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NOTE: This is a project intended to get feedback about the creative process of musicians. Voting doesn't really apply. Please read the member profile for details!
I had the thought that I'd like to write a song for TENSE that explores the negative aspects of consumerism on society. I'm in the marketing profession, so I have a lot of thoughts about society's values surrounding material wealth, the manipulation of those values through advertising, a culture that espouses excess rather than moderation, and so on.
After thinking about the topic for a while, I distill a few key thoughts: the root of greed is fear, consumerism proliferates itself by preying on the fears of others to entice more greed, and all of this distracts us from "real" personal growth. You may not agree, but that's my concept so far.
One lyric springs to mind: "Enough should be enough for me, if its true the best things are free." For now, I decide to call the song "Enough."
Thinking about how the musical style might fit the lyrics (as a TENSE song), I have an idea about contrasting a feeling of sickness with a feeling of outrage. One of my gimmicks is to use a tempo that is fast enough to work as "cut time." My idea is to set the song at about 160bpm. This will let me drag-out the "sickness" theme at 80bpm and drive through the "outrage" at 160bpm.
Not knowing much theory, I like to sit down with the guitar at this point and experiment with very basic note pairings until I arrive with something that suggests the mood I'm after. These note pairings eventually get expanded into full chords and/or bass lines.
After some experimentation I arrive at a very simple progression (F#/B, G/C#, F#/D, F/A, E/A). Turns out this is essentially the key of D. Somewhat satisfied, I go into Logic Express (LE) and lay out that progression with a bass. It sounds too hard for the "sickness" theme, so I change the instrument to a stand-up wooden bass.
After listening a bit I get an idea for an undulating synth part to reinforce the idea of "sickness," which I build using the generators and effects in LE. At this point I'm beginning to feel like the song concept has a basic starting point from which to work.
You can hear the musical results thus far in the song file. Chime in below. How does this relate to your own approach to creating a song concept? What would you do differently? What do you see that might be useful to your process?
I had the thought that I'd like to write a song for TENSE that explores the negative aspects of consumerism on society. I'm in the marketing profession, so I have a lot of thoughts about society's values surrounding material wealth, the manipulation of those values through advertising, a culture that espouses excess rather than moderation, and so on.
After thinking about the topic for a while, I distill a few key thoughts: the root of greed is fear, consumerism proliferates itself by preying on the fears of others to entice more greed, and all of this distracts us from "real" personal growth. You may not agree, but that's my concept so far.
One lyric springs to mind: "Enough should be enough for me, if its true the best things are free." For now, I decide to call the song "Enough."
Thinking about how the musical style might fit the lyrics (as a TENSE song), I have an idea about contrasting a feeling of sickness with a feeling of outrage. One of my gimmicks is to use a tempo that is fast enough to work as "cut time." My idea is to set the song at about 160bpm. This will let me drag-out the "sickness" theme at 80bpm and drive through the "outrage" at 160bpm.
Not knowing much theory, I like to sit down with the guitar at this point and experiment with very basic note pairings until I arrive with something that suggests the mood I'm after. These note pairings eventually get expanded into full chords and/or bass lines.
After some experimentation I arrive at a very simple progression (F#/B, G/C#, F#/D, F/A, E/A). Turns out this is essentially the key of D. Somewhat satisfied, I go into Logic Express (LE) and lay out that progression with a bass. It sounds too hard for the "sickness" theme, so I change the instrument to a stand-up wooden bass.
After listening a bit I get an idea for an undulating synth part to reinforce the idea of "sickness," which I build using the generators and effects in LE. At this point I'm beginning to feel like the song concept has a basic starting point from which to work.
You can hear the musical results thus far in the song file. Chime in below. How does this relate to your own approach to creating a song concept? What would you do differently? What do you see that might be useful to your process?
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Lyrics
Only one line so far: "Enough should be enough for me, if its true the best things are free."
Peter Greenstone
I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.
Not having any one particular method of my own for
developing songs, I think I'll remain a spectator to this for
the time being.