Got A Lotta Nice Links...
It's links, all the way down...
Lots of great links to cool stuff today, so let’s get right to it! Well, after this at least:
Disc Makers had a lot of interesting stuff this week in their emails:
Using Compressors and Limiters
From Mr. Graham English in his “Speed Songwriting Newsletter” this past week, an excerpt on an important concept for songwriters:
“Getting the hang of stressed and unstressed syllables in lyric writing
To understand lyric rhythm, you must understand its basic building blocks: syllables.
Every word has at least one syllable, and it's either stressed or unstressed depending on the conventional pronunciation of the word and the type of word. Rhythm also has stressed beats (downbeats and syncopated rhythms) and unstressed beats (upbeats).
We've all heard a song where the accent was on the wrong syllable and changed the word's pronunciation. It's not the end of the world, but it can be jarring. You mostly want to place words in a rhythm that sounds natural and communicates your idea without any confusion.
You also accent words by their importance to stress the relationship between words. For example, articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and other filler words should usually be unstressed. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs should usually be stressed.
Once you understand stressed and unstressed syllables (you can find them in a dictionary), you move on to patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. The one we're looking at today is dum da. It's one of the most basic patterns and most common patterns. So here's how you write it: dum da or DUM da.
Here are some examples of words and phrases with a "dum da" pattern:
Party = dum da
Monday = dum da
About = da dum
A drum = da dum
She sang = da dum
Sing it = dum da
Tips:
Don't put weak words on the accented beats - place them on the weaker unstressed beats and try to match your word's stressed syllables to the stressed beats of the rhythm.
If you’re having trouble finding words to fit your rhythm, use dummy syllables like “dum da dum da dum,” and then you'll know the words and phrases that will fit.
Explore all the ways you can use a stressed and unstressed syllable in your music and lyrics, and you'll be unstoppable!” Credit: Speed Songwriting, Graham English Enterprises
From Mr. Griff Hamlin at Blues Guitar Unleashed, some advice on listening. This is unsurprisingly aimed at blues guitarists who spend a lot of time with 12 bar blues songs, but worth the read no matter why you’re playing:
Finally, a shout out to fellow SubStack writer Brian Sutich who authors the fabulous “Six String Sunday Club” newsletter:
Check out this post that’s loaded with great links, and I realize this is a bit of an even higher level of linkception - my “links” post with a link to a post full of links, but there’s some great stuff here for players at any level, enjoy, and check out Mr. Sutich’s SubStack for more!
Regular post tomorrow!
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
Thanks a lot for recommending 6SSC, I really appreciate it! Just subscribed to your newsletter as well.