Sunday, January 20, 2008

Memorable melodies

We were listening to some local songwriters last night. While all were good, Julie and I agreed that two of them could be great, not just good. However, there was something missing. It took the whole ride home but eventually the question was asked, did you remember any of their songs? The answer was no, OK maybe one funny one. We remembered the stories that were told to introduce the songs and their performance, but not the songs themselves. To go from good to great, their songs need to be more memorable.

This morning we listen to their CD's and have a few suggestions for them. We asked, how can we tell if we are creating memorable songs. Some of the ideas we came up are:

- Melody - Is there a melody that lives on without the lyrics or guitar? Chords are not a melody. A great tip is to sing the lyrics without the guitar. Is there a melody?

- Rhythm or groove - Are feet in the audience moving in time to the beat? When you play to a metronome, does it feel natural? Can you stop playing and still feel the groove?

- Lyrics - What is the hook or the lines that people will remember? Is it sung clearly? Does the music lead you to this line? Is there anything musically that stands out when you sing this line?

- Dynamics - Does the music and lyrics move in a direction? Is there a peak or valley? Do these coincide with the hook?

These are a few that came immediately to mind. If you have other suggestions, let us know.

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2 Comments:

At 7:26 AM, Blogger Un Coeur Music said...

Hey Jeff...Great blog entry! I'm fairly new to blogging, so I thought I'd look up some fellow songwriters and people in the business. I'll be reading more of your entries after I send this.

If you'd like to stop by sometime, we're found at:
http://uncoeurmusic.blogspot.com/

Kathy

 
At 6:33 PM, Blogger Chase said...

This is very good advice. I really enjoyed this!

 

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