john

Hey I decide what emotional space the song exists in. If I don’t have exact experience, I use an imagined equivalence. For example if I want to write about the devastating loss of a child, I can use the devastating loss of a close friend, other devastating losses, to begin to approach how that might feel. Once I feel the emotion, I sing melodies (usually) while thinking about the subject of the song. I step myself in the feeling and try to express it in purely musical terms. If I have pencilled-in lyrics, I perhaps try singing them. I always switch to melody as soon as I can in the writing process. I try to view any phrases I have before that as fuel. They might make it to the finished song (though not always as consecutive lines if I have more than one), but I am completely prepared to ditch them. Initial words and phrases are but the seed that a song grows from. For me, my songs tend to be limited by attachment to draft ideas more than any other factor. The attachment hems me in. Over the years I have learned to let it go by deliberately tackling it. You seem to be limited by not having distinct writing phases. You are mixing the draft phase with the edit phase. That means you are qualifying ideas as you go... which sucks as a way of generating ideas and really, really slows down your writing process. This probably has an effect on all your creative tasks. It usually stems from an over concern about mistakes, every decision becomes critical, everything needs to fit a growing list of criteria before you will accept it... coupled with an over attachment to preliminary ideas. My old art teacher had a novel way to address this, and an equivalent solution can be found in songwriting. Artists who suffer from this often hesitated in the marks they made in a page. Often their drawings were rigid, and because they focused on detail prematurely, their art often had skewed perspective, the relationship between sizes was wrong. The hesitancy came from feeling every mark on a page was critical. Chiselled in stone for all eternity. So they couldn’t make a mistake. The solution was to pin 10 sheets of newspaper (the cheapest printed paper, already used and ready for the trash) to a drawing board, and give yourself 1 minute, or 2 minutes to sketch what you saw before you. After the agreed minute or two was up, you tore the sheet off the board, scrunched it up, and tossed it in the trash. The exercise was not to come up with a finished art work. Sure it might give you an idea, but this was not the implementation of grander visions. It was to get into the mindset of sketching what the mind saw quickly, with zero attachment to result, zero qualification of ideas, no long term buy-in. Quite quickly artists cured that hesitance and over qualification and premature attachment that stifled their work. They learned to express themselves.... and that is one of the key things we need to do as songwriters. I would recommend the equivalent approach for music. Try random mood selection using 2 dice, write a melody in 1 minute or 2 minutes (work up to 5) that matches the rolled mood (2 equals sad, 3 happy, 4 excited etc.) At least at first try recording the melodies, then when the time is up... delete them. Roll dice, next write. When you go back to your normal writing, try having a distinct ideas and draft phase, the equivalent of sketches. Don’t go to edit phase until you have a draft of the overall song. Know that edit can be done in cycles (try an idea, if it works keep it at least for now, if not ditch it, at least for now) you can re-enter draft phase every time around the edit loop. Get used to knowing ideas are not fixed in stone, and at any point you can go back to trying new ideas at zero cost... after all, you still have the previous version of the work so, nothing ventured, nothing gained Cheers John

Glad to see you mention Rachel. Indeed, her mum Jeanie (herself a good writer and beautiful singer) is a member here. That meant members were lucky to see Rachel develop as an artist from a pretty young age. Although known mainly for playing the keys, she’s a mean guitarist, singer and enthusiastic multi-instrumentalist.

I've been a Floyd fan for as long as I can remember, and like a good number of other prog bands from Yes to Jethro Tull. For me, prog was always detailed, multi-sectional songs, often containing a number of bridging sections, time signature and tempo changes. They give you the feeling that the song is evolving. That said, some were the exact opposite... an ongoing, evolution with no sections at all. Still, evolution is what gives the songs some sense of progression. They tend to be more experimental in nature and at the psychedelic end of the spectrum that is a pre-requisite with improvisation being an important factor. Prog touches many genres, from jazz to folk, to rock and metal. So far I've mentioned pretty well everything! lol In essence, I think the progression of timing, key, tempo, even genre, are key features of progressive music, sectional or not, improvised or not, rock or not. Typically song topics are more on the fringes. When prog bands wander into pop, time signature and even tempo changes tend to be removed from the options, leaving the standard 4/4 while most other aspects of prog remain. It's a start! Cheers John

Hi Gang We are putting out a call for submissions for inclusion in a compilation album as a fundraiser for Songstuff. The idea is simple. If your track is selected to be included, any funds made directly from compilation sales will go towards funding our community. We would also need permission to use tracks to promote the compilation and permission to edit for that purpose and master so that all the tracks sit together well. You can find out more here: http://www.songstuff.com/compilation-1-call-for-submissions/ Many thanks to fellow member @Steve Mueske for suggesting the idea, and for offering to manage the submission process and mastering the album! Legend! If you have any questions, please post them in reply to this topic. Cheers John

Hey Jellycott! Sorry for the late welcome to the Songstuff family. Good to have you with us Welcome!

Welcome to Songstuff Trombettista! Good to have you with us

Welcome to The Songstuff family Shane!

Hard to call with such diversity in purpose. During recording, as a sound creation tool, it has to be Native Instruments Kontakt. So versatile with a huge range of sample libraries/ instruments available. Of those I would say any of Output’s instruments are awesome. During mixing, possibly T-Racks, though there are many simple ones that do one job well that I am ruling out purely from a versatility perspective. AmpliTube is also awesome, though my main grumble is with limitations caused by their pricing model. For mastering, Izotope Ozone. Expensive but awesome. The entry level tools are pretty good value.

Hey Rama, welcome to the Songstuff family! Great to have you with us

Good to meet you Half Shell. Welcome to the Songstuff family!

Interesting suggestions Michan. Many thanks!

Hey Ryan, good to have you with us. Welcome to the Songstuff family!

Hi Gang I thought this was an interesting read. Whatchafink? https://www.rootsmusic.ca/2019/03/14/a-brief-history-of-why-artists-are-no-longer-making-a-living-making-music/ Cheers John

Hey GDub, welcome to the Songstuff family Looking forward to hearing some of your tracks!

Hey Simone There are some good things and some not so good. Generally the performance is pretty good/. A few mistakes on the piano, which is fine for a live performance, less so for something multitracked. Vocal wise... it's pretty emotionally flat. It doesn't really go anywhere, and I get the feeling that vocally you would be capable of putting a bit more emotion into the performance. As a result it got a bit boring, and it really didn't need to be. You could work a bit more on pronunciation as at times it made it a little hard to make out, or sometimes words sounded more like other words. Still, pretty good for a second language... and much better than I could manage in French, Spanish, German etc! Arrangement wise it was pretty solid, although a bit more departure from the standard would have been nice. The short piano solo was quite good. A rippling arpeggio used to good effect. Video, this is where I have most issues, and I hope some feedback can help. What did you use for video editing? The fade to black transitions are not being used correctly. The look like errors/glitches. The inset "picture in picture" shots aren't great in this context. It looked like a tutorial set up being used for a semi-performance semi-production video. I think you need to think of your use of shots in edit a bit more creatively. I would also suggest that you shoot everything 3 ways... ie 2 fixed angles, one moving, to give you a load of footage options in edit. It doesn't need to be expensive, just use a tablet or phone for the additional shots. You can easily make a steady-cam for smoother tracking shots. Maybe mix in some other footage, out in a car, walking, places, people etc. I really don't think the keyboards in the corner throughout help at all. Ditch that imo. Overall I think quality is almost there. Just some attention to detail needed. I hope this helps. Cheers John

Hi Gang I am planning to write some new songwriting related articles and I am looking for suggestions from you, for articles you would like to read. Perhaps exploring areas you are interested in, or are interested in exploring. Can you please post up 3 suggestions as bullets, ranked in order of preference? Under the bullet list, please feel free to expand on your suggestions, mentioning any specifics. Many thanks. I look forward to your suggestions! Cheers John

Hi Gang What do you do to get people to your gigs? Do you do consciously target specific types of people? Do you use posters? Fliers? Social Media? A street team? Something else? What have you found to be effective? What was a waste of time? Cheers John

Hey weareTYNT! Welcome to Songstuff!

Yeah, a good version Joshua. A nice performance. If anything something that departed a bit from the original would make it stand out a bit more, beyond your good voice. A good listen. Thanks for sharing!

Purty. Nice job on that. Thanks Rudi. Yours?

Hi Dave A good question. It has been discussed as a general issue. As a site we recommend writers resolve this, but generally where a suggestion is used exactly as suggested, it is both fair and courteous to acknowledge the contribution. Where you do that, dues would be entirely appropriate. Indeed in lieu of an agreement that should be the default. That said, we encourage an attitude of “many thanks”, “what goes around comes around”, ie ideas are shared for free and on a goodwill basis, BUT it should never be assumed. Indeed, if you like an idea and plan to use an idea verbatim, have the chat before you use the idea. It is always good to know where you stand. So, assume verbatum ideas should be credited and co-writer terms apply if you do not have an explicit agreement in place that dictates other terms or agreement that a deal is necessary. If you do not have an agreement, it is in your interest to get something in place, even if that is that no credit or ownership assignment is necessary. As to what you should offer, percentages are difficult... because one word might make s huge difference. An entire section might have no appreciable influence on commercial successful. I agree with your Nashville friend. Contact them, say you believe they are “entitled to be credited as s co-writer” and that “this should include a percentage of ownership and royalty assignment”. Ask them what they think about this. If they agree to that principle, ask them what they feel would be fair, and see what they say. I yet again stress that unless they set out as co-writers, commonly a free to use without credit is the most common approach amongst members. Indeed some writers do NOT want associated with your work. For example a Christian writer takes time to drop a comment on your death metal number. They may well not want to be associated with your work in any official capacity. Historically, I know members talk of it sometimes. I absolutely encourage them to do so. I am not aware of any actual disputes in the 19 years the site has been running, with the exception of a non member who misunderstood copyright and ownership, had no shame and happily represented a blatant use of someone’s lyrics as his own, and defended it as. “They were available publicly for free so therefor are free to use”. He refused to be educated on the matter or to act in a decent way. I helped the member he ripped off. We contacted all sites he posted the work on, informed them of his comments. Contacted Google, Bing and others with take down requests. Within days his posted work was removed from those sites ( including OMD sites and forums) his work was removed from the search engines and social media we contacted. Some sites closed his account, because when you can’t trust the legality of posted works, you cannot allow their content. I digress. That is the only time I remember an ownership dispute. Certainly of any serious nature. I know if I help you, I am happy not to be credited. Most members take that attitude for critique scenarios. I hope this helps

Hope to see you performing there some day!

Possible to paint any guitar I guess, though it will not be cheap and could affect the tone a little.

So much depends on the individual contract you agreed to. Why, because you agreed to that, you didn’t create it, and potentially you could be sued... plus it’s your professional reputation on the line. If you want to become a pro, you have to act like one. in terms of what happens, yet again it depends on the contract. Some can require you to remove it, others certain terms below a threshold, other terms apply above. Generally by using a beat youargreeing to be bound by those terms. Sometimes you are required to contact the beat maker to agree further usage. Usually you will be required to accredit the beat maker in any song descriptions.

Good to see you back bud