Hyardacil

You hear music in the squeaking of the trolley as you ride it. Yup, totally gonna write that down when I get the time.

It helps to know something about beats in different time signatures in general. On which beat a natural emphasis is expected with certain time signatures. This comes naturally to most people of course. Another thing that helps is having an innate rhythmic line within your arrangement prior to writing out the drum parts. Try to strum the guitar in a certain manner or play rhythmic backing on the keyboards perhaps. The melody itself can give cues about the innate rhythmic figuration within the piece of music. I usually arrange the bass, rhythmic backing and melody first and then model the drum lines after that. I use the snare drum to put emphasis where the natural emphasis of the rhythmic backing comes and use the bass drum to double the bass-line and then either ride-cymbals or hi-hats to provide a constant stream of 8th notes. Another thing you need to test with a study is of course syncopation. Pretty much no western beat music works totally without syncopation. (Don't worry though - you are probably already using it, even if you don't know what it is exactly)

I think this chord progression works very well because it provides an ambiguous mood to a certain extent. It starts of with a major chord and then switches to the dominant, which is common enough. This dominant is naturally the chord which brings us back home, but instead we get the vi minor chord, which is a sort of sad step away from that "home" feeling. This switch to a minor provides some sort of lyrical quality to me - especially the switch to IV which brings a sort of calming in the tension that naturally leads back to the root.

A huge example is set for me by Frank Zappa. He was a lead guitarist, singer, band leader, songwriter, composer!, performer - he had it all going. But mainly of course it is his awesome ability to write complex, engaging pieces of music. One simply cannot get past him when interested in beat music - he was a higher standard. Another musical influence for me is early Genesis - from them I learned the wonders of pedal point in harmonies. Gentle Giant comes to mind when one speaks of arrangement for the rock band. Brendan Perry from Dead Can Dance is probably the best example of someone who is strictly a songwriter and has really inspired me.

1. Do you sing, play an instrument or instruments? I can keep a tune with my voice, but I am not a singer by any stretch of the imagination. I play instruments. What instruments? I play the piano and harpsichord as my main instruments. I also have a kalimba and a glockenspiel gathering dust somewhere. I guess I play them too, if they count as a full fledged instrument skill. Also the melodica. When did you start playing? I started playing the piano/keyboards when I was 12, so 6 years ago now. Did you teach yourself? In the beginning, yes, with the help of my mother (who has finished children's music school) I taught myself to read sheet music and it went from there. About a year later I got myself a private piano tutor who I've been seeing since. For two years now I have taken harpsichord/old music classes academically. 2. Are you in a band or bands? No, but in the sake of interest, I'll answer the following questions as I would LIKE to have it What is the name of the band? Something in Latin probably. Visi Sonor would be a cool name. What do you play? Jazz fusion and jazz influenced rock music, progressive rock, experimental beat music. What other instruments are in the band? The standard bunch of bass, drum, guitars (acoustic and electrical), me on electical keyboards, piano, harpsichord. In addition the music would take use of woodwinds (especially the clarinet), tuned idiophones and saxophones. Possibly more - I usually write for very varied instrumentation. Do you have a band website? No. 3. Do you write songs? Yes. Do you write lyrics, music or both? I write both, but I don't take my lyrical attempts too seriously. I am no poet. Do you have a writing partner? No. 4. Do you record your music? No. Well, if you count out few ideas recorded on the solo piano. Do you use a home studio? If so what gear do you use? Not a studio. I use a program called GuitarPro mostly to get my ideas down. Do you use a recording studio? - Do you have music available on the web? if so where? I may have something... some songs on some forums posted up to receive critique and such. 5. What other roles do you perform in the music business? None. 6. Are you a tech head? Not particularly, no. 7. What country do you live in? Estonia 8. What are your ambitions? TO REVOLUTIONIZE BEAT MUSIC ONCE AGAIN. *cough* I mean: To write music I would enjoy hearing. 9. Do you draw/paint/write stories/computer art/dance or other creative pursuit? I write prose sometimes. What are your pastimes? Computer games, writing, music, thinking. 10. What would you like to get out of Songstuff? Mainly to share creative pursuits with other people and learn more about the craft.

For me it is all for myself. It would be a dream to do music professionally, but I don't think that I will every be able to do songwriting/playing a popular music band professionally. If anything then I can put my harpsichord skills to use and play in an old music ensemble.

It's really quite sad, because Pachelbel wrote really good music.

The 9 - chord, as I hear, is very common in jazz music. So is 11 even, which is even more ****ed up.

I spend at least 1 h + on simply listening to music with heavy thought. I spend probably about 30 minutes a day at least thinking about music... running through melodies in my head, thinking of arrangements and other stuff. And usually at least 1 h playing the piano.

Meh, discipline was probably a bad choice in words. Sure you need musical knowledge and you need to actually get the thing physically down and all that takes work that you probably cannot do without something that you'd call "discipline". The point I was trying to make was that they don't necessarily have the process of work we would expect or even the personality that the songs suggest they have. I'm sure there are very cynical characters who have written brilliant sentimental love songs. The work and the author are not identical.

I usually start from the harmony. And I usually take some very complex harmony as well, in order to not limit myself to conventional sounds. I try cluster harmonies and all sorts of weird bass patterns. This largely has to do with the instrument I play too. With the piano one can create complex harmonies to accompany the right hand, which starts playing the melody. Some days it works, some days it doesn't. I usually try to come up with more than one theme or thematic phrases before I set out to put them to any kind of structure. But my suggestion would be just that - to not limit yourself to conventional chords. Sometimes a melody comes out naturally from dissonance (or our need to solve that tension of dissonance) and creative harmonies.

What makes a good songwriter? Autism? No... but I'm serious - the songwriter can be ANYTHING - he can have very conflicting personality traits and still write good songs. Everybody rolls differently. I can remember some great songwriters who have no discipline. I can probably think of some who are not idealistic at all - perhaps quite horrible and pretentious and rude people. Drug-addicts, seducers etc etc. So what? The songs is all I care about.

To capture something I myself would enjoy to hear. As simple as that.

I'm not a guitarist, but for some relatively easy but yet very good music for classical guitar I'd suggest the repertoire of one Mr Steve Hackett. Ofc his electric guitar work is worth checking out as well.

For good melodic, but also at times cross genre and experimental music, I'd suggest Mike Oldfield. His music is definitely mostly melody-oriented throughout his very eclectic career and his guitar playing and composing has a certain feel to it that you can always tell: "Ah! This is Oldfield!" So that's definitely worth looking into. J.S.Bach already had a mention, so I am satisfied.

The biggest influence for me at the moment is most definitely the English progressive rock movement of the 70s. Genesis is probably the single most influential band for me - musically. I love both the playing style of Steve Hackett and the brilliant compositions of Tony Banks. From playing wise, my idol - also from that era and genre - is Keith Emerson in his prime. One of(or THE) the best rock keyboardists ever. From classical composers I take influences from Renaissance music and then of course J.S.Bach and a few others like Debussy, Grieg, Erki-Sven Tüür, Bartok and Holst. Also, deserving a honorary mention is the very unknown band Egg. Largely keyboard oriented they have affected my way in thinking about music in both playing and composing- wise.

I don't really think of themes as such very much. I don't have this moment where I go: "Now I am going to write about that!" Rather I let ideas slowly filter through my mind. I can have one idea floating around for years, before I try to make anything coherent out of it. This helps them mature and for me to find more and more nuances it has to already relating themes and flows of thought that have existed in the real world. I was reading a summary of the history of modern philosophy today and found out - for example - that one of the ideas I've been having resembles some bits of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Anyways... I guess I like the freedom. I like having unused ideas around. And generally the things that really stay with me filter through with time - thus making sure (or at least a bit more sure) that the thing I am going to write is going to be about something more than a one-day fancy. Of course there are cons to this type of approach as well. I don't get as much practice in actually writing lines of poetry down as I should. I guess I shall try to mend that fault soon. Generally speaking you should write about things that are relative to YOU and you only. You have no way of knowing what people would like to hear... in fact I think even THEY don't know it. It's just you on your own and your head (hopefully) filled with a big abstract mess that can be turned into something coherent.