Thursday
Oct272005
a few tips
Thursday, October 27, 2005 at 01:32AM
A couple things on the ol' agenda in tonight's post. First of all, sorry for the delay of the password site for pre-orders. Apparently some volunteer web genuises (genuii??) have real jobs. The site is almost up, though, and all those who have pre-ordered should have something in their e-mail in the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience.
You can go here to vote for Caedmon's to get to play at the Cornerstone Festival next year. You should also vote for Sufjan Stevens, the Choir and Over the Rhine. Because if I get to be there, that's who I want to go and watch...
A few months ago I talked a lot about a record I produced for Greg Adkins. Grassroots gave it a great review. You can check it out here. You can get his record over at his site or at his show Friday in Knoxville. With me. You should come.
Ok, enough for the plugs. Tonight Alison, Ella and I went to our fellowship group and we had a really emotional and connecting time. It's been such an honor to get to start sharing our lives with each other, and as life has continued to happen for everybody, the things we've been sharing have been real and sometimes very intense. Without getting too into it, Alison and I have been very grateful that God has brought this group into our lives, and tonight was a further evidence of that.
In other news, Michelle Branch and Santana were just on Leno, and is it just me, or is he really an obnoxious guitar player and can she really not sing at all? Man, sometimes I just don't understand why Jeremy or Derek or Randall or (insert really great musician/friend here) don't get those platforms when they're so good at what they do, and the people who are there really don't always deserve it.
This sort of brings to the main thing I wanted to write about tonight. I've been getting more and more e-mails from people wanting me to listen to, and critique, their music. I have been trying to for a while, but they're piling up and I honestly don't have the time to spend with them all.
I thought that something I could do instead would be to share a few tips and insights that I've learned from the past eight years of playing in a band, writing songs and making records. When I do get a chance to give somebody thoughts on their music I tend to say a lot of the same things, so I'll try to address a few of those here now. So this isn't eighty pages long I'll keep with a few basic things I hear with recordings given to me.
First off, one of the biggest things people have to learn when they start making records is to stay out of the way of the song. The song being defined usually as the melody, the rhythm, and the lyric. My dad always used to talk about the anagram (?) K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. It always drove me nuts, but it's a great idea, and if fits here. Being flashy and trying to play to show everybody what you can do tends to get in the way of the song, and if the person isn't able to pull off what they hear in their head, as is usually the case for me, a good feel can be sacrificed for a bad lick. Those things tend to have a pretty short shelf-life. Some of the greatest tunes by Tom Petty, U2, The Stones, or any Young Life song tend to have a great, simple hook and a couple chords, and you never really get tired of them.
In the Normals we found a way to take this philosophy a bit deeper. One day we were talking about symphonies, and how they're a group of musicians who make this amazing sound, but everybody only plays one note at a time, whereas we had two guitars and a piano banging out big, six-note chords while the bass player played the bottom note right along with us. Somehow our sound was much less stirring and beautiful.
We started experimenting with what we played. Instead of playing chords, we tried to each play a melody, like a symphonic instrument, that would all add up to voice the chords. Eventually we got to the point where we didn't feel a song was done until we could sit aroud and each sing our parts individually and know that the song still made sense. This gave our sound a real depth and complexity that it had never had before, and we were all doing less. It's usually easier to just play chords, but this really set our band apart AND we all became much better musicians in the process. Not that we became the best band in the world or anything, but this philosophy really transformed the band, at least to us.
Secondly, one thing that seems to set the great songs apart from the still-trying-to-be-greats is the use of melody. Five or ten minutes spent re-thinking the choice and length of the notes you're singing can go a LONG way. I heard somewhere that the Beatles always tried to write circular melodies, in that they would pick a note, send the melody upwards, then bring it down below, then back up to land on the note where they began the phrase. Obviously, they didn't do this everytime, but that idea, of really letting a melody go somewhere as opposed to just following the first thing that popped into your head with the lyric, is a pretty great tool. I think songs with interesting melodies tend to be the songs that people get in their heads and want to sing along to, and hear again and again...
The last thing I'll talk about now is the "tightening" of the song. This has been the hardest thing for me to learn and is more and more becoming one of the most useful. A lot of songwriters tend to write something they like and then stick with it, but don't always go further into it. Many times this leaves large spaces or repeated phrases that maybe aren't necessary. This could be seen in places where there are four bars between the first chorus and the second verse, when maybe it just needs to be two bars, or maybe none. Or it could be a spot where you sing the same phrase three times, when you could maybe shorten it to two and raise the melody the second time, or just sing it once. Or maybe that needs to be the bridge instead of at the end of a verse. There are tons of examples, but mainly the questions you should ask of your song are: "is it too long? If I cut out two lines and four bars here or there, can the song be better? Am I wasting the listener's time getting from one section to the next? Is this the best and simplest way to say what I want to say?"
These are just a few of the things I would suggest thinking about when you're working on your music. They are things that have been very helpful to me, and have taken years to start learning and using, and I'm sure I barely understand. I hope they can be helpful to you in your quest to improve your craft. Feel free to give any comments on these ideas, or examples of good uses of them.
As always*, thanks for taking the time to read my wandering thoughts, and I wish you a great Thursday. For my neighborhood, that means it's garbage day. See you tomorrow!
*always apparently means 'only on Thursdays'...
You can go here to vote for Caedmon's to get to play at the Cornerstone Festival next year. You should also vote for Sufjan Stevens, the Choir and Over the Rhine. Because if I get to be there, that's who I want to go and watch...
A few months ago I talked a lot about a record I produced for Greg Adkins. Grassroots gave it a great review. You can check it out here. You can get his record over at his site or at his show Friday in Knoxville. With me. You should come.
Ok, enough for the plugs. Tonight Alison, Ella and I went to our fellowship group and we had a really emotional and connecting time. It's been such an honor to get to start sharing our lives with each other, and as life has continued to happen for everybody, the things we've been sharing have been real and sometimes very intense. Without getting too into it, Alison and I have been very grateful that God has brought this group into our lives, and tonight was a further evidence of that.
In other news, Michelle Branch and Santana were just on Leno, and is it just me, or is he really an obnoxious guitar player and can she really not sing at all? Man, sometimes I just don't understand why Jeremy or Derek or Randall or (insert really great musician/friend here) don't get those platforms when they're so good at what they do, and the people who are there really don't always deserve it.
This sort of brings to the main thing I wanted to write about tonight. I've been getting more and more e-mails from people wanting me to listen to, and critique, their music. I have been trying to for a while, but they're piling up and I honestly don't have the time to spend with them all.
I thought that something I could do instead would be to share a few tips and insights that I've learned from the past eight years of playing in a band, writing songs and making records. When I do get a chance to give somebody thoughts on their music I tend to say a lot of the same things, so I'll try to address a few of those here now. So this isn't eighty pages long I'll keep with a few basic things I hear with recordings given to me.
First off, one of the biggest things people have to learn when they start making records is to stay out of the way of the song. The song being defined usually as the melody, the rhythm, and the lyric. My dad always used to talk about the anagram (?) K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. It always drove me nuts, but it's a great idea, and if fits here. Being flashy and trying to play to show everybody what you can do tends to get in the way of the song, and if the person isn't able to pull off what they hear in their head, as is usually the case for me, a good feel can be sacrificed for a bad lick. Those things tend to have a pretty short shelf-life. Some of the greatest tunes by Tom Petty, U2, The Stones, or any Young Life song tend to have a great, simple hook and a couple chords, and you never really get tired of them.
In the Normals we found a way to take this philosophy a bit deeper. One day we were talking about symphonies, and how they're a group of musicians who make this amazing sound, but everybody only plays one note at a time, whereas we had two guitars and a piano banging out big, six-note chords while the bass player played the bottom note right along with us. Somehow our sound was much less stirring and beautiful.
We started experimenting with what we played. Instead of playing chords, we tried to each play a melody, like a symphonic instrument, that would all add up to voice the chords. Eventually we got to the point where we didn't feel a song was done until we could sit aroud and each sing our parts individually and know that the song still made sense. This gave our sound a real depth and complexity that it had never had before, and we were all doing less. It's usually easier to just play chords, but this really set our band apart AND we all became much better musicians in the process. Not that we became the best band in the world or anything, but this philosophy really transformed the band, at least to us.
Secondly, one thing that seems to set the great songs apart from the still-trying-to-be-greats is the use of melody. Five or ten minutes spent re-thinking the choice and length of the notes you're singing can go a LONG way. I heard somewhere that the Beatles always tried to write circular melodies, in that they would pick a note, send the melody upwards, then bring it down below, then back up to land on the note where they began the phrase. Obviously, they didn't do this everytime, but that idea, of really letting a melody go somewhere as opposed to just following the first thing that popped into your head with the lyric, is a pretty great tool. I think songs with interesting melodies tend to be the songs that people get in their heads and want to sing along to, and hear again and again...
The last thing I'll talk about now is the "tightening" of the song. This has been the hardest thing for me to learn and is more and more becoming one of the most useful. A lot of songwriters tend to write something they like and then stick with it, but don't always go further into it. Many times this leaves large spaces or repeated phrases that maybe aren't necessary. This could be seen in places where there are four bars between the first chorus and the second verse, when maybe it just needs to be two bars, or maybe none. Or it could be a spot where you sing the same phrase three times, when you could maybe shorten it to two and raise the melody the second time, or just sing it once. Or maybe that needs to be the bridge instead of at the end of a verse. There are tons of examples, but mainly the questions you should ask of your song are: "is it too long? If I cut out two lines and four bars here or there, can the song be better? Am I wasting the listener's time getting from one section to the next? Is this the best and simplest way to say what I want to say?"
These are just a few of the things I would suggest thinking about when you're working on your music. They are things that have been very helpful to me, and have taken years to start learning and using, and I'm sure I barely understand. I hope they can be helpful to you in your quest to improve your craft. Feel free to give any comments on these ideas, or examples of good uses of them.
As always*, thanks for taking the time to read my wandering thoughts, and I wish you a great Thursday. For my neighborhood, that means it's garbage day. See you tomorrow!
*always apparently means 'only on Thursdays'...
Reader Comments (14)
oh crap. I forgot to take the garbage to the curb. oh well.
I enjoyed reading that post. I don't understand most of it, but I enjoyed hearing some of the logic that goes into the production of what's been coming out of your basement lately.
Kudos on Greg's CD, btw. It's great.
I just want to mention (as someone who has never been put it a tough financial situation because of a lack of ethics in a musical distribution company) that if you get Greg Adkin's CD - and you should - get it from his site, not from grassroots.
I'll chime in here, not because they're talking about my CD, but because Andy is offering up some great advice here. I can testify to this because I've seen it in action.
When we started working on my record, the first thing we did was to spend a whole day just playing through the songs one at a time to see which ones were the better ones and what kind of production ideas we came up with. During this process, it was amazing how much the songs changed... we shortened breaks between verses and choruses, we cut out lines, we cut out needless chorus repeats, we tightened up bridges... we really made some pretty dramatic changes.
One song in fact went from verse / chorus / verse / chorus / solo / chorus to being just solo / verse / chorus. It was about a 4 minute song and on the finished record it came out just under 2 minutes... and that happened a lot. 4 minute songs became 3 minute songs... but the reality is, they turned into better songs. We went with a "Say what you want to say and leave 'em wanting more" philosophy and it worked. I learned a ton from working with Andy on that stuff.
And then there's the playing... I'm not a studio caliber musician by anyone's definition. When we sat down to start tracking my piano tracks, Andy repeatedly had to tell me to "do less... keep it simple..." and it was hard, because I'm used to playing a certain style... but the end result was really so much better. On the song "Come Lord Jesus (not another worship song)" in particular, I was originally playing a pretty full piano part with a lot of chunky chords and stuff. We ended up recording a one note at a time part way up in the upper register of the piano. It sounds so much better that way... there's room to breathe.
And then Ben Shive came in and that guy is just a master at this... I learned a ton just watching him work... he came up with some really inventive (and beautiful) lines that were so great because they were so easy to play...
Anyway, I'm an idiot who usually doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, but I will say to listen to Andy when he talks about this stuff... I've seen the skills up close and personal and they're the real deal.
And also, I saw that Jay Leno thing last night and that was about the worst thing I've ever seen. Did you see the look on Michelle Branch's face at the end when that timbale player was going nuts? She looked lost... it was pretty funny.
- Greg Adkins
Excellent post!
To what extent do you apply the simplicity factor in to your live sets?
jb
What great advice. I'm trying to dive into song writing. Will take all this advise into consideration when the pen starts working.
Patrick
see you tomorrow, mr. osenga.
btw...thanks for the advice...we're just starting to go through that process ourselves right now...and knowing that sort of stuff is going to help us a lot.
Interesting things to think about... oh, Thursday is garbage day here in Florida too
Randy
I don't write songs...for which the world can be grateful, but hearing your comment about the fellowship group made me think of Cliff at the Joppa show saying, "Ah! Andy has a fellowship group! Isn't that cute?"
Rock. Rock On. There really is nothing like seeing The Choir and Over the Rhine at Cornerstone. Those are some landmark moments in my life.
I saw a band called The Normals at Cornerstone 2000 that wasn't too bad....
Speaking of keeping it simple, one of the best examples I know of a song that is simple yet brilliant in its elegance is Andrew's "Early in the Morning". (You can download it from the "Drawing Board" page.)
And about piano parts needing to be simple, I remember a story told me by Jim Hammerly, who used to be the pianist for the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. His background was classical piano, and when he started playing with the choir, he tried to keep playing in the same style - big chords, lots of fills, etc. The other guys in the band said it wasn't working at all, and told him to try not to play more than three notes at a time. Good advice...
dead on about santana. he is a one trick pony to the extreme.
Thanks Andy. Good words.
Stephen....spot on about "Early in the Morning." It has the sparse beauty of a Sufjan tune. Perfectly evokes the moment it sets out to describe, and not a note out of place. It's my current favorite Andy tune.
Of course, you haven't really heard it until you hear him try to sing it with a guitar tuned 2-1/2 steps too high as I did. Andy singing like a little girl is pure art, man, pure art.
[...] My plan is to listen to a bunch of good music with them (the easy part), and also try to get them to buy into the idea that, when playing with a group, the goal is to play as a group. I was impressed several months back by a post on Andy Osenga’s blog in which he was talking about his old band, the Normals: One day we were talking about symphonies, and how they’re a group of musicians who make this amazing sound, but everybody only plays one note at a time, whereas we had two guitars and a piano banging out big, six-note chords while the bass player played the bottom note right along with us. Somehow our sound was much less stirring and beautiful. [...]