advancedsongwritingtechniques

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Broken Conversations.

I decided to go quite simple with this song, I was gonna go for the more hip hop vibe similar to Haribo Ring but decided against it as it didn’t suit the song. I felt the simple percussive clicks were enough and ended up leaving the song at just guitar, vocals and these clicks. I think it sounds really nice this way and doesn’t need much work put into it. 

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Shoelaces.

I was working on shoelaces last night and came up with the cutest piano line, I think it’s really sweet and actually really suits the build up of the song. I tried using 5ths but it didn’t quite sound right so I tried 3rds and it worked really nicely. So I play A (root) and C# (major 3rd), C# (root) and E (minor 3rd), D (root) and F# (major 3rd) and G# (root) and B (major 3rd). I don’t play them in that order, I play them as they fit in the chord progression and I play the 3rds below the root, as opposed to sitting them on top, I wanted a high piano part but found the 3rds on top to be too high so I settled for a middle ground. I also have a cello line, which was originally going to be my high part as a violin but it sounded better as a lower bass line.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Haribo Ring.

The production of Haribo Ring has been a lot of fun, I’ve done it in the style of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Don’t’ and ‘New Man’. These two songs are some of his more Hip Hop style songs with more of a beat so that’s what I decided to do, particularly with the snare sound and made every other snare a little louder by overlaying a clap sound on every other snare which is in ‘New Man’. I was gonna go for a bit more of complex beat but considering the simplicity of the guitar I didn’t want to drown it out. I’ve also been trying out some string lines but I’m not sure about them....

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

First Date/Haribo Ring.

So I’ve finished the lyrics to ‘Haribo Ring’, which was that song about the first date. I really like the chord progression in the chorus, I’m in the key of Am which is also nice cause for whatever reason I tend to stick to major keys and the chords for the chorus are: Am F C C x2 Am F7 Bb Bbm, C Bb C F. I had a theory lesson on key changes and modulation and we learnt about four different types of key change, my goal was to do as many as possible in one chorus cause I haven’t really done key changes before in my music, I only ended up with two, which was a pivot by using the F7 as the 6th chord in Am and the 5th chord in Bb. I then did a parallel key change jumping momentarily to Bbm. I’m intending to make this song quite hip hop and have a really cool groove in it and loads of production.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Home.

So I actually wrote a really nice song over the Easter break that I forgot to document. It’s called ‘Home’ and I originally wrote and recorded it for another module but I really like it and wanted to put it on this EP too. It’s pastiching an Ed Sheeran song called ‘Nancy Mulligan’ which is a very Irish-folk inspired pop song. I mainly focused on the melody of the song and tried to write some more interesting melodies myself. The melodies I wrote for home initially came from this idea that Ed sang a different melody over what played on the fiddle, which I later realised was wrong but I liked what I wrote so I kept it. I also wrote a varied version of one of my melodies as a mistake I kept making whilst writing it but it sounded really nice so again, I kept it. The song is essentially just me messing around with melodies and that being the main development and movement through the song. The other aspect I took from Sheeran’s song were the lyrics. My song is about the village I grew up in and how it’s changed over the 12 years I’ve lived there. The first few lines are my favourite: “I remember the time my brother, he fell off the pigeon shed, he still wears the scars on his knuckles, and the shed is no longer there”. I like these lines mainly because they’re true but also because the idea of a pigeon shed is pretty weird to most people but it’s just something I grew up with, but it’s not a particularly bad thing that it’s unrelatable because it makes it an interesting point of discussion.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Cute.

So I’ve just started working on a song, I just picked up my guitar and started playing a few chords on it. It’s in 4/4 and I played 2 bars of Cmaj, 1 of Am and 1 of Gmaj. The melody line I sing is still quite simple at this stage but I sang a C over Cmaj, an E over Am and a D over Gmaj. I found that the E and D notes were getting a little uncomfortable to sing for me and due to the nature of the song sounded a little sadder than I wanted them to, so I’ve put a capo on the third fret and I’m now in the key of D#. I’ve only just started the lyrics. I’ve got the initial line “I’ll tell you you’re cute and you’ll disagree, but that don’t matter cause you’re cute to me”. It came to me the other day whilst telling my date I thought she was cute and she disagreed haha. I’ve started the second line with “I’ll tell you the truth I think you’re pretty” and then I need a second half to that line. One of the most common techniques I use, particularly writing a song about how I feel, is to just play the chord progression on a loop and just see what I sing over the top of it. This way I feel the truest feelings come out, they may be edited and changed a little later on but in that moment exactly what I feel is coming out and it’s the easiest way for me to write a song like that. It can also lead to several drafts of a song coming out, for example with my first line “I’ll tell you you’re cute and you’ll disagree” could have ended with “I enjoyed our date, just you and me” or “I really like you and your company”. With this way of writing I now have 3 potential lines to follow on, and the ones I decide not to use can be used later in the song for another line.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

First Date.

Started writing a very Ed Sheeran inspired, hip hop influenced song. It’s about a date I recently had and it’s the first song in a while that I feel like I could actually finish, I have only got a verse so far the 2nd verse is well on it’s way. I’ve also used a lot of internal rhymes as I was recently looking at Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’. He practically rhymes every single word in the song, absolutely insane... I watched quite an interesting video about it actually. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooOL4T-BAg0) It talks mainly about ‘perfect rhymes’ vs ‘family rhymes’ and rhyming patterns. It’s pretty simple and I kind of new the techniques talked about but it’s really interested to map out ‘Lose Yourself’ and see it like that. In terms of Ed Sheeran, his new song ‘New Man’ really influenced it because of the great groove that song has, it’s very catchy. I sort of do like ‘sing-rap’, essentially sung fast with a bit of a rhythm. At the moment I’ve only got a bass line and vocals but I really want to add a driving beat behind it but I’m stuck at to what I want to do. I also need to write a chorus, I was thinking of playing full chords instead of just singular notes and changing the chord progression around a little bit, not sure though. I’m really liking how this song is so far though.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Hip Hop

So, I’ve been listening to a lot of hip hop lately and it’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to compose both lyrically and electronically. I’m really digging Mac Miller and N.W.A lately and I always find myself listening to live chill-hop streams on YouTube. I’ve also been working on composing beats through random sounds, for example I’ve just had a little recording session and I recorded the sound of my bracelets jingling together and it sounds like a vinyl crackle. I’ve also been playing with the proximity effect and clapping closer and further away from the mic to see what sounds I’d get so I’ve essentially got a kick drum and snare out of that. This is particularly useful since I don’t have access to a drum kit nor do I know how to play one, and it’s a lot of fun to experiment with new, weird sounds and great for learning different editing techniques.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

This is the start of 'Broken Conversations'. I'm not sure if this will be the verse or chorus yet.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Broken Conversations.

I’ve been working on a new song and as far as I’m aware it’s called ‘Broken Conversations’. I’ve gone for quite a ‘jazzy’ feel using a variety of 7th chords (Dm7, Cdom7, Ebmaj7) and quite a percussive chord progression on the guitar. I think it’d be quite nice to play around with it on piano too and maybe think of other ways to add the percussive elements of the song. It’s not much for the moment but the vocal melody is really catchy, I really enjoy singing it.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Ideas.

In my lesson the other day we were given the initial brief of this EP. I had a few immediate ideas which I think I’ll have to explore before I can tell if they work. First and foremost was the idea of doing a series of spoken word tracks, it’s something I’d like to personally explore more and I quite enjoy my poetry. It’d also be a chance to do something musically different. The idea is that these pieces for the EP should be coherent in someway so the spoken word to me would be the joining factor and the music surrounding it would be a complete exploration, for example one track could be electronic whilst another was acapella (which is another thing I’d like to explore so maybe an acapella album?). It’d also improve my vocals. I would really like to make one ambient and natural too, like go out and record the general hustle and bustle of the city centre and then record birds singing in the woods and other various goings on and have that be the backing to my words. Another idea was chilled hip hop. I’ve been listening to a lot of hip hop and rap since I moved to Bristol and fell in love with it. For me this would very much be about the production as well as the song writing, I would love to produce hip hop beats. This also goes with the spoken word idea as rapping isn’t too dissimilar, I just think I’d go heavier on the beat and rhythm of the pieces. My final idea is one of proving somebody wrong. I was once told that as a guitarist I would never play in a flat key. His name is Simon so I decided that one day I’d write an album called ‘Simon’ and have each of the songs on it in a flat key. The running theme would be flat keys which is a pretty cool idea but I imagine this would take a comical turn which could falter my songwriting so I’m not sure about it if it’s being assessed. We also spoke of personal goals in the lesson which means I could essentially release this as a personal EP so I could just do what i’ve always done and go for my usual sound but I don’t really have one since I’m always exploring, which is what all of these ideas essentially are so in theory they could all fit, but these are just ideas for now.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

This is the begginings of Shoelaces, I’m thinking about adding a key change to act as a chorus, I don’t really do key changes much so it’d be cool to explore. I’d also like to add a finger picking style solo as I’ve been exploring finger style but not actually doing it in my own music. So maybe a key change, finger style solo for the chorus? I’m still not entirely sure if this will end up on the final EP but it’s a start.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

Shoelaces.

I actually started writing a song the other night. I’ve been listening to loads of Ed Sheeran lately so I’d say it was definitely inspired by him, particularly his earlier stuff. The guitar part was inspired by songs like ‘Lego House’ and ‘Firefly’. Some of the lyrics I actually write a while ago, it’s a metaphor based idea and I’m just trying to create a series of images through the simple idea of shoelaces. I’ll show you a clip later if I can figure out how to do it haha.

[advancedsongwritingtechniques]

The Beginning.

So basically, I have to submit a portfolio of songs for uni and have a written journal go with it. This is said written journal. I’ve decided to make it public because I quite like the idea of helping out other songwriters, one of the best ways I learn to write is to see what others are doing and try it out for myself, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If this journal ends up helping some people out in the process of me getting my degree, then you’re very welcome.