Rough to Release

Hello again. Last time we started talking about recording, the hierarchy, and intent. We left it with a promise to talk one of the easiest ways to get your recordings sounding better-than-average: sound-treatment of your room. Now some people might be nodding along at this point, but not really believing. I mean, it's just the room right? It's not what's making the noise, and it's not what's capturing the noise, so how much difference could it make? Well, fortunately I have some pertinent examples: Untreated, unfurnished room:  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pJnGeDsly6M Same room, treated, singing into the 'live' end:  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t2iIhiyjm6A Same room, treated, singing into the 'dead' end:  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7c4hKBWk6Ac So we're starting with this because it will apply to all of the subsequent options and it's cheap and easy. Sound treatment is about controlling how sound bounces around your room, and we need...

  Welcome back. Last time we summarised the various tools and tricks we'd covered so far and largely wrapped up the initial 'writing' side of the 'rough to release' process. And if all you require is a finished set of lyrics, a chord structure, and / or a melody line scribbled on a stave then your work may be done. But my memory doesn't work like and I don't read music, so firstly, I require a recording of the complete piece so that there's a permanent record. Pun very much intended. Secondly, during the writing process I will often get ideas for how I want the final piece to sound; and that's rarely as simple as a single guitar and vocal part. My songs tend to be musically very simple and I rely on production and arrangement to keep the interest going. Blame it on my lack of music theory... So I need to be able record my parts, add elements to them, remove other bits and generally screw around with things. And for that I will need some 'stuff...

 Welcome to either the half-way point of this blog, or the end of the blog, depending on your perspective... This series is titled 'rough to release' because for me, the release is the end* of the process. It's the point beyond which there are no more re-writes, re-arrangements or just general tweakery. In releasing it to the public it is committed to the record. But not all of you will work to this definition of 'finished'. For some it is enough to have a set of lyrics written down, a structure established, and a chord progression or tune notated. And if that's you then you might be pleased to know that your work here is all but done. After this blog we'll be moving onto the 'release' part of the series. So before we take that step, let's have a quick refresher on what we've covered so far. In part one we set the scene but didn't really broach any finishing techniques, so let's go straight onto... Part Two - Space and Permission. Th...

Welcome back to Trollholm and Rough to Release, our series on taking your half-finished ideas and turning them into finished songs.  So far we've assumed that your creative process is you, alone, slaving away by the midnight oil in your artists garret. Or in the train on the morning commute, whatever works for you (according to part 2). But obviously this is not always the case; you might be working as part of a writing group, you might be working with a partner, you might be taking your song ideas to a band to develop into a live show. All of these scenarios bring both advantages and dis-advantages, but there are some consistent points as well. Let's have a look... As part of a band In my (limited) experience, bands tend to be run either as dictatorships or communes. Under the dictator, the band leader tends to bring the songs and sets the rules about how they'll be played. If it's a benevolent dictatorship they will allow the other players control of their parts and a...

Spock: why is that music playing? Kirk: Tension Spock! Atmosphere. Spock: It's space; there is no atmosphere. Kirk: Hence the tension! There's an old saying about writing a novel that the sequential passage of events is the story, but how you chop up and present that sequence of events is your plot. And one of the key ways in which you can dice up your novel is to simply chop things out. This idea applies double to lyrics, it also applies to the music and the production as well. We'll come back to production later, but before we delve into lyrics, let's talk briefly about the music. Subverting structures To keep people interested you obviously need an attractive melody but, unless you're writing for the Baby Shark audience, you also need some variety and contrast.  In terms of song structures an easy way to add a bit of variety is to extend or contract a segment. If you've established a verse-chorus structure, then adding an extra bar or two to the second v...