The Song Fight Bulletin Board

jolly roger wrote:I know originality isn't really a technique, but how do you know if something sounds original or not?

I love this question. I have no good answer, except to say that the question cuts pretty close to the difficulty with modern pop art. I do plenty of stupid stuff in our songs that I think adds a unique Hostess Mostess flavor, but it always ends up sounding a little pat, or forced, or stolen, or awkward.

And originality for its own sake does not guarantee passion or beauty. And true passion should be so recognizably, universally human that the originality of the expression should be beside the point.

If you're like me, you've a priori restricted yourself to pure audio of overlapping tonal sequences arranged in repeating blocks of 10 to 20 seconds laid over an isochronous (real or implied) rhythm to convey a tactus between 200 and 800 milliseconds. So anything you do will sound unoriginal at its heart. But convincing an audience that you're unique and interesting and fun/valuable to listen to...aye, there's the rub.

Mostess wrote: If you're like me, you've a priori restricted yourself to pure audio of overlapping tonal sequences arranged in repeating blocks of 10 to 20 seconds laid over an isochronous (real or implied) rhythm to convey a tactus between 200 and 800 milliseconds.

Wow. Did you get indigestion from that dictionary?

Caravan Ray wrote:

Leaf wrote: Sometimes I think of music as if it were water, and the wires are pipes, and the song is a big pipe that you fill with music. Too much water in either a wire or pipe, and you get a lousy groove, or distortion.

Actually the groove is like the Reynold's Number (ie. the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces in the fluid)

In the low Reynold's Number range, the flow is laminar - hence the music is 'smooth', or 'mellow' or perhaps 'groovy'. If you increase the velocity of the music (ie. the tempo) or decrease the kinematic viscosity of the fluid (errr...turn the guitars up?) then the R Number increases and the flow becomes turbulent, and the music could be described as "RAWWK" (the number of W's is inversely proportionate to the 'density' of the fluid - or in other words, how dumb the drummer is)

Hey, who said 2 years of studying fluid mechanics would never come in useful!

Then I'm suprised you left out the Bernoulli effect. Or is Reynold's Number an updated explanation of the same phenom?

In the words of Mr. Britt Daniel:

You gotta feel it. Ooh, you gotta feel it.

Probably the best advice for anything music. Your vocals seem passionless? Care about what you're singing. Don't know what chord to play next? Play what feels best.

Life-changing stuff, really.

catch wrote:Your vocals seem passionless? Care about what you're singing. Don't know what chord to play next? Play what feels best.

This is condescending and glib. The question isn't "should I care about what I'm singing/playing?" or "I don't like my songs, should I start writing ones I like?" Your answer here addresses those questions very well. Good job with that!

I empathize with this questioner. Sometimes I really feel in the groove, and really feel like I'm hitting the heartstrings, and then I get feedback that the song sounded thin, or weak, or too much like Beatles/Coldplay/James Taylor/etc. I'm always dumbstruck. How can I write passion while avoiding cliche and self-absorption? How can I tune my style so that my natural instincts aren't mere rip-offs of the writers I admire and have patterned myself after. These are the artist's questions ---what is my voice and how can I best use it?

In other words, how can you be sure that what you're doing is going to resonate with others as passionate and/or original? Everybody feels stuff; only good poets express it well. Feeling it/liking it may be necessary (I'd argue it's not, but that's a different debate) for a good song or performance. But feeling it/liking it is definitely not sufficient.

Mostess wrote:This is condescending and glib.

That's not what I intended.

I too empathize with the questioner. There was a period where I wanted to give up making my own music entirely 'cause I just couldn't seem to record anything near a good vocal. Feelin' it made all the difference in the world.

Everybody does feel stuff, which is why I think everyone's capable of delivering a resonating performance. The thing is, at least for me, early on in songwriting you're prone to write songs you don't really care about because either you're not opening yourself up in the music due to lack of confidence, or you've thrown the lyric together, or you're too hung up on sounding a certain way, or whatever.

I really do think it all comes down to feeling it. If you let yourself go when writing the music and put your heart into writing the lyric, the song is going to sound more original and passionate. And more so the more you do it.

roymond wrote:

Caravan Ray wrote:

Leaf wrote: Sometimes I think of music as if it were water, and the wires are pipes, and the song is a big pipe that you fill with music. Too much water in either a wire or pipe, and you get a lousy groove, or distortion.

Actually the groove is like the Reynold's Number (ie. the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces in the fluid)

In the low Reynold's Number range, the flow is laminar - hence the music is 'smooth', or 'mellow' or perhaps 'groovy'. If you increase the velocity of the music (ie. the tempo) or decrease the kinematic viscosity of the fluid (errr...turn the guitars up?) then the R Number increases and the flow becomes turbulent, and the music could be described as "RAWWK" (the number of W's is inversely proportionate to the 'density' of the fluid - or in other words, how dumb the drummer is)

Hey, who said 2 years of studying fluid mechanics would never come in useful!

Then I'm suprised you left out the Bernoulli effect. Or is Reynold's Number an updated explanation of the same phenom?

Well, I'm glad you mentioned the Bernoulli Effect.

Of course the Bernoulli Effect occurs when an increase in velocity of a fluid causes a pressure gradient, such as when air moving over a an aircraft wing causes a drop in pressure resulting in uplift to the wing.

To continue my analogy - the velocity of the fluid in this case is like the key of the song. When the key increase (changes up) there is what we call a "mood gradient" created. Hence, if you add a key change in a song - the Bernoulli Effect causes an 'uplifting' to the mood of the listener.

This is why country music is so good. It's the 3rd verse key change. It's a scientific FACT.

Caravan Ray wrote:Hence, if you add a key change in a song - the Bernoulli Effect causes an 'uplifting' to the mood of the listener.

This is why country music is so good. It's the 3rd verse key change. It's a scientific FACT.

The Manilow principle?

Mostess wrote:then I get feedback that the song sounded thin, or weak, or too much like Beatles/Coldplay/James Taylor/etc.

I wish any of my songs sounded too much like any of those