Song writing: The big picture

[nickfromdtown]

Many people think of song writing in two phases: the lyrics/vocals and the music.

 

In this thread I want to share some pointers given to me by great musicians that have helped me out a lot and I think will benefit the HC community.

 

1. Stop thinking of the lyrics and music separately. The lyrics are simply the story the vocals are telling and the music gives it the mood; almost like a setting in a story. You can't have a setting with out a story or a story with out a setting, so stop separating them.

 

2. Learn to read sheet music. Especially on the piano. You can invest about 70$ to get a 66 key arranger from Casio. That's very cheap. What the piano and sheet music will do for you is what the main focus of this thread is about: "The Big Picture." You get to see all the ranges of every instrument at once, and to some extent play them at the same time to see how they fit. It's like instead of walking the streets of a city you get to watch it from the top of building for a little bit. Videos like this:

show how you can monitor how melodic your songs are. I can pretty much guarantee that if you made a Hannah Montana piano cover, it wouldn't have nearly half the dynamics this has, so being able to make the bass range and guitar range and what ever instrument in your arsenal work together seamlessly like this creates a big picture that is not only interesting but beautiful. It's a great way to make sure the guitar isn't stepping on the bass toes and vice-versa (Unless of course you want it to for some crazy fugue sounding type music), and with my very very very very humble experience as a song writer, I can tell you my songs that start out on piano tend to have more adamant bass lines that make a statement as opposed to lying dormant. And the piano is very easy to sing over, so it makes it easier to map out vocals over the instruments (sometimes).

 

 

Yup that's it. That's a compilation of some great pointers given to me by great musicians. Hope you enjoy.

[blue2blue]

Say... that isn't Ikey playing that piano...

 

 

Great tips. I like your analogy of 'viewing' the song from the piano as like viewing a city scene from the top of a building. It's certainly true that writing on the guitar doesn't give the spread and layout of the piano-style keyboard. That said, for some of us, particularly at first, the black-and-white key mapping locked to C major presents similar challenges to a clear view. Keyboardists -- particularly those trained before an emphasis on understanding basic theory was more common in instruction -- tended to learn shortcuts (thinking in terms of keys as one-sharp, two-sharp, etc) that, while helpful, could also obfuscate those structures.

 

Still, spending some time with a keyboard -- even if one does the modern shortcut and plays everything in one key, using automatic MIDI transposition to fit into the key one wants the music in -- can be time well-spent, as it teaches you knew ways of looking at things and shows you relationships you might not otherwise have seen. And, of course, just learning something new is always good for the mind, and keeps it flexible.

 

[2732]

Wow. Could you have used any more Italic words in your post?

 

Nah, but I agree with OP. All great points for junior songwriters.

[blue2blue]

Wow. Could you have used any more Italic words in your post? Nah, but I agree with OP. All great points for junior songwriters.

Oh... hell, yeah!

 

 

I grew up with typewriters, man. No italics in that world (unless you had an IBM Selectric which meant changing the typing ball -- which I think you can imagine, I did when I was using one of those fine machines).

 

I'm still not over the novelty of it all.

 

Excuse me... the novelty of it all.

[LeonardScaper]

I have always written with the big picture in mind. In my case, it actually helps that I can't read a note of music.

 

Definitely agree about the keyboard connection as a great songwriting tool.

[rockinrobby]

An IBM "correcting" selectric

[2732]

Oh... hell , yeah ! I grew up with typewriters, man. No italics in that world (unless you had an IBM Selectric which meant changing the typing ball -- which I think you can imagine, I did when I was using one of those fine machines). I'm still not over the novelty of it all. Excuse me... the novelty of it all.

[blue2blue]

 

An IBM "correcting" selectric

I had one of those on my last office job working for other people (back in the mid-80s). As marketing director/office manager/errand boy it fell to me to produce most of our sales literature. I used the hell out of 'my' Selectric (and small collection of type balls) as well as the miraculous Sharp zooming photocopier we got when we blew off the vampires at Xerox. What a difference. Better, cheaper copies with all kinds of cool features. And we owned it outright and bought our own supplies instead of being chained to the Xerox lease and supplies.

 

(Not to say that Xerox didn't have every legal right to suck some riches out of their patented technologies, mind you. And -- you have to give them this -- their innovations [from the PARC research center in Palo Alto] in personal computers paved the way for modern desktop computing, no question. They pretty much invented all the cool things we associate with the Mac and Windows: graphic user interface with all the familiar features, dialog boxes, scroll bars, etc, rescaling vector graphics, laser printing, the mouse, the rotatable monitor [pageview/landscape view]... it goes on and on. Too bad Xerox's corporate bigwigs were apparently filled with dread when they saw it because it signaled the eventual rise of the paperless office -- a direct challenge to Xerox's golden goose. According to oft-repeated stories, some of the guys at PARC were so dismayed by the head-in-the-sand response from the bigwigs that they called Steve Jobs, then currently a golden boy riding the growth of the Apple II, in to see their innovations -- many of which soon found their way into the Lisa, the quite expensive and less-than-successful predecessor to the Mac.)