FinnArild

You are late delivering your assignment. What is your excuse? ()

I did a couple of ones, actually - for myself and then and for this other guy. Shooting is fun - editing is hell on earth.

I think two keywords are "presence" and "target". Target being your potential customers and presence being your inability to be two places at once. The smaller the target, the larger presence you can have over it and vice versa. I will share with you some thoughts regarding my upcoming release: This time around I have from the start defined my target as "medium to hard progressive rock fans". I will also limit the target further by targeting certain countries/areas/languages separately, starting with presence in Nordic (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland) progrock sites,radio shows and magazines with reviews, interviews and whatever possible. Hopefully this will be centered around a release gig where I can get some video footage done. A key is that it is widely available for purchase online - though I will not bank on getting any wide distribution. Progrock fans are used to not seeing their CDs on Walmart (actually, that would be a definitive negative point ...) After the local release effort I will build presence online by getting out as much video clips out as possible as well as being VERY active on forums like the one you are on now (and some not so much like it). Hopefully CDBaby will now have a wide digital distribution of my CD and have gotten some reviews. Then I will concentrate on other regions - without deciding now, they are likely to be divided into: Italy/Spain/Portugal/Latin America (big on progrock), Central Europe (with Germany as base), Eastern Europe (Poland is a good start probably) and (if at all) USA. In these other regions I will work with trying to get distribution and/or licensing on one end, and reviews/interviews/radioplay/articles on the other end. Any gigs in Europe are unlikely bar any larger licensing deal should happen. All this is gonna take me roughly 18 months of promotion work, give or take 6 months depending on how people will like Testament.

A lot of good bass tips here - I thought I'd share a couple of my own that is not so much about the structure, but the spice: If you have a certain part of "hook" melody in the song, guitar or keys - go up to band 15 or so on your bass and play some real high matching notes on parts of it. I use this trick a lot - sometimes only using the bass as the hook - example: "Lantern waste" - listen to the swell guitar in there between the solos, or listen to when the high pitched bass comes in the "oohs". Try using the bass as a seperate melody structure - I love to do this and probably do it way too much. Example - "Riding the nightmare" verse part or "Take two" on the "take two" part, the bass plays a different melody accented with cymbals (that was actually the original melody of the song before I did the voice part).

To understand music and songwriting, you need to listen to it and understand the parts. Different people have different ways to name, handle and structure the different parts - I will present you with a way that has worked for me over 25 years now. Other people on the forums will surely disagree to some of my conventions (especially my view on "the bridge") - and you will need to figure out a way that works for you. Most modern popular music is built up around verse and refrain, often dubbed as part A and part B. Part B often repeats in lyric while part A often are carriers of the story. The element sometimes (and mistakenly, in my belief) called "bridge" which is often put up to build between verse and refrain usually doesn't get it's own letter - most often it is too short for this. The bridge - which isn't in all songs - gets the letter C. It is usually different in melody, chords and lyrics and usually only happens once a bit out into the song. That being the basics, let's try and apply this logic to well known songs: First out, the Beatles of course. She Loves You: Now this song is a great example of BABABAB structure. Starting out with the refrain part: "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" which is repeating, and therefore the refrain - I dub "B". The first verse - starting with "You think you lost your love, Well I saw her yesterday (iay)" and ending with "Yes she loves you, and you know you should be glad" - is different each time and get's the letter "A". There are of course different aspects to every song, and with this it is the ending. It repeats a couple of lines from A, then ends with the last part of B - with a twist. Try to see the structure behind the details before you analyze everything. Ok simple song - but see how it already turned difficult, well - you will find Beatles often do that when you look closer. Over to a truly simple one: Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz Now - according to me, those are all A - this song is all verses - three of them, making it AAA. Listen and see if I'm right ... Another great example is Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing (with some excellent solos in-between). Now we need an example of the C part - agree? Ok - over to: Ozzy Osbourne - Dreamer: Not with the bite he once had (pun intended), this song is an excellent example of what I mean with bridge - but first, let's establish part A and B - I'm sure you can do that by now. Part A beginning with the lyrics "Gazing through the window ..." and part B is of course "I'm just a Dreamer ...." ok? Well - then it's AABAB .. hey! ... "Your higher power may be God or jesus christ" ... that's completely different. That's the bridge. Stamp it C and listen as it leads into a guitar solo on the A part (some people include that in their notes, some don't - I do). So ... that's then AABABCAABB ... then - if you play this out a late night and people are dancing closely - you can repeat part B for as long as you like. Now one of my favorite bands: Genesis and Land of Confusion. This is another great example of the bridge part. First establish part A which is the "I must've dreamed a thousand dreams" and repeated in "Now did you read the news today" making out the AA. What comes next is where there are a lot of different practices - the part that starts with "Too many men" and the part starting with "This is the world we live in" - are both just as long, and very different. Should they be two parts? I tend to not do this and make this whole repeating section part B - the whole part is used over again like it is later and if you start using too much letters for describing the different parts of the song you soon end up a too complex system - imagine trying to detail Bohemian Rhapsody for example. Anyway - so we have AABAB - and here comes the part with something completely different again, even with halving the beat: "I remember long ago ...". This is the bridge, or part C - making the whole song structure like this: AABABCAB End notes Remember that this is a system for understanding song structure and also describing and explaining to band members or others what you want to change with a song or what to play (it's a priceless tool with drummers, for instance - who often don't pay too much attention ... at all, really ...). Do not make this system an iron jacket you can't escape from - as important as analyzing the songs to find the structure is to find the parts of it which is out of structure. More often than not, that is what makes a song special. Now - your home lesson: I want 4 analyzed songs by Friday!

Watcher of the Skies - Genesis (Foxtrot)

The Lady Lies - Genesis (... and then they were three ...)

Los Endos - Genesis (Trick of the Tail)

Home by the Sea - Genesis (Genesis)

I wrote some jingles in my time and the most important stuff is to get them either very short (typically 1-2 seconds), or exactly 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 seconds, so they are easily put in to fill time. a 9 sec jingle will never cut it - neither will a 18 second jingle. Also: do NOT go mad with the limiter on the master (since the radio stations limit the crap out of everything anyway this will only ruin your jingle double), but work it on the demo so they get the sunder-limited sound they expect ... I tried explaining this to radio people before, but you are better not mentioning it at all.

It is good to get feedback on your lyrics and music - however, one should not adhere to all of it. What makes art art, is that it is you. Too much "guidance" and it will be little of you left. To little feedback and you will make music that noone else but you like ... ... I would be so bold as to advice any which band to take a trip into songstuff to gather good feedback ...

Alien Afternoon - Genesis (Calling All Stations)

Definetly not - just sing quite normally.

Well, frankly - I wouldn't worry too much about breathing exercises but concentrate on singing exercises. Don't "breathe with the stomach" or take overly much air in at all. Just breathe in quite normally and then sing.

Start with scale training, then interval training is my suggestion. Not hitting the note is usually because your voice-muscles aren't trained to jump from this interval to that. Doing scales (also meaning doing intervals) is like going to the gym for your voice.

Who Dunnit - Genesis (Abacab)

Raven - Genesis (Lamb Lies Down on Broadway)

Strange Magic - Electric Light Orchestra Double score on this one ...

Where the Sour Turns to Sweet - Genesis (From Genesis to Revelation)

... no brainer: Follow You Follow Me - Genesis (and then they were three)

In my experience (if you don't mind me butting in) there is talent AND there is dedication. For greatness you need a combination of both. Dedication is usually more important than talent.

Talent isn't what you need. It's nice to have, but determination, drive, thick skin and a bit of luck is the traits that are gonna get you anywhere in this business. And it's a cutthroat business, I tell you. Someone i know had recently a sort of "oral agreement" of distribution with one of the majors - turns out that when they made the record and had everything ready, they dropped it like a bad habit. Turns out they had a record of their own in the middle of the same segment. They just wanted to get rid of the competition. That's how it is - all the time. anyway .... I tend to be more organic than systematic when it comes to my chord progressions. Some times I build them up by playing one and one note - more like you would build up a choir part. Musical systems are great, but ears are better ...

Ok - so I used what came up first, with no reloads: Band name: HMS Jamaica Album: to the Christian path Cove: see attached

Signal to Noise - Peter Gabriel (Up) ... and - sorry to miss that, lemonstar ... ... argh - Lemonstar cut in, now I MUST come up with something else ... The Rythm of the Heat - Peter Gabriel (4)

Hello Goodbye - The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour?) ... as we're on the classics ...