Another weekend, and the second of my 52 Things.
(Here’s a link to 52 Things #1 – Without your Hand)
What’s that? My new year’s resolution is to release a new musical thing every weekend this year. Mostly this’ll be new songs, but the occasional live track or video might turn up as well.
Papercut is a song I’ve had knocking about for a couple of years that I have finally got round to finishing.
I wrote a couple of posts about the process of composing this tune.
Gary Ewer recently linked to an article of his called ‘Five Things to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Writing a Song’ – the post contains some songwriting games you can use to get the creative juices flowing.
Here’s the first:
Take the pressure off to write a full song, and engage in some songwriting “games”: Set the timer for a ridiculously short period of time, like two minutes, and see if you can come up with a verse and chorus (with bonus points if you actually manage a lyric to go with it!) Once you’re done, reset the timer and go at it again. Most of what you’ll write will be… rough. But some of it you’ll find to be useful, so don’t throw anything out.
Which I have foolishly decided to have a go at. So without further ado, I shall get to it.
Equipment used:
Cubase
A microphone
A guitar
Notepad
My voice
a long day and not enough sleep.
Rules: 2 mins thinking/experimenting time.
one take recording.
rambling explanation after each little scratch demo.
Song sketch no.1 – The kinda things they say.
The kinda things they say to you
The kinda of things they do
The way the act as if you’re not exactly there
you’re not exactly whole.
The acts of violence that flash
Behind you’re smiling eyes
The bones that crunch when you let fly.
Speak when you’re spoken
Think when you’re told to think
the kinda they say shall not questioned
Sketch1 by Indiesongwriter.net
no 2.
Well they won’t let me go where I’m needed
And they’ve chained me under the sky
One of these days I’ll break free
I swear that will
Use the powers I have just for me
And they won’t like it when I do
Sketch2 by Indiesongwriter.net
No.3
Hold your head right back
it helps to staunch the flow
that’s what love feels like
Darling don’t you know?
keep your lips tight shut
You know what’s good for you
If I break i keep it if I want it I get
love hurts
love hurts
One day I’ll break free
by doing what he did to me
Sketch3 by Indiesongwriter.net
No.4
Well I needed you
And do still
Oh I needed you when I called
Lit fires to scare them all
And you came, darling
You came when I called
You came to me oh my sweet
Came when
Sketch4 by Indiesongwriter.net
No.5
Season broke
Year turned
Dust grew
silent hand
Never say always
Never say done
Sketch5 by Indiesongwriter.net
Are these great pieces of music? Of course not! each of them represents two minutes sketching. However, I think there’s a little potential in one or two and it’s a great way to get the creative muscles flexing after a period without much songwriting going on.
New year, New goals
I spent the latter half of last year toying with various songs but getting little finished. I have resolved to remedy this by releasing a new ‘thing’ every Sunday this year – hence ’52 things’.
Mostly I’ll be releasing new songs, but sometimes there will be live recordings, demos from the FAWM challenge and things of that ilk.
Yes, I realise this might be quite a challenge – 52 new pieces of work, whether new songs or live tracks, is a big ask. However, this will force me to complete all the half finished tracks I have sitting on the harddrive and in notebooks.
52 Things #1 – Without Your Hand
Without Your Hand is a song I originally wrote for the 5090 challenge last year. It’s the first from a new 5 track EP called ‘Papercuts Sunlight Snow‘ tracks from which will form some of the first ’52 Things’.
To accompany G.D Falksen’s most excellent book ‘Blood in the Skies‘ several steampunk musicians have collaborated to create a steampunk soundtrack.
I have a song on it!
Here’s a link to a buzzfeed page that tell you all about the artists on the two cds.
And here’s a youtube vid of the song that I have contributed. This isn’t exactly the same mix as on the CD – the lead guitars have been redone and I’ve remixed it. However, it gives you a fair approximation.
What do I think works in this song? I like the instrumental section and how I foreshadow after the first chorus. I also like the busy intro that also repeats after the solos and the fact that the song doesn’t stick to one mood and feeling for the whole time, but instead switches between two.
Anyway, if you want more steampunky goodness for the new year, click here to see what’s on the soundtrack.
Over this post and the last, Matt Blick and I are debating the motion that ‘The Beatles are the best artists for any songwriter to study’.
Here is his response to my argument, and my reply. Please feel free to Leave your own Thoughts in the comments.
“Matt Blick, [www.twitter.com/realmattblick] a songwriter/singer from Nottingham, UK, is finding out what happens when you write every day for a year and sharing the results at Matt Blick.com. He’s also blogging through the complete Beatles catalogue at Beatles Songwriting Academy. He can leap tall genres in a single bound and enjoys danger, mystery and writing about himself in the third person.”
For:
I would agree with you that The Beach Boys would be an excellent source of study for a songwriter. Ironically though, Brian Wilson would agree with ME that studying the Beatles is more worthwhile, because that’s exactly what he did! Some of his greatest works were written in direct response to Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper.
The Beach Boys are less useful for study because Wilson never reached his potential. We can learn from him what happens when a genius is surrounded by less gifted, unimaginative and unsympathetic bandmates and brutal exploitative management. Wilson created his best work with hired gun session musicians and outside lyricists, making it harder to track any development of ideas, and the Beach Boys continue working with and without Wilson to this day, so the sheer amount of dross you have to wade through makes studying them much harder.
I’ll grant that George Martin taught them about arrangement and contributed some fantastic ideas – the guitar solo to Michelle, the intros to Can’t Buy Me Love and Help, not to mention all the great orchestration. But they learned well and many more innovative ideas came from the bands, whether through ignorance (the Strawberry Fields mashup) or design (A Day In The Life’s orchestral freak out).
Some of your points are just.
Twee? John Lennon would agree with you on ‘granny music’ like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, When I’m 64 etc. But that is an inevitable offshoot of pushing out into every genre. There’s nothing twee about Yer Blues or Taxman. And yet they are instantly recognisable as the work of the same band. So there’s massive lesson to learn about maintaining your voice while stretching out side of your musical comfort zones.
And lyrics? Guilty as charged.
Beatles lyrics are frequently sloppy, mostly trite, sometimes criminally bad (see my Lyrical Hall of Shame for further details) and only rarely brilliant.
Though they did have strong convictions (refusing to play segregated gigs in the US) they seem almost allergic to making any clear political statements (Lennon’s “count me in/out” wavering on Revolution/Revolution 1). If you want to look solely at lyrics there are hundreds of better artists to check out.
However, even a fairly articulate writer with strong convictions can still learn a lot from the Beatles as lyricists. Great songwriting occurs not just in lyrics and music but at the point they intersect. The Beatles skill at making trite lyrics seem profound (The love you make is equal to the love you take?) is more than a happy byproduct of sticking them onto a good tune. It’s to do with marrying the right vowel sounds to the right point in the melody and finding words that ‘sing’. For anyone labouring under the illusion that you can turn political/spiritual/emotional truth into art simply by singing it, the Beatles would be an excellent point of study.
The Beatles have so much to teach us about making lyrics memorable. Many songwriters today are trying to create catchy songs with only one tool in their box – sheer repetition. From the earliest point in their career the Beatles were writing lyrics that got stuck in your head, using indirect repetition and expertly placed titles.
I agree that there is something incredibly sad about the Beatles obsession and we shouldn’t try to sound like the Beatles. Beatles worship put me off studying them for a long time; but I’ve found the best antidote to both indoctrination and indifference is to study the music for myself.
-Matt Blick
Against:
Nah, I don’t buy that there are any lyrics by the Beatles that reach profundity – not that I think profundity is particularly important to lyric writing. I’ve never heard anything by them that didn’t sound trite no matter how it was set.
The Beatles are the Mozart or Bach of pop music – early and important, but with a reputation that their material doesn’t live up to. Any classical composer who studied Mozart and ignored Beethoven, the entire romantic movement and 20th Century clascial music would be considered odd.
Listen to the Beatles, but realise two things:
They’re good, but not the infallible geniuses that some seem to suggest they are.
Far more interesting things have happened in popular music since.
What about King Crimson’s use of discordance and whole tone scales?
What about David Bowie’s use of word randomisation and improvisation?
What about Burt Bacharach’s use of time signatures and melody writing?
What about the sheer pig headed individuality and deadpan humour of Radiohead?
What about the raw innocence and anger of punk?
What about the timbres of heavy metal or the technological exploration of electronica?
I would be happy if I could go the next ten years without hearing another Beatles song or a song that sounds like the Beatles.
They are not the best band to study if you want to write songs. You need to cast your net wider.
- Tom Slatter
Over the next two posts Matt Blick and I will be debating the motion that ‘The Beatles are the best artists for any songwriter to study’.
He’ll be arguing the affirmative, I’ll be arguing the negative.
“Matt Blick, [www.twitter.com/realmattblick] a songwriter/singer from Nottingham, UK, is finding out what happens when you write every day for a year and sharing the results at Matt Blick.com. He’s also blogging through the complete Beatles catalogue at Beatles Songwriting Academy . He can leap tall genres in a single bound and enjoys danger, mystery and writing about himself in the third person.”
For: The Beatles are the best artists for any songwriter to study
They are well documented. No matter how much you may love Robert Johnson all we have are 29 original songs, 2 photos and a few outrageous legends.
A group is easier to study than an individual. It’s hard to know what internal dialogue goes on with a writer like Dylan to make him what he is. A solo songwriter doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone to create art.
Nearly all of their recordings survive, therefore it’s easier to track the genesis of a song and the evolution of a style.
They recorded for 7 years and will never reform so have a large, yet finite, amount of music to study.
They started very young so the ideas and concepts they employed are easier to understand in embryonic form than if they had just blazed onto the scene with Strawberry Fields Forever.
They recorded covers which gives a clearer insight into their influences and how they came to develop certain musical ideas.
They maintained a consistent line up and all went on to have successful solo careers. This gives a clear sense of what was innate in one member and what was synergy between the different members.
They appeared at a time when bands were ‘entertainers’, didn’t write their own material, and didn’t steer their own career. In a significant way they invented the music business as we now know it and are a helpful case study in a time when the music business is in a state of flux.
No other band has come close in the incredible popularity across generations, races and eras. They covered a multitude of genres and were pioneers in recording techniques, world music, video production and snazzy facial hair.
- Matt Blick
Against: The Beatles are not the best artists for any songwriter to study.
The Beatles are important, they broke new ground in terms of use of the recording technology and turning popular music into something more serious and interesting than mere dance tunes.
However, they are not the best artist to study when you want to learn about songwriting.
In fact, I think songwriting would be much improved if we songwriters got over our Beatles obsession. I’ve heard far too many songwriters rip them off. Sounding like the Beatles is not a good thing – the Beatles did it better than you can.
What is there to really learn from them? I can think of three things:
The thing is, none of those points are unique to the Beatles. The Beach Boys were also doing interesting things with recording and arrangement and there are plenty of other songwriters who have done just as interesting things with chord choices.
More importantly, there are important songwriting lessons you can’t get from the Beatles. I wouldn’t write home about any of their lyrics, and their stances when it comes to politics or social issues were shallow and trite.
There’s something incredibly twee about the Beatles, when heard from a modern perspective – and there’s something rather sad about the obsession with them.
Using that musical language doesn’t break new ground, doesn’t help you find your own voice. Much better to study a vast array of songwriters and put the Beatles in their proper place – as one of a great many songwriters that we study.
- Tom Slatter
You can read our replies in the second post tomorrow.
-Footage from a gig I played last summer – when I had lots of time and didn’t do enough with it.
The seven day week is only a social convention. What’s to stop us adding an extra day?
Busy
This time of year is always busy for musicians. Christmas brings with it hundreds of concerts to see, organise and perform in, both in my personal and work life. Not to mention all the socialising, present buying and general hubbub of the season.
I’m sure it’s the same for you too – so much to do, so little time to spend doing it.
I’m desperate to pursue my own creative endeavours, both in my songwriting and blogging but it’s almost impossible to find the time.
Worse still, I’m afflicted at present with an annoying circumstance – I can’t decide what to work on.
Here are the projects I’ve currently got on the go:
So Busy
Not to mention the webseries theme tune I’ve got to write, the heavy metal project I’m thinking of starting and the collaborative ebook I started but haven’t got round to finishing.
How do you decide? I guess go with what feels right, but I’d rather find the time to work on all of them at the same time.
Which isn’t going to be possible unless we invent a new, eighth day to go between Friday and Saturday.
We could call it GrunesDay.
Who’s with me?
A really interesting questions turned up from the fanbridge sign-up page.
Hi I’m new to songwriting, I would like to write in a neo-soul style . What are the typical chord progressions used in this style?
Why is that a really interesting question? Because I’ve never heard the term ‘Neo-soul’ before. As a rock/indie/whatever singe songwriter I’ve never really been into soul related music styles, so this gave me the opportunity to do some really interesting research.
Neo-soul, it seems, is the kind of music that people like D’Angelo and Erikah Badu and similar were making from about the mid 90s. RnB realted, but rather than heading down the produced-in-the-box computer driven route that pop rnb followed, neo-soul is a bit more natural, more focussed on real instruments and groove.
And wow do these songs grooooooove. Listen to this, by D’Angelo:
I know the question is about chords, but first lets talk about that groove – dead simple, slow tempo, swung with a slightly busy kick drum. Really laid back, really sexy as befits the song.
(And really interesting to contrast with the groove from the pop-rnb from the likes of Destiny’s Child).
Chords?
There’s not much variety here – this kind of music is about groove and repetition, not harmonic contrast. The jazz roots show though, Brown Sugar uses the same four chords throughout:
Em9 Em9/A Bm F13
So the key is Em9 and the progression is all about stating that Em tonic chord, creating tension by moving away, then returning again to the tonic in a loop.
The fifth chord is a classic contrasting chord, and the F13 is a slightly more unconventional, but no less interest contrast to the Em tonic.
Even more sparse, but performing a similar trick is Erikah Baduh’s ‘On & On’ which uses the chords: B7#5 Em9
So here we have simply a contrasting chord, followed by the home Eminor.
Again, the interest comes not from harmonic change, but from all the things that go around the repeating chords and groove.
Another interesting contrast to this is ‘Cry Me A River’ by Justin Timberlake which uses a chord progression that wouldn’t be out of place in a neo-soul song, but in a much more upbeat pop way.
So, in answer to the question, what kind of chords might you use in a neo-soul song?
Tonic minor chord, followed by chord v or something similar, repeated to a slow funk groove.
Any more suggestions? That’s what the comments are for.
