RULE NUMBER ONE--
establish hook as soon as possible in new key, or in transition to new key. ideally, some repetition in short term, which is arguably the quickest way to establish a hook for listener.
(It may be true that there are other ways to establish a hook, but that those ways are harder to quantify or link to a formula. Thus, repetition is not necessary, but it's as close to a fail-safe plan as anything I can think of.)
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Monday, May 17, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
ELEMENTS OF COMMERCIAL POP MUSIC I OBSERVED AT THE NAIL SALON
I don't listen to much of today's commercial pop music, unless I can't avoid it. Today I was getting a couple nails fixed (a la Nashville guitar pickers), when I got the chance to listen to a few presumably current hits. (My idea of current is anything released since Steve Miller's "Abra Kadabra".) Here are my observations, based on nothing remotely approaching a scientific data sample.
There are two main moods of commercial pop song that predominate.
1. Wistful/celebratory.
In this style, the tone of the thing early on is a kind of wistful acknowledging of sad events. Gradually, the tone changes into a celebratory mood.
This approach tends to be mostly a major key sound. (This tone is sometimes a kind of "cheerful existentialism," which seems smart somehow, making it an effective choice for indie artists who want to present a package that has more "substance" than the moneymaking pop artists. It's also effective for the moneymakers, who use this tone too, but with higher production values.)
2. Gloomy/empowered.
In this style, the tone is more melancholy-- which makes it more dramatic when it changes to a finger-wagging rejection of the villains who caused the sad events. This says, "I've been hurt bad, but now I'm over it and I'm taking 'ownership' of my life back from those who've tried to steal it from me. Watch out, mean people!"
This approach is more often in minor.
Both of these obviously related sub-styles sometimes use a structural device (usually in a chorus) where the chords wind around until finally resolving on beat one of a new section with a return to the tonic chord. (It's common for the melody to use the classical music principle of elision, where a line ends at the point where the new melody section begins. It worked for Mozart, and it works for the saucy/bossy blonde pop singer formula.) This new section is often more or less instrumental, kind of a brief celebratory dance before going back to the melancholy verse vibe.
The following statement is a theory only-- I can't back it up with evidence, and I welcome suggestions from readers. (In other words, feel free to agree while providing evidence of specific songs, but I'm also interested in songs that would cause me to adjust my vague timeline.)
To me, this kind of tone is self-indulgent, as well as being arguably based in denial for many listeners. My guess is that some of the source for it is the indie punk rock movement of the 1980's. If you want to oversimplify, Kurt Cobain grew up listening to SST albums along with some classic rock, blended the self-regarding teenage angst of much indie rock with the pop/rock muscle of the Beatles et al. This formula rang true for so many millions of people that it eventually grew like kudzu, forcing its way into the mainstream. (It also seems that this kind of approach to tone is nothing new-- it's the core of power-ballad formula. I think it's fair to say, though, that Kurt Cobain made it "cool" in a way that Pat Benatar did not. On the other hand-- "alternative" became the mainstream pretty quickly, "coolness" is mostly a marketing tool these days, and I hope younger people can forgive my sense that Pearl Jam and their fans remind me of Styx and their fans. Perhaps Kansas is a more reasonable point of comparison.)
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
There are two main moods of commercial pop song that predominate.
1. Wistful/celebratory.
In this style, the tone of the thing early on is a kind of wistful acknowledging of sad events. Gradually, the tone changes into a celebratory mood.
This approach tends to be mostly a major key sound. (This tone is sometimes a kind of "cheerful existentialism," which seems smart somehow, making it an effective choice for indie artists who want to present a package that has more "substance" than the moneymaking pop artists. It's also effective for the moneymakers, who use this tone too, but with higher production values.)
2. Gloomy/empowered.
In this style, the tone is more melancholy-- which makes it more dramatic when it changes to a finger-wagging rejection of the villains who caused the sad events. This says, "I've been hurt bad, but now I'm over it and I'm taking 'ownership' of my life back from those who've tried to steal it from me. Watch out, mean people!"
This approach is more often in minor.
Both of these obviously related sub-styles sometimes use a structural device (usually in a chorus) where the chords wind around until finally resolving on beat one of a new section with a return to the tonic chord. (It's common for the melody to use the classical music principle of elision, where a line ends at the point where the new melody section begins. It worked for Mozart, and it works for the saucy/bossy blonde pop singer formula.) This new section is often more or less instrumental, kind of a brief celebratory dance before going back to the melancholy verse vibe.
The following statement is a theory only-- I can't back it up with evidence, and I welcome suggestions from readers. (In other words, feel free to agree while providing evidence of specific songs, but I'm also interested in songs that would cause me to adjust my vague timeline.)
To me, this kind of tone is self-indulgent, as well as being arguably based in denial for many listeners. My guess is that some of the source for it is the indie punk rock movement of the 1980's. If you want to oversimplify, Kurt Cobain grew up listening to SST albums along with some classic rock, blended the self-regarding teenage angst of much indie rock with the pop/rock muscle of the Beatles et al. This formula rang true for so many millions of people that it eventually grew like kudzu, forcing its way into the mainstream. (It also seems that this kind of approach to tone is nothing new-- it's the core of power-ballad formula. I think it's fair to say, though, that Kurt Cobain made it "cool" in a way that Pat Benatar did not. On the other hand-- "alternative" became the mainstream pretty quickly, "coolness" is mostly a marketing tool these days, and I hope younger people can forgive my sense that Pearl Jam and their fans remind me of Styx and their fans. Perhaps Kansas is a more reasonable point of comparison.)
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Monday, September 7, 2009
10 RULES OF WRITING, BY ELMORE LEONARD
These rules are not always directly applicable to songwriting. (In fact, they may not always be literally applicable to fiction writing; it really depends on what you want your style to be. I think Leonard makes it pretty clear that writers with special talents can break some of his rules and get some beauty on the page. I also think that for every writer who is prepared to create something lasting by breaking Leonard's rules, there are probably hundreds or thousands who would be better off taking his advice.)
However, Leonard's rules offer a way of looking at your writing. It's essentially a brutally unforgiving approach to editing. The idea is to write stuff that doesn't seem like writing. (If that makes no sense to you, then you probably won't know what I mean when I say I hate songs that are too "songwriter-y.")
To even think of editing your work is a radical act today, especially in the amateur songwriting world. Maybe it's always been that way; I wouldn't know. I do know that amateur songwriters don't always cotton to advice about pruning their lyrics. I sure don't, which is why I don't ask for advice anymore. Anyway, Leonard has a pretty clinical eye, and zero tolerance for self-indulgent writing. His suggestions get me thinking about the craft of storytelling; he's very good at explaining why you should cut certain things. Leonard really makes it sound simple, just as he makes writing and reading seem easy. I've read some comments online to the effect that Leonard's work is superficial, compared to that of more substantial or serious writers; this is part of their argument against following his rules. Maybe, but his characters certainly come alive on the page and make me want to follow them around.
NYTimes.com
WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
By ELMORE LEONARD
Published: Monday, July 16, 2001
"These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.
1. Never open a book with weather.
If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
2. Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.
There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''
3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .
. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''
This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
And finally:
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)
If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.
What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.''
''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.
Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word."
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
However, Leonard's rules offer a way of looking at your writing. It's essentially a brutally unforgiving approach to editing. The idea is to write stuff that doesn't seem like writing. (If that makes no sense to you, then you probably won't know what I mean when I say I hate songs that are too "songwriter-y.")
To even think of editing your work is a radical act today, especially in the amateur songwriting world. Maybe it's always been that way; I wouldn't know. I do know that amateur songwriters don't always cotton to advice about pruning their lyrics. I sure don't, which is why I don't ask for advice anymore. Anyway, Leonard has a pretty clinical eye, and zero tolerance for self-indulgent writing. His suggestions get me thinking about the craft of storytelling; he's very good at explaining why you should cut certain things. Leonard really makes it sound simple, just as he makes writing and reading seem easy. I've read some comments online to the effect that Leonard's work is superficial, compared to that of more substantial or serious writers; this is part of their argument against following his rules. Maybe, but his characters certainly come alive on the page and make me want to follow them around.
NYTimes.com
WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
By ELMORE LEONARD
Published: Monday, July 16, 2001
"These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.
1. Never open a book with weather.
If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
2. Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.
There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''
3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .
. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''
This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
And finally:
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)
If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.
What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.''
''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.
Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word."
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Friday, June 26, 2009
SONGWRITING-- PRIVATE LESSONS AND CLASSES
please read the following essay if you're interested in taking songwriting lessons from me, or joining my songwriting classes. Thank you!
guitarteacherkarlstraub.blogspot.com/2009/06/songwriting-private-lessons-and-classes.html
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
guitarteacherkarlstraub.blogspot.com/2009/06/songwriting-private-lessons-and-classes.html
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
SPEECH AND RHYTHM
I've been thinking a lot lately about how the rhythm of speech is connected to the rhythms in song melody. I'm not ready right now to talk about this topic, but here's a clip put together by Henry Hey, a guy who has obviously thought about it a lot more than I have.
Henry Hey, a jazz pianist (among other things) has a few more youtube clips, and a myspace page. www.myspace.com/henryhey I love that his influences include Ravel, Dvorak, and Dr. Teeth.
Big thanks to colleague Eric Brace for sending me this amazing item. I hope to find time to study it, and yammer about it later, but in the meantime enjoy!
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Henry Hey, a jazz pianist (among other things) has a few more youtube clips, and a myspace page. www.myspace.com/henryhey I love that his influences include Ravel, Dvorak, and Dr. Teeth.
Big thanks to colleague Eric Brace for sending me this amazing item. I hope to find time to study it, and yammer about it later, but in the meantime enjoy!
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
LESSON ONE
Here are some thoughts about what I am going to do with this blog, and how songwriters can get the most out of it.
First-- I subscribe to the old-fashioned notion that composers should know MORE than instrumentalists, rather than less. There is a lot to know about music-- a lifetime of study, really-- but music theory and compositional/analytical concepts are not as hard as they may appear. Often these things are presented in books in a very confusing manner, and the uninitiated get the impression that it's not for them.
I recommend that anyone who is serious about songwriting take community college classes in music fundamentals, and basic music theory (chords, melody, rhythms, reading and writing music, etc. ) There are two arguments for this approach-- community college is reasonably cheap, and music theory is difficult to learn on your own from a book. (It can help a lot to learn this stuff in a classroom setting, with a teacher walking you through the concepts, playing examples, etc. ) I am going to use music theory in these posted lessons, and I'm not going to post an entire music theory-from-scratch tutorial-- partly because it's a ton of work for me, but also because fundamentals are available many different places already. (If anyone would like to pay me to put a music theory basics package together for them, it probably wouldn't be too hard to talk me into it--)
Even for those who have no theory background, these posted lessons will be valuable. I will try to provide some help along the way, defining terms and giving some basics alongside the more advanced concepts, and in most cases the musical examples and analysis I provide should be useful even if you don't have a ton of jargon under your belt. However, the more theory you know, the more you'll get out of all this. (I'll certainly be interested in feedback-- if it turns out there's a huge demand for remedial information, I'll see what I can do. So don't panic! Just remember, songwriting is hard work.)
My goal is to talk about the craft as I understand it-- I've essentially combined what I learned in my music education bachelor degree program with everything I've learned writing songs over the last twenty years. Songwriting is like architecture-- it's a creative outlet, certainly, but there are also certain fundamentals to learn. Architects want to design a house that will be aesthetically pleasing (the artistic side) but they also want to design a house that won't blow over in a high wind. It's true that there have been great songwriters with no formal background in music. Some people (the Beatles and Bob Dylan come to mind) have worked magic with little or no training in the academic sense. It's necessary to remember two things, however. The Beatles and Bob Dylan may not have gone to school to learn about music, but they did obsessively study the music they loved, learning what they could about songwriting by playing and singing other people's songs. They also had their eyes and ears open, and when musicians were explaining their secrets, they were likely to shut up and listen.
Much of the material in these lessons will involve my analysis of various songs, based on close listening. I'll typically discuss theory in the context of specific songs. This enables even a student with shaky knowledge of theory to hear it in practice with examples. The most important ingredient in all of this is listening. I knew a little about chord theory when I was very young. I was in the right place at the right time-- when I was fourteen or so, my uncle's friend Steve Rudnick took pity on me and my struggle with the guitar. He showed me the basics of diatonic chord progressions, and this information was the foundation of all of my songwriting almost from the beginning. He also advised me to work on songwriting along with guitar, if I wanted to make money in the business. (If those two things weren't enough, he also showed me the first Fender Telecaster I ever saw. ) After this brief (but very productive) couple of informal lessons, I mostly played by ear and learned by writing and listening to other writers. The fairly small amount of music theory I had learned essentially got me through many years of writing and playing.
Essentially, I'm suggesting that you can accomplish a fair amount by learning a little bit of music theory and listening heavily (and closely) to as many songs as possible. And when people are trying to show you something, pay attention! Many times I lucked into situations where I could learn something from someone who was way ahead of me.
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
First-- I subscribe to the old-fashioned notion that composers should know MORE than instrumentalists, rather than less. There is a lot to know about music-- a lifetime of study, really-- but music theory and compositional/analytical concepts are not as hard as they may appear. Often these things are presented in books in a very confusing manner, and the uninitiated get the impression that it's not for them.
I recommend that anyone who is serious about songwriting take community college classes in music fundamentals, and basic music theory (chords, melody, rhythms, reading and writing music, etc. ) There are two arguments for this approach-- community college is reasonably cheap, and music theory is difficult to learn on your own from a book. (It can help a lot to learn this stuff in a classroom setting, with a teacher walking you through the concepts, playing examples, etc. ) I am going to use music theory in these posted lessons, and I'm not going to post an entire music theory-from-scratch tutorial-- partly because it's a ton of work for me, but also because fundamentals are available many different places already. (If anyone would like to pay me to put a music theory basics package together for them, it probably wouldn't be too hard to talk me into it--)
Even for those who have no theory background, these posted lessons will be valuable. I will try to provide some help along the way, defining terms and giving some basics alongside the more advanced concepts, and in most cases the musical examples and analysis I provide should be useful even if you don't have a ton of jargon under your belt. However, the more theory you know, the more you'll get out of all this. (I'll certainly be interested in feedback-- if it turns out there's a huge demand for remedial information, I'll see what I can do. So don't panic! Just remember, songwriting is hard work.)
My goal is to talk about the craft as I understand it-- I've essentially combined what I learned in my music education bachelor degree program with everything I've learned writing songs over the last twenty years. Songwriting is like architecture-- it's a creative outlet, certainly, but there are also certain fundamentals to learn. Architects want to design a house that will be aesthetically pleasing (the artistic side) but they also want to design a house that won't blow over in a high wind. It's true that there have been great songwriters with no formal background in music. Some people (the Beatles and Bob Dylan come to mind) have worked magic with little or no training in the academic sense. It's necessary to remember two things, however. The Beatles and Bob Dylan may not have gone to school to learn about music, but they did obsessively study the music they loved, learning what they could about songwriting by playing and singing other people's songs. They also had their eyes and ears open, and when musicians were explaining their secrets, they were likely to shut up and listen.
Much of the material in these lessons will involve my analysis of various songs, based on close listening. I'll typically discuss theory in the context of specific songs. This enables even a student with shaky knowledge of theory to hear it in practice with examples. The most important ingredient in all of this is listening. I knew a little about chord theory when I was very young. I was in the right place at the right time-- when I was fourteen or so, my uncle's friend Steve Rudnick took pity on me and my struggle with the guitar. He showed me the basics of diatonic chord progressions, and this information was the foundation of all of my songwriting almost from the beginning. He also advised me to work on songwriting along with guitar, if I wanted to make money in the business. (If those two things weren't enough, he also showed me the first Fender Telecaster I ever saw. ) After this brief (but very productive) couple of informal lessons, I mostly played by ear and learned by writing and listening to other writers. The fairly small amount of music theory I had learned essentially got me through many years of writing and playing.
Essentially, I'm suggesting that you can accomplish a fair amount by learning a little bit of music theory and listening heavily (and closely) to as many songs as possible. And when people are trying to show you something, pay attention! Many times I lucked into situations where I could learn something from someone who was way ahead of me.
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
LOU REED
Here's the first post on my songwriting blog. I thought I'd focus on Lou Reed, as he's probably influenced me as much as any writer, including Dylan and the Beatles. I'm not going to get into a big discussion about him yet, I just want to give you some thoughts of mine inspired by a few quotes from Reed. (I found these in Victor Bockris's Reed bio "Transformer."
Reed on lyric writing: "I try to give you a very visual image in very few words, so that you can picture it in your mind really quick. I spend most of my time taking things out. Taking tons of stuff out. Really chopping it down. That's the goal. Besides communicating emotion and having a beginning, middle, and an end, I'm really hammering at those words to be concise and get it across to you as quickly and visually as possible."
I've tried to do these things myself, and in my better work I think I've pulled them off. I think songwriters spend too much time talking about how they feel, and indulging in labored metaphors that don't connect with listeners emotionally. Reed's best work makes an emotional connection immediately. (With many listeners, the emotional response is disgust or hatred, but it's better to get a negative reaction like that than the most common reaction-- which is for a listener to completely ignore your song.)
Another point I'll probably make over and over in this blog-- if you're going to be a songwriter, you should read books. (note the book next to Reed in the goofy backstage photo I stole from www.rocknroll.net/loureed/)
There are some good lyric writers, certainly, but you'll find an endless treasure trove of the English language in fiction, poetry, etc. Always remember this point-- your lyrics should have music in them. Much of the best prose (and poetry, too, obviously) has rhythm, and when you see it on the page you can hear it. If you want to develop this in your own writing, take a break from listening to records once in a while and read a book. Reed was influenced by Raymond Chandler, because of Chandler's ability to use language to put a picture in the reader's mind. As Reed put it, when Chandler described someone, "Boom, you can see it."
(IF THERE IS MORE, YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING HERE)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
