[My single just crossed 100k+ streams!]

Really nice vocal performance.  All things considered, this song and its arrangement is ... well ... just beautiful.

 

It creatively held my interest from beginning to end, even though its structure is fairly simple.

 

It's very easy to see how and why it is becoming popular.  Congratulations.  (Now, go do it again!)

[Is this better?]

Oddly enough, Arty, when you "watch a movie," or these days even when you "watch the news," you are reacting in-part to the very deliberate actions of a [fiction ...] writer.

 

Also:  I firmly believe that you can write about anything – even the death of a sibling, child abuse.  Even: "selling your child into prostitution in order to save her."  ("Fancy" – as "knocked out of the park" by Reba McEntire.)  There are literally no limits to what "a simple song" can do or say.

[Social Media Use and Mental Health as an Artist]

Might I also suggest ... "<!!> their 'analytics!' "

 

And – their supposedly-vital "social media accounts."

 

I buy plenty of music, but I have never in my life had an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on.  Instead, I look for [online and offline] venues hosted by actual artists.  I listen to "radio" stations and sometimes pursue what I find there.  But, I have no time to waste on the "incessant chatter" of any of these "IM = Instant Messaging" based forms of Internet communication, and I never will.  Yes, at night, my cell-phone is in the other room, and I sleep quite peacefully until the next morning unless one of my cats wakes me up.

 

It has long been obvious to me that "social media" and "online marketing" venues saw that, "if they flooded you with easily-accessible data that fit within the confines of their framework's world-view," then you'd pursue it as though it actually did mean something ... just because it was 'so accessible.'  However:  "Q: what's in it for them?  A: to keep y-o-u clicking."  Remember that.

[Built For Nothing]

Well, you've got a ROCK solid group of musicians there, each quite-visibly the master of their respective instruments.  You've really got a grasp of the "Solid Rock" genre, and I think that you delivered on that perfectly.  Your playing, across the board, is tight.  Every part fits together cleanly and drives it forward – nothing "clashes."  Also, the various tracks show variety, both in musicianship(!) and in subject.

 

The one thing that I would suggest, though, is the mixing of the vocals.  The vocalist necessarily has to sit in the same sonic space as the power-guitar and the upper range of the killer-bass, but we don't really hear him as clearly nor as brightly as we could.  Even in "a live-venue mix," I wonder what EQ might do.  (And this is meant to be "a minor quibble ...")

[The Future of ASCAP and BMI Consent Decrees]

"Consent Decrees" are not supposed to supplant the much-harder job of lawmaking.

[Musical Plans For 2021?]

Just trying now to put-to-bed a musical idea that first came to me ... literally ... in a dream that consisted of a nursery rhyme.  As I have since tried to connect that idea with several others of its type, the resulting adventure has become quite interesting.  "Stay tuned!"

[What Are You Trying To Achieve With Your Songs?]

"And, Arty ... look at the very precious thing that you are able to do ... for them!"

 

They're all human beings, all of them locked (without their consent) in the prison known as "intellectual disability."  Don't you suppose that they know that ... even though they can't express it?

 

Here, you bring them "the universal."  MUSIC!

 

God bless you.

 

"Music is ... God's own gift."  Don't anyone out there ever forget that.

 

... hmmm ... might that previous sentence become a song?

[Manowar - Hail and kill]

I definitely like what you are shooting for here, but please let me now encourage you to re-evaluate your mix.  As things stand now, your musical accompaniment is occupying exactly the same (broad ...) sonic space that is occupied by your vocals.  And, "they collide."  The harmonics of that electric guitar are landing right on top of you!

 

"Plan out" your entire sonic spectrum:  bass, midrange, treble.  Be sure that all of them have a solid presence.  (e.g. many "bass sounds" don't actually occupy the bass  register at all.)  Then, within each of these three "lanes," use "slotted EQ" to carve out for each of them an exclusive territory.

[What Are You Trying To Achieve With Your Songs?]

Arty, reading your earlier post about "the Intellectual Disability center that you work at," the thought really struck me that the creative possibilities that might come from being and working at such a place might prove to be pure gold.

 

Why?  Well, because:  "is 'what we do' really about us, or about the listener?"  And, if it truly is about "the listener," do we really know who "the listener" is?  It's terribly easy to confuse the two.  But, in your profession, you are very-regularly confronted by people who are not at all like yourself, as you (in your own way) seek to minister to them.  You can hone your songs against an "edge" that most of us will never encounter.

[How do you do an 80s heavy metal scream?]

Well, "what you have here sounds quite good," but "this card-carrying 80's kid" really doesn't know exactly what you mean by "heavy metal scream."  Can you perhaps point out a few specific time-segments within your recording where you were trying to achieve this effect?

 

I certainly like your electric-guitar licks so far!  And the recording sounds good, although right now it seems a bit thin ...

 

One general suggestion that I might make here is ... "Where's the Bass?"  I don't mean "bass-clef notes wrapped up in the other parts," but:  "honest-to-goodness thumping!"  That is to say: "a very solid and definitive presence in the lower-third of the musical spectrum."  (In fact, your song should strive to have an equally-strong presence in all three of them at once:  treble, midrange, bass.)  Let there be "something 'musically interesting going on,' simultaneously, in all three areas.  Give your guitarist a solid and interesting and diverse musical foundation against which (s)he can soar.

 

"I like it.  Now, expand it."   After all, in the 70's, "The Moody Blues" played against the entire London Symphony Orchestra to teach us all about "Nights In White Satin."  Today, you can do similar things without paying "union scale."

[Best controller for beginners?]

I honestly think that decisions like these are "up to you."  It's going to become a tool of your trade or hobby.  In time you'll learn to master anything that you buy. 

 

But, I also think that it's very important for you to go somewhere where you can actually get your hands on the equipment before you buy it.  At such a place you can also talk with salesmen and other musicians who will be knowledgeable about the pros and cons, and who can direct you to a decision that is right for you.  Then you can take it home, really learn how to use it, and "get this party started!" 😀

[Selling royalties for all my albums]

Why on earth would you want to sell the right to receive your money to anyone else?!

 

You wrote the song and you own the copyright.  "What's in it for you?"

[Is this better?]

There have been threads before which "argued" this point, but I really do believe that a good songwriter needs to be a good fiction writer.  You can start with "yourself," or with a real situation that really happened to you, or ... something that is "absolutely made-up."  But you want to write in such a way that it connects with your audience.  Whatever you intend "your audience" to be.

 

To me, a good fiction writer is, foremost, a good storyteller.  In a song, you don't have hundreds of pages to make your point.  The lyrics of the world's great songs usually fit easily on one page.  And yet, you won't "get it just-right the first time."  Good writing is a lot harder than it looks.

[Different Levels of Music]

There have always been "experimental musicians," and I daresay that a great many of them would now say that "they wasted their time 'dying'" if they could have simply time-forwarded themselves to the present day.  These were the folks who were taking razor-blades to blank player-piano rolls, cutting very-careful rectangles into them to create "musical compositions" that no human pianist could ever play ... and then playing them in front of auditoriums of ticket-buyers.

 

No set of musicians, throughout these many centuries, has ever been able even to conceive of the musical possibilities that are available to all of us today ... even using "entirely free" software, which is certainly no longer "second best."

 

Therefore: "Here's your century's version of 'the envelope.'  Push it!"

["Creativity is not Deterministic"]

I recently re-watched the great guitar documentary, "It Might Get Loud."  One thing that I noticed was that ... they all turned on a tape recorder.

 

"Grabbing an idea," and "turning it into a product," though, really are two separate things.

 

"Intermingled, of course."  Sometimes the pure-gold is in "take #45."

["Creativity is not Deterministic"]

As I use the term, "deterministic" either means "pre-determined," or, "there's only one 'right' way and so that's what you should be trying to find."

 

Geeks sometimes refer to "Tim Toady":  TMTOWTDI = There's More Than One Way To Do It.  Generally sage advice.

 

But also in the case of music:  They'll Never Know How You Did It.  (Nor do they really want to know – they just don't know it yet.)  So, when they ask, smile and make something up.

 

And:  Whatever you do, never throw away whatever you do.  Because you never know when you'll "run out of ideas" only to discover "the perfect idea" in something you did weeks before, even if absolutely nothing came from it at the time.

 

And last but not least:  "FISI = 🤡 it!  Ship it!"  Put shrink-wrap on that sucker and call FedEx.

["Creativity is not Deterministic"]

Lots of "famous fiction writers" (who should have remembered better ...) wrote plenty of books that basically told aspiring writers that the way to success was basically:  "pantsing = by the seat of your pants."

 

(Well, I guess they did know what they were doing, because they sold plenty of copies of those books – and lots of "writing workshops," besides.)

 

Yes – absolutely – when the creative juices are flowing you must capture them.  But, at the same time, "don't think that you're done."  Also:  "don't expect the angels to start singing."  Fact is, you might manage to produce many "commercially-viable musical products" from your brainstorm, if you're lucky. 

 

Anyhow:  The audiences who listen to your creations will actually be none the wiser.  Please don't even suggest to them there is "a process."  Don't tell them how the trick is done:  just do the trick.

 

I still like this lyric, which to me really does spell-out everything:  "We are here now – en-ter-tain us."

 

"If you're looking for 'affirmation,' stop looking."   There is no "right" answer.

[Geoff Tate/Kiske sound?]

Well, if you systematically start to de-construct this sound – especially with regards to his former band – you'll discover that it really consists of many "layers."  So, perhaps the first thing to ask would be – what, exactly, attracted you to his music in the first place?

["Creativity is not Deterministic"]

Walk up to Michelangelo's David and run your fingers over it.  Here are three things that I promise you that you will never see:

• The slightest imperfection of texture, no matter where your fingers may roam.
• "Chisel marks."
• The slightest fleck of marble, upon the floor below.

 

But now, "here's to the crafts(men)(women) who worked for Michelangelo!  To the people who spent countless unsung hours patiently rubbing the stone with the finest of abrasives.  And, yes, maybe to the ones who counseled the artist as to what to do, when the block of stone they'd bought from the quarry "presented them with a 'surprise!'"

 

When we look upon this statue, or when we read a novel, or when we listen to a song ... as artists we must remember the process.  We of all people must never delude ourselves into thinking ... the very thing that we're happy to tell "our legions of adoring fans!"  That somehow it really was "magic," and not an endless series of decisions.  That there was no such thing as "committee meetings!"  "Editors."  "Producers."  "Publishers."  That we really did know what "the platinum-record record" was going to be, when we first heard the notes being discovered on our instruments.

 

Let's therefore remember that "creativity really is a craft."  And that "the stuff that we produce" is the consequence of ... utterly-boring decisions that are of no interest whatsoever to our "countless fans."  Yes, we should tell them what they want to hear.  But – don't believe it.  "Get to work!"

 

And ... do not delete the original recording/MIDI of anything that you ever make.

[How to write a song easily?]

Very solid creative advice, beginning with "tell a story," but most especially: "write a plan before starting to write!"  (Plenty of pundits in other areas point out that "writing by the seat of your pants" is a guaranteed road to nowhere.)

 

Likewise, "Focus on the 'I' ..." because this is indeed the position that will be held by the audience of your story, whatever it is.

 

The advice concerning "rhymes" is obviously quite language-specific.  But the advice to "just keep writing them down" is very good advice:  don't edit your muse out of existence.  "There's more than one way to say it."

 

And yes – "be yourself."  But also:  "you are creating a work of fiction!"  Although your fictional protagonist may draw from you, (s)he need not actually be you.  (You don't actually have to kill somebody, in order to successfully write about it!)

 

Likewise I agree:  "don't be afraid to start over."  And, for that matter, "to keep every version that you write!"  (Just keep the tape rolling, and if you ever find yourself running out of storage space, just go to your office-supply store and buy yourself a couple more tera(!)-bytes!)  Your audience will never know how you did it.

 

Excellent advice.  Thanks for sharing. 

[What Are You Trying To Achieve With Your Songs?]

I just want to write something that I'd like to listen to.

[October 22,2020]

Please use a forum-topic title that tells me whether I should click it.  I'd hate to miss-out on something wonderful because you failed to "advertise" it! 

[Just starting out]

A good trick to grab in a song like this, at about this stage in the game, is "any convenient metaphor."  Having set the stage, now let your protagonist, who's feeling frisky, reach for something that "occurs to her" – something that is also familiar to the listener.  Let her make a reasonable yet adventurous decision.  (Exactly what?  You're the author!)

 

For example, in your next verse, let her "decide to go somewhere."  (Probably, in this case, being driven by "this beat's drivin' me crazy."  Send her somewhere where she can feel that beat ... and, to a situation that the listener can also relate to.  You can decide whether "she actually arrives there," or not.  You can describe the [hypothetical ...] scene in [arbitrary ...] detail, or not.  But, once you secure that metaphor, your listener is riding along.  Which is exactly where you want your listener to be.

[My friend released a single, what do you think]

Can't listen to it on Spotify.  Have him post it somewhere that doesn't require signup to listen.

[Song about my OCD]

Suggestion:  "Now, provide hope."  Offer this poor soul a way out.  Present a contrasting point-of-view.

 

Even though very often "the things that we are writing about" are actually "our personal hell at the moment," when we are writing songs we need to be "third-party fiction writers."  Even though we may not have the time to tell "a story," we nonetheless need to "suggest it."

 

Because:  "the audience that you are writing to is 'a third party to' whatever is the protagonist's situation."  Yet this disinterested audience must now be made to relate to it.  There must be a story ... a progression, or the unmistakable sign of one.  Literally:  "an answer to: 'so what?'"