Tips From the Pros – Listening in on the Words and Music Demo Panel

by Alan Hardiman

Canadian Music Week wrapped up last Saturday with a special SAC Words and Music Demo Listening Session at the Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre.  I have attended a few Date With A Demo sessions before, but this was by far and away the best yet, for a couple of reasons.

First, the 23 songs auditioned by the panel during the two-hour session were, as a group, of much higher quality than I had seen at any SAC session before; and second, because the panelists themselves, drawn from different sectors of the industry that are all relevant to aspiring songwriters, gave such precise prescriptions for making good songs great.

Moderated by SAC’s own Ania Ziemirska, the panel included Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter Melanie Doane; radio promotion and music director Andrea Morris; Juno Award-winning producer Gavin Brown; and internationally acclaimed producer-songwriter Brett Rosenberg. As Brown said, their job was to provide analysis, not criticism. For those who were unable to attend, here’s a distillation of their advice, in no particular order.

General production advice

1. Keep intros short. This was hammered home many times during the session. Listeners will give an unknown song about 40 seconds, at most a minute, before moving on to something else. This is particularly true for radio programmers, who need to be grabbed immediately. No one will get to hear a great bridge if they’re not hooked by the first verse and chorus.
2. A demo produced for other people to sing should sound like a finished hit. Try not to allow the production to sound dated. However, a very simple demo, such as piano and voice, may allow a creative producer to imagine the song as it might be produced for different genres.
3. Leave room at the beginning to build up excitement as the song progresses. A song that doesn’t change much from beginning to end will tend to sound boring. Make it quieter and louder, not just loud the whole time.
4. Ensure that the low end isn’t muddy. Roll off the low frequencies in the mix and see if that improves the song.
5. If singing from a first person singular point-of-view, maybe it’s best not to have multiple voices harmonizing on the word “I” when it comes around.
6. Make sure the lyrics are always clear. Don’t bury the vocal in the mix.

Lyric-writing

7. Ensure that the singer’s point-of-view is clear and unambiguous. Be careful not to slip from a first person (“I”) to a second person (“you”) or a third person (“she”) point of view as the lyrics unfold, unless the story demands it.
8. Above all, make sure the message is clear. A song is a vehicle for communicating. If a line isn’t communicating anything or isn’t amazing, it shouldn’t be in the song. The re-writing process is tremendously important. As the panel pointed out, prose writers rewrite constantly and have editors who help them revisit the text many times.
9. Look at the building blocks of the song and ask what emotion is in each part. Make sure the different blocks don’t contradict each other.
10. Avoid clichés. Don’t sing what you wouldn’t say. Extend the lyric to its logical conclusion and make sure you haven’t left anything important unsaid.
11. Always avoid awkward lyrics. If a line sounds weird or stilted when spoken out loud, then consider recasting it for the song.
12. Lyrically, something has to happen more than once, or else you’re writing a poem. If working with an extended metaphor, try to milk every association out of it, and make the whole song relate to that one thing.

Verse and chorus

13. Work on the melody. Then work some more. Don’t just sing over the chords. Try singing different notes of the triads or scale. Make the melody memorable.
14. Work on different melodic elements in the music track and the vocal so that they are different but complementary, rather than parallel and similar. For example, the guitar or piano should not be playing the melody in unison with the voice.
15. The title should be the hook. Make sure the song title is clearly stated, perhaps as the last line of the chorus. If you can’t fit it in naturally, then add a beat or two to let it fit. Or if that doesn’t work and it doesn’t fit in the lead vocal more than once, then try to have it sung in the backing vocals.
16. Don’t take too long to get to the chorus. The lift or pre-chorus should be followed immediately by the chorus without being repeated.
17. The chorus should be set up convincingly—most often it is set up on the fifth or dominant chord. A chorus should be awesome. Make it soaring, triumphant. If a chorus doesn’t sound triumphant, then keep trying. Experiment with big interval jumps. Big intervals are exciting.
18. Differentiate between the chords in the verse and the chorus.
19. Take care not to go to half-time or drop beats in the chorus.
20. Don’t let the drummer play over the payoff or the song’s title line in the chorus.
21. Scream it and mean it.

Writing for radio

22. If you’re going to write songs for radio, make sure the song fits the conventions of radio. Listen to the radio, and figure out what stations and formats you’re targeting—even if not every song you write is intended for radio. If you’re new, you can’t start out by doing your own thing—you need to have already established your identity as an artist to pull that off.
23. If sound effects are absolutely essential to the song, then keep them for the album version and provide a stripped down remix for radio play, especially if the effects are at the beginning of the song.
24. Beware of using sexually-tinged lyrics; even a word as innocuous as “virgin” may limit a song’s potential for radio play.
25. Jump into the lyric right out of the gate and make the intro short. A radio programmers’ music meeting is not likely to listen past the first minute of your song, if that.

The quality of the songs was truly impressive. Due to time constraints, only the first verse and chorus of each song was played, but on several occasions, the panelists expressed a desire to hear more of a song. A few songs even elicited spontaneous applause from the audience: Kat Leonard’s witty, off-the-wall I’m My Own Asshole; David Keeble’s liberating, stripped down demo Maybe Freedom; Steve Onotera’s The Field of White with melodic acoustic guitar accompaniment; and—illustrating a soaring, triumphant chorus—Catherine Bacque’s Stand.

Moderator Ania Ziemirska laboured valiantly through a lingering cold to keep panelists on track and play as many songs as possible, skipping songs if the writer was not present. Noting that some of the other CMW sessions were running late, she graciously returned to songs that were skipped, after the writers were able to join the session.

Speaking with the participants after the wrap-up, I can say that most were deeply appreciative of the depth and originality of the advice offered by the panelists, and the gentle candour with which they analyzed each song. There were no bruised egos in evidence, but more than once I heard a writer say, “That was great—now where do we go from here with our songs?” From that, it’s clear that most found this version of Date With A Demo to be both motivating and inspiring. Given the other sessions that were on offer at the CMW Songwriters Summit, like How Artists Are Being Discovered and Publishing 101, SAC’s Demo Listening session provided an excellent springboard for writers to move forward with their songs.

Alan Hardiman produces music and provides sound design for large scale events and exhibits, feature films, television, and live theatre. For more info: www.abcbuzz.com

Stressing the right syllables in songwriting

by Debra Alexander

As Week Four unfolds for the participants of Challenge 2013, some who were on the scene of Canadian Music Week in Toronto found themselves juggling the demands of their Songwriting course assignments with those of the CMW Conference, and used events like the Songwriter’s Association of Canada’s Words and Music: Songwriters’ Listening Session and the S.A.C. Songwriters’ Green Room mentoring sessions to put their songwriting chops to the test. Songwriters hoping to earn an income from the fruits of their labour know that writing great songs is only half their job, and that the other 50% of the job involves networking, in all the myriad forms networking now takes.

Many panelists at the Conference repeatedly pointed out the importance of writing a great song, and noted that everything begins with an undeniable, somewhat undefinable combination of words and music, delivered in an appropriate production package. Our Coursera class is surely putting themselves at the head of the pack by making the effort to improve their writing skills.

Songwriting Professor Pat Pattison begins this week’s lesson by stating that the English language uses pitch and rhythm in a smooth and connected way to make the communication of ideas efficient. Meaning is conveyed through the use of stressed syllables, and stressed syllables have a higher pitch than non-stressed syllables. When we listen to speech, we actually hear little melodies. Songwriters who write the lines that have the greatest impact on an audience have learned how to organize their lines in patterns of rhythm and melody that maintain the rise and fall and accents of natural speech. Every time a songwriter “sets” a lyric so that the melody or musical phrase is not in sync with the words found in natural speech, a little bit of emotion and meaning is lost. Mis-setting even the smallest, seemingly insignificant word can have a profound effect on a song.

The average listener is typically not be able to articulate the reasons why some songs hit home for them more than others. Meanwhile, songwriters spend lifetimes perfecting their craft on a microscopic syllabic level in order to make songwriting seem easy. But anyone who has ever been in a Songwriter’s Listening Session at an event like Canadian Music Week knows that crafting a truly great song that lasts through the ages is a gift that involves an incredible amount of know-how, dedication, and out-and-out luck.

SAC Bloggers, please post the following for Week Four:

1. The link to your Assignment #4 recording on Soundcloud.

2. The URL to your Week 4 blog. (NOTE:  please post the exact URL to the entry and not just the general URL to your blog)

Scheming with Rhymes for Better Songwriting – Challenge 2013, Week 3

by Debra Alexander

Over 50 Songwriters Association of Canada members from across the country are meeting regularly in an exclusive Facebook Group to discuss new concepts and homework for the free Songwriting Class they signed up for at Coursera. The group is supportive and friendly, forging new ties, networking like crazy; realizing that they make up a fraction of the 63,000 folks taking this class worldwide!

Navigating the course and extracurricular activities has required time and dedication. Watching Pat Pattison’s instructional videos, taking notes and quizzes, writing and recording songs for weekly due dates, providing peer feedback, participating in Coursera forums and Meetups, and submitting personal blogs means everyone is super busy, and super motivated. Everyone now has a good understanding of why the S.A.C. calls this “Challenge 2013”!

Week Three builds on foundations presented in the first two weeks, and invites a deeper examination of the craft of songwriting in order to support a song’s meaning and intent. Meaning is reinforced by drawing attention to certain ideas. This is accomplished in a lyric by setting up sonic expectations… and then by either jolting those expectations or satisfying them.

Pat makes the point in one of his lectures that most songwriters understand how chord choices lend different emotional resonances, but perhaps not as many understand (until now!) that rhymes work in exactly the same way. It’s a subtle and sophisticated art, because it can be done with varying degrees of intensity. In addition to the length of lines and the number of lines in a lyric, we now must consider how rhyme schemes and rhyme types can work to enhance those elements, creating even more of a certain desired effect.

Different emotional resonances are achieved by choosing different rhyme types (perfect, family, additive, subtractive, assonance, and consonance), as well as different rhyme schemes (abab, aabb, abba, etc.), in order to create varying degrees of resolution. All of a song’s compositional elements work in tandem, and the skill with which a writer can manipulate them adds up to the Art of songwriting.

Challenged Ones! Please post the following for Week Three:

1. Your stable verse idea, and the rhyme scheme and/or rhyme types you chose to support it, OR your unstable chorus idea, and the rhyme scheme and/or rhyme types you chose to support it.

2. The URL to your Week 3 blog. (NOTE:  please post the exact URL to the entry and not just the general URL to your blog)

The Adventure of Prosody – Week 2 – Challenge 2013

by Debra Alexander

Week One is nearly water under the bridge, and S.A.C. Bloggers are now swimming in the currents of prosody with Pat Pattison, as he guides us through his free Songwriting Course. It’s not too late to register through Coursera as long as class is still in session, and we’ve got 5 whole weeks to go. Catch up with the details here:S.A.C. Community Songwriting & Blogging Challenge.

Prosody, in simple terms, is how everything works together in the words and music you write to express the central emotion, idea, and purpose of your song. You can make choices in how you communicate that reinforce your ideas and deliver your messages more effectively. Elements like melody, harmony, tone of voice, and harmonic rhythm combine to create unity, and these are just a few of the areas that a conscientious songwriter makes decisions about.

Pat argues that the most effective vehicles for expressing prosody in a lyric revolve around terms of stability and instability. He explains how the number of lines and the length of lines contribute to create emotion. An even number of lines feels stable, resolved, and balanced; an odd number of lines feels unstable, incomplete, and unbalanced. Number and length of lines can also be manipulated to spotlight important ideas, stop or create motion, and create contrast between song sections.

So bloggers, pull up the chair of your choice, sit square or on the edge of your seat, and please post the following for Week Two:

1.  The idea you chose for a verse with an unstable structure, and the idea you chose for a chorus with a stable structure.
2.  The URL to your Week 2 blog. (NOTE:  please post the exact URL to the entry and not just the general URL to your blog.)

Challenge 2013 – Week 1 – Building the Foundation for a Song

by Debra Alexander

The S.A.C. Songwriting and Blogging Challenge 2013 is underway, and a dedicated group of songwriters from all across Canada is taking part in the Coursera Songwriting Class with Pat Pattison over the next six weeks. Every week our blog will be full of  posts  recounting experiences with the weekly songwriting lesson. Songwriters at various stages of development from beginner to veteran have already spoken in their first blogs about their passion for the craft of songwriting, the desire to improve their craft, and the importance of developing community as they answered questions about their relationship to songwriting and what they hope to gain from the class.

Throughout six instructional videos in Lesson One, Berklee College of Music professor and world-renowned songwriting teacher Pat Pattison demonstrates why top songwriters like John Mayer and Gillian Welch have expressed their appreciation for his instruction. Pat uses everyday situations and parables that are amusing and easy to understand in order to illustrate the basic songwriting concepts of Point of View, Song Development, and Song Form. He relates everything in an entertaining, conversational style so the amount of material he’s covering won’t seem overwhelming or difficult, yet he covers all the bases needed to get a song off the ground in Lesson One.

For our first assignment, we’ve been asked to use the concept of ‘boxes’ to demonstrate how we would develop a song title. Boxes are the equivalent of Storyboards in the movie business: they outline plot. It’s also helpful to think of the classic graph used in teaching the short story, otherwise known as the dramatic arc, which basically consists of a beginning, middle, and an end, along with a rising action and a falling action. A songwriter needs to be aware of pacing, in order to maintain a listener’s constant interest. Pat points out that there should be a parallel between a producer’s build of a mix and a songwriter’s build of a lyric. Time to think inside, outside, and everywhere around the box as we plot the development of our songs.

Participants, please post the following:

1.  Which song title you chose to develop, and why.
2.  The URL to your Week 1 blog. (NOTE:  please post the exact URL to the entry and not just the general URL to your blog)