I was definitely guilty of this even up to a few years ago, and realizing it back then helped me start moving forward a lot faster. It wasn't long after that that I started learning a new instrument and decided to start writing with it as soon as I was competent enough to get a few good recording takes -- and that was an even bigger eye-opener because while the songs I was writing were definitely simpler than before, they weren't worse. I've given myself a few loose rules since then when it comes to complex chords and and time signatures that help me to use them in ways that work instead of ways that are just *there*. Even so, I still don't like major keys and probably never will. ;)
So what do you think of pieces like "the world's ugliest music" ua-cam.com/video/RENk9PK06AQ/v-deo.html where the intent is more to see what something would sound like if it were turned into music than to sound nice?
There is a saying that goes in the field of industrial design: "A good design is not when there is nothing to add. A good design is when there is nothing to remove." In a nutshell, focus on the desired function.
That quote is a twist on a quote by St-Exupéry, an amazing French writer (the Little Prince is his most known work). The original was about engineering, but it applies to most creative purposes tbh!
I was in a composition class a couple of years back, and we were given an assignment to write a song based off of a poem about grief. About half the class ended up doing theirs in a major key and all happy sounding to subvert the expectation of it being grim because it's about grief. Needless to say, only a few of the songs actually worked. This one woman wrote a song that actually built very dramatically in tension before coming to a sudden stop where she turned her focus around to overcome the grief. Sometimes making your work memorable isn't about making it the most unique; it's about making it fit the narrative.
Personally I think depressing lyrics over happy sounding music is a pretty good way to avoid sounding cringey and whiny though. I mean look at Semi-Charmed Life, it's literally about being addicted to crystal meth, but it gets tons of radio play because it's set to an upbeat poppy tune.
@@danieljensen2626 it’s definitely a technique that can work and adds humour. Just listen to Morrissey or The Smiths. Girlfriend in a Coma, for example.
@@catwalkcool One of my favorites is The Best of Times, which start with sad instrumental, then comes the memories of good times with bright vocals and fast tempo, but later there's the tragedy and ultil the end the song becomes more sad, even that doesn't seem the end of the world for the person telling the story (the band's drummer, Mike Portnoy, about his father). Oh, the gorgeous 4 minutes long guitar solo...
I'm not against the idea of putting intellect first, it's all very interesting so I can see enjoying music primarily for that, but anything I personally learn is to help me explore the emotional side first and to be interesting second. People say something similar about the writing process, you learn a lot, becoming familiar with how* things are put together and finding new stuff along the way, but when you're actually writing or improvising, you just go where your feelings take you, now with the ability to express it better.
I’m a painter, and you remind me of a tip from a professor. He told me to stop trying to blend in a highlight-“lean into it. Tell everyone you know it’s there, and it’s SUPPOSED to be there!”
The best tip for songwriting I've ever heard is "do it for the song" Don't try to show off or do something complex just for the sake of complexity. Complex harmony and technical playing have their place, but a shredy guitar solo isn't necessarily the best in a slow acoustic ballad. And a melodic guitar solo might not be best for the brutal tech death song you're doing. Everything has its place, so learn where that is and don't force it into somewhere it doesn't fit.
I think this accounts for most music genres except for people who deliberately want to go against the grain by experimenting with different things and fusing genres. I'm not knocking the advice, it's solid in like 9/10 situations, but it's worth considering that a lot of great abstract music comes as a result of throwing away normal conventions in favor of mixing and matching things that most people might believe don't fit together at all.
12Tone: I wrote these series of arpeggios that ran all up and down the coloratura register, never repeating, getting gradually higher and more rhythmically intense throughout the section Me, a soprano singer: ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HER???
I mean, given what I know about anyone dealing with soloists, especially sopranos... maybe? He certainly wouldn't be the first, although pianists seem the most likely to do it on purpose.
"If I tell you the next piece of music you're gonna create will never play on the radio, no one will listen to it, nobody will notice it would you still do it? And if the answer is anything but a clear 'yes', then you shouldn't." - Steve Vai
@@anameyoucantremember The point here is to gain freedom as a composer without expectations, as expectations are just stress. Then you can do whatever you want without fear of rejection or criticism, or have your composing handicapped by said expectations.
I have been trying to write songs for decades. I now have two that I am reasonably pleased with. The difference was hearing someone say that when I am stuck for what to do next I should just do the most obvious thing that comes to mind. It's the KISS principle and if it seems obvious then mot likely it will fit. I can then tweak it a little if that sounds better but at least I know it works.
So my grandfather is a classical violinist who played in the BBC SSO. I remember, as a kid, playing him a melody I'd written on the piano. I remember starting to feel a little embarrassed halfway through and apologising to him as I realised that what I'd written wasnt . . . Very . . . 'Clever' (I was put through, and passed my ABRSM grade 5 music theory at about 11 years old? My mum is also a classically trained musician so music as an academic pursuit was a big thing in my family). He gave me some of the best advice I've ever heard. He said, "dont apologise - write the music that sounds good - that's you're starting point. Some of the greatest pieces of music ever written started with very simple, but very beautiful ideas. Simple can be good - do more with less". That's when I realised that writing music is a case of . . . Be clever if you want, but only if it serves, and doesnt detract from, the music. You can be clever and end up with good music - but you have to be very careful about how you do it.
Radiohead is a great example of complex theory implemented into songs without being forced. They’ll do the craziest rhythms and chords and it’s all because the song needed it
That is a hard sell. I've been a Radiohead fan since the 90's, but they often begin their songs with the intent of going against the grain, doing something challenging to themselves and honestly flexing. Their songs are born out of an artistic need to explore. So the foundation of most of their stuff is "let's get crazy" and not "hey, this is nice what does it need?"
@@sadyakubovich cause it is. It's not a bad thing. They've said in interviews that they arent happy doing the same thing. Hence every album being different.
Deciding to use one of your own works to exemplify the mistakes one can make when arranging pieces of music instead of choosing someone else's, is an incredibly generous act of your part that speaks very highly of you. This is one of the reasons I love your channel. Also, I love the concept of hand-drawn images matched to your voice and it always makes me wonder how you came about with that concept for your videos and how you actually execute it. I imagine you first record your voice and then play it back and pause it every now and then to make a drawing that matches each sentence while filming your hand, and then edit it. Nevertheless, it's a very cute, simple yet incredibly awesome concept.
me, writing on my piano: every diatonic chord besides the tonic NEEDS to be at LEAST a 7/maj7/min7 me, when presenting my ideas to the group: yeah... maybe not
In my experience there’s almost always ways to add extensions to a chord but it’s not always as easy as just tacking on a seventh you have to know what color/function you’re going for
I've been thinking about this a lot lately! One example from my own endeavours: I had this really nice melody, and it was pretty simple: almost all stepwise motion and basically just straight crotchets with the odd triplet. But it was only the first 8 bars of what needed to be a 16 bar melody, so I added this whole new bit with a ton of fancy syncopations and octave leaps, and I thought it was great until I listened all the way through and realised that the second half sounded completely incoherent. So I replaced it with a barely altered repetition of the first half, and guess what? It worked better like that.
Every _savoury_ prepared food, you mean. And you should still use it sparingly -- too much salt will definitely ruin any dish, no matter how good every other part of it is. 😉
@@cobrasys. Umm you add salt to sweets, you add it to sour things. Salt can do more than make something salty. It’s main purpose in a lot of dishes is to make the tastes of a dish more pronounced without making them taste like salt. Yes, you use salt in EVERYTHING. Very few things don’t have salt for this reason.
@Epic Terry. Ummm if you like the taste of meat, what your tasting is salt. Meat without anything on it (and that hasn’t been processed, which is when they add salt) is actually really bland and doesn’t have any major taste to it. Fruits are great without salts as they are designed to be eaten. But most things taste better with salt. This is because salt can do more than make something taste salty, it boldens the flavors already present.
I play guitar but I’m not really a “musician” like this. This was in my recommended, but it’s crazy how much writing music and creating visual art is related. Not getting hyper focused on one part, constantly stepping back to look at the whole. Not doing complicated details or lighting tricks just because you can. It all relates.
as a college jazz soloist, this info works just as well for someone bately getting into soloing who wants to pull off some giant steps esc solo right off the bat
Jetpenguin Giant Steps really has a simple solo, though. It’s almost all chord tones. The chord changes are complex, but the solo is about as simple as you can get over those changes.
Reminds me what one of the senior devs at my first job always used to say - perfection is not achieved when there‘s nothing more to add. Perfection is achieved when there‘s nothing left to take away.
Great video. I always say, "Everything in service to the song." If it doesn't serve the song - and the type of song it is within its genre - then it goes. No part of the song, including the vocals, should be viewed as an end in and of itself. Everything is a means to an end - the song.
"If it doesn't serve the song - and the type of song it is within its genre"..... If everyone walks in the middle of the path, pretty soon it will turn into a rut so deep that you can't climb out. Great bands become their own genre by following the first part of what you said, "Everything in service to the song." There are too many labels in the world, and musical genres, and their specificity, have become ludicrous.
My most recent song: Uses triads in the chords, then let the scale be dictated by what the melody was doing, and I feel like it turned out good, and I'm proud of it. 12tone: "Don't get clever." Me, still new to music making: *_NERVOUS SWEAT_*
I feel like the “kill your darlings” (although I always heard it as “kill your babies”) is really powerful advice in any situation where you’re creating something.
The fear of doing this is one of the things that makes it really hard to write for me, every bar needs to feel perfect and nice, but also fear making things too simple
It's also important to experiment to know your own style, and to know exactly where the very thin and blurry line of "too much" "😊editing" and "trying to be clever" is.
When I was writing my more experimental songs, I would call in random classmates from the hallway to listen to my work with fresh ears. I found that i could get too used to the complex chords with non chord tones in the melody and having people that had never heard it before tell me how it made them feel really helped
Funny, when I look back on my oldest songs (that actually had chords instead of just lyrics) I'm frequently pleasantly surprised by my naivete, which would result in bizarre choices that I actually like. Like, one of my songs was meant to be a psychedelic garage rock song, but I chose to switch between 3/4 and 2/4 and use a 13th dominant chord as the basis of the progression. I looked at it and thought "What the heck? Since when does psychedelic garage rock do that?" but I decided to go through with it and found that it actually worked.
There’s something to be said about someone who’s able to make something “simple”, being alright with it, and then using the simplicity to emphasize other parts of a song.
As someone who is writing a musical, I couldn’t agree more- I always want to use really complex chords in my songs but sometimes it’s best to stick with the basics in order to better convey the plot. I’m really glad this video was recommended to me!
I've thought this about my own creative process for so long, but I could never put this into words. There are so many old pieces of mine which I wish desperately I hadn't tried to be so clever with. Thank you so much for making this video!
Also called, “yeah, I’m human too”. I love gethsemene (sp). Its got such a powerful vocal arch to shove the singer through this almost devastating range of emotion from tired maybe scared, to the anger, to the almost pitiful resignation. Would you ever do a vid to show how those emotional ranges are delivered by the music, and not just the lyrics and vocal presentation. (And to this day, ive not seen a version as well done as Neeley’s)
A very important thing to remember. Thank you for reminding me. As probably everyone else I've been there too: putting something in for no purpose. But there is a thing that is even worse than having to many smart ideas: when you actually managed to get something perfect and then think it could be a little better. When you are trying to improve what is perfect, you are destroying it.
Yeah my dad has experience with songwriting, and I’m learning. I’m more experienced with my instrument and composition than with vocals or writing lyrics. But I’m mostly self taught with a few years of lessons, some classes here and there, and tons of UA-cam videos like this one. My dad’s best advice for me starting out has been to keep it simple. A simple chord progression and song structure is easier to write to for beginner songwriters. And as I’ve gotten into having my music produced I’ve learned more and more about what I need to prioritize. I think actually producing and releasing my music has been the greatest learning experience for me because I get to see what I do and don’t like from my previous work. Working with other musicians/producers/songwriters has taught me so much. And as I write and record more and more songs, I find myself wanting to make them more and more simple. Every time I feel like I’ve improved in one area, I find something else that I could be doing better, so I have to simplify and practice the basics. Sometimes I can come up with some really crazy instrumental stuff, but then I’m just left with zero space for vocals. It’s just really opened my eyes as to why some songs can have really basic lyrics, or really basic instrumentation, and still sound great. It’s the choices the songwriter/producer made which are sometimes more beautiful than the words or music itself. This is also part of the reason why I’ve been slowly drawn more and more to recording with other musicians and using less digital sounds. I love the input I get from a session guitarist or a real drummer. I started off doing full on digital pop style music, and now I’m wanting to keep it to acoustic and piano for a bit. And obviously, sometimes you’ve just gotta know when a song isn’t good enough and you just have to let it go. And then you also have to know when a song you’re working on is as good as you can make it right now, and you just have to put it out there and learn from your mistakes for the next one. This has been my experience anyways. I’m still very far from being as good of a songwriter/composer as I want to be, but I’m learning, improving, and having fun.
You unknowingly just called me out for all the things preventing me from writing and finishing good songs and I'm so thankful for it. Just wish you'd written this video five years earlier and hand delivered it to my doorstep. This was a wonderful video. I feel like I had basically been learning that over the time that I've been teaching myself songwriting but it always helps to have someone reinforce what you think.
My music teacher had me write him music to play on violin. I used "all" the notes chromaticly 32nd notes up down all around never repeating anything. It wasn't a very good sounding piece with a few surprisingly lucky spots. The difficulty and acrobatics involved was top notch... I was a young shred guitarist. Haha It was fun, I got an A and realized next time to pick a key center.
Just here out of curiosity. I am what is known as ‘tone deaf’, which makes music without lyrics a problem for me. My brother, who had perfect pitch, said I cannot distinguish notes in the same Octave (whatever that is). Music which to my hear repeats endlessly the ‘same’ notes is physically hard on me. Music really needs a reasonable range of sounds to be what my father called “sound arriving on the ear at random intervals”. Keep us mere amusias in mind when you compose that masterpiece.
I've been writing and producing my own music for about ten years now, and this problem was easily the single biggest thing holding me back from making a good song. I can not stress hard enough how important this is for beginning composers. EVERYTHING you write needs to be in service of the song as a whole; and when in doubt, "KISS!" Keep It Simple, Stupid!
@4:55 is more important mixing advice than anything and everything else on youtube. That's such a simple idea, I can't believe I've never done that before.
I truly appreciate all the information you’ve obviously worked hard to learn and doubly appreciate your skill in sharing your hard-earned knowledge so effectively. So cool! Love your channel
It’s not hard to write something complicated, but it is hard to write something complicated that makes sense to the overall compositional elements of the the piece.
Trying to write a song is the biggest obstacle to doing it. They rise like butterflies. The more you try to catch one, the farther away it goes. Melody and lyrics are mysterious things that come to you usually when you least expect them. Steven Stills said that he thought that his songs came to him from somewhere else and that he was just the conduit. I think he got that right for all of us.
The issue is broader than just "trying to be clever" - it's in approaching music as an intellectual exercise. If you want to create something that will move people, you need to start with a feeling and translate it into music. Noodling until you find a feeling is good, too, but once you find it you've gotta treat it as the heart of the piece. Applying music theory without any emotional direction is a recipe for bland, forgettable nonsense - regardless of how much it might make sense intellectually. You need to feel it, and let your intuition take the lead in putting that feeling to music. Of course, that's the second part of the puzzle. The first is in building up your intuitions. Learning music theory, critically evaluating existing works, and synthesising your own ideas through active thought are such important tools to building up that library in your subconscious from which your intuition draws while creating. And doing that takes a lot of time and practice. Still, when actually writing music you need to turn-off your critical thinking and just let your intuition run free - stepping-in only when it starts losing focus / losing sight of the core emotion of the piece.
I needed to see this - I annoy myself by constantly George Lucas-ing my own music constantly making little tweaks to my songs until they're unrecognisable. One of the positives of lockdown has been having the time to go back to these songs (while unable to rehearse them with my band) and look at them holistically. In every case I've ended up reverting the songs back to something much closer to their original not-overthought forms, realising that I'd lost sight of what actually made them organic and exciting before I started trying to make them more clever. So yeah as you say: don't overthink your music for the sake of making it more intricate.
"Just because you CAN do something, it doesn't necessarily follow that you SHOULD...and even less so that you HAVE TO." Don't know who told me that but it's damn good advice all the same.
One of the worst feelings ever as a songwriter is when you write and record a killer idea only to play it back to someone for feedback and find out you ripped off another song. Happened to me recently when I wrote a riff based on an idea a friend recorded, only to find out I just wrote a carbon copy of Scotty Doesn’t Know. I nearly died from cringe because of how long I had thought it was an original idea.
Not just any winged strawberry. That’s a golden winged strawberry, and there’s only one of them in the entire game! It’s also the only fun golden strawberry to collect haha
I've found the enemy of composition to be actually *composing.* The best tunes I've come up just happened, not having been deliberate attempts to compose a song, but ideas that came to mind when half asleep, running (including a Who Sell Out like ditty called "The Running Song" about being out for a run and having a bug fly in my mouth and down my throat), or from farting around on an instrument, even from exercises, such as drilling myself in odd timings to improve my rhythm. Anything to get me out of my head and into my fingers, limbs, voice, and heart. If it's just a song in my head that's not played on an instrument, then actually figuring out the arrangement can be a very involved process to make the instruments play something like what my mind hears. As an aside, The Prisoner is one of my fave TV series of all time, too.
It's interesting to me to see how some folks see music in such a precise way. But I'm glad that I still hear music in a non-technical fashion. I know little of scales, dissonant inversions, passing notes, chord progressions or frippertronics for that matter. I'm pretty sure that, IF I knew music theory and tried to follow it's rules, that I would constantly be second guessing every thing I did. And I think that that would paralyze me. I just mess around on my guitar (usually) until I hear something I like. Then try to flesh that thought out, until it sounds good to me regardless whether it's the "proper" use of that chord, time signature, note, etc... With the little I know of music theory...I wouldn't realize it if I did. I'm not trying to produce a technical masterpiece anyway. I just want something fun for me and my friends to play together. Or something that my non-musician friends like to hear me play for them. I guess what I'm try to say is that; If music ever became a job to me and I ended up analyzing each piece I heard. I think that it would lose those "magical" properties I love and I'd never be able to hear it the same way again.
I sometimes work and work at making something fit. It's clever and it sounds interesting but doesn't work. At some point I put it in the "revisit this idea later" pile and try a completely different approach. I just wish I could learn to move on sooner rather than waste so much time on a doomed song idea.
It's not a waste of time if you do use that idea later. It may be that you really didn't need the time sink right that moment, but at least there's some hope of getting it back. I usually have 0 to 1 front-and-center projects, one on the side, and a couple on the back burners getting cold. It helps deal with pipeline stalls like that.
Yeah, for almost a year now I've been writing a song a week (or so) for a music weeklies challenge group on twitter... in the end you have to be cut-throat about moving on or nothing ever gets done. I leave one or two tracks at the bottom just to drag ideas "for later" if they aren't working right but I'm afraid to delete them. Easier to put your darlings in a corner than to kill them outright. (And I can always go back and listen to them later to see if they really were working better than I thought at the time... but 90% of the time I never listen to them again.)
Sometimes it takes a lot of scratch ideas to get to the gems... Plus the more experience the better you get at it. I noticed my songwriting get better with more experience and simplier. Sometimes less really is more
I used a similar philosophy with home recording as well. i'd give myself a time limit, almost always 30 minutes, to record all instrumental and vocal tracks. After the half hour, I stopped and worked with whatever I had. It really helped me to stop overthinking arrangements. One or two harmony vocals max, and nothing too complex. After using this approach for a couple of years, I began to notice the similarities that ran through most of the work. Certain intervals I would favour with voices, and how I would balance 2 guitar parts. I think that's how I learned what I would, hesitatingly, call my "sound". As opposed to "style", which takes far more deliberation.
5:44 Great example of this: U2 was working on Achtung Baby (presumably sometime in 1989 or 1990), specifically the song, “Mysterious Ways”. The band was frustrated, trying to shoehorn a bridge section into “Mysterious Ways”. Ultimately, the entirety of that bridge section was scrapped. However, one of the chord progressions they wanted to use in that ill-fated bridge section was Am - Dsus2 - Fmaj7 - G, which became the verse progression for another song on Achtung Baby: “One”.
I first misread "the surprising Enemy of God songwriting", which is an awesome thrash metal track from the german band Kreator, you got my hopes high man :(
Your point regarding covers makes me think of Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt… at first glance it sounds completely different, but listen to it back to back with the Reznor’s original and it’s extremely faithful. All Cash did was strip it down to the bare minimum being three repeating chords for the verse and four chords for the chorus with a couple of supporting background instruments for intensity at the appropriate moments. Cash didn’t even bother with intricate strumming patterns… all down strums. Pure genius in that way that so few musicians seem to be able to do.
While watching this video somehow the name Jacob Collier popped up in my head: Amazing superhuman musical abilities that I remember, but his music, err... nope.
I guess he is still pretty much aware of what he is doing, his cover of "Fix You" for example. It's very minimalistic (only his voice and piano), not overcomplex towards harmony/arrangement (what he could've easily done) but leaving a slight aftertaste, not ruining the original atmosphere. So, my point is that he does have the understanding of where it becomes "more serious" and where he have the full field to experiment with his bizarre ideas.
Great video ! I think there is something you didn't talk about and I find it very important, The best arrangements always make sure there is a simple ideas (per section) of the rythem, Melody and harmony that you can and should focus on, an extreme example to this is the song my Sharona, the song is simple but also powerful because you have this rhythem idea you understand and the whole band is playing around it, a more complex idea will be the pyramid song, there is still a basic idea the whole band is playing around. last example will be beethoven fifth symphony, the simple idea of the beginning, is the main idea, you can here it well and most people will follow this line (even if it changes the instrument) My point is, you have to know where is the listener will focus on and make sure you don't make them change what they should focus on every second.
If you are wondering whether an element belongs in your piece you only need to ask yourself some simple questions; what does it mean? Why is it there? What vibe or sound does it create? What sound do you want to create? As long as you understand the purpose of the song and allow that to guide you, you will find the necessary harmonic elements.
I'm no music expert, but I have written a few songs. I agree with you on feeling clever. When I write naturally, it's some of my best work. When I try something strange, I either get it by making it natural or it sounds atrocious because I try to feel smart or cool.
Michael Jackson King of popular music once said you send writers block unto yourself because it only comes in to being when you create it you create it when you say so
Try CuriosityStream free and get Nebula included: www.curiositystream.com/12tone and use promo code "12tone"
Did you draw a T.A.R.D.I.S around the 2:47 mark?
@@ehrichweiss yup
Left handed, Number 12tone...
I was definitely guilty of this even up to a few years ago, and realizing it back then helped me start moving forward a lot faster. It wasn't long after that that I started learning a new instrument and decided to start writing with it as soon as I was competent enough to get a few good recording takes -- and that was an even bigger eye-opener because while the songs I was writing were definitely simpler than before, they weren't worse.
I've given myself a few loose rules since then when it comes to complex chords and and time signatures that help me to use them in ways that work instead of ways that are just *there*.
Even so, I still don't like major keys and probably never will. ;)
So what do you think of pieces like "the world's ugliest music" ua-cam.com/video/RENk9PK06AQ/v-deo.html where the intent is more to see what something would sound like if it were turned into music than to sound nice?
There is a saying that goes in the field of industrial design: "A good design is not when there is nothing to add. A good design is when there is nothing to remove." In a nutshell, focus on the desired function.
Love it!. Gonna write that one down
That quote is a twist on a quote by St-Exupéry, an amazing French writer (the Little Prince is his most known work). The original was about engineering, but it applies to most creative purposes tbh!
That is until you’re Apple and you’ve created a laptop that can’t hook up a drive and charge itself at the same time!
@@taejun9017 if you create a laptop that can charge ITSELF then you can have all the money in the world
Eg- “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road”
"You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, that you never considered whether or not you should."
Literally the whole summary of the video.
Was literally about to comment this. We have similar minds, my friend!
That's why he drew a dinosaur in a circle, young padawan.
I hoped so much when hearing him say that that he would reference Jurassic Park. I was so happy he did lol
I was wondering what the JP reference was for!
Silence is an instrument too. Never underestimate the power of simplicity.
Can you hear the silence?
@@N8-Feds Yes. When you hear nothing, it's the nothing, that you hear.
@@thesabbath483 can you see the dark : k
@@N8-Feds Yes
@@thesabbath483 it dissapoints me how you dont know the song
I was in a composition class a couple of years back, and we were given an assignment to write a song based off of a poem about grief. About half the class ended up doing theirs in a major key and all happy sounding to subvert the expectation of it being grim because it's about grief. Needless to say, only a few of the songs actually worked. This one woman wrote a song that actually built very dramatically in tension before coming to a sudden stop where she turned her focus around to overcome the grief. Sometimes making your work memorable isn't about making it the most unique; it's about making it fit the narrative.
Personally I think depressing lyrics over happy sounding music is a pretty good way to avoid sounding cringey and whiny though. I mean look at Semi-Charmed Life, it's literally about being addicted to crystal meth, but it gets tons of radio play because it's set to an upbeat poppy tune.
@@danieljensen2626 it’s definitely a technique that can work and adds humour. Just listen to Morrissey or The Smiths. Girlfriend in a Coma, for example.
beatles happiness is a warm gun is an example of what she did
@@catwalkcool One of my favorites is The Best of Times, which start with sad instrumental, then comes the memories of good times with bright vocals and fast tempo, but later there's the tragedy and ultil the end the song becomes more sad, even that doesn't seem the end of the world for the person telling the story (the band's drummer, Mike Portnoy, about his father). Oh, the gorgeous 4 minutes long guitar solo...
Major key doesn't mean happy sounding though. The best and saddest Lieder I know are in major.
“Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.”
- Maurice Ravel
I'm not against the idea of putting intellect first, it's all very interesting so I can see enjoying music primarily for that, but anything I personally learn is to help me explore the emotional side first and to be interesting second. People say something similar about the writing process, you learn a lot, becoming familiar with how* things are put together and finding new stuff along the way, but when you're actually writing or improvising, you just go where your feelings take you, now with the ability to express it better.
I generally agree, but a lot of early minimalist music, like Music in Fifths by Glass or Reich’s strict phasing pieces
I have written a lot of emotional pieces, but almost of them suck.
Lyricism is intellectual.
Cool songwriting notebooks for writing lyrics and notes are on amazon, just type "hungry man songwriting notebook" into the amazon search engine
Me not knowing any music theory: Oh this sounds kinda cool, let's put it in.
Lol same
same boat omg
You and 100,000 other writers my dude
I know a bit of theory, but whenever I try to apply it, it sounds like shit. Things tend to flow better when I just start strummimg
The difference between an amateur and a professional is knowing how much cool is too much cool.
I’m a painter, and you remind me of a tip from a professor. He told me to stop trying to blend in a highlight-“lean into it. Tell everyone you know it’s there, and it’s SUPPOSED to be there!”
Great advice! Having confidence in contrasts is a good thing. Music or painting, it's all art.
Or as Adam Neely would say "Repetition Legitimizes."
Just play it again and again until it sounds like you meant to do it.
@@Jaspertine BASS
@@Jaspertine Not sure that "you meant to do it" always translates to "it works", though.
Just make it a happy little tree.
The best tip for songwriting I've ever heard is "do it for the song"
Don't try to show off or do something complex just for the sake of complexity.
Complex harmony and technical playing have their place, but a shredy guitar solo isn't necessarily the best in a slow acoustic ballad. And a melodic guitar solo might not be best for the brutal tech death song you're doing.
Everything has its place, so learn where that is and don't force it into somewhere it doesn't fit.
Led Zeppelin were masters at mixing it up though, like starting with a slow ballad like feel and by the end Jimmy Page is shredding it up
TokyoBlue That's true, but he wasn't shredding the beginning of Stairway lol
Tell that to Captain Beefheart with trout mask replica lmao
I used to tell players to learn the 13th note. They'd ask what that is and I'd say, "It's the one where you don't play for 16 bars."
I think this accounts for most music genres except for people who deliberately want to go against the grain by experimenting with different things and fusing genres.
I'm not knocking the advice, it's solid in like 9/10 situations, but it's worth considering that a lot of great abstract music comes as a result of throwing away normal conventions in favor of mixing and matching things that most people might believe don't fit together at all.
12Tone: I wrote these series of arpeggios that ran all up and down the coloratura register, never repeating, getting gradually higher and more rhythmically intense throughout the section
Me, a soprano singer: ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HER???
Eh, nobody will miss a soprano.
Sincerely, the poor blown out tenor :P
Jonathan Cruz Cole Here’s an F for you and the rest of the fallen
F2
I mean, given what I know about anyone dealing with soloists, especially sopranos... maybe?
He certainly wouldn't be the first, although pianists seem the most likely to do it on purpose.
How rings of saturn write guitar solos
"If I tell you the next piece of music you're gonna create will never play on the radio, no one will listen to it, nobody will notice it would you still do it? And if the answer is anything but a clear 'yes', then you shouldn't." - Steve Vai
Nobody's ever heard -nor will ever hear- all the music I have created for 20 years. Steve would be proud of me.
@@anameyoucantremember The point here is to gain freedom as a composer without expectations, as expectations are just stress. Then you can do whatever you want without fear of rejection or criticism, or have your composing handicapped by said expectations.
Clear yes
Especially when the industry is more about business rather than the actual art.
I have been trying to write songs for decades. I now have two that I am reasonably pleased with. The difference was hearing someone say that when I am stuck for what to do next I should just do the most obvious thing that comes to mind. It's the KISS principle and if it seems obvious then mot likely it will fit. I can then tweak it a little if that sounds better but at least I know it works.
So my grandfather is a classical violinist who played in the BBC SSO.
I remember, as a kid, playing him a melody I'd written on the piano.
I remember starting to feel a little embarrassed halfway through and apologising to him as I realised that what I'd written wasnt . . . Very . . . 'Clever' (I was put through, and passed my ABRSM grade 5 music theory at about 11 years old? My mum is also a classically trained musician so music as an academic pursuit was a big thing in my family).
He gave me some of the best advice I've ever heard.
He said, "dont apologise - write the music that sounds good - that's you're starting point. Some of the greatest pieces of music ever written started with very simple, but very beautiful ideas. Simple can be good - do more with less".
That's when I realised that writing music is a case of . . . Be clever if you want, but only if it serves, and doesnt detract from, the music.
You can be clever and end up with good music - but you have to be very careful about how you do it.
It's so important, but in such a competitive business like music, you're so tempted to go the extra mile, making you lose sight of the bigger picture.
thanks for that 🙏
“Experienced songwriters aren’t just being clever for the fun of it...”
MF DOOM laughs maniacally
Hes like a real internet supervillain. "Songwriters HATE him. Click here to find out why!"
@@theNickRYG lmao
Mad respect for using ALL CAPS when spelling the man's name
Don’t think he talking about wordplay there
Spot on comment mate 😁
Radiohead is a great example of complex theory implemented into songs without being forced. They’ll do the craziest rhythms and chords and it’s all because the song needed it
Agree 100%
No alarms, but still surprising.
That is a hard sell. I've been a Radiohead fan since the 90's, but they often begin their songs with the intent of going against the grain, doing something challenging to themselves and honestly flexing.
Their songs are born out of an artistic need to explore. So the foundation of most of their stuff is "let's get crazy" and not "hey, this is nice what does it need?"
I love radiohead, but honestly it does feel forced sometimes
@@sadyakubovich cause it is. It's not a bad thing. They've said in interviews that they arent happy doing the same thing. Hence every album being different.
Deciding to use one of your own works to exemplify the mistakes one can make when arranging pieces of music instead of choosing someone else's, is an incredibly generous act of your part that speaks very highly of you. This is one of the reasons I love your channel.
Also, I love the concept of hand-drawn images matched to your voice and it always makes me wonder how you came about with that concept for your videos and how you actually execute it. I imagine you first record your voice and then play it back and pause it every now and then to make a drawing that matches each sentence while filming your hand, and then edit it. Nevertheless, it's a very cute, simple yet incredibly awesome concept.
the hand-drawn story board is so entertaining and also makes it a lot easier to absorb and understand the arguments given. love it!
That ad was SOOOO smooth.
I watch these things just to see how he'll transition to the ad.
no that is probably the worst comment in history.
I saw this and expected an actual ad. It really caught me off guard holy hell😂
I appreciate your Small World logo my guy 👌
Still an ad
me, writing on my piano: every diatonic chord besides the tonic NEEDS to be at LEAST a 7/maj7/min7
me, when presenting my ideas to the group: yeah... maybe not
This is called jazz. Flip through a real book and count the number of triads- there aren't many
a d d 9
In my experience there’s almost always ways to add extensions to a chord but it’s not always as easy as just tacking on a seventh you have to know what color/function you’re going for
i do this a lot
I am incredibly guilty of this. I have to force myself to use straight major and minor chords.
When you talked about your hard drive last year, I didn't even think about your music. I send my condolences.
Ah yes
same
I've been thinking about this a lot lately! One example from my own endeavours: I had this really nice melody, and it was pretty simple: almost all stepwise motion and basically just straight crotchets with the odd triplet. But it was only the first 8 bars of what needed to be a 16 bar melody, so I added this whole new bit with a ton of fancy syncopations and octave leaps, and I thought it was great until I listened all the way through and realised that the second half sounded completely incoherent. So I replaced it with a barely altered repetition of the first half, and guess what? It worked better like that.
Love this
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should"
- What every musician needs to hear at some point
Oh twaddle. music would have stagnated and never evolved with that attitude, electronic music would still only be used to scare and startle people.
"Advanced harmonic concepts should be used sparingly"
Draws salt, the one ingredient that should be used in literally every prepared food.
Every _savoury_ prepared food, you mean. And you should still use it sparingly -- too much salt will definitely ruin any dish, no matter how good every other part of it is. 😉
@@cobrasys. Umm you add salt to sweets, you add it to sour things. Salt can do more than make something salty. It’s main purpose in a lot of dishes is to make the tastes of a dish more pronounced without making them taste like salt. Yes, you use salt in EVERYTHING. Very few things don’t have salt for this reason.
@Epic Terry. Ummm if you like the taste of meat, what your tasting is salt. Meat without anything on it (and that hasn’t been processed, which is when they add salt) is actually really bland and doesn’t have any major taste to it.
Fruits are great without salts as they are designed to be eaten. But most things taste better with salt. This is because salt can do more than make something taste salty, it boldens the flavors already present.
@@jacobbass6437 I never said we don't do those things, but there are a LOT of prepared foods you don't add salt to.
@@jacobbass6437 Someone seems a little salty.
"I hear you talking, but you're not saying anything" -David Byrne, Talking Heads
"flying saucers? levitation ... well, I can do that!" - Matt Damon
I play guitar but I’m not really a “musician” like this. This was in my recommended, but it’s crazy how much writing music and creating visual art is related. Not getting hyper focused on one part, constantly stepping back to look at the whole. Not doing complicated details or lighting tricks just because you can. It all relates.
as a college jazz soloist, this info works just as well for someone bately getting into soloing who wants to pull off some giant steps esc solo right off the bat
Jetpenguin Giant Steps really has a simple solo, though. It’s almost all chord tones. The chord changes are complex, but the solo is about as simple as you can get over those changes.
Yeah, especially the piano. Cause the key changes were so hard. I've never played giant steps but my respect to the complexity of the arrangement.
K.I.S.S keep it simple stupid (no one actually is stupid just for the sake of the acronym)
🔴Download this freestyle beat for FREE to improve your skills🔥
🌐ua-cam.com/video/eF2Ah1bjM4Y/v-deo.html
Reminds me what one of the senior devs at my first job always used to say - perfection is not achieved when there‘s nothing more to add. Perfection is achieved when there‘s nothing left to take away.
Great video. I always say, "Everything in service to the song." If it doesn't serve the song - and the type of song it is within its genre - then it goes. No part of the song, including the vocals, should be viewed as an end in and of itself. Everything is a means to an end - the song.
"If it doesn't serve the song - and the type of song it is within its genre"..... If everyone walks in the middle of the path, pretty soon it will turn into a rut so deep that you can't climb out. Great bands become their own genre by following the first part of what you said, "Everything in service to the song." There are too many labels in the world, and musical genres, and their specificity, have become ludicrous.
2:43 “it didn’t need to be there” *draws Navi from OOT*
I started laughing maniacally when I saw that. Navi was the SCURGE of my childhood!
My most recent song: Uses triads in the chords, then let the scale be dictated by what the melody was doing, and I feel like it turned out good, and I'm proud of it.
12tone: "Don't get clever."
Me, still new to music making: *_NERVOUS SWEAT_*
don’t worry! “don’t be clever” is the opposite of beginners luck! if you don’t know it’s clever then you won’t treat it like your darling
if it sounds good in the end, keep it!
I feel like the “kill your darlings” (although I always heard it as “kill your babies”) is really powerful advice in any situation where you’re creating something.
Kill your darlings sounds like something straight out of bioshock.
prolly better advice for not creating something.
I love you guys so much, congrats for 10 years and thank you for everything.
The fear of doing this is one of the things that makes it really hard to write for me, every bar needs to feel perfect and nice, but also fear making things too simple
It's also important to experiment to know your own style, and to know exactly where the very thin and blurry line of "too much" "😊editing" and "trying to be clever" is.
just noticed he's left handed.... after about 10 videos
I never noticed he's left handed even though I'm left handed myself. 😅
@@lisazoria2709 I'm left handed too 😂
So am I and neither did realise..
I think I actually just assumed he had flipped the image in post...
i feel like a lot of musicians are left-handed. its probably cause we're right-brained!
When I was writing my more experimental songs, I would call in random classmates from the hallway to listen to my work with fresh ears. I found that i could get too used to the complex chords with non chord tones in the melody and having people that had never heard it before tell me how it made them feel really helped
Funny, when I look back on my oldest songs (that actually had chords instead of just lyrics) I'm frequently pleasantly surprised by my naivete, which would result in bizarre choices that I actually like.
Like, one of my songs was meant to be a psychedelic garage rock song, but I chose to switch between 3/4 and 2/4 and use a 13th dominant chord as the basis of the progression. I looked at it and thought "What the heck? Since when does psychedelic garage rock do that?" but I decided to go through with it and found that it actually worked.
Besides when I'm actually playing chords, I don't compose with them... I mean, riffs and melodies. I just choose notes that I think sound good.
"Never be clever for the sake of being clever" - Glenn Gould ("So You Want to Write a Fugue")
You've got the nerve to write a fugue?
For a canon in inversion is a dangerous diversion
@@divisix024 And a little augmentation is a serious temptation
thanks I get it now
I was looking for that comment. :P
"back then i could hit that high g"... so when you were, a young one, you could hit that high note?
I really felt that g and I am currently crying a lot of eyeliner.
Gold
@@FreezepondMapping i thought you were calling me a g for a second there
@@badmanjones179 A real g knows the g
But was he doing it the G Way
There’s something to be said about someone who’s able to make something “simple”, being alright with it, and then using the simplicity to emphasize other parts of a song.
That high G on pinao gives me a tingle at the back of my MCRmy brain.
SAME
I was looking for that comment
pinao
pinao
when I was a young pinao
my pinao
took me into the pinao
to see a marching...pinao ?
As someone who is writing a musical, I couldn’t agree more- I always want to use really complex chords in my songs but sometimes it’s best to stick with the basics in order to better convey the plot. I’m really glad this video was recommended to me!
that high g was a jump scare
I've thought this about my own creative process for so long, but I could never put this into words. There are so many old pieces of mine which I wish desperately I hadn't tried to be so clever with. Thank you so much for making this video!
>"It didnt need to be there"
>Draws Navi from The Legend Of Zelda
LMAO
O o f
"that's where things get tricky" he draws a Battletoad! too perfect!
“That sounds like a bad idea”
> Draws Pinky
“Hey!”
“Listen!”
So glad to be reminded I’m not alone in my feelings for Navi.......
Also called, “yeah, I’m human too”.
I love gethsemene (sp). Its got such a powerful vocal arch to shove the singer through this almost devastating range of emotion from tired maybe scared, to the anger, to the almost pitiful resignation. Would you ever do a vid to show how those emotional ranges are delivered by the music, and not just the lyrics and vocal presentation.
(And to this day, ive not seen a version as well done as Neeley’s)
A very important thing to remember. Thank you for reminding me. As probably everyone else I've been there too: putting something in for no purpose. But there is a thing that is even worse than having to many smart ideas: when you actually managed to get something perfect and then think it could be a little better. When you are trying to improve what is perfect, you are destroying it.
4:14: Anyone else think of “Lady Madonna” by the Beatles?
No, but now I do
Yeah, almost started singing and felt disappointed that the bass line didn't start...
@@booradley32 - same here! good ears, atimholt!
Immediately!
Yes!
"The art is in making it work." Simply TRUE.
Yeah my dad has experience with songwriting, and I’m learning. I’m more experienced with my instrument and composition than with vocals or writing lyrics. But I’m mostly self taught with a few years of lessons, some classes here and there, and tons of UA-cam videos like this one.
My dad’s best advice for me starting out has been to keep it simple. A simple chord progression and song structure is easier to write to for beginner songwriters.
And as I’ve gotten into having my music produced I’ve learned more and more about what I need to prioritize. I think actually producing and releasing my music has been the greatest learning experience for me because I get to see what I do and don’t like from my previous work. Working with other musicians/producers/songwriters has taught me so much.
And as I write and record more and more songs, I find myself wanting to make them more and more simple. Every time I feel like I’ve improved in one area, I find something else that I could be doing better, so I have to simplify and practice the basics.
Sometimes I can come up with some really crazy instrumental stuff, but then I’m just left with zero space for vocals.
It’s just really opened my eyes as to why some songs can have really basic lyrics, or really basic instrumentation, and still sound great. It’s the choices the songwriter/producer made which are sometimes more beautiful than the words or music itself.
This is also part of the reason why I’ve been slowly drawn more and more to recording with other musicians and using less digital sounds. I love the input I get from a session guitarist or a real drummer. I started off doing full on digital pop style music, and now I’m wanting to keep it to acoustic and piano for a bit.
And obviously, sometimes you’ve just gotta know when a song isn’t good enough and you just have to let it go.
And then you also have to know when a song you’re working on is as good as you can make it right now, and you just have to put it out there and learn from your mistakes for the next one.
This has been my experience anyways. I’m still very far from being as good of a songwriter/composer as I want to be, but I’m learning, improving, and having fun.
You unknowingly just called me out for all the things preventing me from writing and finishing good songs and I'm so thankful for it. Just wish you'd written this video five years earlier and hand delivered it to my doorstep. This was a wonderful video. I feel like I had basically been learning that over the time that I've been teaching myself songwriting but it always helps to have someone reinforce what you think.
My music teacher had me write him music to play on violin. I used "all" the notes chromaticly 32nd notes up down all around never repeating anything. It wasn't a very good sounding piece with a few surprisingly lucky spots. The difficulty and acrobatics involved was top notch... I was a young shred guitarist. Haha It was fun, I got an A and realized next time to pick a key center.
Just here out of curiosity. I am what is known as ‘tone deaf’, which makes music without lyrics a problem for me. My brother, who had perfect pitch, said I cannot distinguish notes in the same Octave (whatever that is). Music which to my hear repeats endlessly the ‘same’ notes is physically hard on me.
Music really needs a reasonable range of sounds to be what my father called “sound arriving on the ear at random intervals”. Keep us mere amusias in mind when you compose that masterpiece.
I've been writing and producing my own music for about ten years now, and this problem was easily the single biggest thing holding me back from making a good song. I can not stress hard enough how important this is for beginning composers. EVERYTHING you write needs to be in service of the song as a whole; and when in doubt, "KISS!" Keep It Simple, Stupid!
1:20 I can't be the only one who subconsciously expected Welcome To The Black Parade
@4:55 is more important mixing advice than anything and everything else on youtube. That's such a simple idea, I can't believe I've never done that before.
"I liked the demo better" - anyone who has listened to the demo a lot
Same with writing poetry, or (GASP!) lryics..the first pass is great; then I may (always) try to improve things a bit!
I truly appreciate all the information you’ve obviously worked hard to learn and doubly appreciate your skill in sharing your hard-earned knowledge so effectively. So cool! Love your channel
2:43 "It didn't need to be there" *draws Navi* That was savage
It’s not hard to write something complicated, but it is hard to write something complicated that makes sense to the overall compositional elements of the the piece.
1:19 say that again
When I was 😢
1:18 I had to pause the video when I realized how much I actually listen to mcr.
1:19 I wasn't expecting to tear up this early.
Thanks for another great video. Amazing content as always
1:19
did he just...
1:19 I wasn't prepared to cry 😭
WHEN I WAS
A YOUNG BOY
MY FATHER
TOOK ME INTO THE CITY
TO SEE A MARCHING BAND
Instant like for "power metal highs"
Trying to write a song is the biggest obstacle to doing it. They rise like butterflies. The more you try to catch one, the farther away it goes. Melody and lyrics are mysterious things that come to you usually when you least expect them. Steven Stills said that he thought that his songs came to him from somewhere else and that he was just the conduit. I think he got that right for all of us.
1:20 NO NOT THE HIGH G
When I was...
@@bruceartur a Young boy...
In the marching band.
@@hunni3243 well shit
"my father molested me in the marching Band"
This escaleted really quickly
The issue is broader than just "trying to be clever" - it's in approaching music as an intellectual exercise. If you want to create something that will move people, you need to start with a feeling and translate it into music. Noodling until you find a feeling is good, too, but once you find it you've gotta treat it as the heart of the piece. Applying music theory without any emotional direction is a recipe for bland, forgettable nonsense - regardless of how much it might make sense intellectually. You need to feel it, and let your intuition take the lead in putting that feeling to music.
Of course, that's the second part of the puzzle. The first is in building up your intuitions. Learning music theory, critically evaluating existing works, and synthesising your own ideas through active thought are such important tools to building up that library in your subconscious from which your intuition draws while creating. And doing that takes a lot of time and practice. Still, when actually writing music you need to turn-off your critical thinking and just let your intuition run free - stepping-in only when it starts losing focus / losing sight of the core emotion of the piece.
I needed to see this - I annoy myself by constantly George Lucas-ing my own music constantly making little tweaks to my songs until they're unrecognisable. One of the positives of lockdown has been having the time to go back to these songs (while unable to rehearse them with my band) and look at them holistically. In every case I've ended up reverting the songs back to something much closer to their original not-overthought forms, realising that I'd lost sight of what actually made them organic and exciting before I started trying to make them more clever. So yeah as you say: don't overthink your music for the sake of making it more intricate.
"Don't over-do it" - good advice for many things in life.
All of my favorite music (except classical and musical theater) is simple music, executed exceptionally well.
@Dark of the knight I'm dont disagree but this video helped me notice this fact about my own tastes.
@Dust My Broom hahahah! Exactly!
12Tone: "Didn't need to be there"
*Draws Navi*
Me: AAAAAAAAAAAH I see what you did there
"Just because you CAN do something, it doesn't necessarily follow that you SHOULD...and even less so that you HAVE TO."
Don't know who told me that but it's damn good advice all the same.
1:20
When I was
A young boy
My father
Took me into the city
if you understand that reference, we're best friends now.
To see a marching band 😭
is the pattern at 0:10 a mandelbrot set??
One of the worst feelings ever as a songwriter is when you write and record a killer idea only to play it back to someone for feedback and find out you ripped off another song. Happened to me recently when I wrote a riff based on an idea a friend recorded, only to find out I just wrote a carbon copy of Scotty Doesn’t Know. I nearly died from cringe because of how long I had thought it was an original idea.
1:18 And with that drawing of a winged strawberry, I know that disliking Celeste is impossible.
Not just any winged strawberry. That’s a golden winged strawberry, and there’s only one of them in the entire game! It’s also the only fun golden strawberry to collect haha
Mariocise Music
Should’ve noticed the crown.
Yeah, I’m aware there’s only one.
I was looking for this comment, Celeste is truly a masterpiece
I've found the enemy of composition to be actually *composing.* The best tunes I've come up just happened, not having been deliberate attempts to compose a song, but ideas that came to mind when half asleep, running (including a Who Sell Out like ditty called "The Running Song" about being out for a run and having a bug fly in my mouth and down my throat), or from farting around on an instrument, even from exercises, such as drilling myself in odd timings to improve my rhythm. Anything to get me out of my head and into my fingers, limbs, voice, and heart.
If it's just a song in my head that's not played on an instrument, then actually figuring out the arrangement can be a very involved process to make the instruments play something like what my mind hears.
As an aside, The Prisoner is one of my fave TV series of all time, too.
While I've known all this subconsciously, i needed to hear it.
It's interesting to me to see how some folks see music in such a precise way.
But I'm glad that I still hear music in a non-technical fashion.
I know little of scales, dissonant inversions, passing notes, chord progressions or frippertronics for that matter.
I'm pretty sure that, IF I knew music theory and tried to follow it's rules, that I would constantly be second guessing every thing I did.
And I think that that would paralyze me.
I just mess around on my guitar (usually) until I hear something I like.
Then try to flesh that thought out, until it sounds good to me regardless whether it's the "proper" use of that chord, time signature, note, etc...
With the little I know of music theory...I wouldn't realize it if I did.
I'm not trying to produce a technical masterpiece anyway.
I just want something fun for me and my friends to play together.
Or something that my non-musician friends like to hear me play for them.
I guess what I'm try to say is that; If music ever became a job to me and I ended up analyzing each piece I heard.
I think that it would lose those "magical" properties I love and I'd never be able to hear it the same way again.
As someone who learnt some music theory, yeah, that's the approach I take when I try to write songs.
in other words, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
Really needed this. I'm working on the arrangement on a demo and it just clicked that I was overcomplicating 💩.
I sometimes work and work at making something fit. It's clever and it sounds interesting but doesn't work. At some point I put it in the "revisit this idea later" pile and try a completely different approach. I just wish I could learn to move on sooner rather than waste so much time on a doomed song idea.
On the plus side, you now know a bunch of ways that could work i the future in the right context
It's not a waste of time if you do use that idea later. It may be that you really didn't need the time sink right that moment, but at least there's some hope of getting it back. I usually have 0 to 1 front-and-center projects, one on the side, and a couple on the back burners getting cold. It helps deal with pipeline stalls like that.
Yeah, for almost a year now I've been writing a song a week (or so) for a music weeklies challenge group on twitter... in the end you have to be cut-throat about moving on or nothing ever gets done. I leave one or two tracks at the bottom just to drag ideas "for later" if they aren't working right but I'm afraid to delete them. Easier to put your darlings in a corner than to kill them outright. (And I can always go back and listen to them later to see if they really were working better than I thought at the time... but 90% of the time I never listen to them again.)
Sometimes it takes a lot of scratch ideas to get to the gems... Plus the more experience the better you get at it. I noticed my songwriting get better with more experience and simplier. Sometimes less really is more
I used a similar philosophy with home recording as well. i'd give myself a time limit, almost always 30 minutes, to record all instrumental and vocal tracks. After the half hour, I stopped and worked with whatever I had. It really helped me to stop overthinking arrangements. One or two harmony vocals max, and nothing too complex.
After using this approach for a couple of years, I began to notice the similarities that ran through most of the work. Certain intervals I would favour with voices, and how I would balance 2 guitar parts. I think that's how I learned what I would, hesitatingly, call my "sound". As opposed to "style", which takes far more deliberation.
It's gonna sound.....
*questionable*
i love how u draw stuffs in the video while talking in the background
And for a moment I thought you were gonna analyse "Enemy of God" by Kreator, which is a banging song btw.
5:44 Great example of this: U2 was working on Achtung Baby (presumably sometime in 1989 or 1990), specifically the song, “Mysterious Ways”. The band was frustrated, trying to shoehorn a bridge section into “Mysterious Ways”. Ultimately, the entirety of that bridge section was scrapped. However, one of the chord progressions they wanted to use in that ill-fated bridge section was Am - Dsus2 - Fmaj7 - G, which became the verse progression for another song on Achtung Baby: “One”.
I first misread "the surprising Enemy of God songwriting", which is an awesome thrash metal track from the german band Kreator, you got my hopes high man :(
maybe he'll do that video next as a prank ;)
Enema of God
1:19 im a broken man. All i could hear after this was Black Parade
CARRY OOOON
ur not broken... ur just a killjoy
The song is the most important member of the band
Your point regarding covers makes me think of Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt… at first glance it sounds completely different, but listen to it back to back with the Reznor’s original and it’s extremely faithful. All Cash did was strip it down to the bare minimum being three repeating chords for the verse and four chords for the chorus with a couple of supporting background instruments for intensity at the appropriate moments. Cash didn’t even bother with intricate strumming patterns… all down strums. Pure genius in that way that so few musicians seem to be able to do.
While watching this video somehow the name Jacob Collier popped up in my head: Amazing superhuman musical abilities that I remember, but his music, err... nope.
I get what you're saying, but have you heard his latest album though?
@@heinrichskies Guess I have to check it out.
@@ezion67 yeah indeed, it feels like he is refining his style and making his music less overwhelming... and more subtly beautiful.
I guess he is still pretty much aware of what he is doing, his cover of "Fix You" for example. It's very minimalistic (only his voice and piano), not overcomplex towards harmony/arrangement (what he could've easily done) but leaving a slight aftertaste, not ruining the original atmosphere. So, my point is that he does have the understanding of where it becomes "more serious" and where he have the full field to experiment with his bizarre ideas.
Great video !
I think there is something you didn't talk about and I find it very important,
The best arrangements always make sure there is a simple ideas (per section) of the rythem, Melody and harmony that you can and should focus on, an extreme example to this is the song my Sharona, the song is simple but also powerful because you have this rhythem idea you understand and the whole band is playing around it, a more complex idea will be the pyramid song, there is still a basic idea the whole band is playing around.
last example will be beethoven fifth symphony, the simple idea of the beginning, is the main idea, you can here it well and most people will follow this line (even if it changes the instrument)
My point is, you have to know where is the listener will focus on and make sure you don't make them change what they should focus on every second.
"and I didn't stop to think about whether thay line is really what the song needed"
proceeds to draw Jurassic Park 3 logo
That E13(#11) at 3:44 was exactly the sound that your speedy monologue needed.
If you are wondering whether an element belongs in your piece you only need to ask yourself some simple questions; what does it mean? Why is it there? What vibe or sound does it create? What sound do you want to create? As long as you understand the purpose of the song and allow that to guide you, you will find the necessary harmonic elements.
I'm no music expert, but I have written a few songs. I agree with you on feeling clever. When I write naturally, it's some of my best work. When I try something strange, I either get it by making it natural or it sounds atrocious because I try to feel smart or cool.
3:04 My problem with the photo-realistic scenes and animation in Toy Story 4, funnily enough.
God, your doodles are *SO ON POINT* in this video!!
Michael Jackson King of popular music once said you send writers block unto yourself because it only comes in to being when you create it you create it when you say so
01:20 did you just effin G NOTE ME?