Familiarity Breeds Contempt?

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Jack Russell

Jack Russell

I smell home cookin!
Have any of you found that you grow irritated with a tune you have been working on? I've been writing a tune off and on for weeks, when I can find some spare time, but the basic tune is playing in my head over and over. I'm starting to go nuts.

I almost hate it. Does this happen to you? If so, does it mean the tune is bad, or that you are just in "stuck mode"?
 
I find that if I have a tune in my head that won't go away - it means it is something I feel could be good, and I have to keep working on it. I can't say anything has gotten to the point where I hate it - but I do get frustrated when I can't get an arrangement together.

I have a song I'm currently working on that originally came to me while driving. The entire melody with lyrics, bridge and chorus took about 5 minute (I just had to pull over and write it down before I forgot).

However, I have been working on it (on and off) for 6 months. I've tracked drums, bass, guitar & keys with a scratch vocal on 4 seperate occasions (I cover all the parts myself) - but until recently I could not find the right feel.
Just this last weekend I finally found a groove that feels right, and hopefully I can now finish tracking and mixing. If the tune carries it's weight I will then bring in singers (I can sing, but not good enough to sell a demo)

There were many times I wanted to forget this song and I came very close to hating it, but the lyrics were good enough to keep it going (although I did have to walk away from it for a few weeks here and there). Hopefully the end result will reward me for my efforts.

So - don't give up on that tune, I suspect in your heart you know you have something good, you just have to pull it togther.
 
sometimes if you have a catchy part, but are struggling to build the rest of the song around it, maybe just make it an intro or outro or something to another song altogether. The intro to Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand comes to mind. Catchy little bit, but I bet they just flat out couldn't come up with a way to make a whole song out of it, so after a minute or so of it, they slow it down, modulate and blend it into the rest of the song that sounds nothing like it.
 
The familiarity i run into takes a different form. In my case, I have heard so much music of so many different styles that it seems utterly impossible to come up with a riff or melody line that doesn't either strongly resemble or exactly duplicate something I've heard somewhere else. I seem unable to accept the fact that there are only so many different combinations of notes that can result in different musical lines, so as soon as I notice that it resembles something else, I just hit a mental musical roadblock and can't do anything else with the song. Very frustrating. :mad:
 
sile2001 said:
The familiarity i run into takes a different form. In my case, I have heard so much music of so many different styles that it seems utterly impossible to come up with a riff or melody line that doesn't either strongly resemble or exactly duplicate something I've heard somewhere else. I seem unable to accept the fact that there are only so many different combinations of notes that can result in different musical lines, so as soon as I notice that it resembles something else, I just hit a mental musical roadblock and can't do anything else with the song. Very frustrating. :mad:
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I know the feeling. I routinely find myself making decisions as to what it should sould like, which always go back to what has been done before, and I feel like I've lost the freshness of it. I think is should be 'jazzy' or 'hard' or 'slow' or a 'walking pace', then it sounds contrived.

And do you wrestle with the constant pressure of complexity versus simplicity? I do. My first write is to go for complexity, and I feel great about it. Then a later listen tells me that I've lost all the listeners!!! Small problem.... :D
 
mikeh said:
However, I have been working on it (on and off) for 6 months. I've tracked drums, bass, guitar & keys with a scratch vocal on 4 seperate occasions (I cover all the parts myself) - but until recently I could not find the right feel.
Just this last weekend I finally found a groove that feels right, and hopefully I can now finish tracking and mixing. If the tune carries it's weight I will then bring in singers (I can sing, but not good enough to sell a demo).
Click to expand...

That sounds exactly like me. Thanks!
 
In this particulat case, the whole idea began with a very simple bass part, with a chorused sound and playing chords (tonic and fifth). A simple drum part added to it very well. Then I came up with a great guitar part. However, the guitar and bass clashed a bit, thus I've had to change the bass. And the original groove is lost.

Ugh!!!!! :mad:

in other words, I'm venting here!!!! Just ignore me. I'll keep working on it eventually.... :eek:
 
Jack Russell said:
In this particulat case, the whole idea began with a very simple bass part, with a chorused sound and playing chords (tonic and fifth). A simple drum part added to it very well. Then I came up with a great guitar part. However, the guitar and bass clashed a bit, thus I've had to change the bass. And the original groove is lost.

Ugh!!!!! :mad:

in other words, I'm venting here!!!! Just ignore me. I'll keep working on it eventually.... :eek:
Click to expand...
I've had songs that I started 4 or 5 years in the past with maybe one verse (or even a line) and then come back to it and finish that much later. Or finish another verse, and wait another couple of years. For example, I've got a tune I wrote for 9/11 with a couple of verses and a hook, but can't seem to get the whole thing together. By this time it would be moot, except it more of an analogy than actual events.
(the song is about a kid getting advice from his Grandpa to let sleeping dogs lie. From the statement by the Japanese Admiral in WWII "We have awakened a sleeping giant."
Boy you best let sleepin' dogs lie
If you wake 'em up, well they're liable to bite
Any other time they'll prob'ly treat ya all right
But boy you best let sleepin' dogs lie.

It's got about two verses, a melody, and the concept for a couple more verses to connect it to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, but I haven't translated the core concept to verse yet. Maybe in a few years....)
 
Folkie said:
I've had songs that I started 4 or 5 years in the past with maybe one verse (or even a line) and then come back to it and finish that much later. Or finish another verse, and wait another couple of years. For example, I've got a tune I wrote for 9/11 with a couple of verses and a hook, but can't seem to get the whole thing together. By this time it would be moot, except it more of an analogy than actual events.
(the song is about a kid getting advice from his Grandpa to let sleeping dogs lie. From the statement by the Japanese Admiral in WWII "We have awakened a sleeping giant."
Boy you best let sleepin' dogs lie
If you wake 'em up, well they're liable to bite
Any other time they'll prob'ly treat ya all right
But boy you best let sleepin' dogs lie.

It's got about two verses, a melody, and the concept for a couple more verses to connect it to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, but I haven't translated the core concept to verse yet. Maybe in a few years....)
Click to expand...

I've also had songs that I considered to be done and finished in demo form. Then years later I've pulled them out and rewritten them--with much improvement. That is one good thing for artists who don't make it in the music business--you have so much material sitting around to work with. If you were 'making it' in the biz, then after you release something, it would be 'done'.
 
Jack Russell said:
I've also had songs that I considered to be done and finished in demo form. Then years later I've pulled them out and rewritten them--with much improvement. That is one good thing for artists who don't make it in the music business--you have so much material sitting around to work with. If you were 'making it' in the biz, then after you release something, it would be 'done'.
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I know what you mean. I had a song that I wrote years ago called the Money Tree--after singing it in gigs for a long time, I added a "chorus" (Refrain? What's the dif?). If I had been a pro I probably couldn't do that.

OTOH, Paul Simon's "The Boxer" was out for years as a Simon and Garfunkel tune. I heard a different performer do it with a final verse that wasn't in the original:

Oh the years are rolling by me
They are rocking endlessly
I am older than I once was
Younger than I'll be
But that's not unusual
Nor is it strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same.

I thought the guy had made it up (the folk process lives!) and was pissed at him on one hand for messing with Paul's lyrics, but thought OTOH that it was a pretty good verse. Then I heard a version of Paul Simon himself singing it with that verse--obviously Paul had written it, added it after the break up with Art, and recorded it as a "new" version.

It doesn't happen often, but I guess it does happen.
 
Folkie said:
I know what you mean. I had a song that I wrote years ago called the Money Tree--after singing it in gigs for a long time, I added a "chorus" (Refrain? What's the dif?). If I had been a pro I probably couldn't do that.

OTOH, Paul Simon's "The Boxer" was out for years as a Simon and Garfunkel tune. I heard a different performer do it with a final verse that wasn't in the original:

Oh the years are rolling by me
They are rocking endlessly
I am older than I once was
Younger than I'll be
But that's not unusual
Nor is it strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same.

I thought the guy had made it up (the folk process lives!) and was pissed at him on one hand for messing with Paul's lyrics, but thought OTOH that it was a pretty good verse. Then I heard a version of Paul Simon himself singing it with that verse--obviously Paul had written it, added it after the break up with Art, and recorded it as a "new" version.

It doesn't happen often, but I guess it does happen.
Click to expand...

Or a song can be re-interpreted by an artist. When Elton John's music was recorded by many different artists on the CD "Two Rooms", Pete Townshend (and the Who) had the sudden impulse to insert the chorus of "Take Me to the Pilot" into the middle of "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)". It works really well, even though Elton might not have liked it.
 
Jack Russell said:
Or a song can be re-interpreted by an artist. When Elton John's music was recorded by many different artists on the CD "Two Rooms", Pete Townshend (and the Who) had the sudden impulse to insert the chorus of "Take Me to the Pilot" into the middle of "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)". It works really well, even though Elton might not have liked it.
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Well Elton reworked Goodbye Norma Jean into Goodbye English Rose.

It was for a good cause though.
 
Hmm......you guys ever suffer from knowing when to quit? i mean, I can work on ONE song for months. And that's AFTER I have it all written and arranged for final tracking. I never hate a song though....and it IS in my head 24/7. I can't ever stop thinking about it unless I do something that demands my full attention. It's more like I'm never done with anything and one album could go on forever. It's hard to know when to quit.....
 
ive started hating stuff ive done. usually i just stop. there will always be something new to write. if you force yourself to write something your not excited about, it wont come out right. just let it sit and come back to it down the road.

i remeber i wrote a song a while back. by the time i was done with it, i hated it.
i found the notebook i wrote it in the other day, read it over again, and loved it.
making music is fun, because its always new, once something becomes familiar, you start to lose excitement over it.

record the song (dosnt have to be perfect, use scratch vocals), then leave it alone for like six months. go back and listen to it, and post the results. i bet youll be happy with it again.

.peace.
 
It's hard gettin' it right

I have discarded many a good verse or chorus because I couldn't find the corresponding refrain. It really gets on my nerves because I'll just sing and play the part I have at the moment over and over or write three verses and struggle for a chorus... either that or I'll get it written and get bored when recording it because I can't get it to sound the way I want.

I actually have a tune that has quite a simple but catchy guitar part that I just can't get the vocals to sound right. Maybe it just doesn't suit my voice... but that's another thread!
 
it use to happen to me alot, i'd just get sick of a song because writing all the parts, arranging, mixing, lyrics etc was such a strain. i consider myself a songwriter more than anything and found that building the whole song up from a simple guitar and vocal, or piano and vocal really difficult, especially writing drums!!! my solution came by chance, i met someone who was into music like me and we collaborate, if someone had suggested this idea to me in the past i would of immediately discarded it as i'm quite a private person, but we don't sit in a room and write together, i will write the bare bones and pass it on, he will add bass etc and pass it back, the song can alter alot from how i first pictured it, but it keeps it fresh and fun!!!
 
building blocks

I try to write every song as simple as possible to begin with. It's just my way of doing things and I'm sure others can write very complex and intricate arrangements off the top of their heads and every thing sounds great.

I tend to think of a song like a building, with the foundation coming before everything else. I guess a good way to make sure you have a grasp on your song is to ask yourself this; am I constructing this building just to put a fancy flag (solo) or banner(one line of the song I really really like and the rest I pretty much dont care about) on the top, or am I making this building to be a solid interpretation of what I'm trying to say through my talent, even if that's just "I'M GONNA ROCK YOU ARSE OFF!!".

We all learn to crawl before we can walk, the important thing is that we never stop trying!!
 
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