This could be a earth shaking approach

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Gidge said:
I believe there are formuas, in that certain structures, rhyme schemes, etc. seem to be more commercial.....

my point would be even if given the formula,, its gonna take talent to write it.......

gidge, what you just said could spark a whole new revolution.

There ARE those certain things that, as you aptly put it, seem more commercial.

It would be nice to be able to tabulate and articulate those things .

Unfortunately, as you say, it takes talent, and sometimes sheer serendipity to come up with them.

My quest is on to identify and articulate those commercial structures.
 
CyanJaguar said:

My quest is on to identify and articulate those commercial structures.

It's pretty simple man....

write a tune........any genre will do...

put a ton of money and industry connections behind it....

get a young superstar to record it....

promote the living shit out of it....

voila.....hit song.....


Take it easy man,
Joe
 
You forgot to mention that you have the get the young "superstar" who is going to sing it a boob job.
Can't have a flat chested 16 year old singing a song and expect it to be a hit. Oh....and if she poses nude before she is 18...it really helps album and concert sales.
I mean, after all, you have to make the $125 concert ticket, and the $20 CD with 2 good song on it worth the money, or the consumer will start to realize they are being ripped off.....then how would the song writer make the $50,000 the industry will give them for the song they made millions and millions on?
 
Toker41 said:
You forgot to mention that you have the get the young "superstar" who is going to sing it a boob job.
.....

I thought that this was an understood factor in the "Hit Song" factory....

Silly Toker.....

Tits are for chicks! :D
 
This subject is interesting to me. I want to get more info on this melodic quantization thinggie. I mainly want to hear an example of this. Someone?
 
Layla Nahar said:
When I come back from paris, I am going to try to write one song a week. Whether it sucks or not. BUt the point will be to finish the song. Even if it sucks.


THAT folks is the formula.
 
TexRoadkill said:
It's called a godamn fucking HOOK and the concept has been around for ages.

I'm going to invent a circular device that can be used in all forms of transportation and machinery. I think I'll call it the 'Circular Movealonger".

ROTFLMFAO! YOUR A GENIUS!

I dont know about most chords and stuff yet, but i look at sound as substance. And you can arrange that substance in many composistional ways to get a pleasing pattern. I also sometimes approach song making as I would visual art, the canvas(song structure) does not always have to be divided up into even composistional forms, but can even out in the end. Kind of like a loose equation with variables of emotion, pitch, ryme, repettiveness, message, predictability. Course now im jsut coming up with stuff. But i dont think any formula can outperform spontaneous original creation when all the cards fall into place at once. Maybe there are formulas for what is pleasing to the ear though. Like Gidge said, it would also take talent(or dumb luck) to use the formula to its hightest potentional. Do you think this magical formula might have something to do with the Fibbonchi Sequence whitch is found so much naturally occuring?
 
CyanJaguar said:
[

Many people think of music in terms of bars and beats, with the exception of the melody. To many, the melody is a flowing, progressive element where the next note or phrase is somehow structurally related to the last note or phrase.

Most people think of changing the structure of a melody at very few points within the song: the melody structure might change at the approach/prechorus and at the chorus, and maybe another time at the bridge.

This system of thinking and songwriting is essentially flawed. It restricts the artist from complete creative expression and creates a sometimes monotonous melodic ambience. MOre importantly, if a songwriter is unable to successfully find a wildcard, it forces the songwriter to continue to develop an uninteresting melody and provides no avenuues for new wildcards to be injected into the melody.

What then is my new approach? actually, its not a new approach. Its a techniqe that many succesful songwriters already subconsciously employ. I am just giving it a name and definition so that many aspiring wildcard writers can identify it and employ it.

For lack of a better term, I am calling it the "melodic quantitative".
The "melodic quantitative" or MQ for short suggests thinking about the melody in beats and bars where the next bar need not have any structural relation to the last bar or beat except key ( i.e the bars should be in the same key)

That is to say, if a songwriter has an 8 bar verse, he could very well have 8 or more totally unrelated melody pieces that are only joined together by key. so,for example, he could go from singing only one note in one bar to singing 16 notes in the next bar or from singing in one octave in one bar to singing in a totally different octave in the next bar. An adventorous wildcard writer could even divide the bars into different melody sections for more creativitity.

This is not to say that there to be no repitition. No. If a songwriter finds a unique or exceptional melodic phrase, then its up to the writer to decide whether to duplicate it (as if commonly done in verses and choruses nowadays) or to go off in a totally new direction.
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thats the end of my first draft. I am looking for people to expound on and clarify what I am saying, so please add your thoughts and comments.

Finally, look for my next post in the clinic that will employ the melodic quantitative. [/B]


A little bit like classical music?
 
Hehe...Y'know, I was thinking the same thing, Benreturns!

Put on Bach, and a lot of people will do the ol' roll-eyes and talk about how boring classical music is.

Well... Bach, having been dead for hundreds of years, is still the yard-stick that all others are measured against in terms of melodic genius, and essentially put into place the rules we still use today for counterpoint and traditional harmony.

Sure, some of his stuff followed pretty basic four-bar structures and what not. However, part of his genius was his idea of the "continuous melody." His cello suites and lute suites are awesome examples of this idea, where he essentially weaves a melody, like some writers write "stream of consciousness" lyrics, that will last for an entire page, and will flow nicely, and ultimately, make sense to the listener - all this without any repetition or anything else that obviously implies traditional "form" that we think of when we hear pop music.

On the other hand... put on N'Sync and watch the people pack onto the dance floor....:rolleyes:

Chris
 
Chris Tondreau said:


However, part of his genius was his idea of the "continuous melody." His cello suites and lute suites are awesome examples of this idea, where he essentially weaves a melody, like some writers write "stream of consciousness" lyrics, that will last for an entire page, and will flow nicely, and ultimately, make sense to the listener - all this without any repetition or anything else that obviously implies traditional "form" that we think of when we hear pop music.
Chris

Moreover, Bach would often have four melodies weaving through a piece simultaneously, modulating in and out of keys--sometimes far from the center (tonic) but eventually finding their way back home.

Ya wanna learn about melodies, study some Bach.
 
Does he have any music that isnt slow? I just listened to a ten cd set called piano dreams or something and it was all slow music! It had mozrt bach beethoven all those dudes, but i was looking for something more exciting. I think i remeber hearing something like flight of the bumble bees in school, soemthing like that. Wahts like that?
 
Find a recording of Lute Suite #4, played either by Segovia or John Williams (the guitar player, not the Star Wars composer dude ;) ) It will change your life - at least if you play a string instrument of any description. It's not all fast, but there are parts of it. It is a most beautiful piece of music.

Chris
 
Raydio said:
This subject is interesting to me. I want to get more info on this melodic quantization thinggie. I mainly want to hear an example of this. Someone?

Its not a perfect example, but Silverchair has a song , "emotion sickness" that does has a different sounding melody for each bar till the chorus and thru most of the song.
 
i dont know if that why, but that song is hard to get into for me. "Tommorrow" is alot better for me. Course that songs a wild card O.o
 
Bach's cool but Check out Stravinsky... Rite of Spring...

There is so much cool dissonance in the composition (starting with track 2 on the CD) that its first public performance in 1917 caused a riot.... Axel's role model...

A lot of great composers used other writing styles such as 5 and 12 tone systems but us humans have been programmed by pop to hear in 3/4 or 4/4... soothing melodies that resolve....
 
Something new? First, define "new"...

Okay. Here we go. A little piece of poignant pontification pertaining to the perpetuation of innovation and it's relation to the stationary, always scary, here-and-therey world of music.

Wait for it... ;)

Chances are, if you explore and research the infinite varieties of not only music, but music's structure and form across all of the world's cultures and culture's musical incarnations, you will run across something that is, if not exactly, at least nearly indiscernably close to what you've come up with on your own.

Someone's idea of running a vintage Delorean over a parking lot covered in bubble wrap, accompanied by two hundred cellos filled with water and a hungry, rabid chimpanzee with gas may produce "music" unlike anything you or anyone you know has ever heard of, but that someone, somewhere, has.

As to "music"... each culture inherently devises its own acceptable standards of definition. The work of the aforementioned DeBubElloZee symphony's composer, for example, may be looked upon in the Western world as irritating, stupid and, ultimately, the nonsensical ear fudge of a non-musical schmuck with way too much time, money, and plastic air-filled packing material on his hands. However, another culture somewhere may consider it a fresh breath of air from the usual dronings of their own native tunes, and embrace its sound as the new Renaissance.

Chord structures, scales, and all other notations of the modern-day world differ from culture to culture. What binds them all together is the common perception of the produced acoustics as "music", at least by one group. This perception often transcends cultural limitations, as even works that are considered "atonal" or "non-musical" to one culture can be recognized as another culture's "music"... though perhaps not appreciated as "music" in that culture.

As to the structure of song, it is the same as the definition of "music". There really isn't such a thing. Has everything been discovered? Not necessarily... Voltage Meter rock has yet to see its heyday, RF converters haven't been realized to their full potential as percussive instruments, and 123/167 rhythm is woefully under-used in pop music today. But many things have been done... and as new things are being discovered, current musical terminology stretches to accomodate them.

Does this mean that the above epiphany is, in fact, just that? A new, revolutionary sweep across the musical plain, taking no prisoners as it redefines the very fabric of music itself?

Possibly... possibly not. Time will tell.

In the meantime, where's my bubble wrap? :)

P.S. - No Deloreans, packing materials, cellists, or gaseous simians were harmed in the posting of this message.
 
yah experimental music rocks. Thats what im doing right now. Mostly cause I havent learned any music theory yet heh. I like the program taht you can sing notes into though and then it will convert them to midi so you can turn it into any instument you want. Thats how Ill do most of my notes and I dont even know what the scales are yet! Its teaching me backwards though. cheers on your farting monkey bubble wrap idea. O.o
 
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