DTF

Just thought I'd share a video from a show we played a little while ago. We did a large rendition of Dylan's You Ain't Goin' Nowhere for a finale. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAhgDElbnCI

If anyone's interested, below is a link to my band's myspace. It has dates for shows in downtown Montreal and some pics.

Check us out on myspace:
www.myspace.com/tarahallmusic

Another recording of a gospel song we wrote and got fond of playing. Recorded at McGill University with my band Tara Hall (now sadly separated due to irreconcilable geographical differences). Features vocals, guitar, double bass, and cello. Not yet a final mix but you get the idea.

--

Well David heard a voice and he understood.
The good lord works in mysterious ways
Five foot nothin' with a staff of wood.
The good lord works in mysterious ways

Say hey
Hey
Say oh
Oh
Praise his holy name!
Say yeah
Yeah
Say ah
The good lord works in mysterious ways

Well I know that there's hope for the weakened sinners
The good lord works in mysterious ways
Who strayed from the path on the way to salvation
But the good lord works in mysterious ways

Say hey
Hey
Say oh
Oh
Praise his holy name!
Say yeah
Yeah
Say ah
The good lord works in mysterious ways

Well the good lord works in mysterious ways
Even when you think you're down.
He'll come along and meet you
'fore the devil can defeat you
Dancin' on the water to your favourite tune.

This is a new recording from my folk band, Tara Hall. Recorded at McGill University at around 2 am (that's when we could get the studio time). Features double bass, guitar, cello, and vocals. Hopefully more to come!

--

What you gonna do?
'Cause you've lost your right mind now.
Some say its lucky
or Funny, but you can't see how

 
But how you gonna act
When they take back that silver key
That opens up that gate And leads you straight to the moon

Ooh ooh,
How's it gonna be?      
The livin' ain't easy
But dyin' ain't free.
Ooh ooh,
What you gonna do?
The night man's coming for you.
The night man's coming for you.

They said you were in trouble
But you had no idea
That when you strutted out
The Ritz would be a memory too

The whiskey came and the whiskey went
You know that drinkin is the second sin
But, whatcha gonna do  To fix this state you're in?

And it's a long way down when you can't even crawl
Feelin' like a giant but you're four feet small.
Baby won't you do me like you done before
Gimme little kick get me out that door...

Hey. I wanted to share one small tip that I think can very easily make you a much better musician. This is it:

Buy an instrument stand!

Unless your instrument requires a very particular atmosphere (in which case you're probably playing a very good instrument and hopefully by corollary a very good musician) keeping it out in the open where you can plainly see and access it is the easiest way to encourage yourself to practice.

That's it. Stands are ludicrously expensive considering the tiny task they perform but worth every penny in what you get back.

This lesson is broken up into two sections. It is a very short introduction to chromaticism and a very brief discussion of colour (in the reverse order). Both subjects deal with a similar topic: "how do we make existing, well structured music more expressive and more complex. The first part addresses how to do this harmonically (vertically on the staff) while the second looks at this melodically (horizontally on the staff).

Colour

We've talked a lot about the function of chords but up until now we haven't really talked a lot about chords that aren't triads or sevenths. When we looked at chords we talked mostly about thirds. The chords we're familiar with are built on a structure that look like:

Root note
Note a third above root
Note a fifth above root (or a third above the third)

When we build a chord we start with the root note (i.e. the note name of the chord "C" major, "Bb" augmented, etc) and then stack a third on top of it and a third on top of that. Looking at C major:

G - fifth
E - third
C - root

The interval between the C and E is a major third, between C and G a perfect fifth, and between E and G a minor third.

We modify the quality (major/minor/augmented/diminished) of these intervals to form new kinds of chords. All of these chords have the same root but different thirds and fifths.

Major    Minor    Augmented    Diminished
E        E        E#            Eb
C#        C        C#            C
A        A        A            A

The quality of a chord determines it's primary colouring - the sort of mood it invokes. We can add colour to chords by stacking another third on top of the whole structure to make seventh chords. There are even more kinds of seventh chords: major, minor, diminished, dominant, major-minor, minor-major, half diminished, augmented, etc.

We can stack even more thirds on top of these chords to form ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. We only stop there because by the time we hit a fifteenth we've already used all 7 scale degrees so stacking more thirds means repeating note names (though no one is stopping you if you want to do it). As we stack more thirds our chords become more complex and capable expressing of more advanced and specific ideas. In jazz, this is called "colouring".

Now with every note we add to a chord we change how that chord fits in with our music. In general as the number of notes in a chord increases, the number of possible types of that chords rises factorially and it becomes increasingly complex. So while it can be pretty easy to know what functional chord should come next in a progression (I, V, IV, vi, etc.) it's really tough to pinpoint what sort of colouring will sound best without experimenting.  One nice bonus of using more complex chords is that with each added note the relative importance of each note in the chord decreases. In other words, if you make more noises, we will notice the individual contribution of each sound less and focus more on the whole. Let's now discuss chromaticism which will give us some insight into how we can experiment to create new chords.

Chromaticism

Chromaticism literally means "colouring". It is built off the idea of the chromatic scale which is a scale that ascends or descends in semitones from one note to the next octave. The chromatic scale on F# would be:

F#-G-G#-A-A#-B-C-C#-D-D#-E-E#-F#

whereas the diatonic scale would be:

F#-G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E#-F#

One thing we often do with the chromatic scale is to smoothly link the notes in the diatonic scale. This happens a lot with melodies when they are rising or falling through an interval of a major second (or a whole tone). We can link the upper and lower notes by splitting the whole tone into two semitones. It's often done in minor keys to create tension associated with a dominant V chord. For example:

Without chromaticism:

| i | iv | i | V |

Am | Dm | Am | E |

with chromaticism:

| i | iv | i | v / V |

Am | Dm | Am | Em / E |

One of my favorite ways to use chromaticism is by raising the root of a major chord up a semitone to create a diminished chord. This is especially effective when you have a progression which has a chord change where the root goes up a whole tone. In that case you can link the two chords by passing through the diminished chord like:

In C major:

| G / G#dim | Am |

or

| F / F#dim | G |

Anyways, these are just a few ways to use chromaticism to enrich and smoothen your progressions. The possibilities are endless. Play around and see what you can find.

So it's been a while since my last post but I thought I'd try and wrap up the lyrics discussion with a few words on writing methods and some final tips.

There are, in general, two approaches to songwriting - you can write the music first and fit the lyrics in afterwards or write the lyrics first and music second. You obviously don't need to write all the music or lyrics before filling in the other half and a good approach is often to work piece by piece writing a verse/bridge/chorus as needed either music or lyrics first. There are advantages and drawbacks to both methods.

By writing the music first you constrain your lyrics to fit the meter. This means you probably won't have to tweak your lyrics all that much since they will already be written to match your music. The drawback is that by constraining your lyrics you limit what you can write since it must fit your meter. Remember: it's easier to make small changes to lyrics than it is to music. Music must make "sense", lyrics don't always have to so there is more freedom in lyric writing than music writing.

I find fitting music to lyrics is often easier than doing the reverse and so I generally prefer this approach. However, writing lyrics without singing them can be challenging and will usually mean a good deal of tweaking once the lyrics and music are written and need to fit together.

One of the easiest and most effective way to write lyrics is to build them off a motif. As we discussed in the motifs lesson, a motif is a repeating phrase that comes up often and usually expresses the main idea of a lyric. A good motif is something that is memorable and hopefully somewhat clever. One easy suggestion is to build a motif off of a pun or idiom. I won't go on about this check out the motif lesson if you missed it - what you should gather is that motifs are very important and very useful.

I like to write lyrics by starting with a few questions:

What genre am I writing for?
    Is this going to be a Christmas song? a blues song? a folk song? a rock song?

Will I use a motif and what will it be?
    Sometimes I start here and then ask what genre the motif would fit with.

What will the structure look like?
    Shorter songs can get away with more repetitive chords and fewer changes. Usually I start by writing a chorus that is based on the motif and then develop the verse. I play through that a bunch of times until I'm satisfied and then decide whether or not I need a bridge. We'll look deeper into structure another time but this is a very important consideration.

Is there a story?
    If so what is it about? how does the motif support it?
    Sometimes lyrics begin with a story and then develop a motif but the reverse is also doable.

Finally lyric writing starts. It finishes and editing begins.

So that's about it. With that I'll close by giving a few final tips:

Practice writing many different kind of lyrics. Challenge yourself to write a song in every genre. Doing this will give you an appreciation for different lyrical forms and give you a chance to see what styles really interest you. Musically try and use a new chord in each new song. Force yourself to write in different time signatures and keys. Keep challenging yourself.

Keep lyrics light. "Dying is easy, comedy is hard". One of the greatest challenges to lyricists (especially in their teens) is that they tend to write very general, very melodramatic lyrics. Keep things lighthearted - you want people to want to listen to your music not just groan. Try writing kids' songs as an exercise.

Pick something specific and write about it. Don't try and tackle big general subjects. You'll write much better and far more interesting lyrics if you pick something you actually know about as a subject.

Avoid using cliched phrases that don't really mean anything like "we'll make it if we try"

Never force rhyme. Don't invert sentences or write unnatural sounding lines just to make them rhyme. Not everything has to rhyme, personally I prefer when lyrics don't.

Listen to a lot of different music and do your research before writing songs. If you're writing in a new genre look at some lyrics in that genre and see if there are any particular traits that persist. For example, blues lyrics almost always repeat the first line.

That's all for me. I'd be curious to know what other people's writing methods are so if you're up to it post how you like to write lyrics or songs. Toodleloo.