Guitar Man


Do not place rules with music. Hence forth the common misconception of timing issue's by others where music goes when being listened to by musicians. They perceive the ideal to be somewhat of a thing that is written in stone, while the most important person of all who listens to the music enjoys hearing it.

The bottom line is, it doesn't matter what you do with your music, there are always going to be critics.

Make your own rules. That is how new music is born. Not by robotic ideals and formula's.

Cheers!

A drum roll, tom run, cymbal or paused kick are lead ins for the next section of a musical piece. Independent of the melody. Or you can go over the top and just beat something loud just prior to the change. BGVs are for choruses or maybe later in the song on the verses. Bass patterns need to change with each section of the song. Unless you are Elton John, pianos should be reserved for chorus & bridges. This especially in a guitar song but if you need an intro, Ok there. If you are a piano player and its a piano song, piano is fine everywhere. Guitars coming in on a piano song rarely works unless its a big production piece to emphasis power, distorted guitars allowed. You can place a killer vocal over a mediocre instrument performance and it will work if everything is in tune & in key. A killer instrument track with a mediocre vocal pulls the whole house of cards down. Start the vocal at 10, 15, 20 seconds into the song. Later than this and people generally will flip to the next song. Especially if the guitar part is bad or the keyboard sound is cheesey. Bad reverb is bad. The soul of the song is in a single instrument and the vocal. If the inherent rhythm and feel is not followed, enhanced or fulfilled in production, you're dressing a pig in jewels. The instrument you wrote the song on is not necessarily the best one for the track. The mute button is your friend. Think about tape. Why does it sound so good. Seek the answer and EQ your tracks like tape responds. The more musicians you know, the faster your production will go.

SongCraft


Philip,

You're very kind! Glad to be of help :)

Try this;

. Pick an old song, without listening to it remove the chords/accompaniment, leaving just the main vocal (and harmonies if they're in the song). 

Point is; This will force you to focus on the very soul, the very essence of the song; 'Lyrics-Melodies'

You'll also notice without chords/accompaniment  there is 'Structure' such as; Verse-Chorus.

And who knows, maybe that verse could be the chorus instead, or there needs to be a chorus written and that old chorus become a bridge after or before the chorus.

Anyway, here's where the fun begins;

. With a fresh perspective, a new approach, experiment by applying chords to the main vocal melodies-lyrics ensuring the best possible outcome that strengthens, compliments and enhances the vocal melodies.

Remember; 'Play with Feeling' - 'Play from the 'Heart', close your eyes and forget about theory for a moment because sometimes a mistake can turn into the most wonderful part in a song.  Oh and keeping the playing simple helps especially initially when doing this experiment (you can always add fancy fills later).

Maybe the original chord progression had for example; 4 chord progression for the verses, but now you may end up with either 2, or 3, or 6 chord progression. Or 4 chords with a 5th chord at the end before it leads to the next part.

Also, when doing this experiment, do one part at a time such as; verse, then move onto the chorus. And of course making sure they flow well together.  In fact, this is not a bad idea when working on the production.

Also remember, 'words' alone can be very powerful. Words can also attribute to the 'hook'.

And words should also; 'Sound' great with the melody.

Words in song also have a pattern (structure) akin to 'Stanza' (as in poetry).  This attributes to 'flow', to have a nice flow throughout the song.

Experiment more for example; a pattern may change in the second verse by having less (sparse) or more words (quicken) which may not be a bad idea since this may in itself lift the song onto a higher level, and it's not a bad idea to have variations going on from verse.1 to verse.2

And a song is much like a movie you want to captivate the audience and keep their interest right from the start and throughout to the very end.  IMO the 'hook' should not only be the chorus.

Hey I don't want my audience falling asleep halfway thru the movie :lol:

Anyway, by doing this experiment (removing chords) forcing you to focus on the main vocal melodies and lyrics, you may find ways to actually strengthen the lyrics (change word(s) and also strengthen the main vocal melody, and harmonies, and sometimes the smallest change(s) can make a huge difference.

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