So, I'm writing again...

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philbagg

philbagg

Just Killing Time
...for the first time in about two years... and I'm getting headaches over arrangement :mad:

Dark-themed thrash/heavy/power metal song. I got the riffs, the structure's buggin the crap outta me! It's that classic problem of the song being too long, but when you shorten it down it feels "rushed" or too quick or somethin.

Anybody else here ever get that?
 
Add another couple of verses and turn it into an epic, I reckon...

Bring back the 70s!

I don't often end up with songs that are too long, because I don't often think about how long they actually are... I mean sometimes perhaps, but usually, they're as long as they need to be to make whatever obscure point it is that I think the world needs to know about...

But then again, I'm not trying to sell anything much, so I perhaps care less than those who are.

Don't really have an answer PB, but didn't want you to feel alone here in the Songwriters Forum with all the tumbleweeds that blow around. It's about the least posted of all the HR fora, I reckon...
 
I think it's okay for a song to be long just as long as it isn't long-winded. So, be sure to break it up, lots of unexpected changes and keep it fresh. The last song I posted in the Clinic took a few hits for being too long and too slow to build. But for me, it needed to be that way. Ultimately, it gave the change of pace that kept the listener's attention.

peace,
 
philbagg said:
...for the first time in about two years... and I'm getting headaches over arrangement :mad:

Dark-themed thrash/heavy/power metal song. I got the riffs, the structure's buggin the crap outta me! It's that classic problem of the song being too long, but when you shorten it down it feels "rushed" or too quick or somethin.

Anybody else here ever get that?
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no, but i'm not writing rock operas either.
 
Just do it, Phill, and worry about the rest later. If YOU like it it's good.;):drunk:
 
Recently I've been making a concerted effort to make my songs shorter. And sometimes, they feel like they're too short. I mean, I'm the guy that writes 7 minute intros ! Many, probably most, of the songs I've come up with are long ones, one actually runs to just over 35 minutes ! Some of that stems from listening to jazz and jazz-rock where a 20 minute piece for some artists isn't long at all. And also some of those early Pink Floyd pieces like "Echoes", "Interstellar Overdrive" and "A saucerful of secrets". Also the multipart excursions of Black Sabbath across their first 6 Lps and groups like that. Plus also, right from when I first started jamming, I found that I may have been crummy but I could keep playing for 90 minutes without stopping and when I'd listen to the tapes after, there were long passages that seemed to really develop and made me think 'hey, this would make an interesting bit !'. Also, ever since I started recording, being a performing pro was never on the radar and I write, play and record mainly for my own enjoyment so I'm delightfully free of 'commercial constraints'.
I never used to think of the length and as Chili suggests, there's often odd unexpected changes cropping up. The reason I've been trying to cut the time of songs down is to see if I can actually do it. Sometimes it works quite well but they sometimes feel like they've been lopped off somewhere ! My friends that play drums just laugh when I say "right, this one is going to be a short one" when we're recording because in times past, the structure was relatively loose. Songs were never beyond our collective will to go in this or that unplanned direction.
Phil, I'd just say let it tumble out how it does. At least for me, yesterday's epic is just a chorus to me !
The main thing is that it's good that you're writing again.....
 
Id kinda agree with joey phil....just record it, maybe it'll work as an 8-9 minute song??


or just use a reference track and commit yourself to make your arrangement to follow it...Ive only been trying this on two sketches recently and its an interesting exercise
 
grimtraveller said:
I mean, I'm the guy that writes 7 minute intros ! Many, probably most, of the songs I've come up with are long ones, one actually runs to just over 35 minutes ! Some of that stems from listening to jazz and jazz-rock where a 20 minute piece for some artists isn't long at all.
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And of course those classical pieces that go on forever and a day. Unless it's a boring piece like "In-a-gadda-da-vida", in long tracks, there's often so much going on that you don't get a chance to be bored.
 
Love to hear some of your extended stuff grim... length is good. (leave it alone guys... :D)

I still reckon Thick as a Brick is one of the great rock albums.
 
Ello fellers :D Kind of a broad reply to everyone here :drunk:

I've no problem with a long song. I absolutely love "Dante's Inferno" by Iced Earth - over 16 minutes long. It keeps interesting. I wrote a song about 2 or 3 years ago that was 18 minutes, and I've a few others that are 9/10/11/12/13/14 minutes long. The one I'm talkin about here is just over 6 minutes long, but it feels too long. I like the parts I wrote, I just don't know if it gels together well. I finished it the other night, but I might consider it as the first "draft" of the song, and come back to it.

Oh, and I don't actually write music on guitar and then record, I normally just tab them out with Guitar Pro, and then avoid recording them due to a lack of a vocalist and lack of a good guitar :)
 
I'd say if it feels too long to you, then it just may be. I've had some recent stuff that I felt was kinda long and drawn out so I ended up re-structuring some of it and took a progression or two out, made the rest flow... and one of those progressions I took out ended up takin on a life of it's own and now I'm workin on another new tune. :)

Other times, with my long ones (not that there's that many :D ) the key ended up being...what I DIDN'T do. Like one of em, I took all the other instruments and sound effects out and left just the drums for 2 measures, then brought in the bass for 2, then brought in the rest after 4. Gave me a nice break to clutter up with other shit. :p

The cool part about writin yer own stuff is that you can do whatever the hell ya want.
If YOU like it, good nuff.
If ya don't, change it.

No stress baby. ;)
 
Dogbreath said:
The cool part about writin yer own stuff is that you can do whatever the hell ya want.
If YOU like it, good nuff.
If ya don't, change it.

No stress baby. ;)
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Yeah, that's what i love about recording at home, the recording session becomes part of the songwriting process. You can't do that in a pro studio unless you're rich!!!
 
Dogbreath said:
The cool part about writin yer own stuff is that you can do whatever the hell ya want.
If YOU like it, good nuff.
If ya don't, change it.

No stress baby. ;)
Click to expand...

Chili said:
Yeah, that's what i love about recording at home, the recording session becomes part of the songwriting process. You can't do that in a pro studio unless you're rich!!!
Click to expand...

I completely agree. There's even been times working with other people, trying to throw in some ideas. Sometimes they're accepted and used, but other times it's a pain in the ass to feel that something should be done one way when it's done another. It's even the same listening to certain songs, thinking of a couple of little changes that could be made to certain parts of the song or mix that could have made it perfect (maybe just in your opinion, or maybe it would be generally agreed on as an improvement). If it's your song and/or recording, you can do all of these things - dependant on ability :D

For example, I know that some of my "technical death metal" blah blah music would sound better with a kick-ass sweep-picking guitar solo, and that's how I tab it out. Can I play like that? :laughings: Hell no! :o
 
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