[Backing Vocals]

It's a bit easier with a backing rather than harmony vocal as timing doesn't tend to need to be quite so tight between the vocalists.

oh! so there are backing vocals and there are harmony vocals?

what's the difference?

are harmony vocals the one singing at a minor third interval above (or minor sixth interval below), and backing vocals don't follow this structure? because i like to multitrack myself so this information is really helpful

[I Hate My Voice..]

wow, i never knew that the voice i hear in my head could be different from what other people hear

there was one time when i saw a video recording of myself and my voice did NOT sound like what i usually hear everyday, sounded much deeper and goofier

but i still get comments from people who say i have a nice voice

[Tips For Singing Lead Vocal...]

Oh, I think so. Think of the voice as a vehicle. Some of us got '49 Fords; some have Jag-you-ars. You can do more with the latter than the former. But both will get you where you want to go.

that really provides insight to the whole "are vocals talent or technique?" question i've been asking vocalists for some time now

thanks!

[Exercises]

there are fundamentals?

what fundamentals are there?

i just warm up by singing other people's songs first, or playing songs on the piano and singing along

[Do You Love Or Hate Your Voice?]

singing live i don't mind my voice, usually as backup vocals for the lead vocalist, sometimes sing lead myself

but my voice sounds muddy and goofy when i record it, sounds like i'm constantly smiling, eventhough i'm not

[Creative Writing]

hey maz,

yes, i agree too that the most common is the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus pattern, especially during the glory days of boybands back in the mid 90's . but since rock bands, alternative, indie, and all their derivatives (shoegaze, triphop, etc), there has been a constant growth of variety in how each artist writes their lyrics. of course the common pattern still works, i still feel most comfortable with that pattern when i'm writing lyrics, but i'm currently exercising writing in a different way (which is partially inspired by you! so, thanks for the inspiration)

i like how (some) emo bands write their lyrics, it's not your usual sweet-talk, but rather more personal and more diversity in the words they use; country singers are also great lyricists, down to earth and real; i'm not too fond of hip-hop though, since their lyrics are shallow and repetitive imo, and tend to just show off their bling; jazz is cool too, for those late night sessions

i think it's true that a lyricist should have a rhyme dictionary and an ordinary one, to find rhymes and synonyms for finding and using better words. i've got one myself and it's really useful.

[Soundcards]

i use soundblaster live only.. cheapo sound card ...

not only cheapo soundcard ... ONLY soundcard available on the market here where i'm from, and even that isn't available at all vendors there are the mid- to high-end soundcards, but i'd have to order them online, and online shopping isn't reliable or secure here.

me? i use my very trusty and very reliable ONBOARD SOUNDCARD! yeah, baby! with no ASIO driver! ha ha!

... that's why i'm putting the cheapo soundblaster live on my no. 2 wishlist (no. 1 is ... a mic stand ... i know ... VERY frugal )

[Up For A Challenge?]

Now can you write 21 in 31 in English? Just kidding

actually, that's what i'm planning to do this time, write 20 in english and the final one in my native language

the thing is, it's actually easier for me to write in english, but in consideration to make commercial songs here, i trained myself to write in my native language (which is indonesian, by the way). because from what i've seen and heard, the songs that make it to the top 20 in the official local mtv chart, are indonesian songs only. there is a steady growth of excellent english songs written by local musicians, but they don't make it to the chart, therefore never making it to number one (maybe they might, in radio shows and such). i'm guessing it has something to do with "music politics?"

Hell, just post them all up. We all speak your language here.

i just might do that

[Up For A Challenge?]

i did it!

we only need to write lyrics right? because i've done 21 in 29 days, but all of them without music

but i did write them with consideration to structure. i gave headers like verse 1, verse 2, pre-chorus, chorus, etc before each set of lines although i haven't made the melody, rhythm, cadence, and chords to it

it was really fun! problem is i wrote 20 of them in my native language and only 1 in english so the last one is probably the only one i can post at the lyrics criticque section

so, do i qualify?

*i'm actually planning to continue this on my own, since it's becoming a habit

[Windows Vista?]

seriously though. I hate it!!!!!! you cant do anything!!! you go to open IE.... your security settings will not allow you to run Internet Explorer while using aol dialer. ... I override that..

' this program "internet explorer" is trying to run... do you want to allow this?'

click ok.. try to open a site... ' this web browser "internet explorer" is trying to open this site" bla bla bla" do you want to allow this?' click ok

this site cannot be displayed for security reasons :|

so finally I set all the security settings in the internet options down to low or off or whatever and no sooner than I hit apply.. .... big yellow warning box and alarms go off....

YOUR COMPUTER IS AT RISK!!!! CLICK HERE TO FIX THIS PROBLEM.. so I shut down norton. then the whole time online theres a yellow banner above the web pages.. ' the current security settings put your computer at risk, click here to fix this' you can click out of that box, but the second you go to a different page it comes back up! Try to download yahoo messenger.. it sais it cannot open that page... tried it on aol.. same thing.. I had to download opera to be able to download yahoo.

yep, i have that experience too

i think there's an incompatibility issue between vista and yahoo, because i can't launch LAUNCHcast AND yahoo messenger

i have vista on my toshiba notebook (came as the os when i bought it) and have xp on my pc. when recording using software, i find that my pc with a pentium iv and ram of 256mb is more stable than my notebook with intel dual core and ram of 512mb

i'm not sure what microsoft wants with this os, it more beautiful, but that's the only advantage i've seen so far

[How many songs do you write a year?]

*revives thread*

7 years, 10 "countable" songs

working to record them with full band arrangement

[Creativity And Mental Illness.]

We just don't understand how the brain works and society in general has no room for those that fall outside of the brackets of "the norm".

Especially in schools.

excellent point, i completely agree

so why go to school? *no, that's not the point*

well, i do practice to write songs even when i'm not "inspired", that is to say, not "suffering" from the extremities of sadness or happiness, but generally these sessions produce less "emotionally-involving" songs than when i'm "inspired"

infact, one of my most "famous" songs, i wrote under two hours after being heart broken

another song, i finished in 15 minutes what my guitarist started but just left on the shelf for two years, after my previous g/f left

so, there's definitely a connection between "mental illness" and creativity. maybe it's that we are able to access that part of us that contains the images, words, and emotions, maybe even associated sounds and scents most powerful to us when we are vulnerable to our experiences?

interesting article

[Up For A Challenge?]

count me in too! i think this is gonna be fun!

*rolls up sleeves, slams door shut, turns on computer*

start time: 14th february 2008

[What Makes A Good Single]

brilliant points there musicthom [smiley=quote.gif]

those are the essential points that i've come across also while elarning the ingredients for a hit song, plus this next one of course:

I think it has more to do with big tits and scanty clothes myself!

:worship2: :worship2:

ooh, that's definitely for sure!

Unless you are desperate for a hit, trying to write a song according to the above is likely to sound very forced and predictable IMHO. Most of the top ten, most of the time, is garbage!

I guess the bottom line for this type of stuff is that the industry is looking for a proven product to sink their investment into.

well said, tunesmith, i also have many friends that don't agree with the songs that are in the top 10 where i come from. i don't agree with the songs also, well some are but most are , waaayyy [smiley=plthumbsdown.gif] but then again, there the ones making millions, aren't they?

i suppose a good song isn'n necessarily a hit song, and vice versa

[Writing a song]

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

1/ lyrics

2/ rhythm

3/ melody

4/ chords

same applies to me

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

1/ brain dump,

2/ edit

3/ research (google) this means checking dates, facts, details of subject matter. it can take hours

4/ go back to 1 & 2 then finish

still the same applies to me

3. At what point do you start recording?

initial recording is done to save the lyrics and music that i've made, without regard to structure

then after the song is complete (basic lyrics plus chords), i record the piano part and build other instruments around that

My theory is that my brain, which until this point has not been paying any attention to the music, does not know what beat the song is on and therefore automatically assumes that this is the first beat of a measure. Thus it cannot recognize what its hearing. This combined with the fact that I'm hearing one or two notes, hardly enough enough to identify what key the song is in gives my brain a lot of musical freedom. It then extrapolates so that the song emphasizes that beat.

Regardless, could be an interesting songwriting approach. Playing a brief clip of a song that isn't the first beat while you're watching tv so that you only hear one or two notes and then writing as if what you heard was beat one.

so that's what happens well, explains a lot then, as i suffer from this symptom also [smiley=thumb.gif] (which will be dubbed further on as "the mark effect")

[Favourite Lyricist]

Nightwolf, speaking of genius', and totally off topic; Douglas Adams. Love the quote, loved the man. One of a kind, and sorely missed.

cheers to douglas adams

well, to tell you the truth, most of the names i've read here i haven't even heard of before maybe because i'm not originally from the states

favorite lyricist would be:

chris carabba (of dashboard confessional), because of the originality of the words he chooses, and also the images he conjures when one listens to his lyrics, just simply emotional

and also dewi lestari, of which i'm sure nobody on this forum has ever heard before, but she is a very gifted lyricist/ novelist from where i come from

[Favorite Lyric]

[smiley=quote.gif]

wow, so many great lyrics that have character here

this is a personal favorite:

let's fly to jupiter, maybe we'll land on mars

make our way to venus, catch a shooting star

say goodbye to mercury, ooh i wonder where we'll be

wherever it is we're flying i'll be

i'll be coming home to you

- from center of my universe (working title)

© ED 2005

[Any Orchestrators Here?]

tracking this thread :ph34r:

i've been wanting to write orchestra pieces of my own too, especially orchestral re-arrangements of songs that i've wrote

i've stumbled upon the garritan orchestra site before also (through a recommendation of a friend) and i've found that it is really helpful, especially for beginners like myself, but after reading the first part about strings, i've decided to focus on pop first before moving on to more difficult and sophisticated genre's such as jazz and especially orchestra

hopefully one day i'll get there and join up with you seniors

[Your Songs]

I'm heartened to see so many people here who haven't released anything and who's music is sitting on a shelf. I'ts not just me!

Haha, I thought the same thing!

and that makes three of us!

i find it's because i just didn't know how to compose, arrange, record, and mix, with a sufficiently low budget but with technology i recently learned, i'm targeting to release an album this year, still in the re-arranging process

so let's go

[Methods]

Since lyrics often comes before the melody line, instead of trying to fit words to notes you suddenly need to stick notes to words. The result, I think, is often more coherent verses - since you already thought of rhythm and rhyming in the lyric phase.

i agree with finn

personally i find easier and more flexible to write down the lyrics first, because that is the idea of the song, and i can also explore my options on what words to use and other techniques so that when it's time to write the music, i can put high notes or sustain notes on words that are the emphasis of the song

when building words around a melody i find it difficult to use fresh and exciting words and end up using generic ones

[Argh!]

Went to bed in a futile attempt to sleep and as I started to relax a beautiful line of music came to me, complete with piano accompaniment, just waiting for me to use it as a foundation for a new song.

that's not the worse, in my case i dream that i'm making a song or humming a melody, but i also realize that i'm dreaming; so i'm caught in a dilema: if i wake up, i'll lose the melody, but if i don't how do i get it done?

Instead of interrupting my creative flow by using software & PC etc I use a little dictaphone

i also had that idea after letting songs escape from my dreams too often, so the moment i wake up, i grab my digital recorder and hum the melody (or what i can remember of it). but alas, i wake up to find that i can barely make out the melodic structure of my 2 am voice they all sound like "do"s

I would think that trying to get yourself to do it all in one sitting, you might have a tendency to settle, just for the sake of getting it done

true, true, very true, compromise is never good when you're going for quality

"REWRITING, REWRITING & REWRITING"

yes, rewriting is definitely essential to songwriting, since a fresh perspective can develop new insights towards the idea, vocabulary usage, and the development of character of the song, lyrics-wise and music-wise

[The Dreaded Writer's Block]

This 'well of creativity' thing.... the whole notion of inspiration... might be just a deluded myth, a misleading sheltering falsehood.

i share your point of view lazz

too often do songwriters don't write because they claim "i don't have inspiration", but i read in a book that that's what being a professional songwriter is about: writing anytime, anywhere, regardless of condition

the pointers given out by john are excellent, so much that i can only agree and not add anything else

personally, to overcome the writer's block, i watch movies and try to compose songs based on the characters and experiences i see and hear in the movie; sometimes i watch the news and see what issues are happening and what emotional reactions do those images and sounds provoke within me; other times, i sing the words in a novel to start searching for an interesting idea that would be fun to sing along to (classic novels are good for this, since they use certain words and style of language that's rare nowadays). our environment is teeming with ideas, just waiting to be plucked!

those are some of the things that i do. hope it helps!

[Songwriter / Lyric Writer Poll]

Come on you younger songwriters! Almost everyone on this poll has been writing songs for 20 years or more

yes, that is exactly what caught my attention while reading the results! around 40% have been writing for 20 years or more!

i maybe what you would call a young songwriter, since i've only been writing for about 7 years now, and even that's an on and off relationship after i counted, through 7 years i have a total of about 20 songs, 10 of which i'm considering to release (as an album)

mostly 10% of my draft make it to finished songs. i'm prolific with words (have about 180 scripts just waiting for music), but not so good with melody (most of the time it's the usual chords again and again ), and as a foreigner (asian), i have the advantage (and the opportunity) to write songs in two languages: english and indonesian, so that's a real adventure there, deciding whether this song should be english or indonesian

but seeing so many people have written for 20 years or more, that really is a *wow* for me, and such a great opportunity to learn from seniors