Archive for October, 2011
Prosody on steroids…
Posted by jgarnerprod in Hit Song Analysis, Song Geek on October 26th, 2011
If you’re familiar with the work of Pat Pattison
If you’re not familiar, prosody refers to the rhythmic inflection, or the stress of certain words within your melody. Ideally, your stresses, or emphasis should follow the natural emphasis you make when speaking.
In Steve Leslie’s example above, you would naturally emphasize the “Ti” of “Tiger”, not the “ger” of “Tiger”.
That seems fair enough, until you start writing those blasted songs!
Strangely enough, there countless examples of songs making it onto radio with weird unnatural accents! Once you’ve heard one, it’ll drive you crazy!
So where do we find some great examples of prosody to challenge and inspire us? You gotta go the classics, one of my favorites (pun intended) shown below, by the masters of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Do you have others? Let me know, and I’ll post them here! Enjoy!
(p.s. find a link to Pat Pattison’s definitive work on lyric writing below!)
What do you do with that extra chorus at the end??
Posted by jgarnerprod in Hit Song Analysis, Song Geek on October 19th, 2011
Something I’m intrigued by is what hit songs do on the repeat choruses at the end.
This is an interesting topic in song arrangement.
Here’s one example that I really like. It’s the British boy band Take That. This is pop at it’s best, with a GREAT melody, particularly with the change up in the chorus.
Now having said that, at the helm is producer-extraordinaire John Shanks. He comes up with an entirely new part at the repeat chorus at the end. BUT (clever) he recycles the lyric from the bridge, and tweaks the bridge melody to work over the chorus progression.
Put this in your toolbox, and try it on your next song!
Jason
Video Tutorial: Converting Wave files to mp3s!
Posted by jgarnerprod in Tech talk on October 10th, 2011
Hi everyone,
So here’s something I frequently get asked to do, specifically, converting a wave audio file into an mp3 for submission to either a song competition, or a music library (just for them to approve; usually they want a WAVE file for their actual library).
BTW, this will hopefully be the start of many tutorials to come! Please feel free to let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to cover in future tutorials.
Thanks!
Hey, and if you’re interested in doing some video tutorials of your own, I can highly recommend “Screenflow”. Click on the link below to check them out. (BTW, if you buy after clicking through, I will get a small commission for steering you to them; just full disclosure, and thanks so much in advance for your support!)
