End

Do not break these rules until your arrangement skills are good enough for you to be confident to do so. Plenty of great musicians have broken the rules to stunning effect, (Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' springs immediately to mind) but bedroom studios are littered with the corpses of songs which were forced into unnatural, 4-verse-no-break song structures. What a waste. Follow the rules, and suddenly everything becomes easier. This doesn't mean you are restricted to a Stock, Aitken & Waterman style straightjacket for the rest of your songwriting life. But how can you break the rules when you don't know what they are?

Killer choruses

The next thing to learn is chord progression. Usually you will have come up with something that sounds nice and you want to take it further and make a whole song out of it. Do not ruin your good work by making the verse so different from the chorus that they sound like they belong in different songs. If you have a good sounding chorus, perhaps along the basis of:


F C F Bb F C F C

Why not try for the verse:

F Bb F C F Bb F C?

It looks so obvious when written down. And yet so many bands torture themselves in the quest to be different with impossible looking chord structures like:

A verse of: Bb C D Bb C G Bb C D

A bridge of: Bb7 Am7 G#7

A chorus of: Em9 Am7 Em9 Am7 Em7 Em7 Am Am7-Bm7

Do yourself - and your audience - a favour. Keep it simple. Complicated chord structures certainly sounds good when done right - a listen to the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, or Miles Davis confirms that - but, like the Golden Rule, it is easier to master the simple stuff first. A simple chord structure keeps the verses and chorus more coherent than just about anything else.

Writing the Words

Which segues neatly on to the next subject - vocals. The most important part of a song is the vocal melody - it wouldn't be called a song, after all, if it were any different (your intention may be to create a song with no words, in which case this point does not apply to you). But why sing at all unless you have something interesting to say? What is it you are trying to say in this song you have just written? Is it a random collection of bad rhymes, put together to fit a melody or chord structure? Time to change that.

Are there any good phrases in the song you have that could be salvaged, give you an idea for a completely different song? Hear anything that tickled your fancy from your local patter merchant down the pub last night? Anything about the human condition that needs to be said?

Just remember that no-one cares if your partner has just left you, or that warfare and famine are getting you down, unless you can connect to them in a new and refreshing way. Vocals are the one place where it is good to be different, to be daring, to open your heart. Repetition in vocals is ok, as long as it is of something interesting.

There is another potential threat to vocals, one which can enhance your words in underlined red ink but if done wrongly, will dash all your hard work on grafting a cute rhyme to naught - band dynamics.

Unfortunately for most bands, especially live, the vocal becomes the least audible part of the performance, as each instrument is cranked to full for maximum effect. The best way to go is usually the opposite. The vocals should be taken as the most important part, and everything else should flow from that. If you have taken the bother to write lyrics for your songs, it is only fair to let the audience hear them. It is here that the cruel irony of the rhythm guitar comes into play. The singer/songwriter often writes their songs with the aid of a guitar, but this occupies the same frequency range as the typical male voice, and many a lead singer will be drowned out by a noise often of his own devising - the rhythm guitar.(Female guitarists can keep playing rhythm). However, if the drums and bass are doing their job correctly, there should be no need for a rhythm guitar to keep the band tight. Which leads us to arrangement.

Making the arrangement

The fundamental point to note about arrangement - apart from the Golden Rule above - is that each instrument has a different frequency range. This is an important point - because vocals are usually the most important part of a performance, you don't want anything else with a similar frequency range, like guitars, keyboards, or brass instruments, interfering at the same time. You could turn the volume of these instruments down for a performance, but a more effective technique is to sparsen out the arrangement.

There is no rule I have seen written down that says that every instrument must play all the time. Indeed, the very opposite is often preferable - bringing in instruments only when they are needed, and dropping them when they are not, will increase the impact not only of the individual instruments, but of the song as a whole. A great riff sounds even better when it is not having to compete with the vocals. Listen to the Kinks' 'All Day and All of the Night.' When the vocal line is continuous, the guitar is innocuous - only coming on with the great riff when the vocals are broken or static. This is the technique of 'call and answer' we hear all the time on blues records (Call:I woke up this morning. Answer:da na na na na nah). Another old trick is to bring on all the bells and whistles for a chorus or grand finale to a song, and that is only possible when something is kept in reserve at the start.

Another technique you might want to try is to have each of your instruments playing a different melody to the main one. If the bass, lead, rhythm, and keyboards all shadow the same chords, the effect will be far reduced compared to just two instruments playing counterpoint. Try a different, funkier line for the bass compared to the other instruments. Let instruments in the same range as the vocals stab or play a continuous drone.

Mood music

Finally,we come to the mood of a song. Just by listening to other songs, we get an idea of how our song should sound. A reflective song should have a quiet accompaniment, a youthful song a loud, bouncy one. A serious point is usually better made in reflective mode, but subverting the mood and making it bright and breezy can bring an added dimension - think of OMD's 'Enola Gay'. Certain sounds lend certain atmospheres. Keyboard pads or flanged, reverberating guitars are atmospheric. Punk guitar and frantic drums are aggressive. A funky bass makes you want to dance. Phil Collins style drums are the least likely to make you want to dance and want to listen to the words, while Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown Band) style drums are the opposite.

So that's the end of this little ramble. Let's recap:

Keep the arrangement simple
Use the Golden Rules
Say something meaningful/interesting in your vocals
Let the vocals be heard.

I hope you've learnt something, even if the only concrete bit of good advice is the Golden Rules. But remember that though you can learn theory and arrangement, you can't learn original inspiration. If you have something to say, keep it simple, keep it unique and true to yourself. Listen to the people you respect, but ignore their advice completely if you disagree with it inside. As the artist Georgia O'Keeffe once said: "I can't do the job I want, I can't vote for what I want, and I sure can't sleep with who I want. I'd be a damn fool not to paint what I want." And perhaps that is the best advice of all.

[crazy chick]

Every1 has 2 start of sumwere and covers are a great way to get a following and doing your own stuff takes alot of time and effort

[The Pepsi Challenge]

Then again, you could ignore Craig's advice, and follow your true punk spirit i.e. play from the heart and not worry about whether it's any good or not. You'll free liberated and from that - like so many other influential bands that started out as punk acts (Joy Division, Gary Numan, Magazine, The Cure, Simple Minds etc.) - you'll start to develop your own sound and direction. Have no fear is what I'm saying.

[crazy chick]

true rock spirit and doing music professionally aint easy like its made out

[Jeid]

who said anything about professionally? half of the 70's punk bands could hardly play their instruments. Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols was garbage on bass!

they had passion though, and that showed

[Uppiebalad]

I think all of us here understand that writing anything can be difficult but the more you do a thing the more you can work it out. In learning music first off we would obviously start with someone elses work so that can find out about notes, keys and all the rest. The more diverse our chioce of music the more we see different arangements and set ups. In a short time you can listen to any tune for the first time and step ahead of the music predicting it's line of projection. Movies are the same, characters introduced at the beginning and the scene is set for what is to unfold. Music helps us to enterprit what is about to happen on the screen. These formuli are mostly logical common sense which we pick up with experience. The prediction principles apply to our everyday lives. As we become more experienced we find ourselves able to begin creating our own material.
Music for example is created from a process of taking a start sound, a note, and stepping up or down to a different note. The tune can be changed depending on how many steps you take in either direction, how long each step takes, the sequence in which the steps occur and so on.
J S Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D' is only a handful of notes played fast so it sounds complicated but when slowed down there really isn't much to it.
I appreciate the difficulties in creating a song or story having written a lot of material for national press, tv, theatre and websites. I've created some peices lashed out in a few days, sometimes a couple of months and often from a handful of notes and ideas in my head that have been hanging around for years.
A thought for you all in playing your own music; take to mind that Caithness people are very scared to express themselves for fear of ridicule. So if you play one of your songs and don't get the hoped for response it is probly because the audience are too scared to admit they liked it in case anyone dissagrees with them. This is why I have expressed the importance of taking your work outside of Caithness (when possible) so that people who don't care or don't have to be drunk before they'll dance, can give you a genuine response. Here's where you should be making use of the websites you are all making. Photo's fine- but get your music on there as well because it's not just Caithness tuning in on the web. We all have or have access to recording equipment of a high enough recording standard to produce demo tracks. You don't need to book a recording studio these days and you'll find that many bands that are being noticed are putting their work out on the web.
Running out of ideas for songs! have you ever taken a really good look at what exists around you in Caithness. There's plenty to write about- not every song has to be about love or issues.
Have a look here; www.livetodiesociety.funtigo.com even though it's amateur movies stuff, it's only 3 months work and now it's on the web. I understand from these guys that the work is drawn from all kinds of things about Caithness and life as they see it.
I know creation isn't always an overnight thing and many people find it more difficult than others but you all know it's not impossible.

[Jeid]

if i didn't know better, i'd say you were involved in the Live To Die Society

[Reev]

seeing how this convo has gone, i still disagree with you guys about "having" to progress on to original material, the majority seem to think its a necessity, i however dont, but we are allowed to have diff opinions

[tierce-de-picardie]

not all origional material is ideal for public playing. the music i write at home on my own is all sound track film style music or neo classical shred style music which is not really for public performance. other types of muisc i play i would be willing to perform but its finding people to accomapany me because i write music for all instruments.

I dont see why a music commitee would turn out into a bunch of backstabbers. a commitee would be good organising gigs or workshops for the youger folk to influence them so as to increase the music scene if we motivate children and teens they will become more pro-active and a music scene may apear. fund raising could be organised to then pay for small concerts locally to pay for venue sound engineer ect or even hire bands from other area of scotland that will add a wider variety to our area.

Jied seems to think a commitee would be good aswell. even if it is jsut meetings to go a talk about music it wouldnt have to be formal just somwhere to duscuss. again this is just a suggestion.

[Uppiebalad]

Sorry Jeid but I'm not part of the livetodiesociety but I have been supplying information and advice to assist their work. It was through my advice that they work with Cinema For Thurso Group and together they are working hard on several large projects which are taking shape rather nicely. They, like Boss Hogg, Estrella and so on, are making the right moves within their field of interest.
I strongly suggest Tierce, that you contact them, I'm pretty sure they'de be very interested in your work for their films. It would help them expand music access. At the moment they are licensed to use any British recording but that still leaves limitations on soundtrack content.
Reev, I don't feel that ALL bands should progress to doing their own stuff- only bands that want to make a carreer of their interest should persue such or the quiet individual who totally does it for their own pleasure.

If a music committee of some sort was to start up it would have to have some kind of aim otherwise it would be as pointless as a circus skills workshop. There must be an ultimate goal to be acheived and then sustained. Young musicians need encouragement and support where ever they wish to take their talents. Many people are invloved in things as children but become disinterested as they grow older. An active music group should perhaps be like an amateur dramatics or film making group, working together over periods of time to pull together shows to perform to the public. A music showcase should enable bands to demonstrate how well they can play any music and also show that they can make their own.
It is not nessecary for all bands to progress to their own music but it is helpful to the music community as a whole as well as satisfying to the listener if they do progress. And progress would be the right word for it!

[Uppiebalad]

And just thinking a little further, and this may surprise you, but the if you are going to set up a committee then you should look for people who love music of all kinds but who are NOT INVOLVED directly in music production, performance or marketing therof. However they should have managerial skills, good people skills, be open to new ideas and inovations and be informed by feedback and guidance from musicians and listeners as well as public opinion. (remember when you gig you are selling yourselves to the public).
If a committee or board of directors has more than one member from the same group or organisation even if the intent isn't there, gravity will take hold and a bias will develope and then look out- back stabbing and all the rest. The music business is no less itchy than ball room dancing.