Glenn Allen

I will sometimes use arpeggios on a verse if the chorus has the same chords and I need a different feel to avoid making the song monotonous. It is also a cool thing to do during a breakdown or bridge, especially on songs with barre chord choruses. Sometimes my second guitar or lead parts are based on apreggios. Muse, Paramour, and Longpigs (about 1 minute in) do this well.

I think Beck is the master of lyrical non-sequitors: Mixed Bizness: "Do you wanna ride on the Baltic sea? I'll be your mistress C.O.D I'll comb your hair re-write your diary Pour champagne on a honeybee" Loser: "in the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie With the plastic eyeballs spray-paint the vegetables dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose...

This is one of my favorite TED talks. Here's an interesting thought along these lines: the exact same brain activity occurs when you remember a song or sound in your head as when you actually physically hear it, which is why I don't have perfect pitch (I developed relative pitch) but I can name notes out of thin air by thinking of the first note of my favorite Beatles songs. For instance, if I need to sing a "D" I think "Words are flowing.." from Across the Universe. I discovered this trick by accident when I started singing the next song in the silence between one album track and the next and noticed I was dead on pitch when the music actually started up. Then I just had to find 12 different songs whose first notes match each note of the chromatic scale. What can I say, I'm a musical nerd.

You should also consider where you play the bass. You get a very different tone on the bass depending on if you play near the bridge or if you play near the neck. Playing near the bridge is great for soloing and melodic playing because the upper-mid frequencies of the instrument cut through in a mix differently and the string doesn't vibrate as widely since its closest to the point where the string meets the instrument. The smaller vibration of the string allows you to play faster if you're playing Bebop or a particularly demanding run of notes. Conversely, reggae bassists and balladeers can benefit from playing near the neck and getting rounder, booming tone. I wrote a blog post about Bass guitar tone (pick vs. fingers, hand placement, etc.) called "How to Get Professional Tone in 4 easy steps (without buying a ton of gear)" Its a quick read that can make drastic improvements to the maturity of your Bass sound.

Sorry about that, Richard. I meant that to be informational, not promotional.

There should be a "both" and "other" category. I switch it up based on style and volume of the band/song. I played in an indie rock band in NY and I had to compete with heavy guitars and synth bass. It was all pick. 95% of what I do is with my fingers though, and on rare occasion I slap/pluck. I'm considering getting a pair of Tony Levin's Funk Fingers for the fun of it. He uses these all over the stuff he plays with Peter Gabriel. When I was playing a show in California, I ran into an amazing singer songwriter named Gavin Castleton who had his bassist use these on his zombie rock opera (sounds weird, but its a minor master piece).

One of my favorite techniques is moving up and down the inversions of a chord to move to another octave or voicing. It requires some muscle memory, but it is a great technique to have under your fingers on guitar or piano. Let's say you have a right hand CEG (thmb on C, then middle and pinky), then move up to thumb on E, index on G and pinky on C, then move to thumb on G, middle on C and pinky on E. Now repeat octave by octave. This is great for moving between sections of songs where the chords are the same but you want to go up high for effect (and maybe let the bass drop out for a stripped down effect). Or your chorus has the same chords as your verse but you want to shift into a different voicing to break up the monotony of the having the same chords played over and over. Also, if your melody goes up, consider contrasting the chord shift by going the opposite direction with your hands, and vice versa for singing lower. One last thought: lets say your progression goes: I to V four times in a section. consider dropping down to the V or using voice leading the first 3 times you go to the V and raising up to the V the 4th time if if proceeds a Chorus. Do the exact opposite if winding down from a chorus to a verse or ending a song.

When I first started writing songs and asking what people thought about them I realized that most people were too polite to be helpful, so I rarely got good feedback that could help me improve. I want you to think about this: "What are your favorite songs, lyrically, and what do those songwriters do that you admire.?" Here are some things that can make this song even better: 1. The best songs are easy to sing because they flow like conversation would you say "Asking them directions of where you are," or would it be more natural to say "asking for directions to find out where your are" or keep the line the same and replace "for" with "to" 2. Stick to a narrative- you're gonna hate me for this one; once we notice it, it's hard to ignore (and if you're like me, you hate rewriting good/finished songs): "I know she changed position, I can tell it from the stars; You received my transmission, She can't be far; In the course of our collision, You are talking directly to/with someone, but it confuses your listener when you suddenly mention "she." are you talking to the subject of the song or about the subject? Be careful not to flip flop 3. Even though we can break the rules of English, we still need to have complete thoughts You have a few sentence fragments in this song: -Hoping you can give me -I wish the constellation -Coz in this side of the universe, if you may, Where all the constellations are asking; If you'd like to stay. This last one doesn't make sense, I know you want to rhyme, but its ok if part of a rhyming section doesn't rhyme towards the end, the chords and resolution of the melody give it enough closure to make up for a lack of rhyme. Keep up the writing! You have clearly connected with people here, and that's a gift that the best songwriters possess.

First of all, if you are writing modern songs, do not worry about figured bass or parallel fifths/fourths or any of that. That is for Classical music. While classical music can definitely influence great pop songs (Queen, Mika, Regina Spektor off the top of my head), there are different theory "rules" and terms that don't equate in traditional harmony. This is why at Berklee we had theory/harmony and if we wanted to learn counterpoint we took trad harmony. They were very different. That said, you can vary whether your hand goes up or down for a chord for effect, and experimentation will give you a sense of the subtle emotional impact that can give, but what I want to suggest to you, Dan, is that you try learning to change chords in one position. Its called voice leading, and it can make your playing and writing sound very mature. If your right hand holds CEG, in any order, inversion has an effect, but for the sake of argument its irrelevant here, the G chord will have the note G in common. So keep your finger on the G when you change from the I to the V chord. Next find the nearest note for the remaining two notes. Depending on the inversion (and it doesn't have to be a real inversion, maybe you double up a note or have a color tone in there- again irrelevant for now), you will move your "E" finger to "D" and your C finger to "B." This is just scratching the surface, but its a method most advanced players use a great portion of the time. From there you can choose to change octaves, voicings, etc. for effect. I could go on and on about this...