Quote: (05-23-2016 07:18 AM)RedPillUK Wrote:
It got me thinking into what is the best way to write music? [snip]
Quote: (05-31-2016 09:54 PM)Rigsby Wrote:
Also, let me explain: I am pretty self sufficient with this stuff. Been doing it a long time. Had chart success with my band in the UK - Top 20 stuff. But none of that counts for shit.
RedPillUK: I've been at this long enough to recognise Rigsby as an advanced talent from his observations alone. His advice is solid.
I'll add a few thoughts on creativity, artistry, collaboration and ego.
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It's quite simple, but a little painful. You have to go outside of yourself. You have to have a 'safe space' (j/k), but no really, you do have to have a very comfortable space where you can make some noise. I'm not talking about volume, I'm talking about singing out of tune, about you getting outside of your comfort zone.
This comfortable space might be
entirely-internal. I do some of my best writing simply by going for a walk, no matter the weather, and singing in my head. Again and again, I've seen the great songwriters I admire talk about how they were 'taking the dog for a walk and came back with this song.'
If there's a brain / body connection component to creativity, I suspect a firm awareness of place, (the weather, the seasons), and passing time, (decay and passage), takes your mind to a more naturally-reflective place, grounded in a recognisable human reality.
Another good 'safe space' is a Car. Put down some instrumental ideas, get in your car, drive and sing. Experiment, refine.
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You need to pick your weapon of choice. Mine is an acoustic guitar.
I write in a variety of ways. Maybe I'm jamming on an instrument. Maybe I come up with a fully-arranged backing track and find the melody later, though I'm usually sure of what the main hook will be. Maybe I'm working around the house and the melody comes first and I find the harmonic backing later. Sometimes, but not often, I'll write the lyric first and come up with the music based on it.
As such, I'm not tied to one working process and one instrument, and the songs vary as a result, and I'd suggest trying this yourself.
If I'm structuring a song, I prefer to work on Piano or Acoustic Guitar. I picked up a cheap acoustic a few years ago which, for some reason, is simply the most comfortable guitar I've ever played - as I've never been much of a guitarist. I sat down to figure out "Well, what can I do on this?" and songs ended up just falling out of it. The thing is blessed. A couple of years later, and, huh, I can sort of play guitar in such a unique way that no-one really notices that I can't really play guitar, if that makes sense, (and it's funny that now I can recognise some very famous guitarists with obvious-limitations).
As such, step outside your comfort zone as much as possible. My producer, complimented me on a bizarre key change into a breakdown on one song 'that technically shouldn't work but is genius'. That's because I only knew four chords on the mandolin at the time, and they were all in that key.
Never be afraid to pick up an unfamiliar instrument, because you might be able to ornate the idea you come up with on an instrument you can play.
When you've structured the song, play it repeatedly. If your melody holds up with such a bare piano or guitar arrangement, you have a solid song, and then it's a matter of finding the right interpretation of it in the arrangement. If you're working with a band, you can either take this basic acoustic arrangement to them and build it together, or do a full arrangement yourself first that the band might choose to refine or discard entirely.
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To get to the level I'm at, I had to work day in day out, constantly making a total idiot of myself, just to get that little bit of edge. Sure, I could write a song. A decent song. But they weren't international no.1 best sellers. Until, after too many days I care to remember, it finally came good.
This is the harsh, uncomfortable truth of the matter, and why, like Rigsby, I'm wary of collaboration with others. Songwriting is work.
Damn hard work. It's taken me
years to get on a level I'd consider as matching my heroes, and to the stage where I can work really hard on a song, spend hours recording it, and am quite happy to mentally-file it away for 'the box set' if I think it's a good, but not a great, song, (though this can cause issues with my collaborators if its one of their favourites).
One of the guys I work was saying how my songs are always 'So great', and I said "You only think that because you didn't hear the 35 years of
fucking terrible songs I wrote to get here."
I've been writing since I was 9 or 10. You have to write and write to get the crap out of your system, to follow dead ends and experiment in ways that only guarantee failure, but never get discouraged by this and learn from each mistake. My personal mantra:
maybe this song sucks, but the next song will be better.
Now, the other harsh reality is that most musicians get into the field
to avoid work entirely, and this has been the frustration of working with every band I've ever been in: I'm the hardest working member, by far. A few bands failed on the verge of finally breaking because the band saw the record company attention as signs they were now 'big rock stars' and egos got out of control, and they became 'too important' to both with things like rehearsals or songwriting sessions.
I remember fronting a band with two songwriters where one of them got such a big ego after being signed, he drove the other one out during the recording process, and told me I could chose to leave too. This is how he discovered the record company had only originally signed the band because they thought the other guy's songs were good enough to break America with, and the company scaled the project back to an EP that was never released.
It's been the same story again and again. If you're aiming to make a piece of music
great, you don't want to be hamstrung by people who are aiming for
good enough. Why just jam into the intro when that guitar lead could define the song and become Iconic? Why just repeat the chorus to fade instead of writing a killer outro? Music is for the ages.
You either get this instinct or you don't, and this is why I now choose to do as much as I can myself, because I'm the only one reliable and committed enough to not accept mediocrity.
How committed? Here's something I only vaguely mentioned on here in passing:
About two years back, you'll see me vanish from the forum for a couple of months. I'd taken a blow with a stick to the eye socket during an acting role when my partner in the scene didn't hit his mark correctly. Soon after, I was having serious periods of headaches and extreme dizziness, bad enough that the room would spin and I'd have no choice but throw up. The Indian Specialist here did some tests and told me the most likely explanation was that I had a brain tumour, handed me some steroids to stop the swelling and booked me in for a MRI in a couple of days so they could figure out where they'd be targetting the radiation treatments. Meanwhile, I'm two songs from finishing an album great enough that I'd consider it my life's work as a songwriter.
I realise I'm carrying a few people in this band, and we've worked so damn hard on this so far, that, well,
a fucking brain tumour isn't going to stop me.
I usually record on a high stool. I find a low chair, set up the mics, grab the acoustic and a bucket, and start recording. The room spins, the fretboard goes in and out of focus, and I throw up between takes, but I get the acoustic rhythm track down in about 20 minutes. It's not complex - just strumming - but it needs powerful energy to drive the song.
Then I double it. Throw up.
And triple it. Running with sweat. Throw up some more.
And quadruple it. I always lay down four passes to be able to bring them up for dynamic purposes.
I move to the keyboard that I've lowered right down, and start putting on the piano whilst singing the melody in my head.
That's when I realise I've fucked up, and I've taken it ever-so-slightly too fast, (only about 4 bpm, which sounds like nothing but it is too hard to sing). I try timestretching it as I shake with fever, feeling like I'm going to die. The resulting audio artifacting on the track offends my standards.
I realise I have to start all over, and, as sick as I am, do so.
I get both tracks completed before my MRI. They're killer songs. I was even sicker during the second one, and it came out drugged and lethargic, but so beautifully-suited the lyric that I realise now I couldn't have picked a better feel.
The MRI showed the Specialist was full of shit, the steroids were the worst possible thing he couldn't have given me, and showed what the real problem was, which was easily-fixed, though I now have a regular routine of vision exercises I do each morning to stem off any issues.
Can you see why I prefer to work alone? Who else could I find to match my level of dedication to art? When a collaborator
pusses out and tells me to just 'cut and paste' a bit he played because it's too much effort spending five minutes doubling it, you can see why I don't have much sustained interest in working with lazy people.
So, if you're looking for serious collaborators to work with, understand that you should be offering them a deep level of commitment. It's simply artistic respect. Life's too short to be mediocre, you know?
My expectations aren't as unrealistic as they sound: two producer friends in California started an album two years ago that was interrupted by one of them being diagnosed with cancer. The bastard recorded his remaining lead vocals lying on his back in bed, in between his chemo treatments. He's in remission, for now. The album's out soon.
Respect.
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So I am constantly writing songs I can not sing. But some one else can. That is your objective as a songwriter. If you are just writing songs that only fit the register of your voice, you are not pushing yourself hard enough. You are not letting go into the mystic.
You really get it, mate. I always fronted hard rock and punk bands. I've only had singing lessons to learn how to sing properly the last few years. Along the way, I realised my songs were for everyone to sing so started taking more chances with the writing. If I end up breaking outside my indie cult audience, I expect covers, particularly in the country market, though my sound isn't remotely country.
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Then you get it peer reviewed if you can take it. And that peer review might shake you to your depths. Be prepared for that. Be among friends for this, for those who are envious of your work will tell you it is no good. A friend will tell you when it is bad.
It's hard, but you learn to weigh how seriously you should criticism based upon recognising who possesses the talent to offer valid criticism. The majority of people aren't on my level, and most criticism is a form of restriction and resentment: how dare you make me look mediocre? I can't even begin to estimate the amount of people who have never written or performed one song in their life tell me all the vaguely-described, yet drastic-sounding changes I should make to a song that would make it 'so much better'.
Meanwhile, my producer handed back one song back to me, that he loved the backing for, once he heard the intended melody and lyric: "You can do better."
Did i think "You bastard? Why don't you recognise my genius?"
No. This guy knows his stuff. So, no ego, no resentment. Just: "How can I make this better?" Problem solving mode. I threw out a very 'clever' lyric and a complex melody, and worked and worked in the car on it for a week or so, driving around, listening to it. I ended up with an entirely-different melody and a completely-new lyric, laid down a sketch vocal in a 'how about this, smartarse?' manner - (ok, maybe there was a little bit of resentment) - and waited.
His response. "Genius. What did I tell you?"
Learn to recognise who is pushing you to excel, and who is trying to hold you back.
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If you have a desire to write music and write songs, and that desire is strong enough, no matter how untalented you are, you can make it good. And that is not snake oil. I'm proof. It took me decades to just reach that point. And before it I was shit. Really shit. Chart success be damned, I was still shit.
Beautifully put, mate. Like I said, I'm the product of years of work. Even now, people praise me, and, well, I have this overwhelming urge to say "Don't you hear how shit this is? I promise the next song will be better."