Navigation

Archive | Songwriting Craft

Helpful articles about the Craft of Songwriting

Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 2: Research and Spotting

By on March 31, 2016 in Archive Highlights, Songmine, Songwriting Business, Songwriting Craft

A John Braheny Songmine column from the archives…

Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 1 and Part 2: Research and Spotting

Accession Number: C000000137-017 Document/Digital File, “Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 2: Research and Spotting by John Braheny”, OCR converted text under same Accession Number

(Digitally converted text. Some errors may occur)

MAY 10-23

Songmine
by John Braheny

Songmine-Film Scoring-Part 2: ‘Research and Spotting by John Braheny

In my last article I talked about the initial preparations for a film I scored, a Ray Bradbury short story called The Flying Machine, set in ancient China. I also spoke about my background and about the prod-ucer/director Bernard Selling. was doing the music with _Curt Berg, an excellent composer, arr-anger and big band leader. Our first move was to see the film, get some general impressions and talk with Bernard about his general concept for the music. Bernard is a musician (something unusual to run into in a director) and he had some ideas. Obviously, the music had to sound Chinese, but he felt it wasn’t important that we adhere strictly to the traditional style. Since, in film scores, basic song forms usually go out the window, except for thematic material, we had some latitude.

Next procedure is to “spot” the film, deciding in what “spots” there should or shouldn’t be music. This is a very subjective procedure. We start by figuring out where the music is absolutely needed to ex-press something that the actors or dialogue can’t say, to heighten the effect of the action, or to give flavor or “color” to a location. We include notes about places for “wild spots” or “stingers” we’ll record just in case we decide later that maybe we’ll need it and save ourselves from a last-minute session. We also decide which music will be out front, and which will be subtle underscoring.

I put together a form for myself that lists, from left to right:Film Footage and Frame Counts; Action; Psychology and Music. We watch the film on a Moviola, an editing machine on which the film, with a dialogue track, can be run back and forth and pieces can be cut or added. It also gives you film footage and frame counts that are mechan-ically geared to the film so that if you start at the same place every time, it’ll continue to be an accurate reference to the beginnings and endings of particular scenes.

Bernard had not completed the editing at this time, so some counts would be different and we’d get the final ones at a later stage. Even though I knew that, I went ahead and mapped out the film scene by scene, which at least would help me remember what followed in the story. Later, we’d convert film feet and frames to seconds to find out how much music we needed. Some Moviolas show time counts as well as film footage. For 16mm film there are 24 frames per second and 40 frames per foot. Under the Action heading I’d write whatever action was taking place in that scene. Under Psychology I’d deter-mine, in discussions with Bernard, the underlying importance of this action. What feeling is he trying to evoke in the audience? Should the music represent the point of view of one of the characters? Should it “tip off” or anticipate the next scene?

For instance, the Emperor is speaking to the “Birdman” in a garden. The Birdman doesn’t know that the Emperor intends to kill him. I needed to know whether Bernard wanted a little “impending doom” undercurrent of music to let the audience know that something was wrong and all was not as friendly as it appeared. He decided he wanted to keep the music light, from the point of view of the Birdman, who thought he might be rewarded for his beautiful invent-ion. That way we, the audience, would identify with him and be be as shocked as he was when the Emperor revealed his intentions.

We discussed the philosophy of the film in terms of the characters. The Birdman, a creator, a dreamer, a free spirit, should be represented by music that soared and evoked a feeling of freedom. The Emperor, bound by tradition and responsibil-ity, should be represented by music that felt more regimented, tight and conservative. After those “psycho-logy” considerations are explored and we have an idea of what the music needs to do, we get to the Music column, where we figure out how to achieve it. We need to consider what instruments to use, tempos, scales and modes, harmon-ies, etc., as well as musicians. To do this we need some information on Chinese music, so Curt called Mr. Lui at UCLA’s Anthromusic Depart-ment, we got together at his house and he graciously demonstrated several Chinese instruments and allowed us to tape his explanations of techinques, tunings and how to write for the instruments. (To be continued.)

Previously in the Songmine Collection:

About Songmine and Music Connection Magazine:

John Braheny met Eric Bettelli and Michael Dolan right before they were going to publish Music Connection magazine. Eric and Michael wanted to get their publication out to as many songwriters as they could. They had already heard of the LA Songwriters Showcase, and of John and his partner, Len Chandler. John’s goal was to advertise the schedule of guest speakers and performers at the weekly Showcase… so they made a deal. 

They published John’s Songmine column (he had never before written a magazine article!) in their very first edition, in November 1977. Trading out the column for advertising, this arrangement continued for many years. Plus, Eric and Michael came to the Showcase each week and distributed free copies to the songwriters!

Those articles became so popular that (book agent and editor) Ronny Schiff offered John’s articles to F&W Media, where they became the backbone of John’s textbook, The Craft and Business of Songwriting. As a follow-up, Dan Kimpel (author, songwriter, teacher), who had also worked at LASS, took on the Songwriting column at Music Connection magazine which continues to this day! You can subscribe to get either hard copies or online.


0

Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 1

By on March 25, 2016 in Archive Highlights, Songwriting Business, Songwriting Craft

A John Braheny Songmine column from the archives…

Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 1: Research and Spotting

Accession Number: C000000137-017 Document/Digital File, “Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 1 by John Braheny”, OCR converted text under same Accession Number

(Digitally converted text. Some errors may occur)

Songmine: Scoring Films on a Low Budget Part 1: Research and Spotting

APRIL 26-MAY 9
Songmine

SCORING FILMS ON A LOW BUDGET PART I
by John Braheny

A couple of weeks ago I finished a film score and thought, after explaning the process to several people, that it might be of interest to you, too. What is interesting, I think, is that I am not an arranger, per say, with a lot of background in theory and composition in that department. As a result, I realize that my potential and scope are limited by the lack of those skills, but it’s all about priorities in my life and becoming an arranger is not one of them. Nonetheless, I’ve done alot of work with film music. There was a period of about 3 years when I composed and produced music for radio and T.V. commer-cials and because I used unorthodox approaches to compensate for lack of chops in other areas, I came up with unorthodox sounding music, which was what they were looking for. Most people dping music for commercialsiareiarrangers.and con-sequently, inspire more confidence in ad execs, who are notoriously paranoid to begin with, and con-sequently, those composers get alot more work. I’m not going to B.S. you that I got rich on it. It just worked out that way when people wanted something out of the ordi-nary, some of them took a chance on me. It gave me the chance to experiment on somebody else’s bread and I did alot of things with studio technology using every new gadget and technique I could think of. Working with film is, to me, very exciting because beyond the mechanics of timing to the second, it’s very subjective and interpretive. Obviously, the ad people as well as film directors, know what the music is supposed to do, but there are lots of different ways to achieve what they need and that’s where the creativity lies. I play guitar and violinand thosechopscan ‘transfer to bass and viola without a lot of trouble. Also, though I lack techni-cal arranging skill, I have a fairly good understanding of the dyna-mics involved which are the same skills basically, that producers need in putting together a “head ar-rangement” (one using only chord charts)

So with that in mind, along comes Bernard Selling a month or so ago and asks me to score his new film. I’ve scored 3 other films for Bernard and he likes my work. He won an award for one of his first documentaries called “Henry, Boy of the Barrio” before I’d met him and subsequent films he produced and directed were aimed primarily at an educational market. His last two have been films of short stories used often in English classes. It’s good preparation for him to move into longer feature films and gives him a way to develop and demon-strate his skill and style. The film I just worked on was from a Ray Bradbury allegory called “The Fly-ing Machine” which is set in ancient China. The story briefly, is about an emperor who upon dis-covering a man flying over his kingdom in a self-made machine, then decides he must kill the man to prevent the possible danger that evil men might use this invention to do evil things. There is much dialogue between the emperor, who appreciates the possible joys of flying, the beauty of the invention and the imagination of the inventor, and the inventor himself, who ob-viously believes he shouldn’t be punished for doing something beau-tiful. In the end the emperor does execute the ‘birdman’, but not without considerable inner turmoil. It’s the classic confrontation bet-ween change and the status quo, and between technological advance and our protection from its evils (see the China Syndrome).

“But Bernard,” I said, “I’m not really into Chinese music. Why don’t you hire someone who is?” He explained that the music didn’t have to be traditional and strict and that he wanted what could result from the synthesis of styles. In that regard, he also put me together with Curt Berg who is a big band leader, composer and arranger. He was looking for a synthesis of our styles, too. As it turned out, it was a very busy time for Curt and he didn’t have as much time to work on it as he would have liked. He composed a beautiful theme,and we spent some time together on the research and recording end. Next issue we’ll get into the nuts and bolts including research, ‘spotting the film’ ,(where it does and doesn’t need music), conversion formulas (frames to seconds), choosing in-struments and players, click tracks, recording, transfers, mixing, etc.

Previously in the Songmine Collection:

About Songmine and Music Connection Magazine:

John Braheny met Eric Bettelli and Michael Dolan right before they were going to publish Music Connection magazine. Eric and Michael wanted to get their publication out to as many songwriters as they could. They had already heard of the LA Songwriters Showcase, and of John and his partner, Len Chandler. John’s goal was to advertise the schedule of guest speakers and performers at the weekly Showcase… so they made a deal. 

They published John’s Songmine column (he had never before written a magazine article!) in their very first edition, in November 1977. Trading out the column for advertising, this arrangement continued for many years. Plus, Eric and Michael came to the Showcase each week and distributed free copies to the songwriters!

Those articles became so popular that (book agent and editor) Ronny Schiff offered John’s articles to F&W Media, where they became the backbone of John’s textbook, The Craft and Business of Songwriting. As a follow-up, Dan Kimpel (author, songwriter, teacher), who had also worked at LASS, took on the Songwriting column at Music Connection magazine which continues to this day! You can subscribe to get either hard copies or online.


0

Archive Highlight: The American Song Festival Songwriter’s Handbook by John Braheny (1982)

By on March 1, 2016 in Archive Highlights, Articles, Songwriting Business, Songwriting Craft

“People mailed cassettes (!) to the American Song Festival  offices in LA where they held regular listening sessions with groups of music publishers and producers, voting on each song, depending on their genre. John Braheny was one of the many industry judges (pop music).  All of us looked forward to the annual ASF awards party, where we could see just about anyone in the music biz, like at the Grammys, only not as dressy! The ASF wanted to have a little gift, a premium, to send out to songwriters when the contestants entered the contest, so John wrote “The Songwriters Handbook.” Later people remarked to him that they saw this booklet as ‘the single’ which introduced his ‘album’ (his much bigger book which followed, “The Craft and Business of Songwriting”). This little how-to book was very popular… Jon Iger, president of the Arizona Songwriters Assn., gave away these booklets to each new member…and still talks about it!” — JoAnn Braheny

“When I first began writing lyrics, I was told about this festival and then a friend took me to a celebration party.  I was hooked.  I entered the very next year and won a 1/4 finalist and a semi finalist in a lyric competition.  From that point on I was winning category finalist and money and I didn’t stop entering until the festival ended, finally winning 5 categories and a grand prize.  It was a thrilling introduction to the music industry and enabled me to land a staff-writing job with Motown.”  — K.A. Parker

“The ASF back then was a lot like “The Voice” is now for singers, but it was an annual national songwriters’ competition. It was great fun and resulted in encouraging songwriters everywhere  to continue to learn and grow. It was a goal to aim for.” — Jill (Frisbee) Brandt Gain, former Co-Director, American Song Festival

ASF Songwriter s Handbook 0 Cover

Accession Number: JD000000145, Publication/Digital File, “The American Song Festival Songwriter’s Handbook by John Braheny (1982)

Read The American Song Festival Songwriter’s Handbook by John Braheny (1982)booklet in PDF format

From The American Song Festival Songwriter’s Handbook…

“THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

If you didn’t feel you had a flair for lyrics and/or music already, you wouldn’t have entered the American Song Festival and wouldn’t be reading this now. I don’t believe you can get talent from a book but I do know that there are a lot of tricks of the trade that can help that talent blossom a lot sooner than it would in the “school of hard knocks.” I hope this book will help you in the following ways.

1. Show you some options that may not have occurred to you. Maybe you never knew anyone who wrote songs, or if you did, you never asked them how they did it. In over 400 interviews that my partner, Len Chandler, and I have had with music industry people, including many hit songwriters and producers, we’ve discovered that there are lots of successful ways to write great songs. New writers tend to either want to have a simple ABC formula for writing a successful song or to only trust their instincts and not want to mess with their process by learning anything about their craft from anyone else. Both are a big mistake because they’re self-limiting. Creativity and craft are both essential ingredients in successful songs.

2. Give you some basic principles to go by. I hate to talk in terms of rules because if you’re creative you’ll be breaking them and you must be creative. For everything I say in this booklet that may remotely sound like a rule, there is an exception somewhere, either because an established writer/artist was commercially powerful enough to get away with poor craftsmanship or because the writer had the craftsmanship to violate one rule in favor of another rule of greater importance, to fulfill the needs of a song. It seems like a good rule, for example, never to precede the first chorus by three verses, until you look at Don Schlitz’s “The Gambler” (a hit for Kenny Rogers) or Henley & Frey’s “Lyin’ Eyes” (a hit for the Eagles). Breaking the rule works in these songs because the listener is pro-pelled forward so relentlessly by the strong visual imagery and the quickly unfolding story that it would be a mistake to have the chorus earlier. The need of the song is to keep the listener interested and it’s accomplished brilliantly in both these songs.

What I’ll deal with here are some generalizations and in-sights that are based on the odds. I’ll discuss the most com-=mow monly successful forms, approaches and considerations.”

Read The American Song Festival Songwriter’s Handbook by John Braheny (1982)booklet in PDF format

0

Archive Highlight: John Braheny speaks on The Craft and Business of Songwriting [Audio] (55 mins)

By on November 16, 2015 in Archive Highlights, Audio, Songwriters Expo, Songwriting Business, Songwriting Craft

Another interesting piece of John Braheny history from the John Braheny Archives on the Craft and Business of Songwriting.

John Braheny speaks on The Craft and Business of Songwriting on this undated cassette tape. Most likely recorded at a Songwriters Expo.

Archive Highlight: John Braheny speaks on The Craft and Business of Songwriting [Audio]  

Listen to this presentation

Accession Number D000000102-001 (Note: These numbers are the unique Accession number for each piece in the archives and allows us to quickly locate any item by searching the archive index) 

From the Acting Archivist…

This is one of those pieces which exist in every archive collection — an undated item with only basic information, if any at all. I have no idea when this recording was made, although it appears to have been presented at a Songwriters Expo, due to John’s mention of “the rest of the weekend” near the end of the talk. If you happen to have any further information about this recording, please send it along and I will add it to the archival entry for this item.

Douglas E. Welch, douglas@welchwrite.com

Previously on Archive Highlights:

0

Archive Highlight: How to Write Better Songs with John Braheny and Michael Laskow via YouTube [Video]

By on October 16, 2015 in Archive Highlights, Interviews, Songwriting Craft, Video

Another interesting piece of John Braheny history from the John Braheny Archives on the Craft and Business of Songwriting.

How to Write Better Songs with John Braheny

Accession Number D000000035-001

(Note: These numbers are the unique Accession number for each piece in the archives and allows us to quickly locate any item by searching the archive index)

Previously on Archive Highlights:

0

Lyric Writing:Common Challenges

By on April 9, 2011 in Articles, Songwriting Craft

There are many aspects to writing lyrics that may not immediately come to mind when you’re “in the zone” and the ideas are flowing. By all means, don’t stop the flow, just try not to get it hung up trying to find rhymes or correct phrasing at this point. Explore the “what if” ideas if anything and just let it roll. After that first draft, though, here are some things to consider.

Getting trapped by precision. Writers who write exclusively lyrics and those who start songs by writing lyrics before writing melodies can suffer from getting into a lyric meter pattern in the first section they write and carrying the same pattern through every section. Those of you on the fringe’s of obsessive compulsive disorder are also going to tend to make sure that each lyric meter is precisely the same in each verse and even in the chorus. Consequently much of their lyric will feel forced, stiff and un-conversational. Remember, you’re not writing a Haiku poem here (precisely 17 syllables), you’re writing a conversation and seldom does a conversation come out precisely the same, verse after verse. I’ll hasten to add that there are certainly successful songs that are more “poetic” than others and not as conversational as they are artful. However, the artfulness is not as much about the precision of meter as choice of words, metaphors and images. In other words, not as much in the artifice as is in the content itself.

The solution to this problem is to re-write what you think is a chorus with a totally fresh construction, lyric meter and rhyme scheme, making use of repetition of the title. Even if you’re not quite sure what you want the title to be and your initial draft of the song has the ‘”too precise and predictable” problem, always know that it’s a first draft and if the chorus is something you discover as you go, return to it for a rewrite before you nail down a melody. (See “Chorus Construction” P 93 The Craft and Business of Songwriting 3rd Ed.) For additional verses, loosen up. All you need is to make the vocal phrasing work smoothly with the first verse melody and if it means you need to make a slight adjustment in subsequent verse melodies to accommodate the lyric, it’s not really such a big deal. The content of the lyric is more important. This can be more difficult, however, if you write only lyrics without having a melody in your head to act as a matrix.

Writing to express yourself vs. writing to communicate. Sometimes you DO communicate when you express yourself. The problem is mainly making it interesting to the listener. We’ve all had long conversations with people who want to talk to us about every nuance of their personal history or problems. At some point during an unstoppable interlude like that you find yourself thinking about whether your car is due for an oil change. However, some people are natural story-tellers who offer fascinating details, descriptions and build a story in a way that keeps you asking “Then what happened?” and you’re hanging onto every word. Chances are they’ve re-told the story (re-written it) enough times to have added a little fascinating detail along the way as they felt their listeners’ attention drifting. We never tire of hearing the same story and end up saying to friends, “Have him tell you the story about _____.” When you look at your lyric, try to put yourself in the place of a listener and imagine listening to this story. Would it hold your attention?

Tell us the story. Don’t tell us about the story. The specific always stays with listeners longer than the general.

(1) “She left me last year and I’m not over her yet.

So many things about her I still can’t forget”

Interesting? No. Too general – not enough detail to be engaging.

(2) “We fought about money, I could never make enough.

Part of me’s glad the nagging’s gone and the other part knows I’m still in love”.

Better – you’re still letting us know she’s gone but you’re adding it in the context of why she left and how you feel about it. You’ve got substantially more info in #2. Money represents very common source of marital conflict, so you’re tapping into that audience. (Yes I know the 2 versions don’t scan the same but I’m making the point about content.)

So what did we gain? As a listener, I don’t really care when she left. I’m much more interested in why she left, and what there is about her, he can’t forget. So unless you begin to answer the question raised immediately, you’re courting boredom in your listener.

Build an interesting context.

Scenario 1 – Boy takes his girl home after a date – leans over to kiss her goodnight at her doorway and she turns her head away. Anyone who’s been there recognizes the major sign that something’s wrong.

Scenario 2 – Boy is standing with four pals on the sidewalk after school. His girlfriend comes over to the group and the boy tries to kiss her. She turns away. The scene is much more intense because he’s also publicly embarrassed and now they all know something’s wrong.

In scenario 2 the same action is intensified by a more emotionally loaded context. The drama is heightened considerably and sets up an even more volatile scene. Explore other contextual elements you could use to enhance the color and drama in your songs. Where is the action taking place? Who else is present? How do those factors relate to the action? It’s a good exercise to map out the scenarios in prose or like a movie script as I did above in as much detail as possible, describing what you see in your imagination, even if you don’t end up using all the details in your lyric.

———————————————-                                                                                                                                              Excerpted and updated from John Braheny’s The Craft and Business of Songwriting (3rd Ed)

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 page:Section1;} -There are many aspects to writing lyrics that may not immediately come to mind when you're "in the zone" and the ideas are flowing. By all means, don't stop the flow, just try not to get it hung up trying to find rhymes or correct phrasing at this point. Explore the “what if” ideas if anything and just let it roll. After that first draft, though, here are some things to consider.

Getting trapped by precision. Writers who write exclusively lyrics and those who start songs by writing lyrics before writing melodies can suffer from getting into a lyric meter pattern in the first section they write and carrying the same pattern through every section. Those of you on the fringe’s of obsessive compulsive disorder are also going to tend to make sure that each lyric meter is precisely the same in each verse and even in the chorus. Consequently much of their lyric will feel forced, stiff and un-conversational. Remember, you’re not writing a Haiku poem here (precisely 17 syllables), you’re writing a conversation and seldom does a conversation come out precisely the same, verse after verse. I’ll hasten to add that there are certainly successful songs that are more “poetic” than others and not as conversational as they are artful. However, the artfulness is not as much about the precision of meter as choice of words, metaphors and images. In other words, not as much in the artifice as is in the content itself.

The solution to this problem is to re-write what you think is a chorus with a totally fresh construction, lyric meter and rhyme scheme, making use of repetition of the title. Even if you’re not quite sure what you want the title to be and your initial draft of the song has                                                                                          the ‘”too precise and predictable” problem, always know that it’s a first draft and if the chorus is something you discover as you go, return to it for a rewrite before you nail down a melody. (See “Chorus Construction” P 93 The Craft and Business of Songwriting 3rd Ed.) For additional verses, loosen up. All you need is to make the vocal phrasing work smoothly with the first verse melody and if it means you need to make a slight adjustment in subsequent verse melodies to accommodate the lyric, it’s not really such a big deal. The content of the lyric is more important. This can be more difficult, however, if you write only lyrics without having a melody in your head to act as a matrix.

Writing to express yourself vs. writing to communicate. Sometimes you DO communicate when you express yourself. The problem is mainly making it interesting to the listener. We’ve all had long conversations with people who want to talk to us about every nuance of their personal history or problems. At some point during an unstoppable interlude like that you find yourself thinking about whether your car is due for an oil change. However, some people are natural story-tellers who offer fascinating details, descriptions and build a story in a way that keeps you asking “Then what happened?” and you’re hanging onto every word. Chances are they’ve re-told the story (re-written it) enough times to have added a little fascinating detail along the way as they felt their listeners’ attention drifting. We never tire of hearing the same story and end up saying to friends, “Have him tell you the story about _____.” When you look at your lyric, try to put yourself in the place of a listener and imagine listening to this story. Would it hold your attention?

Tell us the story. Don’t tell us about the story. In film industry vernacular, “Don’t write a treatment (plot summary), write a script.”

(1) “She left me last year and I’m not over her yet.

So many things about her I still can’t forget”

Interesting? No. Too general – not enough detail to be engaging.

(2) “We fought about money, I could never make enough.

Part of me’s glad the nagging’s gone and the other part knows I’m still in love”.

Better – you’re still letting us know she’s gone but you’re adding it in the context of why she left and how you feel about it. You’ve got substantially more info in #2. Money represents very common source of marital conflict, so you’re tapping into that audience. (Yes I know the 2 versions don’t scan the same but I’m making the point about content.)

So what did we gain? As a listener, I don’t really care when she left. I’m much more interested in why she left, and what there is about her, he can’t forget. So unless you begin to answer the question raised immediately, you’re courting boredom in your listener.

Build an interesting context.

Scenario 1 – Boy takes his girl home after a date – leans over to kiss her goodnight at her doorway and she turns her head away. Anyone who’s been there recognizes the major sign that something’s wrong.

Scenario 2 – Boy is standing with four pals on the sidewalk after school. His girlfriend comes over to the group and the boy tries to kiss her. She turns away. The scene is much more intense because he’s also publicly embarrassed and now they all know something’s wrong.

In scenario 2 the same action is intensified by a more emotionally loaded context. The drama is heightened considerably and sets up an even more volatile scene. Explore other contextual elements you could use to enhance the color and drama in your songs. Where is the action taking place? Who else is present? How do those factors relate to the action? It’s a good exercise to map out the scenarios in prose or like a movie script as I did above in as much detail as possible, describing what you see in your imagination, even if you don’t end up using all the details in your lyric.

Excerpted and updated from John Braheny’s The Craft and Business of Songwriting (3rd Ed)

–>

0

SongCrafting: Dance Music

By on October 11, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

With the increase in the number of dance songs in the four-minute range on the Pop and R&B/Hip-Hop charts, we see much more experimentation with these extended forms. Dance records are developed for pop, rock and Urban radio and singles for the dance club market. The records are usually formatted in a way that allows the record to be re-edited or re-mixed. This means that, originally, a longer version is recorded with more segments that can be removed to make a shorter version for radio or left in for the dance club market or for radio stations that like to play the long versions.

Techno, Electronica, Euro Dance, Acid Jazz, House, Big Beat, Trip Hop, Jungle, Drum & Bass, Trance are among the groove based styles that don’t necessarily use the song form conventions of pop songwriting. The styles are primarily DJ/producer originated styles that may incorporate loops (short repeated musical or lyrical phrases); ambient sounds, dialog, and a great variety of “found” sounds from radio broadcasts to phone conversations to traffic noise. The styles are used in dance clubs, at raves and on an increasing number of specialized radio shows and Web radio sites. Since they already havethe attention of their audience in those venues and media, they don’t need to follow the song-form conventions of mainstream radio.

Records earmarked specifically for the dance club and “rave” market, and not for radio, can break more rules. Since there’s a captive audience and you don’t need to get their attention and since records well over four minutes are the norm, there can be long, slow-building intros, additional sections and long instrumental breaks that would be too monotonous on radio. The records’ major appeal is based on having a relentlessly exciting dance groove. Beyond that, there are no rules and aside from a few conventional arrangement tricks like dropping out and bringing in instruments or repeating “loops,” there is a lot of room for creativity in vocal and instrumental textures particularly for songwriters with arranging and producing skills. Dance music is usually “written” with the groove first, then other instruments, loops, vocals, etc, added later.

DJ/producers have become the new stars of the dance scene by virtue of their use of digital turntable technology that allows them to seamlessly keep the music going by segueing between songs with different tempos, their choice of recordings and the creation of their own digital loops to provide transitional grooves.

Dance music is one of the most creative areas of popular music today. From the point of view of the composer/arranger/producer, it’s more like writing underscore for film than writing pop songs. There is inevitably a growing fusion between these dance styles and traditional styles of World Music: Latin, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern and Indian featuring classical and jazz instrumentalists and vocalists from those musical cultures. To learn more about it, search the Internet under “dance music.”

For online information go to:

www.dancemusic.about.com/cs/genreguides/index.htm

To hear the music go to my favorite Web radio site, www.Live365.com and pick a genre listed above.

0

SongCrafting: Clichés

By on October 10, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

How often have you heard: feel the pain — by my side — set me free — lost without you –broken heart — all we’ve been through — hold me close – my foolish pride — all night long — give you my heart — want you, need you, love you — all my love — more than friends — never let you go — more than words can say — when you walked into the room — when you came into my life — when I first saw you — dream come true — call on me — our love is forever, and the ever popular — oh baby? Then there are the clich© rhymes: hold (take my) your hand…understand…be your man, dance…take a chance…romance, kiss you…miss you and on and on. Of course you’ve never been guilty of using any of these worn-out phrases and rhymes. But just in case you’re thinking about it, I’ll try to answer the questions I know you’d want to ask. Continue Reading →

3

SongCrafting: Clichés

By on October 10, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

How often have you heard: feel the pain — by my side — set me free — lost without you –broken heart — all we’ve been through — hold me close – my foolish pride — all night long — give you my heart — want you, need you, love you — all my love — more than friends — never let you go — more than words can say — when you walked into the room — when you came into my life — when I first saw you — dream come true — call on me — our love is forever, and the ever popular — oh baby? Then there are the clichƒ© rhymes: hold (take my) your hand…understand…be your man, dance…take a chance…romance, kiss you…miss you and on and on. Of course you’ve never been guilty of using any of these worn-out phrases and rhymes. But just in case you’re thinking about it, I’ll try to answer the questions I know you’d want to ask. Continue Reading →

3