On Style...
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Posted on Aug 08, 2003 09:54 am
TheTincanbug
sloppy dice, drinks twice
Member Since: Aug 05, 2003
All of my songs sound like they're written by different bands... That's ok by me, usually. I'm curious - when you guys write music, do you start out consciously trying to emulate your own style? Or is your style something that comes through your music naturally? I usually just get an idea for a few basic tracks for a song, then it kind of evolves. I don't really make an effort to make my music sound like it should all be on the same CD or whatever.
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Aug 08, 2003 10:21 am I don't even think about "style" if a beat pops in to my head, I go to the studio, lay it down, pick up another instrument, jam with it...and just see what evolves. I have a lot of different sounding songs too...doesn't bother me.
Aug 08, 2003 10:30 am they may sound different to you, but maybe to others you have a style. that's happened with me, tunes that i think are a mile away still have people going, oh, this is one of yours isn't it, it's got your style!
your style develops all on its own without you knowing, so just keep on keepin on till it lets you know its finished!
TheTincanbugsloppy dice, drinks twiceMember
Since: Aug 05, 2003
Aug 08, 2003 10:42 am "they may sound different to you, but maybe to others you have a style. that's happened with me, tunes that i think are a mile away still have people going, oh, this is one of yours isn't it, it's got your style!"
pixelpixel, I think you may have a point there... Style isn't something that only comes across in the choice of what genre or what instruments or type of lyrics you include. I've been listening to a lot of Phish lately, and listening to the really old stuff compared to the new stuff, there's a definite contrast. But I can still tell that they're the same band.
I guess the reason I posted this topic is that I was going over the 5 songs, in various state of completion, that I've worked on over the last year. I'll probably end up posting a link to them to the board this weekend, just for sh*ts n' giggles. The three that I have finished now don't really sound anything like my other music. One sounds like it could go on Alice in Chains "Sap" album, another sounds like a Paul Simon acoustic song, another is a Pagan song with just drums and vocals. The other two I'm working on, one escapes description entirely - middle eastern funk? - and another is a slow smoky, bluesy thing. Maybe I lack focus? hahahaha
Aug 08, 2003 01:21 pm i am definitely questing for a certain unity--i just dont know what it is yet. this week i'm trying to face the fact that i may have written what is essentially a bad metal song with a bad radio chorus. perhaps it can be salvaged, but what a let down. then last year i wrote an acoustic end-of-the-world drinking song and i loved it but it's hard to get over the idea that it, too, is somehow cheesy. i just wanna be at-the-drive-in. this week.
Aug 08, 2003 01:24 pm hehehe, great, now I have this tune in my head my previous bad wrote called "Bad Radio" about songs just like the one you wrote...we purpose made it cheesy as hell and people loved it...cuz they knew we just poked fun at the industry...take the experience, and make a good song from it. :-)
TheTincanbugsloppy dice, drinks twiceMember
Since: Aug 05, 2003
Aug 08, 2003 01:27 pm fortymile I hate that feeling... the two acoustic songs I talked about in my post, well I don't like one of them at all (Open Letter to My Friends Who Smoke, guess what, it's an anti-smoking song and I'm an exsmoker. "Predictable and pointless" sums up my feelings about the song) and the other (Melora My Love) I feel like I kind of settled for 2nd best just so I could slap a guitar solo on it and give it to my wife for our anniversary. The stuff I actually like are songs that aren't done yet. All the more incentive to work, I guess... :)
Aug 09, 2003 04:53 am yeah tin, i'm in a similar situation. i have quite a few songs that i think i like a lot but they're nowhere near done. i have a file of choruses, verses, pieces that i like. then i have some other songs that are done or close to done, but i don't work on them precisely because i know how they go already. some of them i wrote for my old band but they were never recorded well, so recording them now feels a bit like busywork. i say keeping on the stuff that's most fun! for me that's as-yet-unwritten stuff.
db, i know what you're saying. last summer my friends and i wrote a song in 5 minutes, scribbled some lyrics on a napkin. it was godawful--it was supposed to be. the chorus was 'skeletons keep you awaaake at night! so sleep alll day!" that's when we knew we had to play out. so we called and booked ourselves a 15 minute gig at a place we had never been--some open mic night. then we needed more songs. so we wrote em, quickly, on napkins and rehearsed for about 15 minutes. this band, "Uncle Dude," was composed of just a small casio keyboard through an amp, and a set of drums. the drummer wore a box on his head and a white shirt and tie and called hismelf kokoboy. i dressed in a bird mask and trenchcoat and played organ through this cranked amp...my name was rick not-wakeman. my other friend was Uncle Dude himself: a green fishing cap, a tom green MC Face face mask, and a gawdy stars n' stripes starter jacket--the whole thing was a flag basically--open down the front, gold chains around the neck. uncle dude sang songs about scary ghosts and halloween maniacs. for the outro to our hit single "blame the neighbors," uncle dude sang 'it embarasses me!' in a high falsetto over and over, because when uncle dude was a kid, he was always forced by his psycho-dad to eat french fries and run the mile. the dad wanted him to bulk up and be a big track star i guess, but his tactics just made uncle dude puke in front of his friends.
so yeah. actually though, i'm starting to like my metal song now.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Aug 09, 2003 09:39 am I've never really thought of myself as having a particular style, though I'm sure I probably do good or bad ;) So I'm pretty sure I don't consciously try to write in any particular style including mine.
My main criteria when I'm writing is that it not sound like any thing else I've done. Most of my songs start out as spur of the moment stuff while I'm just messing around. I think I've only written 1 or 2 where I sat down and said I'm going to do write about this or that. My lyrics always come after the music itself is fleshed out and usually come from some phrase I was using while working out the melody & song itself.
Dan
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Aug 10, 2003 10:14 am Style is something I work with as it present's itself. I remember a time when for me style was an issue because I was fairly new on my instrument and I really gravitated toward one style at that time. Any other style that I attempted would have "bleed through" of the one style I played the most. In the years between then and now I have played and learned a lot of "styles" and for the most part I can "switch" pretty much seemlessly. For me it was having to listen more closely than I ever did before. Every style is born of technique. It is also on a song by song bassis. Not a genr'e bassis. Examples: (Oh yea better preface this because I play bass, so that is what I listen for)
Crazy little thing called love. Very short yet not stacato notes. A "bounce" feel to each note like that of a ball bouncing off of the floor, a real upright bass feel. Very percise rythmically. Directly on the beat. Every note is very seperated with no slure between notes.
Come Together. Very lagato. All notes flow with little seperation. Rythmically it is loose. There is time to tip and lag as you feel fit.
Sing sing sing. Heavy swing feel. Everything comes out as if the whole song where created with triplets.
Now to transfer that to writing. For me, as I attach myself to a drummer, I do best by looking first for a drum beat that represents the "style" I want to write or create in. That triggers and focuses me to be able to create a bass line that works. From there I layer "upward" transforming the melody, harmony, etc. to fit that foundation.
Now having babbled endlessly, I am sure that I have done a good job of deliniating how my mind works, not such a great job of deliniating a procudure, as this is art not a manufacturing process.
