David Ford strikes me as a man with better things to do.
Perhaps not at the moment I was talking to him. He was on the road in Idaho, en route to a show in Salt Lake City, when we battled our way through cell phone connectivity issues and spent a few moments discussing music and all the things that seem to come part and parcel with today’s music industry. But like I said, he’s got better things to do. Like, say, writing and performing music.
Ford’s been a working musician in Great Britain for more than a decade, and has even seen some measure of success as part of the band Easyworld. Since 2004, he’s been a solo artist, and has been steadily gaining fans in the United States, among them Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. He has toured with Ray LaMontagne, Suzanne Vega, Sara Bareilles (in April 2008) and Augustana (this month), and in June will be touring with Aimee Mann. (All of his summer tour dates are available in the OFTV events calendar.) His latest album, Songs For The Road, was released last year and is available for download on iTunes.
I first heard of Ford thanks to Kired over at Cursed Monkey Paw, and I was immediately struck by the honesty and sheer musicality of his songs. No pop songs, these, although they could easily do well in a better musical atmosphere than the current music industry. Therefore, I thought he’d be a perfect fit for our readership here — we’re all tired of the current music industry, yes?
Here is the utterly enjoyable and admittedly most “pop” song from Ford’s Songs For The Road, “Decimate”. As Ford says, “It’s a positive song about inviting someone to lay all their problems on you, to take their hardships and lighten their load, wanting everything to be OK. It’s kind of like a love song.” The video, I think, is also the most “pop” of the videos I’ve seen.
More representative of both Ford’s music and his videos is “State of the Union”. The video was shot live, in one take, with one camera. “It’s a challenging thing to keep it interesting without relying on clever editing and cuts,” he says. “There’s a sense of realness as well, you’re actually watching a moment in time that happens as you see it.” Read the rest of this entry �
Welcome back to my hit tutorial! In our last installment, I covered hit dance songs. Today, I’m covering the other major genre of hits, the mid-tempo ballad.
The best way to illustrate the hit ballad is to examine the songwriting successes of Diane Warren. I cannot stand her songs, or her personally, but she has had more hit songs than any other songwriter in the 20th/21st centuries, so where better to start? Artists to look at are Mariah Carey and Celine Dion.
With dance songs, we built from the bottom (the beat) up. With ballads, we move in the other direction, starting with the lyrics. Lyrics should be about love, or miracles, or other inspirational things, or occasionally about lost love. Think of your average American Idol “coronation” song — you want a song that conveys both grandiosity and happiness. (There actually used to be a random word generator on the Internet that would create a random AI song. If anyone still has the link, please let me know!) Use a lot of words, too, especially in your verses, and make sure to have a bridge. The bridge will come in handy later when you get to the chord and key changes. When you write the chorus, make sure to include lots of open vowels — oohs, ohs, and ahs. Avoid ee’s, because they sound screechy when held and hiccupy when Mariah goes into melisma (a/k/a “runs”).
Which brings us to the melody. Long, sweeping phrases and an opportunity for the eventual singer to show off his or her vocal range and breath control are key. (Unless you know you’re writing for someone with no vocal range or breath control, like Madonna or Britney.) Don’t write too many notes, as a basic outline is fine. The singer will have their own style for filling in the blanks, honed over years of impressing Star Search judges. The singer’s style will also serve as a reminder of the genre they have been pigeonholed into: a country singer will be more yodely and a pop singer will be more punchy. Also, your chord progressions will provide them with a guide.
What makes a song a hit? Is it a fashionable genre? Is it a (f/ Akon) notation in the credits? Or is there something more universal that gets radio requests and mass downloads? Considering that hits come from all genres and certainly existed before the advent of the professional guest artist, I’m inclined to go with that universal theory.
My personal experience is that there are two “usual” types of hits: the uptempo dance number, and the midtempo ballad (a/k/a makeout song). In this blog, I’m going to examine uptempo songs. Later, we’ll cover ballads, and the third, rogue category, the novelty song (which can occasionally fit into one or the other of the first two categories). Now, on to the hits!
The backbone of a danceable song is the backbeat. (It even has “back” in it!) This usually consists of drums (or some kind of percussion, drum machine, etc.) and some kind of bass line, either from bass guitar, “stand up” double bass, or maybe the left hand of the piano or organ player. This is what you tap your feet or fingers to, it’s what you move and groove and shake your booty to. It’s what made people on American Bandstand say, “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it, I give it an 8.5″ for many, many years. If you haven’t got a beat, you haven’t got a hit dance song. Read the rest of this entry �
