Mark JW Graham: Singing Lessons Nottingham
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 || admin@markjwgraham.co.uk
As I just tweeted, I am preparing a video presentation on how to build your business, and one of the elements I’m talking about is the importance of blogging. So here is a quick blog on one of my favourite artists (who I have talked about loads before) – the Wonderful Bruno Mars
Apologies for the language at the start – not sure why he opted for that in this version!
What a tune though, and I love the acoustic version. Enjoy!
Came across this video of one of my favourite artists the other day. I’ve blogged about him before = the wonderfully talented John Mayer. If you’ve never heard him before, check him out.
Interesting point, his own bad habits with his voice were a major contributing factor to him ending up having major vocal surgery and being unable to sing for the last 18 months or so. Definitely worth working on your voice to avoid this!
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 –Â 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.
Check out one or both of these links, and try some of these techniques out. You will notice a big difference in your final products if you do.