Is musical cleverness a double-edged sword?
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Writing good songs requires a lot of practice and experience, but if you don’t have that experience it can be hard to know what to practice. Fortunately, most new songwriters tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, especially if you’re willing to abstract away some of the details, so today I thought I’d offer some guidance in how to handle what is, I think, one of the most common mistakes of all: Trying to get too clever. It’s a really tempting trap, and all of us fall into it at one point or another in our development, but with a little attention to detail, it’s really not that hard to get past. You just have to realize you’re doing it first.
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Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!
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Kerping the raw track open is just a great tip!!!
Try writing a clever song and see how clever you can be writing it so that it's not a boring clever song.
Haha. I'm totally a victim of the trying to be clever curse with my first attempt at introducing much music theory into my previously unstructured pentatonic noodling.
Tho I think I can be excused. The song is the bed for a song I had initially improvised.
Taking apart the vocal performance, I had to spend time finding harmonies that fit the various sections and they all just happened to be in rather exotic scales.
Your point regarding covers makes me think of Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt… at first glance it sounds completely different, but listen to it back to back with the Reznor’s original and it’s extremely faithful. All Cash did was strip it down to the bare minimum being three repeating chords for the verse and four chords for the chorus with a couple of supporting background instruments for intensity at the appropriate moments. Cash didn’t even bother with intricate strumming patterns… all down strums. Pure genius in that way that so few musicians seem to be able to do.
That G made me think of the black parade ?
Interesting
Big word on the part about covers just trying to be different. Great example is some rearrangement of Stairway to Heaven that was presented to Led Zeppelin in a concert hall or theatre some years ago and it just made so many things that were as fitting as a stick in the sore eye. They just popped out and didn't sound like they belonged, but someone arranging the song was definitely thinking "we should make it different" and show off how great we can do.
you can hate me for this… but this video really reminds me of jacob collier…
It's similar to learn the rules before you break them.
Well you're a fast talker, were you a car salesman in a previous life, doing a side hustle as a doodler? But what are you actually telling us. I'm not even curious, just browbeaten – tataa
I like that little bat you draw
The way this guy holds that pen, though
I love the humour in these videos – all the puns and references and expressions that you would totally miss if you just listened to the audio.
Thanks for this. I'm a songwriter in the Scottish Highlands. Really interesting to watch. ?
If that is good songwriting then I guess Great songwriting is being clever and it having a point.
This advice sounds solid now. I'm wondering if it's really fundamental or if in 50 years our grandchildren will consider it classical but limiting music theory.
What good are theories on harmony? I just have to compose what sounds good in my head. It comes naturally and as I said on another video, not from a calculator or a circular chart.
The more I know about songwriting the closer I get to jazz it up and the far I get to bigger audicences. Technical means lesser numbers nowadays.
6:40 New title idea.
The surprising enemy of GOD songwriting
You are an expert in doodling.