I wrote this song in eighth grade that I recorded when I was 15 that you can find on my old Flash Point CD.(anyone remember that band? The 2012 Battle of the Bands winners? We performed last year for Red Ribbon Week? Yeah, we weren't that relevant but whatever, we had a good run.) This song had a story, but it could be spun to be many different stories. The song is called "Thunderhearts and Lightening Knives", the title has seldom to do with the song, for some reason that was trendy, and still is.
Cafe Riches keep their souls lit up
Trying hard to remember who made that one up
Two young dames in a disturbed world hiding from their failures with their hair curled.
Staying in the backstreets and watching the sky
Ominous cloud cover and they start to cry
Life for them is hanging on their shoulders
Knowing if they can't run they'll be much colder
Lightening Pierce across the sky
Thunder cracks and the storm is nigh
Running down the alleyway
Just trying to get home, just trying to get home.
Making it rich is all you ever wish, holding back a smirk with diamonds on your dish
Being tranquil and sitting in the grass, these two girls really do have class
I can't tell you how it makes me feel
To never know what exactly's truly real
silence echoes again in space, I guess
human nature won this race
I honestly don't remember the original story behind this song but it's been said that this song is about hipster girls, hipster girls going to a party but getting caught in a storm, hipster girls getting raped, rich girls getting beaten up by hobos, the mean girls getting what was coming to them, etc...
So what's the point of all this?
What I think is neat about poetry and music-or any other art form that isn't a short story or novel-is that you can fit so many different meanings and stories into the mold set for you; you get to participate.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The Importance of Ambiance
A lot can be conveyed in a story or a poem with imagery yes? Often times we've talked about the "symbolism of the blue curtains" and whether they symbolize the character's depression, or they were just blue. Imagery is obviously extremely important because it gives us context to the situation. If two character's are having a romantic conversation it can be a very different scenario if it were in a city street as opposed to a dimly lit bedroom yes?
In music and film the same scenario applies, the difference being the ambiance and mood are shown through picture set and sound as opposed to printed words. If a character is running through the woods and it's twilight with the blue hue of dusk and the shadows creeping in we have a different feeling as opposed to if the character was running at high noon in the bright sun. So where am I going with this post?
In the music I listen to I am a huge fan of ambiance, but how do we have ambiance in music?
Dynamics, dynamics, sound effects, harmony, chord structure, tempo, and more dynamics!
I like music that really sets a mood when you listen to it, but how can such a thing be described?
I guess the best way is to post a few examples.
For me, this song takes me to a beach in early morning. This is an example of ambiance. There are no words therefore the entire "story" or "meaning" is conveyed with pure ambiance.
This song has lyrics, but the way the music fits around it creates a fitting mood that also takes you somewhere.
So what exactly is the point of this post? What is the importance of ambiance? Doesn't all music have ambiance?
Ambiance is the difference between music taking you on a journey and making you participate and music that just sits in your ears. Here is an example of a song that I personally feel lacks the ambient element.
This is not to say that music that lacks ambiance isn't successful music it's just not the same thing. Ambiance is an art in and of itself, an art that I particularly enjoy. I tend to enjoy music with ambiance, I enjoy ambient movies, ambient rooms, some people like a lot of imagery in books others enjoy dialogue. There's no wrong way to tell a story, that's why there are so many literary devices and different genres of music. I just hope I helped you understand ambiance a little bit, and if you like ambiance in your music I'll leave you with a list of the most ambient bands I know of
Radiohead
Ott
Shpongle
STS9
Portishead
Fever Ray
Pink Floyd
^^that should be a good start.
In music and film the same scenario applies, the difference being the ambiance and mood are shown through picture set and sound as opposed to printed words. If a character is running through the woods and it's twilight with the blue hue of dusk and the shadows creeping in we have a different feeling as opposed to if the character was running at high noon in the bright sun. So where am I going with this post?
In the music I listen to I am a huge fan of ambiance, but how do we have ambiance in music?
Dynamics, dynamics, sound effects, harmony, chord structure, tempo, and more dynamics!
I like music that really sets a mood when you listen to it, but how can such a thing be described?
I guess the best way is to post a few examples.
For me, this song takes me to a beach in early morning. This is an example of ambiance. There are no words therefore the entire "story" or "meaning" is conveyed with pure ambiance.
This song has lyrics, but the way the music fits around it creates a fitting mood that also takes you somewhere.
So what exactly is the point of this post? What is the importance of ambiance? Doesn't all music have ambiance?
Ambiance is the difference between music taking you on a journey and making you participate and music that just sits in your ears. Here is an example of a song that I personally feel lacks the ambient element.
This is not to say that music that lacks ambiance isn't successful music it's just not the same thing. Ambiance is an art in and of itself, an art that I particularly enjoy. I tend to enjoy music with ambiance, I enjoy ambient movies, ambient rooms, some people like a lot of imagery in books others enjoy dialogue. There's no wrong way to tell a story, that's why there are so many literary devices and different genres of music. I just hope I helped you understand ambiance a little bit, and if you like ambiance in your music I'll leave you with a list of the most ambient bands I know of
Radiohead
Ott
Shpongle
STS9
Portishead
Fever Ray
Pink Floyd
^^that should be a good start.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Why Writing Lyrics Feels Like Reading your 12 Year old email addresses
So here I sit at my computer finally writing a long overdue blog post for English class. I ask myself the same questions every week; first: "What post are we on?" "Or wait, is it a comment week?"
I then tell myself: "Gee, maybe I should actually write this post tonight, after I check Tumblr."
A week of procrastination later: "Why didn't you catch up? Now you're two posts behind!"
I then justify in my head: "I will write one when the spirit gives me an idea worth writing about..."
I take that advice to heart, because I value this assignment to be interesting and not "phoned in" as some would say. I take this same advice in song writing; I have procrastinated writing music for about four years I think, always saying the time will come when I will be inspired and then the music will flow free. The time has finally come, I am now heavily working on writing an album to be done by summer with my boyfriend; who practically shits out music because he's amazing like that and that's job. I've been waiting for someone who can put music to my lyrics, and piece together the little bits of music I did write. Teddy is that guy, and he has taught me the secret to writing and that is to let go and let it happen, much like this post. So the point of this post is to explain why songwriting is so damn hard.
Like anything creative you're going to stare into the abyss of nothingness waiting for a while to get started. A good tip that I've taken far too long to listen to is write the music first. A lot of your lyric inspiration will need to not only fit the mood of the music, and the meter, but it must reside in the music. A lot of times the instrumentation will help you find the words needed to say, maybe the music will take you to a memory you will write about. Since we've all written short stories and I know a number of you want to write novels, you can think of this as setting your..well...setting first.
Next you need to wait for a lyric to hit you, once you've picked a mood and topic. Don't automatically think that the lyric: "I've roamed amongst the Earth with my eyes closed and heart open." Needs to be the first line, or even the chorus, maybe it's the last lyric or the 7th I don't know!
Now here comes the part I hate the most, once you think you've finished writing beautiful poetry to go to your instrumentation you are going to read it back and want to destroy it. DON'T! A lot of times you'll find amazing lyrics and some that make you cringe, the trick is to not destroy but enhance. I've thrown out so much of my work when I was younger, and regretted it. Some of the lyrics I wrote at 12 are much more inspired and poetic than what I wrote at 15. I regret throwing them out so bad! YES THEY ARE EMBARASSING, YOU ARE GOING TO FEEL LIKE YOU'RE READING BACK YOUR OLD AIM PROFILE BUT....but....it is just that. It's immature, it has to grow. You're going to think your lyrics are cheesy, shitty, awful, I always do...but I find that most are. You won't get better without writing in route, and you can't force it out, it'll come out when it's ready.
So I am currently looking over at my guitar pick I ripped my room apart to find, and about to get up to write some lyrics to this song I wrote today. I know it's going to be an odd experience, but it has to be done. Hopefully the lyrics won't be as cheesy as I am expecting them to be. Maybe blog post 9 will be the lyrics I wrote...or maybe not, I don't need to risk having them stolen from me >:) Blog post 9 will then deal with copyright law suits.
I then tell myself: "Gee, maybe I should actually write this post tonight, after I check Tumblr."
A week of procrastination later: "Why didn't you catch up? Now you're two posts behind!"
I then justify in my head: "I will write one when the spirit gives me an idea worth writing about..."
I take that advice to heart, because I value this assignment to be interesting and not "phoned in" as some would say. I take this same advice in song writing; I have procrastinated writing music for about four years I think, always saying the time will come when I will be inspired and then the music will flow free. The time has finally come, I am now heavily working on writing an album to be done by summer with my boyfriend; who practically shits out music because he's amazing like that and that's job. I've been waiting for someone who can put music to my lyrics, and piece together the little bits of music I did write. Teddy is that guy, and he has taught me the secret to writing and that is to let go and let it happen, much like this post. So the point of this post is to explain why songwriting is so damn hard.
Like anything creative you're going to stare into the abyss of nothingness waiting for a while to get started. A good tip that I've taken far too long to listen to is write the music first. A lot of your lyric inspiration will need to not only fit the mood of the music, and the meter, but it must reside in the music. A lot of times the instrumentation will help you find the words needed to say, maybe the music will take you to a memory you will write about. Since we've all written short stories and I know a number of you want to write novels, you can think of this as setting your..well...setting first.
Next you need to wait for a lyric to hit you, once you've picked a mood and topic. Don't automatically think that the lyric: "I've roamed amongst the Earth with my eyes closed and heart open." Needs to be the first line, or even the chorus, maybe it's the last lyric or the 7th I don't know!
Now here comes the part I hate the most, once you think you've finished writing beautiful poetry to go to your instrumentation you are going to read it back and want to destroy it. DON'T! A lot of times you'll find amazing lyrics and some that make you cringe, the trick is to not destroy but enhance. I've thrown out so much of my work when I was younger, and regretted it. Some of the lyrics I wrote at 12 are much more inspired and poetic than what I wrote at 15. I regret throwing them out so bad! YES THEY ARE EMBARASSING, YOU ARE GOING TO FEEL LIKE YOU'RE READING BACK YOUR OLD AIM PROFILE BUT....but....it is just that. It's immature, it has to grow. You're going to think your lyrics are cheesy, shitty, awful, I always do...but I find that most are. You won't get better without writing in route, and you can't force it out, it'll come out when it's ready.
So I am currently looking over at my guitar pick I ripped my room apart to find, and about to get up to write some lyrics to this song I wrote today. I know it's going to be an odd experience, but it has to be done. Hopefully the lyrics won't be as cheesy as I am expecting them to be. Maybe blog post 9 will be the lyrics I wrote...or maybe not, I don't need to risk having them stolen from me >:) Blog post 9 will then deal with copyright law suits.
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