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 || [email protected]
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Before we go any further, let’s recap some of the material I’ve covered from the workshop with Rhonda Carlson.
In part 1 we established the importance of a specific backstory. This enables you to inhabit the story the song is already telling, and give it nuance and a personal connection.
Continue reading “Performance Tip #3: How is your WHO reacting when you sing? (Rhonda Carlson Workshop)”
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.
NOTE: I’ll be asking you ‘what would your 3 resolutions be?’ at the end of this post, so do have a think while you read mine, and do also leave a comment on yours below! I’d like to hear from you!
When I was at school and university, I used to love holiday times not just because they were time off from studies, but because they gave me uninterrupted time to focus on ‘woodshedding’. This is a term often used by guitarists and jazz musicians to refer to time spent locked away in (often!) a woodshed away from the world honing particular aspects of their craft.
While I won’t be doing these in a woodshed, here are 3 of my resolutions I’m working towards this year. Some people opt for more, some for less, but I feel 3 gives me enough resolutions to stand a chance of doing at least one without getting stretched too thin!
1. Get better at piano – While I play it sufficiently well enough to teach, I spend far so much time in front of a piano everyday for voice and teaching, that I am out with a vengeance to learn to play the thing properly. I will then go through every song in my repertoire that I can already perform vocally with a guitar and learn to play an equivalent version with a piano. That way if I ever am presented with guitar OR piano, I can do my entire repertoire equally well on both.
2. Reduce the amount of gear I own – I’m a true minimalist at heart, and while I love exploring new equipment and how it works for me and my sound, once I have experimented and branched out, I like to strip back to the basics. This last year I’ve started to develop more of my own sound, or rather, develop a confidence in the sound I had already started to develop, and this requires a more simplistic approach to gear (if not musically). As such, I plan to shed at least a 1/3 of the remaining gear I have.
3. Add 10-20 more songs to my repertoire – One of the problems with having come from a technical instrumentalist background is that I am quite fussy about songs. I want songs that challenge me, and that present some technical challenge to my development. Which means I find it increasingly hard to find things I want to work on as I develop and get better. This is obviously helpful in some respects, as every song I work on develops my voice such that other songs become easy and often automatic, but it does mean I struggle to find new songs to add to my repertoire. In this regard I’m going to be less picky and just find 10-20 songs to add to my repertoire over the course of this year, regardless of their difficulty, just based on whether I like them or not!
I’d also add that I will be ‘writing more songs’ as a resolution, except that this is an ongoing resolution, so it’s hardly new for this year!
What are your resolutions?
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.
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)
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:
Don’t get it right, get it written.
Check out my other songwriting lessons:
My Second Lesson
My Third Lesson
My Fourth Lesson
Now, despite loving singing and songs, and as well as having a near photographic memory, I do find it difficult to pick apart lyrics for an entire song in a first listen – finding favourite lyrics can be tough. So when a lyric really sticks in my mind on first listen I KNOW I’ve got something I want to listen to again and again.
“Yes I know the name, sounds a little bit familiar, like a melody to a dream,
Yes I know, he wore the same face the same clothes, but that was so long ago”
‘Ghosts’ – Chris Cornell
This one (today) is one of my favourite lyrics because I felt it ‘revealed’ the nature of the whole song in a single phrase (the bridge). I felt it summed up what I felt the whole vibe of the song was about… the idea that someone is looking for a person they knew, but that person has left their old life behind and ‘isn’t there anymore’. Beautiful concept and wonderfully captured in song.
“Gentleness, sobriety, so rare in this society, at night a candle’s brighter than the sun”
‘Englishman in New York’ – Sting
Ah another set of favourite lyrics. I like this one because for the longest time I didn’t understand the link between the first half of the line and the second half. Then it dawned on me that (at least in my interpretation) that it was meant to convey the idea that being something rare stands out like a sore thumb. Nice combination of literal and metaphorical in the same line as well… a real eye/ear-opener for me.
“You can’t trust freedom when it’s not in your hand, when everybody’s fighting for the promised land”
‘Civil War’ – Guns N’ Roses
I don’t know what it is about this line that I love, I think it’s the raw visceral energy of the line… coupled with the strong rhyme between ‘hand’ and ‘land’. It just resolves perfectly, both musically and lyrically… yea… it’s a great song!
“You never thought you’d be alone, this far down the line, I know what’s been on your mind… you’re afraid it’s all been wasted time”
‘Wasted Time’ – The Eagles
This is another one that just transcended words for me, I felt it captured a moment into the life of a person (or both people) coming out of a broken relationship. The idea that the time spent on that relationship is lost, dead, wasted time. But the song wraps around on itself by the end and says ‘y’kno what, maybe it hasn’t all been wasted time’. And I like that ‘turnaround’ aspect… a lot!
“But is the best you can be, the best thing to be”
‘Crossroads’ – The Offspring
Great songwriters. I just love the play on words. Is the best you can be, really the best thing to be? I stopped paying attention to the song at that point because I was just totally lost in the world of that one lyric. Wonderful stuff.
There we have it, my favourite five lyrics. Why not share yours below?