Lemon Zest ft. Tyler Rae Knight

[Lee Knight]

It's been fun. Phase 1. This is Disney teen pop.

 

Her voice sounds much younger than I know of her. But this is her, my daughter. She has a sweet, innocent, yet adult aware persona, and... she felt the lyric. Oh the pain of being 15. So dig it. And please, as always, honesty. Tyler... she won't be reading here... this is her first shot, and I think she's got somthin'. But honesty first. Please.

 

So let's make something here. I'm being a task master in the studio and she's digging the work of it. More to come, right? But hey, let's figure out how to make this something. So, input is needed!

 

But first of all, this isn't a critique of her, but the tune, or rather, the track... and my shortcomings, and how we can make it better.

 

 

[video=youtube;6D1PdDUmTFE]

[oldgitplayer]

First impressions with one listen :

 

She's great. If she can do this now, she's going to be terrific with a bit more experience.

 

On the track overall, I noticed some incidental instrumentation that made me think, 'Why's that there?' eg. pizzicato strings.

But essentially it's a good groove that feels right for the lyric.

 

If Tyler Rae can do it, she might try and sing some of the chorus key lines with a bit of cheeky attitude - the line preceding + the lemon zest line.

Maybe get her to listen to Carly Simon's 'You're so Vain' and Carole Bayer Sager's 'You're moving out today' as examples.

 

Anyway Dad, it sounds like you're doing something right there.

[stickboymusic]

it's great BUT its come out sounding really "nice" and im not sure that was the intention?

 

She has a little avril lavigne to her voice but at the moment its just lacking attitude..... i think it kinda needs to be "sung" a little less..... more delivery and less singy

 

Also im feeling the whole tempo is too slow for the song.... really noticable in the chorus.... needs to be quite a bit faster i feel.

 

things like "just give it a rest" could be followed by a quick "REST" by a group of people and "zest" also

 

im not sure if it needs some edgy synths or something to build the chorus

 

its really great as a nice song and id be super pround of your daughter for her first thing... she has done it great. The lyric just seems to warrant a much harder approach?

[RickDieffenbach]

Lee,

 

First, I had to smile, 'cause I can hear dear old dad in her voice. Like father, like daughter in the music department I'd say. She sings clear and confidently, and her vocals have a very pleasant resonance to them.

 

1. Production note - I think the vocals could use just the tiniest amount of edginess, the kind that comes from the mixer. I know you want to keep this as teen pop, so I am not suggesting something extreme. Just a tiny bit more harmonic distortion, and slight echo delay in her voice, perhaps a touch more reverb. And perhaps EQ a small notch where the vocals sit. The goal would be a touch more edginess and have the vocals be a little more above the mix. It's 90% there now.

 

2. The words "as if I care" - my gut was saying should have been "as if I cared" because I think that's the more commonly used phrase. But it may be a generational thing.

 

3. Verse 1 melody is slightly different than verse 2. I think it should be the same as #2. it sounds slightly better.

 

It's just a single note, but it makes a difference. Verse 1 listen to the word "care", verse 2 listen to "came in". This is the same in both lines of each verse. Not a big deal, but I think it gives verse 1 to much a child feel.

 

4. Turn up the harmonies in the chorus! More more more!

 

5. "and boy I can't wait to hear what you got to say",I'd throw a harmony over the word "say" (I'm talking about the one half way through the song), make that punch out. It recesses a bit because of the low note.

 

6. I've listened to the solo several times. Each time thinking "that's pleasant" and (at the same time) "I'm not sure if that's right for this song". It's appropriate, etc, but my gut feel was the short solo was a flat area in an otherwise song that moves. I'd suggest trying to echo the melody of the song in the solo instead of trying to have it do it's own thing. It can (and should still be ) expressive. I'd suggest echoing a part of the chorus.

 

7. LOVE THE PIZZICATO STRINGS!

 

8. Closing chorus. Your background vocals are definitely more intense there. I think the main vocal needs stronger harmony there to also ramp up as the end of the song is approached.

 

 

Rick

[Monkey Uncle]

Tyler sounds kinda like Taylor Swift. Only Tyler is in tune.

 

I'm in general agreement with Rick and Stick about the need to turn up the edginess a bit. It's a song about a bad boy being bad, so it needs a little attitude. Not being a studio geek, I don't know how to do that, but I'm sure you do.

 

I know we beat the pot-smoking line to death a while back, but I'm still not sure that part of the lyric came out right. But I'm probably overthinking it; most listeners probably won't give it a second thought.

 

All in all, great work - both of you!

[bee3]

quick comment... will come back with more. It sounds SO lee knight... like Rick, it made me smile.

[LordBTY]

Wow - her voice is really good. When I read that she's only 15 I wasn't expecting that.

 

However, for Disney Teen Pop it needs to sound way more processed - so I'd open up Melodyne.

 

On to the tune, although it's really good and I'm not sure if this is down to the general production or not, I felt like it wasn't quite 'infectious' enough. There appears to only be one hook when there should be several. Given the genre, one can get away with being exceptionally inane in order to get something stuck in the listeners head.

 

e.g.

 

and I was like baby baby baby woah

like baby baby baby oooh

I thought you'd always be me.

 

The opening line is pretty good, though - it certainly catches the listeners attention. Other wise, lyrically speaking, I haven't quite gotten any message - that's fine, it depends what you were going for. I didn't quite catch on to any metaphor behind 'lemon zest' (to me I'd use lemon zest when making certain kinds of hot sauce.) Instrumentally, I think it should all be a bit sparser with more variety in the textural dynamics to keep attention - 'cause atm I feel like it's one continuous on going 'thing'. Maybe a heavier contrast between verse/chorus is needed.

 

 

 

Also this:

 

 

it's great BUT its come out sounding really "nice" and im not sure that was the intention? She has a little avril lavigne to her voice but at the moment its just lacking attitude..... i think it kinda needs to be "sung" a little less..... more delivery and less singy Also im feeling the whole tempo is too slow for the song.... really noticable in the chorus.... needs to be quite a bit faster i feel. im not sure if it needs some edgy synths or something to build the chorus

 

 

 

A bit more on the vocal performance:

 

I think maybe you should have got the vocalist to not worry too much about pitch and worry about passionate delivery/attitude. Nicki Minaj is a perfect example of this - she's clearly been autotuned but none of her listeners really care. I mean, she seems to be able to hold a tune but was probably a bit too worried about singing rather than having a 'speech quality' to her. I'd suggest getting several takes of her singing in different ways - singing nicely, singing aggressively etc. That way, you can comp for when a word needs to be aggressive/when it needs to be 'nice'. Generally, when I record myself I do many takes like that and chop it up phrase by phrase, taking into account the emotional impact/distinctiveness before I correct a few things in melodyne. If I were a more experienced singer, I probably wouldn't need to do this quite like that but I'm not ;P

[Lee Knight]

GREAT STUFF!, guys. I agree with it all. I'm going to apply all this input over the next few days. I must admit to being a little out of my league here. But it's something I'd like to pick up, so I'm digging in.

 

As to the song not being simple enough... I totally agree. Unfortunately that's a little late. So I'm going to take all this input and make the most out this one.

 

As far as getting her to sing with more attitude... don't I know it. It was a struggle. A fun struggle but... a struggle none the less. Not sure if she's up for having that aggression in her voice yet. That what I meant by her sounding younger than I expected. Every time we went for it, it came out sounding over sung physically. Not too good. I get what you guys are saying about the "too nice" sound. At this point in her development it might be more a matter of eq and mild distortion to sort of fake it cause I'm not sure that's in her bag of tricks just yet.

 

Hmmm. I must admit that I sounded pissed off as soon as I started singing at her age!!!!

 

Ah well.

[Barry_Blink_a_lot]

I think the lemon zest thing falls flat. The lyrics is too vague for a young 12 year old Disney-pop fan and 'soft' for a slightly older, more adult listener. If your target audience is young teens and you're slyly referencing pot smoking (I seem to recall your thread from months back with the lyrics), I guess I don't think little kids are gonna get the lyric. It's a fun song, nonetheless. But I say move your audience up a few years, and put pot right in the lyric. That, coupled with an edgier vocal (she's good, but like others have said, she's holding back) and you definitely have something in that Katy Perry / Ke$ha realm.

 

If I'm confused and this isn't supposed to be about pot, then ignore this. And of course, this is all my opinion. Really, this is a catchy song.

[LCK]

I like your daughter's voice. It sounds to me like she learned how to sing from listening to her old man!

 

LCK

[LordBTY]

What is the song about btw?

 

 

Edit:

 

I keep coming back and listening to this - I really like it. It really needs more textural contrast/to be more upbeat.

 

You could probably get away with time stretching her vox as there's not exactly a lot of vibrato there. ]

 

It sounds about 120bpm - I'd either up it to 130bpm or maybe add more percussion/make the drums punchier to make people really wanna dance.

[Lee Knight]

 

I think the lemon zest thing falls flat. The lyrics is too vague for a young 12 year old Disney-pop fan and 'soft' for a slightly older, more adult listener. If your target audience is young teens and you're slyly referencing pot smoking (I seem to recall your thread from months back with the lyrics), I guess I don't think little kids are gonna get the lyric. It's a fun song, nonetheless. But I say move your audience up a few years, and put pot right in the lyric. That, coupled with an edgier vocal (she's good, but like others have said, she's holding back) and you definitely have something in that Katy Perry / Ke$ha realm. If I'm confused and this isn't supposed to be about pot, then ignore this. And of course, this is all my opinion. Really, this is a catchy song.

 

 

BTW... I totally agree the Lemon Zest thing falls flat. A failed lyric experiment. I could feel it the moment we started tracking her vocal. The metaphor fails, no doubt. And yeah, the subject is lies. Pot and fooling around with another girl. I thought "gettin' destroyed" was pretty clear but it does sort of fly by.

 

Not that I don't want to do things to improve it at this point, I do.

 

But I'm fine with this being a lyric failure, it's a learning experience for her as well as me.

[Lee Knight]

I like your daughter's voice. It sounds to me like she learned how to sing from listening to her old man! LCK

 

[Lee Knight]

It sounds about 120bpm - I'd either up it to 130bpm or maybe add more percussion/make the drums punchier to make people really wanna dance.

 

It's about her boyfriend lying. And when he covers things up it's like he thinks he's sprinkling lemon zest over his bullshit to cover it up. Seemed like a good idea at the time I was going to add a teen girl chorus tag of "Just BS! More of your LEMON ZEST!!!" That's been the intention all along but I needed to get her voice on it to see where we are with it. It think that might tie together things a little. Or not. But I sort of like the idea of a horde of angry 15 year old girls shaking their collective fists and doing thier version of the AC/DC gang vocal.

 

Interesting idea about speeding it up with time stretching. That might be a lot of fun... hmmmm...

[rhino55]

This is super cool!

 

My crystal ball tells me there will be more LK and TK collabs in the future... or at least there should be!

 

Your production and songwriting with her voice is pretty special.

 

I agree there could be more attitude in the vocal, but unless you or she is really jonesing to make a hit, I wouldn't try and force it too hard. If she were that overly driven, I think it would come across naturally. I think what is most important at this stage is for ya'll to have fun and learn how to work with each other so that she gets comfortable behind a mic.

 

On to the song itself...

 

I'm still not really feeling the way 'lemon zest' as used in this context and judging by your last post (#12), I can't tell if you are pushing forward with this one or not. If you are, (EDIT I hope you are) I think playing around with the melody on the chorus would be cool.

 

I think the verses and pre-choruses are great (especially the pre-choruses BTW) but the chorus doesn't really stand out for me.

[Lee Knight]

This is super cool! My crystal ball tells me there will be more LK and TK collabs in the future... or at least there should be! Your production and songwriting with her voice is pretty special. I agree there could be more attitude in the vocal, but unless you or she is really jonesing to make a hit, I wouldn't try and force it too hard. If she were that overly driven, I think it would come across naturally. I think what is most important at this stage is for ya'll to have fun and learn how to work with each other so that she gets comfortable behind a mic. On to the song itself... I'm still not really feeling the way 'lemon zest' as used in this context and judging by your last post (#12), I can't tell if you are pushing forward with this one or not. If you are, (EDIT I hope you are) I think playing around with the melody on the chorus would be cool. I think the verses and pre-choruses are great (especially the pre-choruses BTW) but the chorus doesn't really stand out for me.

"I think what is most important at this stage is for ya'll to have fun and learn how to work with each other so that she gets comfortable behind a mic."

 

Amen to that. Thanks Ryan.

 

It might be interesting to ditch the whole Lemon Zest thing and come up with a chorus that sums things up in a more direct manner. Since writing this lyric I've really dove into this teen pop thing listening to the top ten of US and UK. I'm surprised by how much I'd like to do more of it... and caught off guard by how off the mark I was in the writing of this tune.

 

I'm interested in trying some more ideas in line with the current top 10. Just to see if I can get more of a handle on it.

 

There are a lot of great ideas so far in this thread, from everyone. I'm making notes of these ideas and will apply them...

 

I had no idea how hard writing a silly, shallow pop tune might be.

[rhino55]

"I think what is most important at this stage is for ya'll to have fun and learn how to work with each other so that she gets comfortable behind a mic." Amen to that. Thanks Ryan. It might be interesting to ditch the whole Lemon Zest thing and come up with a chorus that sums things up in a more direct manner. Since writing this lyric I've really dove into this teen pop thing listening to the top ten of US and UK. I'm surprised by how much I'd like to do more of it... and caught off guard by how off the mark I was in the writing of this tune. I'm interested in trying some more ideas in line with the current top 10. Just to see if I can get more of a handle on it. There are a lot of great ideas so far in this thread, from everyone. I'm making notes of these ideas and will apply them... I had no idea how hard writing a silly, shallow pop tune might be.

 

I think doing a rewrite of the chorus would be the best way forward. I still think you should use 'Lemon Zest' in a different song though. The phrase itself is killer.

 

It makes sense to me that you found this hard because as a rule your writing is neither silly or shallow.

[RickDieffenbach]

Lee - if you need tutoring on silly and shallow, I can help...

 

It's a lovely song. More more more.

 

Rick

[Oswlek]

I agree with everyone that it needs more pizzazz. This one didn't compell me to listen like yours usually do.

[LordBTY]

I think 'I smell BS/ Spray the Lemon Zest" or something quite prominently would make the metaphor pretty obvious.

[ido1957]

From my teenage daughter

- she's awesome (she said this several times)

- music is overloading the singing

- drums are fake sounding

- on the borderline of out of tune sometimes

I think this is your target audience, she overheard it while I was listening.

PS - she is quite honest and not afraid to critique a performance. Believe me I know....

[kurdy]

It does sound like one of your tunes, with a girl singing; which is probably why people are hearing a resemblance in your voices. I agree, there's something off about it. The lyric has attitude, but the tune is nice, polite and happy, so there's a bit of a mis-match there. I actually don't think the "Lemon Zest" lyric is bad at all. You could probably keep the lyrics and put them to a different tune, and vice versa, and get two different songs out of it. But that lyric and melody together don't seem to work as well as a team.

 

Also, if the tune is a vehicle for your daughter's singing talent, she might be better off singing a different kind of song. Something more in the Colbie Calliat or Taylor Swift camp. If you are merely utilizing your daughter's voice as an instrument...then maybe a different vocalist would do a better job on this.

 

That isn't to say your daughter doesn't have a good voice...just that this song doesn't seem to be playing to her strengths. She has a sweet voice, but the words are Lemony! And Zesty! But not sweet.

 

EDIT: Just a few more thoughts: On second listen, I'm not even sure my initial impression was accurate. I think the song itself may be OK. The problem could lie in the arrangement. You think it's building up to something great and climactic, but it never does. The chorus almost seems quieter than the verses.

 

Since your aim is teen pop, I have to admit, I've found myself really digging Katy Perry lately. Particularly the song "Teenage Dream". If you listen to how that track builds...starts out nice and soft and sweet, and by the time the chorus hits...*BAM*. Such a powerful impact. Maybe see if you can try to achieve something similar with this track. Might go a long way toward making it a little more anthemic.

[Lee Knight]

 

I think doing a rewrite of the chorus would be the best way forward.

 

 

^^^ I think so too. I've been playing with some more direct ideas like "Why You Gotta Lie" and thinking very hooky. Nothing solid yet.

[Lee Knight]

From my teenage daughter - she's awesome (she said this several times) - music is overloading the singing - drums are fake sounding - on the borderline of out of tune sometimes I think this is your target audience, she overheard it while I was listening. PS - she is quite honest and not afraid to critique a performance. Believe me I know....

 

That's great input, thanks!

[stickboymusic]

You could keep the lemon zest idea but make it more obvious?

 

why you gotta put me to the test

tell your lies then sprinkle your lemon zest

your words boy are bitter sweet

get out my face if you can't take the heat

 

maybe not these words but you get me.