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Need Advice For Writing '70S Style Glam Rock!


heartofglasses

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I seem to be having a problem branching out of the unfortunate "freak folk" genre I've been labeled with. I'd really like to write some glam songs on keyoard a la "Here Come the Warm Jets" era Brian Eno, or Aladdin Sane era David Bowie. Or even better, any era Sparks. But everything I write ends up sounding too...twee? And a little bit too emo? I'd also like to use my vocal range more, but I'm having trouble writing songs that challenge me. I have pretty much the same range as Bowie. Could my problem be the scales I'm using? I tend to use somewhat exotic scales, just because I always have the urge to break out of minor or major scale. Sometimes I use whole scales, sometimes Spanish gypsy, sometimes melodic minor, etc. But I haven't been able to find a glammy sort of sound. And is there a particular key I should be writing in to get a nice glam sound? Or maybe there's a special way to approach the rhythm? I'm completely new to writing this genre, but it's my favorite genre to sing to. I should mention that we're a stringless band, but some of my favorite glam songs are the theatrical, piano-based ones. I appreciate any help!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

The king of Glam, for me at least, is T.Rex.

Most of their big glam songs are in E and use very simple groovy rhythms for the verses with minimal chord changes, then swing into a C-Am-F-G on the choruses, pretty back stuff. It's all very rockabilly/girl group styled 50's "changes."

an example would be "Children of the Revolution" by T.Rex. Here's a Youtube version with crazy nice piano.

For his ballads he often just rocks out the C-Am-F-G the whole time...which of course sounds epic on piano.

Bowie, of course, is more tricky... but alot of his best tracks are also super simple boogie/blues based riffs with insane lyrics.

Glam is more about taking basic rock, kicking up the rhythm and attitude, imho.

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