re-Jim Lindstroms' thread last week
completing stuff intended to serve as the musical part for songs with lyrics. i'm putting together 6-track versions of these songs,
using the built-in recording/mixing mechanism in my keyboard,
which are"complete"(except for lyrics)in that they
are demo-type arrangements with chords,melody,drum
and percussion,bass,strings,guitar,etc.i am working
out a few versions of each with a different vocal
melody and in some cases a different rhythmic
concept.some are"cast" for r+b singers,some for pop;
in addition i have tracks which are instrumentals
i'd like to market,and in of themselves any of the
"song demos"could work as instrumental versions.
my plan is to make a demo tape(or two,i have alot of stuff)and then "shop them" to a+r people,producers,etc,based on
the fact that the music in of itself is in a completed form and could easily serve as the basis for tracks
for a singer who already has their own
lyrics.although,based on the research i've done online about the industry,i am full aware that many of the people i'll be sending the demos to usually only want to hear sonmgs with lyrics already added,i am very wary about any "collaboration" with a
lyricist before getting my stuff heard by people since
i don't want its' musical value and marketability to
be in any way negatively impacted.
right now i'm dealing with finalizing the forms and
structures,grooves and melodies.my focus has been on coming up
with melodies that work for lyrics in terms of verse/
chorus/bridge considerations,dealing with technical
aspects of melody writing like repeated motives
and when to change to a "form" of the original
motive in an 8-bar section,differences
between melodies used in the verse and in the
chorus over a harmonic structure that stays constant while the rhythm changes,form/structure considerations i've gone into above
regarding the extent to which non-standard song and
section length(in terms of bars)can work in the
categories i'm interested in shopping my demos in,the difference between what type of progressions and
melodies work for verse,bridge,and chorus sections,etc.
a lot of my stuff originally was concieved of as
jazz-type improv structures,with a lot of different
connected sections(rondo form) and only one or two repeating,this is
what's behind the type of thing i've experienced at times inthe process of getting these into marketable form-
it seems like what's going on is similar to what
happens when cells divide(!!!);i start to work on the
tune sectionally,take the ideas for melodies i have
and work with them and find things getting more and
more involved,such as what i thought was one song
actually turning into the makings of two, or coming up
with melodies which lead to using sections
differently,etc, which is the opposite of what i'm
trying to do in terms of completing the song.based on
the process i used to compose all this stuff,which was
to make basic tracks,"solo" over them,then transcribe
melodies i thought would work vocally/lyrically and
work with them,i have come up with different melodies
for each section as options to choose from and i put
them all on tape,then take sections from
one song and put them together with another.
coming from jazz,a lot of the concepts i composed with originally(especially in terms of modulation)have had to be modified to make them more viable in the categories i'm directing my efforts toward.however,many of the songs by contemporary singers in r+b use structures very similar to those in jazz,especially harmonically(modal,quartal concepts,altered 7ths etc.)and vamps are also used a lot which much of my original stuff was based on.
anyways that probaly gave you a pretty good idea of why i leave my crib at some point everyday and come over here to the college across the street's computer lab and get into things on ljp as a way of taking a break from this!!
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