After finishing one song, I typically start a new one pretty much straight away. Sometimes I literally start as soon as I’ve “mastered” and posted the last one.
It’s not unusual for me to be in a particular place for a couple of songs – I might be feeling orchestral or dance-y for a few weeks – but I try to mix things up. One technique I have is to do something improvised, and somewhat automatic. I liken (though don’t compare!) this to Tom Phillips‘ “Terminal Greys” series of paintings. In his case it’s literally a palette cleanser, as well as a way of rinsing away the day’s thoughts, in mine it’s a way of clearing stuff out of my head to start something new. For identification purposes: they’re markedly different from what precedes or succeeds them!
“Document 2” is one of these pieces. It’s not in my usual, poppy style, but that’s the point – it’s a break or a sidebar. The idea was to set up musical and sound loops of different length, then let them play against each other, drifting in and out of different harmonic and melodic relationships.
Another, less ambient approach I use is to set rules – for example in “Power of Two” I introduced eight, sixteen, thirty two, and sixty four bar themes throughout the song. The real gem in this song was the “found” muezzin’s call to prayer, which matched the song in terms of key and tempo.
As the idea of this blog is to talk about songs in progress, let’s turn to my newest piece “Kilo Alpha“. The starting point for this was a desire to find something interesting on a Rhodes style piano. As I was playing around in Reason, the main riff came to me, originally as a two bar motif, but after I’d recorded it, I added some changes. Next came the nice tight drum loop. I’m currently looking for a horn sample, so I’ve been trawling through the “Soul School” ReFill. The one in the current version of the song is pretty nice, but also somewhat like a horn part I added in another song, so I’ll probably change it. What I currently have is likely the first verse…
…One thing I find interesting about how different writers write, is the linear progress through a song. I remember an interview with Sting where he said he always wrote the chorus first, then worked back from there. I can see the logic of that: a chorus should be strong, and contain the hooks. I almost always write in sequence, i.e. the first thing I write is going to be the verse, then what follows will be a bridge or chorus. Because I don’t intentionally write vocal melodies or lyrics, I can’t write something fairly mundane, then shine it up with a really good tune or clever words. As a result, my verse has to be strong (as far as I’m concerned) for me to stay interested in it. Then I have to try hard for the chorus to go somewhere different and even stronger!
While we’re still at the beginnings stage with this blog, you may find my titles a little strange. When I wrote with a collaborator I used to add titles, simply because I needed something to call the file I was saving to. Sometimes, however, I’d find that some random title that might have come from a book I was reading at the time (“Nixonland” for example) would start to influence the lyricist. Then I hit on the idea of using the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, which came around the time I was most obsessed with the Conet Project. Generally the phonetic title will relate to the feel of the track, so, “November Yankee” related to the kind of dreamy New York I was trying to evoke. “Bravo” will typically relate to there being a prominent or different kind of beat that interested me.
I cried when I wrote this song 