Scotto

I was sorry to be reading about this today. I enjoyed my trip to Sydney last year and I wish I wasn't working so much as I really wanted to get out and see them. Hope all is well.

Singing is a different from any other instrument because your instrument is a part of you. There's a lot more feel to it. Playing a piano or guitar you finger the note. You know it's right because you can look down and see where your hands are at so there you are. Singing comes out of you. You can slide into a note, waver around it. whatever your heart desires. It's alot more feeling your away around I find. Singing the songs you write is definitly good advice.

Interesting way of putting that. I think the thing I pick up on in writing a lyric is that it has to be econimical. You can't put all those descriptive things in there because it becomes hard to make it work musically. You have to get to the point. He got up and looked out the window The next lines rather than add all that superfelous description could hit on why or what he's thinking about whilst in the act of looking. He got up and looked out the window thinking of all the broken hearts Regret welling up inside for the ones that got away Now you've got a jumping off point for the rest of the song. Hey I just realized that is a pretty cool excersize. Come up with a single inoculous line and build on it. Fun!

Learning a cover can also help immensly with song writing. While learning the song you kind of get to see the man behind the curtain. You get to see how the song is constructed from the ground up. Just learning a song I love and respect but would never record or play out, helps immensly.

I don't know who Slim Dusty is but I want to be him. 105 albums? Love the poll idea...

Cool blog on perspective. Not something we always think about.

Keeping Your Cards Close Have you ever noticed how your close family and friends receive your music differently than strangers? Well that is because they are biased. Just because their biased doesn’t mean their reaction will be positive, surely but they have an image of who you are and you are forever confined to those constraints. Step out of those constraints and you may be judged negativly. Some folks might think your fun “little hobby†(yeah that’s not degrading) is cute and just placate you with mild head nods and meaningless platitudes. Some folks who love you dearly might see everything you do as wonderful. The sun never sets on your musical prowess and your singing is just fabulous! Never mind all that broken glass around the studio. For a true measure of where we’re at we must step outside our personal circles and somehow get the opinion of…. STRANGERS! Stranger Danger One way to get instant gratification and reviews from complete well-meaning strangers is to submit your master pieces to song writing communities like song stuff here. Perfect right? People with like interest reviewing each other’s music what can go wrong? Well everything in life is like a bed of roses and there are always thorns. Those of us who dabble in song writing listen a little different than the average listener. The average listener doesn’t care about the construction of the song at all. They only care if their foot is tapping and they want to sing along or dance and cry till the cows come home. You are also dealing with a slightly different cross section of humanity in dealing with musicians and artistic types. We can be a narcissistic bunch I’m afraid. Sort of the nature of this whole endeavor revolves around all of us having an inherent level of narcissism to compensate for. As long as you know who your audience is you’ll eventually learn to separate the chaff from the wheat and hopefully take to heart the critiques of your work that make sense. Certainly the critiques that are repeated amongst many reviewers and become a theme are the obvious things to focus on. There will be plenty of reviews that you won’t agree with. When they become a theme amongst many reviewers well that is when you have to sit up, pay attention and realize that your masterpiece might be missing the master part of that description. One Turn Deserves Another In the review business you have to give as much as you get. You can’t be a selfish prig who barely reciprocates the review process. I actually enjoy running through the songs on these and other boards to see how different folks are taking over the world (Narf). When time allows I’ve been known to run down the top of the board just for fun, with no songs in the barrel for reviews myself. It’s the spirit of the thing really. In the end we’re taking part in a community and as long as we mostly respect one another things should be fine. We can find folks with similar musical tastes and maybe even collaborate here and there. It's been a while since I've run through the board to give reviews and I need some inspiration! There are tons of folks on these sites that are truly inspiring with their talent and cleverness. Good times! What other songwriting sites do you frequent?

So with you on branding and the band situation. If the band is really into originals and wants to do that as a side bar I say go for it. I was in a cover band for years and we wrote songs and used all that hard earned money we made in bars to save up and pay for professional studio time. Have to have a room full of guys that are into it.

Sounds good here!

To Cover or Not to Cover Covers! They're fun! Also a great exercise for any musician. You can have fun with the interpretation. Take a song in a different direction and really try and elevate things. Or just rock the song out all over the place. Covers are a great place to work on going through the process of arranging a song too. There are so many subtle ways you can change a song. Slow it down, speed it up. Harder with distortion softer with clean. Full banging drums or simple set of bongos. Rhythm changes, staccato, legato, it doesn't matter! Whatever you feel it should be. Picking a Song I'd like to pick something unexpected. For example I've always wanted to cover Tina Turner's classic "We Don't Need Another Hero". The music was so poppy and upbeat. Always thought that song should go in a darker direction. Who am I to Question Tina and Quincy though? Who cares it's just for fun! Maybe I'll get around to working that one out soon. So many songs out there to choose from. What would you cover? This One Time at Band Practice... Yeah, on a lark someone said we should cover "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night". The old Corey Hart diddy from the 80's? All synth and hairspray right? Well bad ideas are born from lots of beer consumption and a little boredom so we said what the heck. Liked it. Got good response... and recorded it. Good bad or eh, here it is in all it's glory. We opted for the "rock it all over the place" option I think. https://soundcloud.com/6-pack-guru/sunglasses-at-night Remember this music thing is fun! If you're having fun doing it someone, who might be listening, could feel some of that infectious fun in return!

Cool man! Good luck! I think it helps to post once a week just to keep the juices flowing.

Thanks!

First Rule of Song Writing Club... There are no rules! Whatever gets you to where you want to be! Sometimes I approach writing a song in a very methodical way. Sometimes I'm just bumping around in the dark hoping for best. Sometimes it's lyrics first music second and adjust the arrangement and rhythms. Sometimes it's create the music first, do some arranging and then write some lyrics based on a nonsense cadence. Sometimes it's just a musical sketch that firms up after I have some lyrics. There isn't any rhyme or reason to it for me. Should there be? I don't know. I think I've had some descent results with different methods. I know I'm going to like it when the song sort of takes over and tells me what it needs. That's all a bunch of touchy feely nonsense! I know I know. Songs taking over and writing themselves. As if! I feel like I should explain that point a little better. When I start recording a song it's like a raw block of wood. There's a shape in there that needs to come out. As I lay things down and start to hear where the song is going it's like just following the path it takes you too. As an example a recent song I'm working on went all Spanish on me. I didn't intend it to go that way. It was a Bob Ross happy little accident! "A little Spanish sounding guitar solo lives right here". I was as surprised as some of the reviewers on that one! Awesome that something like that could come out of my head and onto the DAW. This one was methodically plotted and planned out in the beginning. A lyrics first music to fit after process. Then it took over and finished writing itself! https://soundcloud.com/6-pack-guru/little-conquerors Music First! Music first for me isn't too bad of an approach. I was a front man in a band for about 5 years and new songs were presented that way to me. Here's a general idea for how the vocals will sound and here's the music bed. Sing it! I like surprising myself that way sometimes. Creating a music bed with no end in mind. It's like a blank canvas for me to paint on I suppose. It's a blast when it all works. Laying down a nice complex drum with good transitions and then jamming overtop of it just seeing where the beats take me. I can get lost in that world for a good part of the day when that happens. Then once the instrumental is done. Laying vocals on it part by part is fun and another great process. Here's the instrumental and the song it became! https://soundcloud.com/6-pack-guru/impulse-instrumental https://soundcloud.com/6-pack-guru/impulse This is my 2nd Blog Post. Not sure if this is what I should be blogging about. This blog is attached to a songwriting site so I thought I'd head in this direction. Let folks see the man behind the curtain. Of course it might be a mental midget behind my curtain but hey! He's my very own mysterious midget wizard of musical prowess! Mwa hahahaha

Good advice. I've been on a roll for a while but then again... not everything I write is worth seeing the light of day I suppose. At least I'm feeling creative.

Mission 1 Here to get started on blogging and developing a strategy for my music as I try and build up enough material for a distribution release. Who Dat? OK so I'm a musician. Been in bands my whole life. As a bass player/vocalist for a lot of years. Exclusively as a vocalist for a while after that. I've recorded in professional studios and played a side stage at a major venue. Played live in bars for most of my musical existence. Now my journey brings me to developing my own music from the ground up! It's been a heck of a journey! 2 years ago I started trying to write, record, and produce my own music in a vacuum. Those early recordings were rough and should be killed... with FIRE! As time marches on and I've been committed to figuring this thing out I think the songs are getting to a state of listener palpability... which is nice! One Foot in Front of the Other So what are my next steps? Well I have to decide how and where I'm going to consolidate my musical efforts. On these boards I use a nick name someone gave me long ago. Scotto. Better than Scotty by a mile. I also use 6 Pack Guru for getting all of my reviews on the forums and such via Soundcloud and Soundclick. Song sketches can be rough and folks can be harsh so keeping my sketches and projects somewhat separate from a final release seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I wonder. Finally my live performance acoustic folk rock duo thing is called Soul Punch. I've been writing things that fit into this mold lately so I might steer all of my material that way. There's another song writer I work with for this effort. Strength in numbers potentially! Once all this is decided... well... I'll need a promotion plan. CD Baby, Reverbnation andTunecore Oh My! So many avenues and possibilities to decide on. It's a major task to just get my shtick together!