Is it the song, or the sound you want to convey?

[M'Snah]

...

[dystonia_ek]

Depends on what sort of music you're making, doesn't it?

[vurt]

an old uncle of mine once said
"do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

i think this applies here no?

[M'Snah]

...

[vurt]

edit due to stoned wafflin

[crusces]

I've been playing in 'traditional' bands for quite a few years now, so I know songwriting as in 'Sitting down with a guitar and getting it out'.
When i'm working on tracks in the 'ole VST-host, the method by which I work is quite different from songwriting with a band, also because I work mostly instrumental there.
One thing that remains is, that when I write a song, I want to convey a certain feeling, or image. I let that guide me, and a structure evolves, and maybe lyrics, but specific sounds also.

I'm not sure that there is any scientifical background to this rambling, but I'd say certain kinds of frequencies and/or harmonic structures can convey as much of a message as words, or wordplay, can.
When using vocals, the words and the vocal melody are the focus point of your song. I try to let everything else that happens in the track support that which the vocals are putting forth.

So I guess the SONG is what I'm trying to convey, and I use SOUND to emphasize what it's about.

[opiadream]

So how many here still believe in MESSAGE, VERSE, WORD PLAY and EMOTIONAL RESPONSE and how many believe in ORCHESTRATION, PRODUCTION, TEXTURE and CONCEPT? Can a 'good song' survive here without the 'production' - or does a 'well produced' song get better attention even though the lyrics, message, and concept really are lame?

Just curious.

the song/message is important (to me anyway)
but their are times when the sounds and production are so good you don't really care what the message is.

of course when all those elements come together
thats when you've struck gold.

[duncanparsons]

for me it's a bit of both...

Sometimes, mucking around with sounds will bring on a perfectly servicable song, other times the song pops into my head in the car, then I find sounds that bring out the best of it.

I'm not keen on straight jacketing my approach according to written rule. I know a reasonable amount of Music Theory, which helps choose the chords I want, but I am happy to through it out the window if a particular chord progression sounds good, tho' defies all good harmony practise..

It can be good to bear axioms in mind, but not glue oneself to it..

well, that's what I think anyway!

DSP

[dystonia_ek]

an old uncle of mine once said
"do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

i think this applies here no?

Most definitely, along with 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.'

[dystonia_ek]

Depends on what sort of music you're making, doesn't it?

What does? IMO every style of music has it's own rules about structure etc. So you should understand at least about structure, the type of instruments, etc.

--HansM

Rules are restrictive, for me anyway.

Almost all the music I've made for the last decade has been produced without musical instruments, not that I have anything against them. A sound source is a sound source, whether it's found or created, naturally occurring or man-made.

This is what I mean - in certain types of music, sound design and composition are the same thing. This isn't true in every musical genre, therefore my 'depends'.

[edit]
Also, see vtx's comment below.

[vtx]

If an artist is always worried about what other people think,,can he really call it his own?

[M'Snah]

...

[ouroboros]

an old uncle of mine once said
"do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

i think this applies here no?

sounds like Kant's categorical imperative.

but he liked Jessica more than Ashley, so thar's out.

[Steven West]

Interesting stuff guys! Thank you.

I guess what I'm confused about is myself, in that 25 years ago I was a 'songwriting maniac'. Just a guitar, a CS10 synth and a 3 track reel to reel. But nothing would stop me from coming up with Ramones type punk/pop songs, or experimental musique concrete. The weird thing happened around 1985 in a dream. I dreamt I found a bunch of thrown out gear by the garbage. We're talking PPG Waveterm's and Emu racks and pro stands. (When I dream, I dream BIG! ) So in the dream, I drag all this stuff back to my place all excited. Plug it in and fire it up.... I could barely make a sound with it all!
Now this could be because it was 'trash' to begin with, but I should've been smarter to fix this? Or maybe I wasn't 'as good' as I thought I was? A field day for psychoanalysts everywhere I'm sure... But still in the dream, I made the racks or synth make some kind of clockwork rythem (probably just the metronome?) and tried to make a song around it. I wasn't happy with it, I thought it stunk - then I woke up.

So it haunts me today. I'm surrounded by gear of my wildest dreams, bought and paid for. Gear bought for me. Gear left with me. Gear I found.... Then there's SOFTWARE! The one I'm still so leary of is the Waldorf PPG softsynth because of that dream nearly 20 years ago.

So a few days ago I sat down to write just a 'nice song' ala Fleetwood Mac (yeah, I'd like to think I'm as good as Lindsey Buckingham! ) And here's the kicker... It sounds REALLY good (IMO), but the lyrics - and my enthusiasm to sing them is about as enthralling as taking down Christmas lights on Feb 1.

So do I blame age, technology, expectations, lack of knowledge still, or just the simple fact I've gone to far down the other road to get back to the intersection? Or maybe tommorrow I'll write a better pop song and be totally happy with it? But the thing that gets me, is even thinking about a simple melody and lyric - it's superceeded by "How the hell am I going to record this? Maybe I should use TubeBaby for the guitar, but record it raw beforehand? And should I start on the SP-808, or Orion, or just a MD recorder. Oh shit, do I have mini-discs still?..."
And then the song idea's gone. But seeing how all the gears fired up, maybe I'll twist a sample, put a beat with it, feed it through SmEx stuff... That sounds kinda cool - wonder what folks at KVR will think of it?

As long as the desire to 'break out of that' is there, maybe someday I will? I'm just getting scared I'm at the point I couldn't if I tried.
Can 'style' AND 'substance' be acheived by 1 person in their bedroom/basement/studio - or do we still desire bandmates, engineers, and audience to direct us? I'm a bigger control freak than Francis Black - so I should be happy. But I ain't. If I go to bandmates, engineers, and audience et al now - they're going to expect me to have a 'finished product', but a 'finished product' they can suggest improvements on.... A long way from 'Lets work on that and flesh it out.'

Maybe I should just go back to an acoustic and a cassette recorder in a shotgun shack in Nebraska?
Sending out 15min mailers to A&R people at Stoney Plain and Virgin and keep my fingers crossed? For all this technology, and you wonderful people around me here - that's still an ultimate desire for me. And I don't think I'm the only one here with that dream today?

Deep.

[Lady J]

So it haunts me today. I'm surrounded by gear of my wildest dreams, bought and paid for. Gear bought for me. Gear left with me. Gear I found.... Then there's SOFTWARE! The one I'm still so leary of is the Waldorf PPG softsynth because of that dream nearly 20 years ago.

Hehe I was using the PPG Wave 2.3 synth just today. I'll have to introduce you two when I come to T.O.