scotch
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Post by scotch on May 24, 2015 20:15:29 GMT
I was having a discussion with graham a couple weeks back on writing songs. Found out how we both write is different as you would expect but it was the large difference that shocked me for example whenever I hear sounds they all have an emotions/blurred colours connected to the sound. Only recently I realised when writing I play an idea then once got a start to it and usually I feel the emotion on what I want to play next. Then I find that sound on the guitar and play it with the added sound to check it if what I feel goes smoothly. Now I've composed a few pieces using this idea and what I done prior to the song is assign it with the way I want it to move emotionally no sound attached to it all prior to picking the guitar up and it helped a lot in the physical playing aspect. When discussing this with other musicans quite a lot of them played the song in their head first then played it as closely as possible to what they heard. I attempted this and it worked but felt there was still a lot left to be said in the song so sat further playing it my head and I felt quite blocked by this process. Any of you have any other methods like this? Chris.
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Post by Mike Floorstand on May 24, 2015 20:45:19 GMT
Can you give an example Chris? I'm not sure I follow what you're saying but sounds like you may have a form of synaesthesia, when two perceptions - in this case hearing a pitch or sound, and seeing a colour - are fused into one or else one triggers the other. I believe quite a few musicians have this - Martin Taylor for example - so it can obviously be harnessed to good ends!
In my case I mainly do arrangements of existing tunes (I've only ever composed one tune) and for me its an almost entirely analytical process using my bits of knowledge of how harmony works to find basslines and middle voices that fit. If I'm not sure i'll play a few options and see which one I like the sound of, but I never hear it in my head before playing.
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scotch
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Post by scotch on May 24, 2015 21:06:06 GMT
It's really difficult to explain but what happens is my emotions are connected to a sound. Emotions are complex same as colours. So prior to writing a song I create a structure of movement of emotions. This is really to get a jist of negative or postive emotions. This doesnt mean a minor is negative or major is positive. So best way to say it is Happy or Sad. Then once I have that I move and refine exactly what I feel, so this gets more complex with emotions of lostness, harm, hope, pride and it goes on like this. I have an emotion connected to sound.
So for example what I have been composing recently is a moving piece of negative into postive but has light hearted challenges to it and at the part I'm at adds in what I describe as defensive anger. which is played in DADGAD by playing D in this tuning but with a C in the bass.
It's quite hard to describe this but I see the music as Emotion and if I find it difficult to figure the emotion out I relate it to colours which helps.
Hope this helps.
I think this is why I enjoy alter tunings so much as it create more stories and more complexity to it. With standard tuning its hard to get out of the structure I've been taught.
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Post by vikingblues on May 25, 2015 7:30:48 GMT
You're way ahead of me in composing Chris! It seems to me you have a way of internally creating a mood that is well worth harnessing and using. The fact that it is coming from you as an individual and not from acquired rules and regulations set down by others will mean the music is much more likely to be "yours" and have a unique style / feel. I can identify with your comments on open tunings v standard tuning. I feel that with standard tuning all those years of working in a structured chordal system has effectively stifled any little creativity for me in tune writing in particular. My lack of chord / structure knowledge in open / altered tunings helps my composing process as this means I need to be finding what works for the ear. The extra resonances in these tunings also help in making the sounds more interesting and bigger (useful if you have fewer notes and a slow playing style). I certainly can't hear a song in my head and then try and replicate it! The closest I can get to that is hearing a melodic / lead line in my head that would work in an arrangement that is already done / known and is in place. I can't even manage Mike's approach of using bits of knowledge of how harmony works to find bass lines and middle voices that fit when I try and compose - due to not having that knowledge. Which explains why my "tunes" to date have no middle voices! Though my creaking fingers aren't really up to the extra stretches and movement that a third line of notes in the music requires anyway. Any attempt I make to harness technical knowledge invariably leads to a even more generic and bland piece of nothing than I normally manage. So I'm stuck with "borrowing" ideas from improvisation, or with taking bass / melody note combinations that work in a loose key structure and finding ways to progress the melodic line between those isolated note pairs while adding in the occasional bass note en route. Any aspect of "emotion" within that scheme of things has to come from the appropriate note choices and from the playing style. Very much trial and error and very time consuming jotting down the notes on paper - also needing rapid draft recordings to be made before I forget the phrasing and feel of the chosen notes. I can wrote down what the notes are in Tab, but I stink at trying to assign timing to those notes on paper. Mark
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leoroberts
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Post by leoroberts on May 25, 2015 7:52:41 GMT
Leo's guide to writing songs:
Step 1. Does it have more than 3 chords? If yes: stop and start again. If no, continue to step 2 Step 2. Are those chords D,G and A? If No, go back to step 1. If yes, continue to step 3 Step 3. Congratulations, you've written a song!
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Post by Martin on May 25, 2015 9:20:19 GMT
Leo's guide to writing songs: Step 1. Does it have more than 3 chords? If yes: stop and start again. If no, continue to step 2 Step 2. Are those chords D,G and A? If No, go back to step 1. If yes, continue to step 3 Step 3. Congratulations, you've written a song! Seems okay in theory, Leo, but could you maybe simplify the process a bit for the layman?
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Wild Violet
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Post by Wild Violet on May 25, 2015 9:39:39 GMT
I have a very similar technique to Leo, but my step 2. involves G, C and D. If I want to get extra fancy then I throw in an Em. I think Chris has evolved far, far beyond me and my little mud hut. I don't even understand what he's saying, and it's not just the accent...
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Post by graham on May 26, 2015 21:32:40 GMT
I use the K.I.S.S. Theory.... Keep It Simple Stupid! I never sit down to write a song, they just happen... I do however, play around with various riffs/chords and then put them on the back burner, revisiting them when a story develops.
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Post by melodeous on Jun 8, 2015 1:36:45 GMT
Visualizing music is a new twist on composition but... here goes.
Composition -
It's a collaboration between fretboard knowledge and tonal (ear) knowledge. The former is academic, the latter is experience. Picture a navigator in an airplane calling out course changes to the pilot in terms of degrees on a compass. Now, visualize the navigator as your ear and the pilot your hands (compass knowledge = fretboard savviness). It's that kind of collaboration that sets melodies onto the fretboard (fret hand) and notes onto the strings (right hand). Clear as mud?
I think the experience a player gathers along the journey can be dissected into ear and hand skills that collaborate every time the guitar is played. It's an unconscious event that becomes more and more collaborative as time goes on.
One thing about the basics - chords. Chording cleanly (fluidly) to the extent that a person can manage to play songs is an academic goal - first goal. Then comes the part where we learn to actually begin to explore the guitar. Getting good at chording is the basic one foot in front of the other trial (sober). That said, good chording creates two things that tend to have a negative effect towards becoming a good player and composer. First, it's a measure of success that many treat as their summit of learning. I mean, getting good beyond open chords to barre chords is a fair achievement. But, that's still just the basic binary coding of the guitar's possibilities, to musically communicate, yet many stop there unwilling to explore further. In addition (secondly), there's a world of music in a single chord available to anyone who might explore its many-colored offerings. People tend to sound it and move on - strummers especially - to the next chord in the scale. Visualize a chord in an aural kaleidoscopic sense. There's all kinds of sounds available within it that can spawn countless melodies. Exploring each chord to its fullest is not on the list of things to do after learning the basics of chording, for most. But, that's the next step.
The chord/melody approach to composition is something I've always enjoyed simply because it reveals things to me every time I feel inspired to compose. Whether it's chord-centric or single note runs, the above collaboration sets me into a student's repose every time.
This is all my experience as a finger picker.
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Post by andyhowell on Jun 9, 2015 7:37:22 GMT
I tend to agree with that. Barre chords are very restrictive when it comes to fingerstyle. There is something rather wonderful - when playing in open tunings - about hinting a chords, diminished and so on.
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Post by vikingblues on Jun 11, 2015 7:35:28 GMT
Visualizing music is a new twist on composition but... here goes. Composition - It's a collaboration between fretboard knowledge and tonal (ear) knowledge. The former is academic, the latter is experience. Picture a navigator in an airplane calling out course changes to the pilot in terms of degrees on a compass. Now, visualize the navigator as your ear and the pilot your hands (compass knowledge = fretboard savviness). It's that kind of collaboration that sets melodies onto the fretboard (fret hand) and notes onto the strings (right hand). Clear as mud? I think the experience a player gathers along the journey can be dissected into ear and hand skills that collaborate every time the guitar is played. It's an unconscious event that becomes more and more collaborative as time goes on. One thing about the basics - chords. Chording cleanly (fluidly) to the extent that a person can manage to play songs is an academic goal - first goal. Then comes the part where we learn to actually begin to explore the guitar. Getting good at chording is the basic one foot in front of the other trial (sober). That said, good chording creates two things that tend to have a negative effect towards becoming a good player and composer. First, it's a measure of success that many treat as their summit of learning. I mean, getting good beyond open chords to barre chords is a fair achievement. But, that's still just the basic binary coding of the guitar's possibilities, to musically communicate, yet many stop there unwilling to explore further. In addition (secondly), there's a world of music in a single chord available to anyone who might explore its many-colored offerings. People tend to sound it and move on - strummers especially - to the next chord in the scale. Visualize a chord in an aural kaleidoscopic sense. There's all kinds of sounds available within it that can spawn countless melodies. Exploring each chord to its fullest is not on the list of things to do after learning the basics of chording, for most. But, that's the next step. The chord/melody approach to composition is something I've always enjoyed simply because it reveals things to me every time I feel inspired to compose. Whether it's chord-centric or single note runs, the above collaboration sets me into a student's repose every time. This is all my experience as a finger picker. Very well expressed thoughts indeed melodeous. I wish I could think half that clearly about the tangled web of what composition is and how to survive it and produce anything worthwhile. You mention the "collaboration between fretboard knowledge and tonal (ear) knowledge" and that makes sense to me. As does "the former is academic, the latter is experience" - and therein, for me, lies a problem. I'd expand the word "experience" in that context to also encompass "instinctive". By adding that to the definition we have strong hints of the logical and creative sides of the brain being at work respectively. The trouble is I find those two sides of the brain are not good co-workers. The act of utilising the academic, logical, factual side of my brain snuffs out the attempts of the other side of the brain to be creative, impulsive, and imaginative. It's depressing that even the act of writing down anything spoils the flow of ideas. Anything that involves logical thought does that for me - if I set up to do a recording and I have a technical issue with the setup that requires attention and thought, then once it's fixed I know that the playing performance will be substandard and without any creative edge. I recognise the scenario where you mention ear and hand skills, their collaboration and the fact that it's "an unconscious event that becomes more and more collaborative as time goes on". In particular the word "unconscious" leaps out for me. The very fact that it is that makes it so difficult to harness in the act of trying to compose a piece of music using logical structured thought processes. That "unconscious" aspect lends itself perfectly to improvisation - my only outlet where I feel there is anything much creative happening and that anything of "me" is coming through in the playing. Excellent points about chord voicings and how much extra they can bring to a piece of music - there's a few very good rhythm guitarists I can think of that make their bands songs special by their skilled use of these. Though I'll admit to finding that in standard tuning all the rules and habits of chord progressions still get in my way, even with voicings. I'll go along with Andy in being happier about the benefits in open tunings of being able to hint at chords, and indeed in my case also to be ignorant of where a lot of chords are which forces me to go by ear. But I think it fair to say despite gradual improvements I'm finding composition a more and more depressing task. I suspect I'll keep banging my head on its brick wall though, while keeping my creative spirits up in improv - maybe I'll get somewhere before I'm no longer able to play guitar. Mark
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Post by ocarolan on Jun 11, 2015 10:09:40 GMT
Not sure if this will be very coherent, and it may degenerate into random thoughts, but... For me, composition is largely a mental exercise - I "hear" it in my head. This allows the music to be independent, at least at first, of instruments and tunings, which are only the tools by which the music will expressed, though obviously the instrument has a bearing on how the piece might turn out. Beginnig with an instrument and using the find-something-that-sounds-good-and-develop-it approach is something I do much less often. It may give me a starting point, but then I tend to revert to the mental approach to work on the piece before returning to the guitar or whatever. Why? Because I find that if I compose on the guitar throughout, I am inevitably restricted by my own technical limitations, and will always come up with something within my capabilities - ie the process does not challenge me in the technical sense. If I have the music in my head (and it isn't there as purely guitar orientated music), I then have to find the best way of expressing that on the guitar which may well sometimes force me to think beyond what I would normally play if just sitting down "noodling". Not sure if I'm making sense here - it's hard to explain! Obviously there are still limitations, as I'm unlikely to be able to devise music in my head that is completely different in style from things I've heard, but I've always listened to not-guitar-based music of various sorts which I think helps. Maybe that's why I really enjoy making fingerstyle arrangements of not-particularly-guitar-orientated tunes by listening to as many versions I can find of the tune, letting them mix up in my head and then try to come up with a composite guitar-based version. I play a few guitar pieces by other people - not many, but all have strong melodies and most have had something in them that stretched me technically at the time. I mostly work these out by listening/looking rather than from notation/tab. Final random thoughts - partial/implied chords, "different" sounding voicings and campanella passages are not the sole preserve of altered tunings. I like to think of myself as a musician who happens to play the guitar, which sounds boastful, but what I mean is that I am first and foremost a lover of music, and secondly of the guitar. The guitar is a means of expressing the music and not an end in itself. The process of learning (whether formally or informally)to play the instrument tends inevitably to turn this on it's head (guitar forums do this too!). I'd love to get to the stage where the guitar was "transparent" and gave no obstruction to my "mental music". Time I shut up. Keith
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leoroberts
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Post by leoroberts on Jun 11, 2015 13:00:54 GMT
I'd love to get to the stage where the guitar was "transparent"
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Post by vikingblues on Jun 11, 2015 17:57:29 GMT
For me, composition is largely a mental exercise - I "hear" it in my head. This allows the music to be independent, at least at first, of instruments and tunings, which are only the tools by which the music will expressed, though obviously the instrument has a bearing on how the piece might turn out. Beginnig with an instrument and using the find-something-that-sounds-good-and-develop-it approach is something I do much less often. It may give me a starting point, but then I tend to revert to the mental approach to work on the piece before returning to the guitar or whatever. Interesting post Keith - it seems like a good musical way of approaching composition. I've questions on the bit I've highlighted above. 1. Do you think that your long term (I assume it is long term) playing of fingerstyle guitar has contributed to your ability to "hear" the music in your head? 2. Does that hearing include any elements of the arrangement and lines other than melody? I know I can't really "hear" even a melody unless I'm hearing the arrangment / chords that it will fit into. But I remind myself that was not even possible for me until the last few years. Mark
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Post by ocarolan on Jun 11, 2015 22:55:39 GMT
vikingblues - I'll have a stab at answering your questions Mark! 1. Whilst I have played fingerstyle guitar for a long time, I suspect that all the music I've ever heard is somewhere inside my head in some shape or form, and it is primarily this that sparks off choons in my head. The fingerstyle guitar has sprung from that rather than the other way round. But, this does touch on issues from another thread in that my lengthy acquaintance with the guitar has helped enable me to imagine I'm playing a guitar and to hear the result in my head - I "practise" works in progress like this, and can sometimes come up with ideas to develop them and have a pretty good idea of what they will sound like when I do have a real guitar in my hands. Which is getting onto the subject of your other question... 2. The melodies tend to come first. But once I have a melody, or a portion of one, I can then work at "hearing" other elements in my head. Bass line usually comes next, then stuff in between the two. I try to do that without using the guitar in my head and then translate onto a real guitar later, though sometimes part or even all of a piece might get worked out in my head as a guitar thing. Sometimes I'll just take the head choon to the guitar and work out the other bits "for real", though still usually adding the bassline I want first, then filling in the middle. Interesting that you find it hard to make sense of a melody without it's context. Despite everything I've said above, I can relate to that too when it comes to "real" music. A lone melody can be harmonised in so many different ways, and I find it hard to memorise a melody line on its own. Weird, and slightly contradictory, but that's more or less how it works for me! Keith
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