Ideas and Advice for Real Songwriters (formerly songwright.co.uk)
Category
time signatures
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03.02.08Stealing Ideas from Bacharach and David’s ‘Say a little prayer’[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad-J4aaL_IQ&feature=related] Yesterday I mentioned Outkast's use of an 'extra' 2/4 bar in 'Hey Ya'. I'd definitely advocate cutting out or putting in extra beats when necessary. A song needs to convey the words, and sometimes you have extra syllables that don't quite scan in a 4/4 bar. Sometimes it's possble to stretch or shrink the words to fit, but often the best option is to say 'hang the bar line' and do something different. 'Say a little Prayer' by Burt Bacharach and Hal David is a more sophisticated and interesting example of this idea. Time signatures in the verse: Three bars of 4/4 One of 2/4 Three ...
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03.01.08Stealing Ideas from Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvIw5ZqC1ms&feature=related] Even the silliest pop song can have an idea worth stealing. In this case I'd like to point out the time signatures at use in this song. Three bars 0f 4/4, one of 2/4, another two of 4/4, looped over and over for the whole song. Adding in the occasional half bar is quite a common technique, Outkast certainly didn't invent it, and clearly it wasn't enough to make this song listenable for more than about thirty seconds. However, it can be effective, and it's certainly an idea worth trying out yourself. If you enjoyed this post, why not subscribe?
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02.04.08Two more Fawm SongsI've written and demoed two more songs for Fawm which puts me up to four. Technically this means I'm ahead of schedule, but I'm sure things will happen in the rest of the month to balance this out. Spinning the Compass [audio=http://www.wellwrite.co.uk/songwright/tomslatter_spinningthecompass.mp3] To The Empty Sky [audio=http://www.wellwrite.co.uk/songwright/tomslatter_totheemptysky.mp3] Ideas to steal: Fourths and fifths. Both songs have harmonies that emphasise fourths or fifths. The guitar chords of To The Empty Sky are built using collections parallel fifths, the vox harmonies in Spinning the Compass are sometimes parallel fourths Build up to something. To the Empty Sky is a big build up to the final line. It sticks with ...
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01.01.08Time Signatures according to someone elseOf course I'm not the only person who thinks experimenting with time signatures is musically interesting. The wonderful world of the internet contains this guitar lessons blog post which contains several examples by the band Symphony X. This is a great post, as it shows you time signatures that are relatively unusual being played by a band who really THINK about their music. I take the bloggers point about the guitarist's so-so lead parts, though not every solo he has played has been a waste of time. Yes, it's a post about guitar playing, but the explanations and links should be enough ...
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12.31.07Time Signatures revisitedIn previous posts I've urged you to try using different time signatures in your songwriting. Why? For several reasons. My own personal bias. I like progressive rock and I'm a bit of a music nerd. Doing music-nerdy stuff really appeals to certain types of music fan. Its a great way of adding contrast, which is an absolute must if you're to avoid boring your audience A lot of the time we don't think about rhythm and meter as much as chords and melody. Changing time signature forces you to pay attention to these sometimes overlooked aspects of music. What is a time signature, and how do you change ...
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09.12.07Basics – how time signatures work.The most common time signature is 4/4. Most of us know that means four beats in a bar, but is that all it means? If it is, why are there two fours? It means a little more.The first 4 tells you that there are four beats in a bar, and the second four tells you what kind of beat they are. They're crotchets, or if you're American, quarter notes. That's what generally gets referred to as a 'one beat' note. So a 4/4 bar contains four of these: If you change the first number you just get a different number of these crotchets, eg ...
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09.10.07Episode 7 – Time signatures[audio http://www.wellwrite.co.uk/songwright/songwrightep7.mp3] Download This episode of the songwright podcast looks at three ways of changing time signature within a song. They are: 1. Cutting the occasional beat but mostly staying in one time signature 2. Changing time signature for a whole section, but keeping the same pulse 3. Changing time signature for a whole section and choosing a different tempo. To illustrate these ideas I played a little snippet from a couple of old We'll Write songs, including Would you call that Love? [audio http://www.wellwrite.co.uk/wouldyoucallthatlove.mp3] I also used a section of Perfect Cruelty by Stryngs which I have mentioned before. I finished with the song 'The Gilded ...
