Create More Next Year!

I'm So "Glad....

Last Week’s Bonus Round: “Ten Degrees And Getting Colder” seemed kind of appropriate for last week’s weather around the country and the Upper Left Corner was no exception, though the “gusty winds” forecast didn’t amount to much, at least near me. It did leave me with some sort of head cold/sinus thingy when it warmed up into the 30s/40s and brought some dampness in the form of mostly rain. Meh.

I couldn’t find a specific entry for the song, (though there was a return for hypothermia, which seemed topical…) but there’s this: “Summer Side of Life is Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot's seventh album. It was released in 1971 on the Reprise Records Label. The album marked a departure from the sound Lightfoot had established on Sit Down Young Stranger in its use of drums and electric instrumentation, to which he would later return in the second half of the decade…

…Nanci Griffith covered "10 Degrees and Getting Colder" on her 1993 album, Other Voices, Other Rooms. The song had previously been recorded by J. D. Crowe & The New South on their eponymous album in 1975.” Credit: Wikipedia

Since the Nanci Griffith cover is the one I’m most familiar with, it’s the YouTube video for the Bonus Round this week:

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Yesterday I linked to a couple of articles/videos that really caught my attention. The first of these is a list of predictions for 2023 from the DIY Musician Blog, this one written by Chris Robley, the Editor of CD Baby’s DIY Musician Blog. So, again, I really like companies that provide some interesting insights along with promoting their products. CD Baby is a owned by Disc Makers, and a fellow I frequently feature on here, Mr. Tony Van Veen, is the CEO of Disc Makers. All good stuff, (usual disclaimer here) but I am not sponsored or in any way compensated by any of the businesses I link to or mention.

Here’s the link from yesterday: Predictions: Music "Creators"

Though the whole thing is a good read, and I think Mr. Robley got a lot of stuff right (but we’ll see), the part I found particularly interesting is this:

“More people will embrace a creator-first mindset.

For decades, musicians have embraced or tolerated the idea that they must have other skills to succeed: copywriting, marketing, videography, editing, design, etc. But until recently, I felt like all those endeavors were taken on as a means to an end: To get people back to the music. I think 2023 will be a kind of tipping-point year, where we see many people who used to think of themselves as artists first, finally accept the role of creator, with its own set of expectations and rewards.” Credit: DIYMusician’s blog

I think this is a really important idea. I tip my hat to those with the talent, perseverance, and let’s face it, sheer luck to land a record label contract, but most of us aren’t going to have that advantage. I think that leaves us with the fact that playing well, really well, isn’t going to be enough on it’s own. Similarly, being a great vocalist, or a pretty good songwriter won’t be enough on their own either. Reasonably good at most of this, and really good in one or two areas, along with a willingness to take on the other aspects like copyrighting material, working hard at a home or small studio recording and mixing, marketing after release (to include videos and direct social media contacts with fans and a potential fanbase) rather than thinking a publisher or distributor will do it (they won’t) and then being our own best brand ambassador are probably the best avenues to success and those are some of the many things that go into being a music “creator”.

Having said all that, I recognize most of my readers aren’t particularly interested in actually doing any of that. Playing and singing with friends at a jam or open mic night, around the firepit or just playing your songs or covering songs that remind us of a place or time in our lives is plenty and has its own really great rewards. I get that and those things really are rewarding in their own right. For those of us with an itch that just isn’t going to get scratched until we “find out”, the article and particularly that section is good advice, IMHO.

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Next is some really important songwriting advice from the folks at Songtown, and a bit technical. I realize now even though the link worked fine for me yesterday, it’s likely behind the paywall for members of Songtown. So, a brief description if you don’t have a membership there: The video is a part of the “Music Lab” series. This one is from Mr. Clay Mills and relates to “vocal entrances”. That phrase “vocal entrance” relates to the beat on which the vocal phrase begins. Mr. Mills says, rightly so, that most vocal entrances of a lot of commercial songs begin on the “downbeat” or the one beat of the phrase. He criticizes the overuse of this technique because it lessens the interesting aspects of songs, and then he encourages songwriters to use the idea of changing up the vocal entrances within sections (verse, chorus, bridge) by coming in on the 2 beat of the measure, or even 3 or 4 beat of the measure prior to the measure that contains most of the phrase. Maybe a little hard to visualize, so I’m going to pull out our old “example” song we wrote in an earlier post:

BAD TIMING

Verse

My specialty’s bad timin’,

No meter and lousy rhymin’,

I’ll think some more tomorrow,

So just feel free to borrow

Chorus

There just ain’t no silver linin’,

When your specialty’s bad timin’

We added some chords and the chart looked like this:

Note: If the “Key of A’ and “Capo 2” seem a little unnecessary, we were exploring some music theory at the time and it was illustrative of that.

All of the lyric lines except the last phrase of the chorus appear to begin on the 1 beat (downbeat) along with the chord change. So what if we, following Mr'. Mill’s advice, changed the phrasing to come in before or after the 1 beat?

The first couple of lyric lines, phrased out, might look like this:

BAD TIMING

Verse

G C

1 2 3 4 |1 2 3

My specialty’s bad timin’,

D G

4| 1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4

No meter and lousy rhymin’,

Seems really way more complicated written down like that, but if you actually play it with a metronome, especially with the 1 beat of the metronome set to be “polyphonic”, that is a “click” that’s a very different sound from the 2, 3, and 4 beats, it actually flows pretty well. Most of my songs have the vocal entrance on the 2 beat, just because I like to establish the chord change for the phrase and it helps me keep the melody line playing to the arpeggio suggested by the chord or chords associated with the phrase. I know that sounds kinda complicated too, but try playing some of your favorite commercial songs with a one beat delay at the beginning of a phrase. Or, if you’re playing from a chord chart, try “phrasing out” the song, that is making phrase marks like in our example above (the vertical line at the end of each of the 4 beats in the measure - that only works for common time, 4/4 time signature, - it would be at the end of 6 beats for a 6/8 song for example). You may find that some of your favorite songs don’t match the chord chart you’re using with the 1 beat starting the vocal phrase, but instead it “enters” on a different beat, and we just kind of unconsciously adjust to the phrasing/timing. Something to think about in your writing to add interest by changing the timing and phrasing a bit. Your listeners will hear the difference even if they may not understand why it’s actually different.

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I think that’s enough for this week, and this year, actually…

Bonus Round: …you’re here”.

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What I’m listening to for New Year’s:

So whether you’re pursuing your own musical dreams, supporting your family members and those in your circle of friends, or just like guessing the Bonus Round, 2023 is going to be a great year for music and musicians!

Cheers and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic