David, I had to chuckle when I read your OCD 3 backups comment. I have three backups also, two here and one in my bank safe deposit box. I must have OCD also
Today I bought a doughnut without the sprinkles. Diets are hard!
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Since this is in the 'Songwriting' thread, I assume that you are talking about songwriting and not production.
In my opinion, songwriting takes both disciplined practice as well as playful wandering. The most important thing is having some means to track your writing; a place to jot down lyric ideas, to hum a melody, to take a note to 'copy the chord progression from song xyz'. This needs to be on you all the time.
The disciplined practice means often and regular. This often means not finishing something. Sometimes it means practicing a songwriting method. For example, have you ever tried writing a song with a refrain line? No? Go try that - now!
Have you ever tried using the minor 4th chord in a song? No? The Beatles did it often; go try that.
Have you gone the 'wrong' way around the circle of 5ths?
These are exercises not unlike practicing drum rudiments, or finger exercises on piano. Practice using them, and they will eventually make their way into your songwriting.
You don't just sit down and decide you will learn Für Elise on piano in a single, unbroken session - or never play anything else until you've learned it fully.
Why would you expect to do the same with songwriting?
Take advantage of every learning resource and resolve to attempt to put to use something that you've learned. Pat Pattison's songwriting course from Berklee is a great free resource primarily for lyric development.
I've been through it twice with an on-line cohort. I have forgotten most of what I learned, but I do remember two things that have made their way into nearly every song I've written since (35 songs since):
1. The Boxes (story development) 2. Bridges or pre-choruses with odd number of phrases are almost always more interesting than those with an even number of phrases.
He gives plenty of examples of these two ideas. I HAD to put them into practice for assignments for the classes. Now they almost come naturally.
I saved the videos from the classes. I should probably review them for new stuff to make 'normal' for me.
The OP goes on to explain that he feels quality is more human voices and human players in his song arrangement rather using RTs or playing it all himself. Instead of taking the time that requires to drive to connect with others in his locality, he prefers to write more songs for variety - meaning he has time to write more short songs.
Knowing what he's saying now, I would suggest connecting with more people online for input/collaboration and learning more creative use of the RTs cut and paste abilities or midi etc. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with short songs. I think it's possible to have both variety (lots of finished short songs) and quality (as many fully arranged as he wants).
This could've gone in either the production or songwriting forum since it's essentially about fleshing out the arrangement he'd like to have versus the good but short songs he enjoys writing more than finishing arrangments.:)
For a moment I thought that I am speaking some forgotten dead language that no one understands anymore You placed toys neatly in one basket. Thank you for encouragement!
If you've got access to musician friends (or deep pockets) why not bring them into a project for a specific thing you're looking for? Besides being more "social", it can be good for the song to get what it's in your head recorded.
Internet collaborations are a bit of a different animal. I've done quite a few of them (having neither close musician friends nor deep pockets). If you think it will give you more creative control, best to think again. It's harder to communicate a musical idea with words than to get your point across in a forum post. What will happen instead is that your partner will bring something unexpected to the piece. Humility must kick in, and with luck their ideas far outshine yours. Nine times out of ten that's been the case with me and mine.
I'll give an example. It's (I think) the only collaboration Blue Attitude Dave did with me back in the day. Working under a dead-line, I wrote a pretty weak verse and a strong chorus of what was going to be a "Oh? You're going to break up with me? I'll double down on that, woman" song in 3/4.
I asked for help with the lyric as I was in bad health at the time. My co-writer turned it into more of a ghost story. Truth be told, I sang the song and still don't know what it's about. I'm not 100% convinced even he does.
I envisioned an acoustic guitar backing with a slide guitar flavoring. Sent a very rough sketch of the idea to Dave to do the acoustic. He did a great job--precisely what I was asking and looking for. Simple and elegant. Sent that to Jay in Texas for the slide spice. Extra fine. Then all that went to England to a producer-type who I thought might add some sweetening and do a proper mix. He didn't know how to do 3/4 and the first version sent back to me placed my vocals a complete beat off--maybe even two beats. We finally got that worked out.
When the song was finished, my simple acoustic "I'm done here" song had turned into a more synth heavy something else entirely. BUT (while I was sorry Dave got so buried in the mix), I LIKED IT. Actually, I think Dave liked it too, if I recall right. Or maybe he was just being all Canadian and stuff.
Anyway...try to work with artists, not artistes. Usually just one per song is preferable, unless you're very specific. Everybody is going to hear the end result differently. Be prepared to go with where the song is heading. But don't let it get ruined by having your vocals come in on the wrong beat.
Tangmo! This is great write. I truly enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing insight story!
My access to musician friends is limited as most of them are in cities and I am on a mountain with big bears (not a joke). I have a couple of people in my area that I can speak about music freely, but they are distant from the type of music I like to flirt with.
I have met some people in my ventures that can be on my "frequency", not pulling things to their side, like a child, screaming: ME,ME,ME.., but working as ONE. Some of them are far away now, some of them gained 60 pounds and TV is their best friend, some are no longer among us. Nevertheless, I consider myself lucky that I met such people and know they exist/existed.
Chances are, I might never find such person (or people) again, but on the other hand I might. Not trying to sugar things up, but this forum had been an inspiration for me. A few folks helped me greatly with technical aspects, some with creative and one member even volunteered to help me proof read my text and done great job of not "breaking bones" but very gently polishing lyrics. I will not abuse his kind gesture, but if I feel that a tune's lyric is special, I will likely to approach him again.
I am tempted to at least try "online" music collaboration, to see where the "wind in blowing". But before I do that, I guess I have to write something that is sort of universal, so it would not too confusing for the partner on the other end of the wire.
I remember recording that guitar part for you but don't remember the song, too many years ago! I do however own the CD that it ended up on, I'll need to pull it out and give it a spin soon
Misha,
I prefer going forward with new songs, that is the fun part for me. But sometimes I will revisit older songs and tweak the mix.
One of the disadvantages I have found with doing everything from writing, performing, producing and then mixing and mastering the song yourself is you tend to get too close to the project, can't see the forest for the trees sort of thing. And then when you listen back a few weeks after the fact you might hear things that you missed the first time around.
I keep a WIP folder: "works in process". Some of them are really good ideas, but I don't have the skill, talent, resources, etc. to 'realize' them (make the idea 'real'), so some are destined to stay in that folder. Some of the things in that folder are partial really good ideas, but not enough to create a whole (like a song with a great hook, but nothing else; or a song that needs a lyric, but I could never put a correct one together). Sometimes I go back and resurrect older work, after gaining new knowledge and tools...I have a couple that I'm working on right now...they are very good concepts, but have been waiting for RT's or other tools to get them from 'the idea in my mind' to 'that sounds pretty good!'.
I agree that it is easy to sketch...there are so many wonderful combinations of music/words/ideas that one could spin up. My philosophy is that I need to just focus on a few, apply myself to making them into creations that I really like, and accept the fact that not all the 'great ideas' will emerge as finished works--just some of them!
Windows 10, Intel Core2 Duo E8500@ 3.16GHz, 8 gig ram, BIAB 2025 MegaPak, SampleTank2, Oxygen49 Kybd, Neewer NW-800 mic
Just as I thought the post has exhausted its potential, got 2 nice posts. Thanks Dave, Tano!
Dave, I can relate to your last paragraph 100%. It is a curse and a blessing. A blessing in a way that you do not have to rely on somebody to fix things and sometimes "repairs" come with ease (sometimes not) I usually try to change things within a month of initial recording, before lichen starts grow over these tunes.
I misspoke when i said "sketches"... My sketches are more like raw demos. With structure, lyrics everything is there, but not ready for "prime time" one way or another. I have recorded over 100 of these demos. To be realistic, I am hoping to re-mix, re-record or change lyrics on about 20-30 of these when I have more time on my plate. For now, I feel that I still have potential of writing new things, so probably that is what I should do. At least my guts are telling me to do just that
Tano, Thank you for the input! It gave me an idea. I will start going through my stuff, pulling things that I want to re-do and finding their project folders. Thankfully I kept most of Cakewalk files from 20+ years back till recent. Probably now it is a good idea, to gather them from old dusty hard drives into something sexy, such as USB3 flash drive. And you are absolutely right about: "new knowledge and tools" that is my hope as well. That when I finally get to them I will know more and things will have a much better workflow.
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