Redeem Your Lyrics With a Memopad

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Improve Your Songwriting With Odd Timesignatures

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Indispensible Online Music Tools, About 7 of Them

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Modal Interchange Demystified

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Microsoft Songsmith Commercial Wreaks Havoc on Psyche

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Make Your Songs the Best

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Introduction to the Circle Progression

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Can You Make a Record In One Month?

Go ahead … what’s stopping you? That’s the tag-line of The RPM Challenge; a one month, one album challenge in the vein of NaNoWriMo. This takes place in February so you have a little over two weeks to get your mojo going.

This is the challenge: record an album in 28 days, just because you can.

That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.

Don’t wait for inspiration – taking action puts you in a position to get inspired. You’ll stumble across ideas you would have never come up with otherwise, and maybe only because you were trying to meet a day’s quota of (song)writing. Show up and get something done, and invest in yourself and each other.

Anyone can come up with an excuse to say “no,” so don’t!

For a complete description of the challenge read more …

 

A Thing I’ve Learnt About Arranging

I shouldn’t be writing this. I should be working on my arrangement. I have less than a week to get this all done. As indicated in my previous post, I’m preparing a piece to enter the CBC Evolution contest. What I’m working on has a large amount of instrumentation. A full orchestra is going by the end of it is a raucous display of joy. If any of you fine reader has scored parts for an orchestra, then you know that it can be very taxing. Trying to get everything to fit together  without sounding like you scored it by splattering ink on the sheets is a challenge. If I’ve learned anything by now it is that less is more. I will say it again louder for emphasis: LESS IS MORE.

There are times when you should be ruthless in cutting. Be bold and just snip that part out. It wasn’t working and it should go. Don’t look back or think twice. For instance: the bridge was sagging. I tried to prop it up with two layers of counterpoint on violins and trumpet over arpeggiated violas. It wasn’t working one damn bit. It sounded like Bach barf. So I cut it. Rather than flog away at something that wasn’t working I came up with something that did. By just using the trumpets to accent about every 4 measures and having the violins arpeggiate at half the note value of the violas everything became clear. Parts weren’t fighting with each other for attention.

Having everything sounding all the time is sure to overwhealm any composition. A song needs space to breathe, where phrases can surge in and out of existence. It keeps your listeners attention because there is always something new to listen to. It pulls you in directions and a back and forth dynamic emerges. You enter into a conversation with the piece rather than being talked to, or worse yelled at, by it. Eliminating superfluous and jarring parts will strengthen your work to no end, so be strong and sharpen your scissors.

 

CBC Composing Contest

Where does the time go? I was listening to the CBC on the drive into work one morning when I heard a mysterious ad for ‘Evolution’. Well I bit and went to CBC.ca/evolution. Turns out it is a contest. A contest whose deadline is coming soon. Let me give you the run down:

CBC is looking for composers to promote. Five finalists get sequestered away in Banff to compose a piece each to be performed at The Banff Centre and broadcast live on CBC Radio 2 with a $20,000 grand prize going to the winner.

How can I let an opportunity like this go by? I’ve jumped on it and have been frantically pulling together a composition that I’ve been lazily toying with for the past year. In my single-minded focus I’ve neglected to write a post. For that I apologise. I know the timing is tight, but maybe some of you will be interested in laying your work on the line. Go over to the CBC Evolution page and read up on the contest.

On a related note, I have to say that the pressure of a deadline is really making me produce. Knowing that you only have until X date and that is it. After which you’re dead in the water, finito. It’s motivating to say the least. I was taking so long to get this composition recorded that I lost all focus. Now I have tackled it with renewed vigor and have hope again that I will see it finished.

 

Canadian Songwriting Contest With a Cash Prize

You have just over two months to get your award winning song crafted. Astral Media Radio and Canadian Music Week are presenting the 16th Annual National Songwriting Competition.

The deadline is on Friday, December 12, 2008, but don’t take my word for it read the rules and regulations. I must admit it’s a sweet Grand Prize too:

• $10,000.00 in cash (first runner up receives $2,500.00 cash)
• TASCAM 2488 NEO PortaStudio – 24-track Self Contained Audio Work Station
• NEUMANN TLM 49 Professional Studio Microphone
• 30 hours of mixing and mastering time from METALWORKS, Canada’s #1 Recording Studio
• Complete Website Design & One Year Web Hosting from J.E.T. MEDIA AND DESIGN
• $5,000.00 National Radio Promotion Package from dB PROMOTIONS & PUBLICITY INC.

Just what you need to kickstart your burgeoning music career.

 

A Chord Transposition Chart

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Writer’s Block Will Destroy Us All

Writer’s block is a real bitch. I’m trying to get something new written before going to an open stage later this week, but I’m having a hell of a time. Nothing I’m coming up with feels inspired enough. Sure I could knock out another three chord trick, or four chord turnaround, but deep within is this nagging feeling that I’ve done it all before.

I fired up the keyboard last night in an attempt to get the juices flowing. I normally compose on the guitar, which usually means I create a harmonic structure first then flesh in a melody. Clearly it’s not working for me right now so I thought I should approach it from the other end and build up a melodic structure, which I find easier to do on the keys. It’s also easier to flip around in the various modes. I’ve never really composed with a specific mode in mind. Having an artificial limit may help me from falling into the old ruts. Alas, two hours of tinkling away have yielded nothing.

If I meditate hard enough on the circle of fifths like it were some mandala, maybe I’ll reach an enlightened state where music just exists within me and all I have to do is play. Until then I must slog through writing, discarding, writing, discarding, writing, discarding.

I think some of the problem is attaching too much importance to the work itself. Sometimes when I’m sketching my best work is done on scraps of craft paper. Quick one offs that I never expect to go anywhere or be shown to anyone. I should try this approach. Just start recording and go. Who cares what happens, just play. If there’s anything worth saving I’ll have it recorded.

 

Songs to Get You Laid

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Say NO to Angst

The following is just a short list of words whose inclusion in lyrics I feel should be seriously considered, rather than haphazardly sprinkled in.

While some are overused, others too obvious, most are blunt and do not convey any craftsmanship that may be present in the lyrics. In short, they’re a turnoff. As soon as I hear one of these words my expectations just drop. That’s not to say these words can’t be used well, but the more of them included in one piece, the less likely it is that the work is a brilliant gem.

When writing one should strive to ’show’ and not ‘tell’. The writing then takes on a more experiential tone and not one of a third grade book report on a teenager’s breakup letter. I felt used, then I felt angry, then I felt … blah, blah, blah. One can only hope that producers in the recording studio would have an intervention before anything was committed to tape. Alas, all too often terrible lyrics slip out into the wild and sully what would have been a perfectly listenable song.

The List:

Dark, Darkness, Black, Night, Pain, Hurt, Broken, Sad, Angry, Rage, Feel, Love, Understand, Cry, Tear, Empty, Cold, Stone, Want, Alone, Care, Blood, Hide, Mask, Heart, Everybody, No one, Run

 

Don’t Get Stuck

Magnetic Fridge poetry! I love this stuff. It forces you to put together thoughts in unexpected ways. It’s the constraint on word choice that does it; you have to think of another way to say what you want given the available vocabulary. Artificial limits are a great way to break writers block or spark creativity.

Brian Eno made a set of cards he called Oblique Strategies that he would use for this purpose. Each card contained a directive such as “Honour Your Error as a Hidden Intention” or “Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame”. Through having to carry out this directive you take yourself in a direction uncharted, or gain new perspective on a problem.

You can buy these cards on ebay, though the original sets can be pricey. They have since been put into many other forms like a program, placed on the web, and are even available as a dashboard widget.

SongsToWearPantsTo is the brainchild of a very talented musician. This guy takes on the most arbitrary and ludicrous restraints that are suggested by the public and pulls them off with great flair and humour. Be sure to check out “A Rap Song in Which None of the Lyrics Contain the Letter E”

So remember kids, next time you’re beating your head against something, put handcuffs on.