musicthom

Very nice well done guys

Ok i will start this on off with my take on me Has your way of songwriting changed since joining songstuff and if so how much of an influence has reading others work been to your writing? most definately, my first few songs were really basic in structure but listening/ reading others work allowed me to see that there are other ways of setting down lyrics other than just a basic verse chorus structure

I have been on Songstuff a while now in fact its over 3 years and in this time i have posted a lot of lyrics and songs, this got me thinking has the way you look at songwriting changed? here is a questions that may help us all look at how we have changed or not if that is the case Has your way of songwriting changed since joining songstuff and if so how much of an influence has reading others work been to your writing ?

Yeh the pits and they always use techy terms as if i am supposed to know what they are on about

Now i could tell you about the time we played to 2 bar staff and 1 sound man but that wasn't the worse as we sounded good and played well . in actual fact it was an acoustic gig played in The Aragon in glasgow the whole set up was placed in an alcove in an area of about 2 meters square next to the main entrance, the mc had no idea how to use the pa we had constant feedback and the fact that every time the door opened it went across the area we were performing from, made for the worse set we have ever played no wonder no one took any notice of the din we were making here is a pic of the venue

You are spot on Rex i had only heard the song about 8 hours previous, i only ever take what you say with complete respect, i intend to learn loads from this Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment

Most of you who have been around a while have listened to my vocal efforts for some time recently i started taking vocal lessons to learn how to use what i have properly, i must admit i found the diffirent exercises quite difficult at first, to be honest I thought "Whats this all in aid of" yesterday my vocal coach handed me a set of lyrics with a song on it that to my shame had never laid my ears on The song in question is called Bring him home from the show Les Misarables, i listened to The Colm Wilkinson version and thought no way!!!! i practiced all day yesterday and this morning using a backing track recorded my first try all the way through you can hear it at my my space www.myspace.com/thomascmccallum now i understand what he was doing why he was asking me to do all the exercises it is no where perfect and i believe i can do better with practice but it just shows you the value of proper tuition

It has possabilitys although i don't have the software to do the recording i will watch this to see how it pans out

Lol i have indeed you know me i never miss a chance

A fellow musician friend of mine has posted a request on facebook, i was involved in the "global mix" of this song so i feel a little bit of attachment to it and thought i would post it on here, see if any of you budding film makers could help i like doing short videos but dont have the proper editing stuff anyhow i have pasted the message below Imani Link

Nice wee topic and some real interesting tips

That is a very good question I suppose it all depends on individual taste for example Nick Cave world wide star i don't like his voice but hey other people think diffirent, I am of the opinion that you don't have to have a large vocal range to draw someones ear it helps though if you can sing with feeling and some depth not even the biggest and best get it right every single time First thing is we have to establish can we sing? for this there has to be a certain amount of honesty, so many folk have the friends that will tell them they can when they can't This is nither good for the performer or the audience, we have to concentrate on what talent we do have if thats guitar or anything else then work on that instead of waisting valuable time Secondly, we may have a good voice but lack of belief can make us bieleve otherwise confidence can play a big part in a performance, nerves can and will make for a weak perfomance only way over this is to go out and do it finding your range and singing within that range is allways best, gaining some knowledge of how the voice works, how to breathe etc is a big advantage Recently i have taken some vocal lessons learning how to do vocal exercises scales etc pushing my range to see how far i can go it has enhanced my vocal performance no end Somthing that lots of people fail to consider is Backing vocals there are those who may not be able to do a full vocal performance but can do backing vocal, backing vocals when done well can be the making of a track

What a great song my god don't we have some real talent on here

At the moment we are working with a bass player who has just joined the band, but we have been here before and some folk leave just down to not being able to commit to gigs and weekly rehersals

Ok i take it back , i had a advert in gumtree on my space looking for a bass player for over 2 years and we ended up getting one from someone who came to see us lol

my old friend the blues - Steve Earle

Lot of bass around just none in Glasgow

Done

John Martyn who was a big influence in scotish music John Martyn, OBE (11 September 1948 – 29 January 2009), born Iain David McGeachy, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a forty-year career he released twenty studio albums, working with artists such as Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Phil Collins. He has been described as "an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues Info Courtecy of wikipedia Source: In Memory Of John Martyn

Hi Sadie i think there is no doubt that you do have a voice, i see on your first post that you went and got some vocal lessons how did you find that? i seem to be doing it the other way round i had to go and do lots of open mic style things just to learn gow to cope with performing in public and now i am ok with that i have booked some llessons and hoping to improve on what i have acheaved on my own so far like Tom said having some musical backing would be a great asset for you learning to use your voice to add to what you already have good luck and keep us posted on how you get on

I thought venus had it right its a physical attraction and i think it is a very personal thing, again for me it can depend on lots of things, my mood at the time, the situation i am in, there can also be outside influences that can draw me to some songs like an event or a situation, like a song being there at an event in my life and it seems to attach it's self i can say without a doubt that my taste in songs has changed over the year, as it has been said on here many imes there are no rules when writing so i guess there are no rules when listening some gandre i just dont get but hey thats not to say it's not good it just means i don't get it

This is a thought that has crossed my mind so much in the past few months Obviously for health reasons it is a good thing and recently for whatever reason i seem to smoke more and i know it is affecting my vocal range i also have booked some vocal lessons due to start on 13th feb so i think this would be a good time to try and stop

Funny enough it was nice for me to look back at so much has happened from that good for the old scrap book