Retrosaurus Rex

The right method is the one that's productive and satisfying for you. I do think it's good to have some vocabulary for scales and chords exactly so you can communicate with the band... I would probably find this method of writing an interesting challenge if the songs were good and my input valued, but some people would definitely prefer a more structured method. Probably something you should discuss with her... The melody-over-drone thing you describe can tend to lend itself to an eastern sound, but at the same time, the notes you have work perfectly in common practice western music as well, there are many possibilities. To wit, the melody could possibly change key according to each note, in which case the drone wouldn't actually describe a single scale at all. OTOH, if the melody notes all belong to a single scale, then I would expect these four notes to belong to that scale as well... I notice that these four notes all belong to the D Major scale, and since the final note is B, and you say it sounds "sort of melancholy" I would say a good guess for the scale would be B minor, which is a mode of D Major... I hope that helps!

I found this interesting app for ear training... http://quiztones.net/#home Identify frequencies by pure tone, and EQ changes in program material. Works well for free in FireFox, and I think it's downloadable for the iPhone as well.

Loading all the sample sets for multiple instruments would probably cause issues due to the amount of memory in use before any CPU problems. Still, it would be somewhat more CPU efficient to load several instruments into one instance of Kontakt, than to load multiple instances. Kontakt has plenty of outputs to use it this way as well.

One more thing... you guys have to get your timing together, it's mandatory! Drum loops are actually very helpful in this, as you can try "your thing" against different loops in different styles and that have different feels. Of course, you have to be able to feel the basic pulse, and this is where dedicated study with a metronome is valuable...

I've been on vacation, it's good to come back and see that I have some catching up to do... Joe51 actually describes a really good method whereby a beginner can get decent results fast. I think a big part of its' benefit is that there is an element of planning built in, the process is broken down into bite-size pieces which can be tackled in order. It gives you small goals to focus on, minimizing your limitations and allowing you to get the most from your present strengths. Kudos for the breakdown. As far as applying the method to keyboard, I think there's possibly an even bigger advantage, at least if you have a MIDI keyboard & some type of sequencer, as you can play a lead line, chords, a bass line, and even a drum kit piece-by-piece, in separate passes, and build up a whole demo that way. Even on a standard piano you should be able to bang out some chords & riffs guitar-strummer style to get started. Plus, it's easier to see how chords and scales relate on the keyboard than it is on the fretboard. I myself actually use some methods rather like what Mike outlines, exactly to get results that are beyond my playing ability. Speaking of composers tools, there's some good info here: http://solomonsmusic.net/theory.htm, under the heading Traditional Variation Techniques of Composers & Improvisors. I link to the main page in case you're interested, but there's not much, if any, basic, theory... it mostly pretty advanced, geek-arific stuff. +1 for Audacity because it's free. I personally need to work with audio & MIDI in the same program, which limits Audacity for me, as it only does audio. You can download a free demo of Reaper, if you need the expanded functions. I don't know if Garage band has a free demo... A couple of other good programs in a different vein are Band in a Box, tho it's not cheap... and Onyx Arranger (link to free demo). I like Onyx because you can abuse the settings to get interesting creative results, and it's easier to mix diverse styles than in BiaB. All of these programs have significant learning curves, except for Audacity...

Like I said in the first post, the question came up, and I thought it would be good to get a variety of thoughts on the subject. I realize a lot of newcomers are a little baffled about genre distinctions. OTOH, people who are somewhat experienced (as I flatter myself to be), have kind of reached the point of "I know it when I hear it", but find that it is difficult to pin down in word, after all. I wasn't expecting someone of Marc-Alan Barnette's caliber to weigh in (noooobody expects...), but obviously someone who deals with the question professionally on a regular basis is going to have some very specific thoughts... Probably a safe bet that applies to rock, pop, R&B, Hip-hop, & Metal, as well. There are certainly communities devoted to all these genres, their sub-genres, and other obscure genres that are not mentioned, and each of these devotees has specific ideas about what's "in" or "out". Speaking of that, in the country game, you have songwriters who tailor their songs, not just to a specific genre, but to a specific artist. It's just what's required to have a chance of breaking thru. Is there anybody who approaches their writing with this level of specificity? Or are most of you writing mainly for yourself? It's a good observation that certain styles favor certain themes, but there's so much cross-over that it would be hard to define genre based on the theme alone. To give an extreme example, if Taylor Swift wrote and performed a song bragging about her cars & bling, or a song about Viking hordes, and other than the subject matter the performance was completely in her own style, it's a safe bet that the result would be identifiably "country", not "hip-hop" or "Swedish metal", but also safe to say her regular fans would be confused and put-off, or at best take it as a humorous novelty. But yeah, theme could definitely be an element of genre...

It's a dicier proposition, yes... Sure... is there a section of the melody that you keep coming back to? Maybe not exactly repeating each time, but something that has a more or less similar rhythm and/or contour. By contour I mean the general "shape" of the melody... starting low, ending high; starting low, working up to a peak then descending... and if you have a section of melody that you keep re-visiting, what else is happening? You could vary the melody, introduce a second unrelated melody, repeat the original melody with different harmony... I hope I haven't wandered away from the original question... And don't worry about over-complicating things, some of the greatest pieces of music ever written are based around a short-simple phrase. Not necessarily... it's more a question of how that note sounds in relation to the chord(s) that accompany it, and whether that sound is what the melody needs to be or do at that moment. Does it need some tension to push into the next line, or should it have some resolution? One thing you could do is just sing the melody whilst paying close attention to exactly which notes seem to be the problem. You might find that the held notes are not the problem at all, or you maybe they are, but the solution will become clearer if you see the problem in better focus... I do encourage you to study some more, but don't fall into the trap of over-intellectualizing (a trap I often fall into myself...).

If the track is for release it's not unusual that he would offer a percentage, especially if he's working on a shoestring budget... maybe he can't afford to pay scale right now... you should probably try to get 50% of mechanicals (ask for 75%)... sure, he can still screw you over on the back-end accounting, you might never know, but it might be worth it if you get something out of it that furthers your career. You said he wrote & produced the song, but if you're contributing anything to the lyric or melody you should try to get 50% of the writer's royalty as well. None of this is cut-and-dried, it depends on your respective leverage in negotiation.

I don't know Strummaker, got a link? I'm thinking if it outputs MIDI data it should be easy to change the sound...

If they pay you up front, they'll probably ask you to sign a "work-for-hire" agreement, which means you lose any claim to future royalties, at least in the US... in some territories you may still be able to claim royalties if they use the master with your performance. Is it for a demo or is intended for release?

I'm guessing about that, since my own experience with wind instruments is practically nil, but it seems like it would since both involve breathing techniques & breathing combined with musical expression. It might be something very subtle, tho, rather than something you're really conscious of... OK, then, some thoughts about tense... BTW, my memory is failing, the thread I was thinking of actually concerned point-of-view, and is not even very old... Oh well... As with many things, you'll probably never know where the line is until you've found yourself on the wrong side of it a couple of times, so don't be discouraged if it happens. I think you're pretty safe in this case. For one thing, you were talking about having one tense in the verses, and another in the chorus or the bridge. Usually it's not hard to make this work, because the change in music from section to section draws attention to the lyrical change and makes it more understandable. Also, from the verse and chorus presented in this thread it seems like the lyric is in the mode of a dramatic address, that is, the singer is directly addressing a certain person. In this type of lyric you can sometimes switch back & forth with tense and the lyric will remain intelligible at least on an emotional level, even if it's somewhat incoherent intellectually. If the lyric is more of a narrative, then you have to be more careful, because getting the listener involved in the story is key to the emotional connection, and you don't want them getting confused about the progression of events. If the listeners have to start piecing together the elements of the story just to understand what's going on they're going to tune out, and all that'll earn you is a bus pass... OK, this is kind of a vague description, but I'll throw out some possibilities... Too repetitive... how long is the main melodic idea compared to the verse? One line? Two lines? Is the rhythmic phrasing and/or melodic contour the same each time, but with different notes? It's OK to base everything around a short phrase, but there has to be some variation, and preferably a completely alternate idea, worked into the mix, just to keep things fresh. Holding too many notes too long... how do the held notes relate to the underlying chord? Generally (keeping it simple), held notes will be found in the underlying chord. Also, some notes are more stable in relation to the chord than others, and if you're always sticking to more stable tones the melody will lack tension. This starts getting deeper into music theory, so you might want to do some study in that area as well...

I'm not a drummer, hopefully our resident expert can provide the breakdown you're looking for... I can say that what you're talking about is very do-able, and can get you great results if you can play the drum kit.

The question came up in another thread... how do you identify the genre of a song? Do you feel like a lyric standing alone can fit into an identifiable genre? What are the factors or characteristics, whether musical or lyrical, that mark a song as belonging to a certain genre?

Thanks guys! I knew I'd see the acronym before, but the meaning wasn't coming to mind...

MTBF?

Don't mention it... I've thought about these issues before, but never really put things into words, so it's interesting for me as well. A lot of people would ask a question like your original one, and just let it drop once they got an answer, any answer, especially a great detailed answer like that guy John Michael gave. What happened to that guy, BTW? But I think people would be better served to ask the follow-up questions and think thru the answers, like you're doing. And they're really good questions... I think "we never finished that song" is much superior. It's a less direct way of expressing the same idea, but rather that a sense of finality, I read a sense of tension, or at least unfinished business, so it give verse 1 better potential to avoid the pitfalls discussed previously. Having said that, you don't have to make the final decision now. Finish a draft, and then it will be easier to see where the strengths & weaknesses are. You don't mention singing, but the flute experience might help there, and experience on any instrument translates somewhat to any other, because you're still dealing with notes & rhythm. That's a question for a whole thread of its' own... really it comes down to listening to a lot of stuff and just knowing, and even then you'll sometimes still disagree with people who know just as much as you. And anyway, you can play any song in any style, two examples... A couple of my friends used to collaborate, one guy wrote a lot of lyrics, the other guy was the piano man. The lyric guy had another friend who was more of a metalhead... think '80's Metallica... anyway, they were all together, and lyric guy says to piano man "You don't want this, it's a metal lyric..." Metalhead looks at it and agrees, "Yeah, this is a total metal lyric! There's no way you could write pop music to this!" Piano man looks at it, starts playing a slow, moody arpeggio, sings the lyric like an Elton John ballad. It worked. I suppose you've heard "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. If not, check it out. One of the baddest R&B dance joints ever, it makes you want to shake it from the first drum hit, and never lets up. On the other hand, Chris Cornell is straight hard rock, he couldn't sing that song could he? Yes he could, as a blues! and it works like a mofo... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5C2Dr8jk0&list=FLOY6p69XsSjQed3lj9L7Sww&index=491 So, I don't actually worry too much about genre, unless somebody says they want something particular, then I can think about the characteristics of that style and how to tweak things in the right direction. Just do it. If it doesn't work, re-write. You're really asking how to play it safe, but you'll learn more by taking chances...

I personally prefer to have a draft finished or nearly so before posting, but there are others who are fine posting half-done drafts, so I guess it's whatever works for you. Since the song is half-done, I will interject a couple of thoughts about it... Driving down the highway the radio is on we used to sing together but now those days are gone It's a good beginning because it puts you in a time and place, and a state of mind, basically setting the scene for everything to play out afterward. It's a problematic beginning because it gives away a lot of the story, and because you have the now/then opposition in the chorus as well... if you keep going back and forth like that it won't allow any tension to build. Yes, you can always work in more complicated parts later. You should definitely practice your instruments, and challenge yourself in each and every practice session, but when writing, keep it simple... don't let your current inability slow you down. It's generally advisable to maintain a conversational style in word choice and phrasing, especially in country music, which is particularly story driven lyrically. As you move into a rock direction some more poetic language becomes acceptable. And of course, there are always some people who can use unusual words and tortured phrasing, but pull it off in a style that seems natural, so in a way, there are no rules, you just have to feel what's right or wrong at a particular time. I'm not sure that answered the question... a shorter answer would be: your best bet is to make it sound natural... The first way is a good way to handle tense, and the flashback idea can work. I think there's a whole thread about how to handle tense, actually... but yeah, I definitely don't think it's necessary to maintain only one tense thru the entire song, as long as the change is handled in a way that isn't confusing...

OK, I agree with your assessment of how these read... I think this one reads well because natural stress pattern suggests a rhythm (even if you read each couplet as a sentence, without any musical inflection), and also because the on/gone rhyme are stressed syllables themselves, and finally, because there are a lot of good sing-able vowel sounds in this, including the rhyming words. I also note that the idea expressed in these lines has a sense of finality to it, and the natural of the last line compliments that sense. In fact, it might do so almost too well, and you might need to create some tension in the melody to move the song forward to the next section. All in all, this is a finely crafty verse from a technical standpoint. By contrast, the first read here does not reveal a natural rhythm. This could actually be a benefit, since it would force you in a different melodic direction for the chorus than the verse, but it does also seem to have some awkward spots that could be smoothed out... here's how I read it (stress in bold...): It used to be us against the world before it all faded away the world once filled with color now resigned to shades of gray I split up the first two lines because I hear a pause at those points. This somewhat disrupts the "reading" of the line, but I could maybe work with it melodically, so I would reserve judgment for now... I also notice that most lines begin with an unstressed syllable, and I feel like, in this case, it doesn't help me find the rhythm. Again, this is in contrast to the verse above where the last 3 lines begin with unstressed syllables, but it actually seems to help the rhythm. Finally, I think there are too many words that aren't working hard enough. I offer the following edits as an example of how I might approach it, but I encourage you to try a few approaches... let imagination & sensitivity be your guide... "It was us against the world Then it all faded away Sunny days filled with color Are now resigned to shades of gray" Let me know if I should expand on anything said here...

Maybe it would be good to provide an example of something you think works really well, and something that needs fixin'... they don't have to be long examples... a verse of each, maybe...

A lot of people, including myself, have a hard time starting from a blank page. I have notebook pages full of one- & two-line snippets that have popped into my mind. When I'm stuck I pick one and force myself to write something to go along with it. Same thing with music, a simple rhythm is like a blank page, but a beginning melody, or some little riff can be a seed. Keep trying to find the rhythm in your words. Maybe you're focusing on the words too much and instead you ought to just think about the rhythm. As that comes together think about the contour of the melody... does the line rise? Fall? Rise then fall? Keep refining. You'll find things you like, and that will lead you the way you need to go.

I think it's a good idea, Alex. The trick to me is not so much in getting the music to convey those particular emotions, but to do so without the resulting song sounding disjointed, there has to be a common musical thread running thru it...

In my opinion, yes... The way I see it, there are three layers of things that can define structure in a song: the lyrics; the basic music, that is, rhythm, melody & harmony; and finally the performance and arrangement aspects. Since you said you've been writing lyrics for a while I presume that means you've started to collect some lyrics that work for you, and based on that I further presume that you've started to write lyrics with some identifiable structure, even if you don't yet have the terminology for it. Likewise, the other layers can also define structure independently, and they can mix & match in different ways. I offer this not as the only way to think about things, or even the best way, but I find it useful and hope you can take something from it that you can use. To give an example, you could sing any of these songs straight thru without accompaniment, or self-accompanied on an instrument, singing at one level, basically a monotone, but keeping the melody and lyrics intact. That would make for a really boring performance, probably, but it could be done. In the case of Taylor Swift's songs, if she were performing solo she would probably still observe the dynamics heard on the recording, so maybe it's better to say it's a performance decision, and the arrangement follows from that. I work with a lot of electronic music where performance and arrangement is not so easily separable, and I tend to think of them as one thing. Anyway, I felt some additional explanation was in order, obviously, I hope it's helpful.

That's something we could argue about... I would say that since there's a distinct bridge, when the chorus melody & lyric returns that it's just the chorus. I prefer to think of each section discretely. However, I certainly acknowledge that arrangement & dynamics can make one section functionally something else, which was the point of the U2 example...

Here's a great article about song form and terminology from one of our own SongStuff authors...