Ferry0123

SongStuff is full of creative, unique talent and absolutely the place to post your music. You'll get honest responses by which you can improve your songs, musically and lyrically.

Thanks for posting this rendition. Despite especially your singing could be better, you made me like this song more than before; serious, I'm gonna learn the chords to this song.

I'd say you have a good timbre, but you need singing lessons to reach the higher notes, learn how to breath, practice a lot. Start with easy songs to sing to and search on google for 'breathing exercises'.

I find songstuff to be a great place to be. Critically listening and replying to others' songs is actually helping me to improve songs I write, both lyrically, technically and musically. Other than that I think there's a lot of talented people on here. Songstuff is a great start to fine tune your songs and listen to other musical influences.

Once you've got the vocal melody, start playing your guitar and try to find chords to it. Don't let theories bother you too much until you're stuck. You could then look them up or listen to other songs that use the same kind of chords and you might be inspired to continue the song you're working on. It's a trial and error thing.

I only use the metronome to record my voice to avoid picking up sounds from other instruments that you hear while recording. Till now the voice has been the only instrument I ever recorded with a microphone, for bass and guitar I always have plugged into my sound card, since I don't own amplifiers yet. As I'm a one man band, I have never recorded drums and instead I used drum samples to base most of my songs on. I always take care the drum samples I use (existing beats) have a fine beat to play to (in the right tempo/bpm) and so I don't need a metronome to play to. Those beats (I import them on an audio track in my recording programm Logic and I can give those samples the speed I want) give me lots of energy, despite the fact they go on and on without a change. The only variation I made so far was to have some fills here and there by 1. other samples (audio files), for example fills 2. midi (having attached sounds like kick/snare/crash to keys on a keyboard device). That has worked for me so far. As long as the feel to the drums are good, however they can still improve, it's good while you're in the process of finishing your songs. The 'worry' is when you want to have your songs recorded for real, when every track must have it's right melody, its right rhythm and so on. Like you, I haven't reached that stage yet, but I will in a few weeks. Anticipating on that I'll be working with a real drummer who knows what a good rhythm needs: play a bit behind the beat, a bit ahead of the beat, or right on the beat when warranted, and a sense of which is best at any given moment. He will play drums on a keyboard based on the drum samples I chose to play my songs to. This may seem funny to some, but the sounds of the different drum parts are not to be distinguished from real drums. Hope this helps.

Hi, I'm curious to know who on here actually got (some sort of) success with their music, be it for themselves or songs written for others that got well known. Apart from dedication and talent, what have you done to make this happen? Do you have your own well utilized studio? Are you a fast talker who can convince others to execute your plans? What's the importance of connections? As for writing for others: did you write for that nobody ever heard of before or artists that were pretty known? Did you go and look for other talented artists? How did you promote yourself? Just some questions that came to mind. I'd be glad to hear answers. At the moment I'm working on a cd with a co-writer (I take care of most of the music and my friend writes most of the lyrics) I will produce myself and sing on myself. Once it's finished, we'll be looking for artists who might do songs of ours. Ferry

This has good potential in my opinion. It's a bit haunting and I can imagine the song can use some additional arrangements, but I can understand the leaving them out as well. The singing goes on and on the same way and really could use some variation to make the song more dramatic as I'm sure you intend it to be.

Hi Darren, Like I got the advice to listen to what a drummer does in songs I like, I advice you to do the same and buy a drum plug-in, like Superior Drummer 2.0. (http://www.toontrack...cts.asp?item=30) and a keyboard to play those drums on into your computer. It's an incredible plug-in and I've heard the sounds out of which you can choose: great sounds (hi-hats, snares etc) and a lot too. Listen to songs and listen what the drummer does and get the hang of it by playing the sounds on the keyboard. I'm told there's not much difference in hearing sounds from this plug-in to a real drummer. Ferry

Hi, I came across this website, which might be of use. http://www.how-to-wr...ngStructure.htm I was wondering about bridges in songs: what songs are really appealing to you because of their bridges? Looking forward to your replies.

Yes, it's good to be aware of that and it's a reminder for me to see how others do their structures in songs, like putting in a brief musical intermezzo. Thanks.

When composing songs, I always see to it they're not too long. The structure of my songs usually is: intro verse (2x) (pre chorus, not necessarily) chorus verse (2x, sometimes 1x) (pre chorus, not necessarily) chorus bridge (not necessarily) chorus (2 or 3 times) Another chorus added to this structure requires another verse also , so it would be like this (see green) intro verse (2x) (pre chorus, not necessarily) chorus verse (2x, sometimes 1x) (pre chorus, not necessarily) chorus verse (1 or 2x) chorus bridge (not necessarily) chorus (2 or 3 times) and that added just makes the song last too long in my view.

Off topic, but I want to comment on the guitar playing at the beginning to 0:09 (and also repeated throughout the song). It doesn't sound right to me. It's the ears that want to hear another way of striking the strings of the guitar. There's so much more to accomplish with this song, it has a real David Bowie feel. But somehow, I think it's the production, the songis a bit uneasy to listen to. The guitar is too dominant overall I guess, and another thing is to have your song more structured.