Grey Angel
Angel of Shredding
undermind said:
Man.... I've been working alone, maybe that's why it's been so hard. I guess I can put an ad in the classifieds for band mates
Thanks for all the advice, I'll keep everything I read here in mind. 
I can't write out a whole, finished song
- Thread starter Grey Angel
- Start date
Man.... I've been working alone, maybe that's why it's been so hard. I guess I can put an ad in the classifieds for band mates
Thanks for all the advice, I'll keep everything I read here in mind. Same here. So I improvise. Or play gtr compositions by composers who write music that moves me. But I also like free improvistation as an escape from musical structure. Maybe verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus type stuff is overrated, hell, I don't know. What's wrong with 30 second music, except that it doesn't fit the current fashionable convention? Just make music however you feel it. Maybe just be creative however it comes, save ideas and use them in whatever ways seems to fit.Grey Angel said:
TelePaul
J to the R O C
SouthSIDE Glen said:Try taking your time, maybe. Not everyone puts out a quality song in 5 minutes.
There a famous story about an actual conversation between Bon Dylan and Leonard Cohen, two of the most successful and most prolific songwriters of the last 50 years. I don't remember exactly which exact songs they were talking about, but Cohen had asked Dylan how long it took him to write [Famous Song X]. Dylan replied, "About 3 minutes." Cohen was absolutely floored. Seeing that, Dylan asked Cohen in return how long it took him to write [Famous Song Y]. Cohen said, "About 3 years."
Do like gutta says, write in a notebook or record to a portable tape recordier or digital recorder your snippets and ideas as they come to you. Even if it's one line or one word or one little fill or just one idea you come across sometine during the way. Build on it if you can while the muse is there, but if/when you hit a block, put it down and move on to something else.
You may have several unfinished pieces in the pipeline at one time for a long time. You may find after a while that what you wanted in one song would actually work better in the other song, or even that maybe they should not be two different songs but could work by combining ideas into one song, or whatever.
Not everybody can vomit out a hit song in 3 minutes or even necessarily 3 days. If that's not your style, don't force it by trying to stick your creative fingers down your throat. If 3 years is good enough for the man who lives in the Tower of Song, it's good enough for me.
G.
Famous song Y was Hallelujah...Famous Song X...ask 32-20 blues, he'll know. I read that story too, and always think about it when I'm working on something.
mshilarious
Banned
30 second songs kick ass. The question is, can you write 30 of them per CD? 
Minor Threat's Complete Discography has 26 songs, checks in at a whopping 47:39 S.O.D. did a couple of sub-10 second tunes 
Minor Threat's Complete Discography has 26 songs, checks in at a whopping 47:39
S.O.D. did a couple of sub-10 second tunes Ironklad Audio
New member
napalm death!
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
No kidding!?! See, now that just goes to show you, ya never know. I would have never guessed that was a song that took so long to write. I don't mean that in either a positive or negative way; just for some reason that song always had a feel to me of one of those "toss-off" songs written on the back of a napkin over a lousy coffe at the local Denny's, and that wound up becoming a classicTelePaul said:
. Thanks for the info. BTW, there's a little chunk of brain in the back of my head that keeps wanting to nudge me to say that Song X was "Blowin' in the Wind", but I'm not sure if that's an accurate memory or not.
(OT: It's amazing how Jeff Buckley's beautiful cover of "Hallelujah" has gotten a life of it's own as a video background soundtrack piece in the last couple of years. It seems like every time I change channels or pop a new DVD in the player I hear that recording being used.
)G.
Grey Angel
Angel of Shredding
mshilarious said:30 second songs kick ass. The question is, can you write 30 of them per CD?
Minor Threat's Complete Discography has 26 songs, checks in at a whopping 47:39
Well, I have 12 songs/pieces/thingamujigs uploaded right now, so...maybe!
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
I think the record, which may never be broken, would be the EP put out by the grindcore band Anal C**t. The album title literally says it all:mshilarious said:30 second songs kick ass. The question is, can you write 30 of them per CD?
Minor Threat's Complete Discography has 26 songs, checks in at a whopping 47:39
"5643 Song EP"
Of course, as soon as someone has talent, that record becomes unbeatable.
G.
mshilarious
Banned
SouthSIDE Glen said:I think the record, which may never be broken, would be the EP put out by the grindcore band Anal C**t. The album title literally says it all:
"5643 Song EP"
Of course, as soon as someone has talent, that record becomes unbeatable.
G.
Aren't audio CDs limited to 99 tracks
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I never knew that either.. but oddly it was the one I guessed may have done. Funny how perceptions vary
I can just see those lyrics being honed, polished, rehoned, repolished. It's a wonderful piece of work, and I feel somewhat better knowing it took him 3 years to finish. I have at least one song that took longer and I wish it was half as good
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
I don't know how it actually formatted out. It's not like I actually listen to most kinds of music that end in the word "core"mshilarious said:Aren't audio CDs limited to 99 tracks
At that rate, also, that would mean that if the CD were 60 minutes long (just as an example), that each "song" averages about 2/3rds of a second in length - not even counting any redbook gaps. Something tells me that they didn't even bother putting chapter markers in that often, let along track markers
.Knowing what little I do about these guys, who were all about the musical version of youthful anarchy, basically, I wouldn't be suprised if there were absolutely no track or chapter markers whatsoever, that they just threw some 5 thousand seconds of random sounds and noise together, called each little blip a song. and threw it all en masse onto a CD.
G.
LeeRosario
New member
Grey Angel said:
Technically all the advice can be very correct. But I think you're stuck on a mental fixation. Perhaps the anxiety of creating a good song is getting in your way.
The difference between a veteran songwriter and begining songwriter is that the veteran has developed his own system which he can recall at anytime. The beginner is still building his bridges so to speak.
It takes time to create an organizational scheme that works for you, and much like trying to do anything for the first time, you test it out in pieces before you start pulling the whole process together.
No two people walk or express themselves in the exact same way, they all had to develope from scratch. With a little paitience, you'll get past it. Once you do, you'll have a great time writing songs from start to finish.
Don't give a shit about how long it takes you to create your first masterpiece, it has nothing to do with how you rank as a songwriter.
It happens to everybody. However as listeners, we only see the finished product. We don't usually see all the half written songs that never made it past an idea. But without a million tries, you'll never know if you can hit a bullseye.
Lee nailed it: Successful songwriting depends a lot on finding a process that works for you.
I'll suggest one more approach that runs counter to most of the advice above, but maybe that's what you need: Write to a deadline.
For some folks, myself included, nothing gets the creative energy moving like the pressure of an impending due date. It can be a deadline you set for yourself (usually less effective,) or one imposed by an external requirement. Try Songfight or Tuneflow, or all next month, FAWM for those types of deadlines (with communities of songwriters to help egg you on.)
I'll suggest one more approach that runs counter to most of the advice above, but maybe that's what you need: Write to a deadline.
For some folks, myself included, nothing gets the creative energy moving like the pressure of an impending due date. It can be a deadline you set for yourself (usually less effective,) or one imposed by an external requirement. Try Songfight or Tuneflow, or all next month, FAWM for those types of deadlines (with communities of songwriters to help egg you on.)
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
While I won't disagree with that, I will say that is getting to be a bit tougher of a nut to crack these days than it was, say, 15 to 20 years ago and more, for two reasons.kurfu said:
First is that the amount of published commerical rock and pop material from the 60s 70s and 80s that is eather becoming public domain or being licensed or sold by the owners is greater than ever before, and advertisers love to use that stuff that the Boomers and GenXers can connect to much better than a new jingle.
(Let's face it, we all knew it was one of the signs of the impending apocalypse when Led Zepplin was being used for Cadillac commercials. The second sign was when Bob Dylan took a check from Victoria's Secret
)Second is that the business mentality of today's popular commercial artists and their management is much different than it was in "the day". Back then not only did you have the prevalent mentality amongst the artists that "selling out" was uncool, but you had managers and labels that had a conservitave protectionism of their material that still resonates to this day iin the RIAA's molasses response to the Digital Revolution. Today's artists, however, tend more to look upon "selling out" not as a bad thing, but as a sign of "making it" and a chance to earn some jackpot money, and the labels are more in tune with the idea of corporate sponsership and advertising than ever before. It's for these reasons that we see many more relatives new rock and pop hits being used for commercials than we used to.
So there is a bit of a one-two punch at the jingle writers of today that has tightened the market size considerably because of the increased migration to the use of pop material past and present. I know one guy who's a pro jingle writer with his own project studio in his basement who has been complaining for a good five years now that the market for his wares just ain't what it used to be.
All this is not to say that money can't still be made in jingle writing, and perhaps even big money (*somebody* has to have the next "I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing" in them
). Just thought it'd be interesting to point out the caveats, as long as the topic was broached.G.
hairylarry
New member
Three comments
Hi,
I have three comments to add to this great thread.
Song length - When I was doing Something Blue on KASU my one hour show would typically have 12-15 songs. I decided to do a Rockabilly show. It took 25 songs! A long rockabilly song is two minutes long often with two verses where the first verse repeats at the end.
Selling out - Hey! It's pop music. It's all about selling. If you're writing a hit you're selling out. The Jefferson Airplane broke into top 40 with their Levi's commercials. Before they had a national hit.
Shoebox - Uncle Fred the Deadhead, author of "My Daddy Had A Sex Change Operation", "Mrs. Eloise Murphy", and "Seven Spanish Omelettes" told us he uses the shoebox method of songwriting. He writes all his ideas down on little scraps of paper and throws them in a shoebox. Then when he runs into a block and needs an inspiration out comes the shoebox. Sometimes he looks thorugh it for a specific thing. Sometimes he just grabs idea at random. Serendipity occurs.
Thanks,
Hairy Larry
Hi,
I have three comments to add to this great thread.
Song length - When I was doing Something Blue on KASU my one hour show would typically have 12-15 songs. I decided to do a Rockabilly show. It took 25 songs! A long rockabilly song is two minutes long often with two verses where the first verse repeats at the end.
Selling out - Hey! It's pop music. It's all about selling. If you're writing a hit you're selling out. The Jefferson Airplane broke into top 40 with their Levi's commercials. Before they had a national hit.
Shoebox - Uncle Fred the Deadhead, author of "My Daddy Had A Sex Change Operation", "Mrs. Eloise Murphy", and "Seven Spanish Omelettes" told us he uses the shoebox method of songwriting. He writes all his ideas down on little scraps of paper and throws them in a shoebox. Then when he runs into a block and needs an inspiration out comes the shoebox. Sometimes he looks thorugh it for a specific thing. Sometimes he just grabs idea at random. Serendipity occurs.
Thanks,
Hairy Larry