Mark is the Midlands' leading Certified Voice Coach, providing professional singing lessons in Nottingham. Mark is known for getting BIG results in voices, fast. – 0115 871 7660 || [email protected]
Riffing is something many people think is harder than it actually is. Let me illustrate…
So here is a video of the amazing American artist Tori Kelly. There is just incredible control and artistry in this video by Tori.
Check out her stuff – really fresh and inspiring!
There is a KILLER vocal riff at 2m22s, which I’ve been giving a bash and I can promise you – it’s tough! That said, it is not as difficult as it might seem once you’ve broken it down. Here’s a link to a great singer Natalie Weiss Breaking Down This Riff – she was even teaching at a training conference I went to back in August 2013!
There are a great many things we all think are very difficult, but actually, EVERYTHING is difficult… until we’ve done it so many times that it becomes easy. Not only that, but sometimes it just takes a different perspective and simpler approach to make even the most seemingly-complex issue become pretty straightforward to solve.
With that in mind, if you want to start learning to riff, and learn the riff she pulls off at 2m22s, then check out this awesome video from Natalie Weiss from ‘Breaking Down The Riffs’
See? It might sound crazy but if you take it slow and break it down, it’s actually not as insurmountable as it first seemed.
So do me (and you!) a favour – ask yourself – what was the last thing you decided you COULDN’T do vocally? Is it too fast? Too high? Too low? Once you break it down, you may start to see in-roads to help you tackle the issue you’re struggling with. Honestly, all you need to start moving towards doing the very thing you’re scared of is adopting a different perspective and utilising the right tools.
In previous blog posts on songwriting I’ve covered various topics, namely just getting something being a great way to get good songs quickly, how writing about anything or nothing allows you to get the creative juices flowing, and how to…
This time I want to tackle something from a more philosophical perspective.
One of the most common comments from students who claim to be songwriters is that they hate waiting for songwriting inspiration – and that it seems to be months between inspired creative bursts.
I learned this the hard way:
Don’t wait for inspiration.
Now I’m not saying that inspiration isn’t helpful, particularly songwriting inspiration, that moment where you have an inkling of an idea and you can’t wait to have a free moment to get it out of you, or those times where you have a topic you’re burning to write about that spurs you to a complete song in an hour or two… However, every songwriter will tell you that those unprompted moments of focus and unbridled clarity for songwriting inspiration are infrequent at best.
The reality of life is, we’re rarely as inspired as we dream we should be or could be. We often sit down ‘waiting’ for inspiration to strike, as if it’s the universe’s fault we’re just not inspired.
Contrary to this common artist’s mantra, the answer is NOT to wait for songwriting inspiration to strike, as you may as well be waiting for the rest of your life. The answer is simple, and straightforward, but not easy.
The answer?
Write little and often, and do it regularly, with or without songwriting inspiration, whether you want to or not
There are a number of great books like ‘Outliers’ and ‘The Talent Code’ that tell you about how the most skilled people in particular fields have spent around 10,000 hours on that skill. While those people will undoubtedly have great focus and determination, their greatest asset their drive to just get down to doing their particular activity every day – whether or not they feel as inspired as they should be. Athletes, musicians, inventors… songwriters… we all need to get down and do it, and do it often – that’s how you get good at it. With or without inspiration. Like most things, the path to being a great writer is plagued with things you don’t want to do in the first instance, but are necessary to progress to the next level.
Trust me, it works!
One of the more interesting songs I wrote I was forced to write in preparation for a songwriting workshop I was going to. It had been a whole month since the last one and I’d been inspired in two or three different ways and so had two or three 80% complete songs. However in the whole month I just couldn’t locate the songwriting inspiration to finish them. In the end, I wrote a song out of sheer frustration in the last 20 minutes of a train journey home just before the workshop. In reality it wasn’t as good as I felt the other songs could’ve been if I’d finished them, but it was a self contained song. Self consistent, strong lyrically and melodically, but it wasn’t written from a place of inspiration, rather it was written from a place where I had a complete LACK of inspiration. However, it was the skills I’d been developing through regularly writing and sharpening my writing skills that allowed me to write a song, almost devoid of inspiration, that was still relatively strong as a song in its own right.
What is the essence of good songwriting? How does songwriting inspiration come into this?
So then, if someone can write a decent song in 20 minutes without any strong level of inspiration striking, what does that say about the essence of songwriting? Maybe that’s too broad a subject… what does it say about the importance of inspiration in writing a good song?
In my opinion, inspiration is the icing on the cake of determination – it can really enhance the flavour of the cake, but its the determination that is the minimum necessary component to make it to a complete song. I’m not a huge fan of cheesy metaphors, but inspiration is nothing without the drive to execute the inspiration through to completion. And this is so true when it comes to songwriting inspiration.
So I’d challenge you, if you’re feeling a lack of inspiration, don’t let it get you down. Just write, do it little and often, and know that you don’t need to wait for inspiration to strike before starting writing, as you can always infuse some afterwards.
If you’re a songwriter, then you are often looking for that next “new” sound to spark off your creativity and churn out a few new songs. Or perhaps if you’re recording lots, you’re looking for a way to repurpose old instruments to fill out a track. Either way, Nashville tuning is DEFINITELY worth you checking out.
Over Christmas a few years back I got myself a ukulele. It’s been a longtime coming but I finally succumbed, and I love the sound of it.
One of the things that gives the ukulele its distinct sound is its very specific tuning. It is tuned very similar to the highest 4 strings on a guitar (typically up 5 semitones), but the 4th string (which would otherwise be the lowest tuned string) is actually tuned up a whole octave. This means that the 3rd string is the lowest tuned string. This is called “re-entrant tuning”, presumably because the string closest to you “re-enters” the same range as the upper strings, rather than going lower.
What this achieves is a very VERY chimey sound, because the 1st string and 4th string are only one whole note apart, and so both strings are generally sounding in a similar range to one another.
What about guitars?
As it happens, a similar sound can be achieved with guitars by doing exactly the same thing – changing out lower strings to be tuned higher than normal.
There exists a tuning called ‘Nashville tuning’, where the lowest 4 string are replaced with lighter gauge strings and are tuned a whole octave up. It’s like taking a set of 12 string guitar strings, and stringing up a guitar using only the octave strings.
What this achieves is a very chimey shimmery sound with a standard guitar. The tuning is still the same (sort of), except for certain strings being tuned up an octave, which means all your old chord shapes and strumming ideas will work the same, they’ll just sound different.
Good ol’ Justin Sandercoe illustrates this nicely.
Watch from the beginning for a full explanation, or skip to 2m 35s and 5m 00s to hear strumming samples.
What about playing with other guitars?
Good question! This video from Wechter Guitars highlights where Nashville tuned guitars can really come into their own when used in conjunction with a normal tuned guitar. For example, whether performing live or recording, you can double up the guitar part and enhance the sound massively without actually needing to change key or anyone having to learn new parts that fit around the solo part.
Nashville tuning – check it out! You may just find a new sound that sparks your songwriting, or gives a tired recording a fresh vibrant edge.
ADDENDUM: I found a nice variation on this that I discovered a few months after initially writing this post. The problem I found with Nashville tuning was it made for a good SECOND instrument, or recording along with some instruments, but not for a live solo instrument. It was just too thin in my opinion.
So instead, I restrung the D and G strings with B and E gauge strings (ideally slightly thinner) and tuned them up an octave (octave D and octave G). If you’re concerned about that full minor third increase, try downtuning your whole guitar a half or whole step, that should relieve the concern.
What this does is create REALLY nice separation between the lowest two strings (E and A), giving a pronounced “bass” part. Then, because of the re-entrant approach to the middle strings, you have the option to play closed-voicing chords with very dense clusters of notes that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. It also leaves a nice hole in the mids for a strong vocal to sit.
Try it out, you may find it gives you the fullness of standard tuning but with the sparkle, chime and creative opportunities of Nashville tuning.
My friend and fellow songwriter Matt Blick recently – http://www.mattblick.com/2012/10/you-need-deadlines-slight-return.html – wrote a blog post full of songwriting tips about the importance of deadlines. I am not QUITE shamelessly ripping it off, but the third lesson I wish to share with you is a similar title extolling…
Songwriting Tips: The Importance of Deadlines
Matt rightly points out deadlines have an immensely motivating element to them. They bring a sense of urgency to getting things done, a sense of importance, or even a sense of impending doom.
This is not going to be an especially long post, simply because I’m applying my own songwriting tips and I’ve aptly set myself a deadline to write it in. I have 8 minutes left.
Set yourself ludicrously short deadlines to write SOMETHING in
I often set myself what others might call unreasonably short periods of time to do things in. Sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn’t, but when it comes to songwriting, it’s not like anyone’s life depends on it. Of all my songwriting tips, this is possibly the most powerful tip for getting things done.
So, what I often do, is set myself 30 minutes to write a verse, or rather AT least a verse. Note that the requirement is not that it be brilliant, or original, or unique, or that you are even that happy with it… it just requires that it be:
a) at least a verse; and
b) that it is a whole verse.
When this is the ONLY requirement you set yourself, you can get to a ‘finished’ (albeit imperfect to-be-polished) product verrrry quickly.
6 minutes.
I did this the other night for the umpteenth time, certainly I’ve lost count of the number of times I do this deadline tactic. This time, I managed to get a whole song out. I actually love the melody of this song, and many of the lines and lyrics, and it is definitely a ‘finished piece’ in the sense that it has all the sections I wanted it to have. The melody is pretty darn concrete, and the themes are what I want them to be. It’s not the final draft, but it’s a really good first draft (for what I wanted it to be at least).
In previous iterations of this exercise, I’ve really only managed a verse in 30 minutes. An imperfect one I’m not that fussed by. As I got more practice at hitting the ground running and moving on, I managed to start getting a verse and a chorus done. Then a couple of different verses, and two possible choruses. Then a bridge would come. All in 30 minutes. Chords, melody, lyrics, structure, even a solo sometimes!
Sure, I could spend another 30 minutes or longer polishing it up, but that was for another day. I couldn’t comfort myself with the thought of ‘ahhh I’ll just extend the deadline’ – that defeats the point. Having a ludicrously short deadline gets you SOMETHING to work with, with minimal time and outlay. In fact, having that minutia of time HELPS you!
3 minutes.
There’s nothing wrong with coming back and polishing it up after setting a ludicrously short deadline, but setting those short deadlines help take advantage of the Perato rule – the 80/20 rule – where 80% of the results come with 20% of the total effort, but that final 20% takes 80% of the total effort. In the same way, setting shorter deadlines get you to a 80% finished product much much quicker, and then you have all the time in the world to polish it up…. but in reality I still suggest shorter periods of time. Businesses work on the Perato rule, and songwriting need be no different.
2 minutes.
For me, 30 minutes to do SOMETHING (whether at least a verse, or at least a verse and chorus, etc) works perfectly. I tend to work in 30 minute units (those who’ve seen ‘About a Boy’ will understand the logic), and I can track how long activities have taken me by doing it this way. But you can find another period of time that suits you better, e.g. 1 hour, 15 minutes. But I’d suggest you stay shy of more than an hour, because it will start to drag out.
1 minute.
To close, I just want to agree wholeheartedly with Matt Blick’s comments on the importance of deadlines set by others, but I also want to advocate using ludicrously short deadlines set by YOURSELF as a way to get something half-decent very quickly – use that time limit as an pro, not a con. When you can learn to harness that for your benefit, you start to become a better songwriter, as you learn to get from A to B in an albeit less than perfect manner, but at least you got there, and in time you’ll find your ‘journey’ gets more and more effective in even that short space of time.
TIME
EDIT: I spent about the same amount of time editing the above post than I did writing it. But 80% of what I wanted to say was there before I started editing. It was just a matter of polishing up that first draft to get across EXACTLY what I wanted.
I was recently watching a Youtube seminar by a guy called Ralph Murphy.
Who?
Well, most of you will never have heard of him, and I hadn’t either, but he is a songwriter of over 50 years, has toured the world as a performer, writer and teacher, and is presently a Vice-President within ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). He tours internationally giving seminars on songwriting and giving insight into what it takes to make a hit song and keep doing it. He really does break it down and make it easy to understand just how hard it is to craft a song that makes it big.
Here is the Youtube video:
If you don’t have the time to watch the full video, here is a link to a blogpost by someone who has helpfully discussed the things that stood out to him from Ralph’s instruction.
Following on from my last post on songwriting, I wanted to share another more songwriting tips that have really hit home over the summer:
“Write about anything, whether nothing or nonsense”
…Say what?
When I got to a certain stage in my songwriting, I always wrote about *something*. It always had meaning, no matter how trivial. The songs and their imagery always made sense, it always had a preconceived concept at the core of it. I would write lyrics like prose devoid of music to convey what I wanted to say.
My songs were… OK. So-so.
Throw away your preconceptions
A little while ago I was at a singing teacher’s training event, and I was out for dinner with other teachers. We were chatting about songwriting, sharing songwriting tips, and one of them who is an accomplished writer with many songwriting tips of their own asked us:
“Have you ever written a song where you have no idea what it’s about?”
I was shocked by this question and the idea behind – write a song? without knowing EXACTLY what it’s meant to be about? They then proceeded to offend my preconceptions (and ego) by saying:
“Some of my best songs are songs where I’ve just written whatever comes to mind, sometimes they are about nothing, and sometimes they are complete nonsense”
I have to admit, I was pretty hammered by this. I just could not get my head around writing a song where I literally have no idea what’s it about – i.e. tantamount to nonsense. It tooks weeks, months even, to even pluck up the courage to try doing this – I mean, after all, how can you write something if you don’t know what it’s about?
I’ve now tried it, and I’m totally sold on it. It really gets the creative juices flowing. In combination with a ruthless desire just to get a song written rather than right, you can get some pretty epic songs done or 90% of the way there in record time.
Here’s an example…
I mentioned Matt Blick (@realmattblick on Twitter – www.mattblick.com online) in an earlier post on songwriting. He runs a songwriting group that meets once a month. The only condition of attendance is you have to have written and prepared a new song for that group. The frequency means you can’t spend months agonizing over a song, but it also means you can run out of seedling ideas very quickly – or at least seedling ideas you hold in high regard.
So armed with the knowledge I acquired after my First Songwriting Lesson, I started to write a song that came 100% from this idea of writing down whatever came to mind – almost stream of consciousness style.
I’d recently been inspired by Jimi Hendrix’ Little Wing so I was experimenting with some similar and interesting chord structures, when the words ‘Contentment’ and ‘strolling’ popped into my head. I thought around these words for a while, and the FIRST thing that came to mind was this phrase ‘Contentment strolling hand-in-hand with ecstasy’. It makes no sense. But rather than search for something else, I ran with it.
While the phrase didn’t make sense in itself, it conjured up all sorts of neat little ideas. A song about emotions. Maybe the emotions were labels for real people that we see. Maybe the emotions weren’t real but imaginary. Maybe it was all in someone’s head. Maybe it was all of these things…I liked the possible ideas so I ran with it.
And within half an hour I had two verses 90% complete. Another half-hour yielded the final version lyrics with a chord structure. Another half hour gave me the final arrangement. Here are the lyrics:
‘Contentment strolling hand in hand with ecstasy
From across the street we see hope arm in arm with glee
From a vacant chair comfort calls to wish them well
But what could that mean who could tell
From the side resentment’s staring at them coldly
And malice, likewise, from his front door
Hidden in the back, deep depression lying still
But what lies on his mind who could tell
For it’s all in your mind’
My entire thought process was ‘seeded’ by and grew from that first line. The image I liked most strongly was people strolling down a high/main street holding hands, so I wanted to mirror that with other positive emotions arm-in-arm across the street. I thought comfort was an interesting emotion or state, and that an empty (or vacant!) chair was really intriguing imagery to capture that idea. At that stage I thought it might be interesting to draw attention to the strangeness of the song by asking the listener ‘what could that mean? meh, who could tell?’.
At that point I decided that as the first verse had been filled with positive emotions, it might be nice to have a second verse referring to negative emotions. And while I’m at it, lets have the negative emotions acting on the first – i.e. resentment of the happy ‘couples’, malice as well… and deep depression which is so self-focused it is ignorant of these tensions. And again, it leaves space for a beautiful re-use of that phrase ‘who could tell?’. I particularly like that we have depression lying still, but then the question has to be asked ‘what is lying on his mind?’.
What did I learn?
While this is a song about nothing in particular, and each line in isolation is total nonsense, together they create a world that makes sense in itself and is very intriguing to read or hear about. It is by far one of the best songs I’ve written both musically and lyrically. What I think is most remarkable about this song is that the focus is always the same and the song is very cohesive, but it isn’t immediately apparent what it’s about, which draws the listener in and makes them wonder ‘what could THAT mean?’. Whereas often when we write songs we want the meaning to be 100% clear.
Perhaps having clarity or a deeply thought out concept isn’t as necessary as we think it is, and as long as we ‘seed’ a song with an idea, no matter how nonsensical or abstract, we can create a song borne wholly out of that idea, but in a far more interesting way than could be achieved through careful planning.
I definitely plan to write more songs where I write songs that I have no idea what they are about, nonsense or not, and I would encourage you to do the same.
Write more songs, write better songs, and write songs faster
As a singer, musician and songwriter, I want to write better songs. I also want to write more songs, and write songs faster. So much so that it pains me when I can’t finish a song… because I’m still not happy with the way the verse goes, or how the melody goes at one point. And until I’ve got one bit just so I find it hard to move onto anything else. I just keep going round in circles trying to get one or two particular bits right.
Which should be fine right? If I want a good song, then every part has to be perfect? Wrong. This doesn’t have to be the case, as I learned … or was reminded of recently.
Here’s why…
One of the most invaluable classes I had whilst at university was actually with an English professor. This professor who had been brought in to educate us how to communicate ideas better, and how to write anything well. And he gave me one of the best bits of advice I’d ever had up til then, and since then. And his advice was:
Don’t get it right, get it written
This phrase has served me well since then in other areas of my life, but has recently become a real mantra for me when approaching songwriting. Why?
Try this illustration on for size
I am fortunate enough to have a prolific and talented songwriting friend called Matt Blick. You can find his site at www.mattblick.com . Matt has been writing songs for years and has established himself as a renowned source on the internet for songwriting advice. He is active on Twitter (@realmattblick) and you can ask him almost any question, and he’ll get back to you on it. I learned a valuable lesson from him that helped me to write songs faster. Not only to write songs faster, but make them better, and write more of them too!
I met up with Matt recently and we had a good long chin-wag about songwriting and ideas in general. We then started working on a musical idea I’d had a while ago. Matt then struck out on how to build that into a song. He was remarkably driven about getting something finished, whilst being very relaxed about it all. come up with a theme, sections, and lyrics to accompany those sections. It’s not finished yet, but the constituent components of the song are laid out in our toolkit, ready to be worked on.
Shortly after, I met up with another friend – Chris Shepperson, you can follow him @ourhelicalmind – for some songwriting of a more instrumental nature. Between us we wanted to try creating some songs that involved two electric bass guitars. Where to begin? Well, I tried to adopt the approach Matt applied – don’t get it right, get it written. And you know what? In 2 hours of songwriting we’d managed to construct a 3-4 minute recording that was an actual song, and we managed to record the whole thing!
It isn’t perfect, but from a single seed of an idea, we had an intro and groove for the song. From that idea a first line of a verse appeared. A variation on that one idea became a second line. We then had an ‘A’ section from those variations- a verse. Another idea plus a variation became a ‘B’ section – a chorus. One more basic idea became a ‘C’ section – a bridge/improv section. From that we had the constituent elements of a piece. We arranged the song at the same time as writing based on what felt right, and it came out as:
Intro, A, A, B, A, B, B, C (x3), B, Outro (repetition of the intro)
So from just 2-3 ideas came a verse, a chorus and a bridge. From those parts, we can construct an arrangement of the song that is listenable and of an appropriate length. All in 2 hours.
Now, while this piece isn’t 100% finished or perfect, it is far far closer to a finished product than it ever would’ve been if I’d tried to make each small element of the song perfect before moving onto creating the next bit of it. I was amazed at how a little bit more drive to be LESS perfect enabled me to get me closer to writing a good song.
So what did I learn from all this?
I think this illustration makes it clear of the meaning behind the English professor’s advice. It’s far easier to work within some basic structure, even if you want to depart from it, than not to have that structure in the first place. So remember:
So, how many of you play guitar? Whether you play guitar or have ever seen a guitarist play, you will likely have come across something called a ‘capo’.
What this nifty gadget does is make it possible to shift songs from one key to another, without having to change what the fingers would be doing.
Why do we need something like this? Well, the guitar is built and tuned in such a way that some keys – like the keys of A, C, D, E and G – are really easy to play in. However, this means that all the OTHER keys in between those 5 – Ab, Bb, B, Db, Eb, F and Gb – are comparatively less easy. Not impossible, but they are undoubtedly more difficult, just because of the way the instrument is built. These notes and their related notes that fall in their scales/chords all fall either just above or just below where the pitch of the next string up starts. Put simply, this means that certain notes end up lying in difficult to reach places, or you can’t use a particular string you’d otherwise want to, or it just doesn’t seem to sound as good (to do with the resonance of certain notes and their placement on the guitar).
What’s this got to do with singing?
The exact same problems that plague guitarists also plague vocalists – but MOST singers don’t even know it’s an issue when it comes to picking the right key.
Really? How come?
The answer lies in the ‘bridges’ of the voice. I’ve talked before about ‘bridges’ in the voice. Bridges are just passages from one area of the voice to another.
At certain points in a singers range, the voice moves through a bridge or passageway (referred to as ‘passaggi’ or ‘passaggio’ in the old Italian) from one area to the next. You may well have encountered these in your voice and perceived these as ‘breaks’ or ‘disconnects’ in your voice (they’re not actually breaks, they are just difficult to cross without training).
It is ALWAYS easier to sing in between the bridges than it is to sing right on top of, or just either side of the bridges.
So what do I do to pick the right key for me?
OK, the short genuine answer is “it depends!”, but here is a general rule of thumb to follow.
1) Using a piano or guitar (or some other instrument), work out where the highest note of the song is.
2) Start by moving the key of the song so that the highest note you just identified is towards the top of your chest voice (women, your chest voice ends at A4; men, your chest voice ends at E4 – I’m omitting true basses and true altos because 99% of all men and women are tenors and sopranoes respectively). The top notes should feel comfortable. Move the key around there til it feels comfortable. Don’t skip this step.
NOTE: You may find the lowest notes in the songs with larger range requirements feel too low. Beyond further development of your chest voice (which is essential anyway!), you should note that without a functional mix to extend your range, this indicates that the song is too large in it’s range for your current vocal ability.
3) Work on making this sound full and like your speaking voice. Any disparity between your singing and speaking tonality will compromise the full extent of your tone that can be unlocked with training.
THIS is what makes a great singer. A great phrase is “half the range, double the quality”. The more you focus on quality, the less range truly matters. Great singers almost sound like their high notes are NOT that high. Why? Because they follow the above steps, and then, through training they follow the 4th step…
4) Take the key up ONE key, then repeat step 3. This step can be looped for many years to come. But the emphasis MUST be on the quality at each key change. If the quality ever diminishes at a key change, there is work to be done to develop and build quality into the voice.
Your number one objective as a singer is to SOUND GOOD!
So many think it’s to impress or riff or deliver an astounding performance. While these are not irrelevant objectives, if you make your number one priority to sound good, the extra stuff almost happens as a matter of course.
What this means is that if you have a song in a key that lands the melody you want to sing right on top of a bridge, or slightly either side of it, you will find it harder to sing than if it was somewhere between your bridges.
The crucial thing is to pick a key so that the melody fits as best it can around your bridges. Sure, it can be good practice to put a key right in the way of your bridges, but that is for practice – for performance you need to know where to put songs to get the best out of your voice.
