Week 6b - Sound and Arrangement
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The document provides advice for songwriters on developing sound, arrangement, and composition. It recommends using recording software to capture ideas, improvisation, and samples as the basis for songs. Songwriters should experiment with different genres, embrace failure to find their voice, and collaborate with producers and other songwriters for fresh perspectives. When working on songs, it's important to take breaks and listen in different environments to maintain creativity and avoid getting stuck on one idea. The document also discusses using texture, arrangement, and different sounds to shape the narrative and emotional journey of a song.
Week 6b - Sound and Arrangement
- 1. Sound, arrangement and development How can sound be of use to the song writer?
- 2. Using Software • Recording ideas can be helpful. • Using loops and samples as the basis for tracks. • Recording improvisation as the basis for a song
- 3. Other approaches • “Jamming” • sketching • using timbre or sound design to shape the song
- 4. It might be difficult, and you may think it is never good enough… but sometimes you have to let go. Finish something and move on to the next thing. If you just constantly work on the same thing, no matter how good it gets you will probably end up hating it.
- 5. FRESH EARS • Take breaks. • Give it time between listens. • If you spend too long on something you lose touch with what was appealing about the idea in the first place. • Take breaks because creativity requires energy. • Try different listening environments and different thought processes. Don't listen to the same thing over and over again.
- 6. USE THIS TIME TO FIND YOUR VOICE • Embrace failure. • Find a sense of comfort in the uncomfortable. • No one knows who you are, so this is your time to experiment and try to find your voice. • Work in genres and against them. Take things that interest you and transform them into something new.
- 7. Collaborate • Work with a producer to get fresh perspective on the songs. • Work with another songwriter to approach things from a different angle. • Find someone who complements your style of working. • Have people who have opinions you trust, and who are honest with you.
- 8. Thinking About Sound • What sounds are typical in your genre? • This collection of sounds can be called the “sound-world” of a song. • How is the sound-world generated? Is the sound-world constant throughout a song or does it change/vary? • Is your song one that relies entirely on the technology and recording, or does it work just as effectively on the piano with a singer? • What are the associations of the particular sounds? This might include an emotion (e.g. strings and love), a style (12-string guitar and folk music), or a historical era (“gated” snare drum and 1980s pop)
- 9. How can arrangement help? • What is the structure? • What is the narrative shape? • Where are the builds and releases? • What is the journey the listener is going on?
- 10. Using Texture/Sound in a Song • Foreground, middleground and background (where should instruments/sounds be placed relative to each other?) • Silence and noise (could you have a cut/break for emphasis? Or a lot of dissonant noise to build up tension?) • Layering as form and shape (e.g. use more instruments to mark the chorus compared with the verse) • How to start/end? Do you want a fade in/out to let the energy change gradually? Or hit the listener with a bang?
- 11. Ways to think about composition • Listening to music you hate • Give yourself short windows of time for specific tasks… then edit afterwards. • Think about things in a subtractive way rather than an additive way.