Composing vs Songwriting

 © I.Woloshen

It was suggested to me recently that talking a little bit about the differences between the music I produce for television and songwriting might make for an interesting read. I’ll let you be the judge 

First of all, a little history. I wrote my first television theme back in 1993, when my husband, who happens to be a writer/producer at a local TV station, suggested that I might be able to “rip off” a certain theme and he would use it for a new series he was about to produce. Both of us were a little naive about the idea of copying anything at the time (although we aren’t now!), but I was defiant and refused to rip off anything because I knew I could write something completely unique! After much wrangling, he finally and reluctantly agreed to let me experiment. The result is that “Home Check with Shell Busey”, a kind of home fix-it series, was on the air for the last ten years, with my own theme on it.

When I listen to it now, I cringe  I was pretty new at the whole idea of production at the time, and relied on midi and a simple 8-track reel-to-reel recorder to do my bits. My how times have changed! In the meantime, I’ve composed music for a number of series, the most recent being a news package for CHEK Television Victoria.

In some ways, composing for television is something akin to being a staff songwriter at a record label or publishing company. For instance, I can do what I want, but then it has to be scrutinized by whoever is producing the show, and sometimes more than one person, so the result may not always be what I thought would work best! Some producers are musically succinct in defining what they want, and others have a hard time describing it. Those of us who have had music around us and been involved in it all our lives, take for granted that everyone understands the lingo, but it is extremely difficult for many non-musical people to know how to articulate what they’re after and what they like. So as a composer, you are always trying to get to the root of what the producer wants to hear.

Not all producers are as involved in your work. Some will step back and pretty much let you come up with the ideas. For instance, the producer I worked with on a dog show, pretty much allowed me the freedom to use my own instincts and do what I wanted. I think that it turned out to be one of my best themes…plus, he played trombone, so I wrote a trombone part into the theme and had him come in and play it! It was great fun and we worked well together.

I’ve had to completely scrap ideas and start over. This isn’t easy, because when you have latched onto an idea, it’s hard to let go and start fresh. I’ve also lost work because the producer didn’t like what I was doing. That can be painful, but as long as I keep the attitude that I learn the most from the more difficult experiences, I live through it 

Creating a music package for a television show does not mean only creating a theme. Whenever you watch a show, you’ll notice bits of music throughout. There are bumpers, which are very short musical bits, usually anywhere from 2-10 seconds long, normally placed just before or after a commercial break and leading the viewer into or out of that segment of the show. For some shows there are music “beds”, which are longer bits, anywhere from 1:00 to 3 or 4 minutes long that play underneath someone speaking or some activity within the show. In the dog show I worked on, I created a lot of different beds for the producer to use in segments where, for instance, a trainer might be describing how to get your dog to stay off the road, or a person might be talking about how a dog saved her life. It creates a more emotional impact and gives the segment a nice flow. In fact, I’ll map out what an imaginary show might look like written out on a piece of paper:

Opening theme :15 – 1:00 long
Segment 1 7:00 – music bed 1:35, 2nd music bed 2:04
Bumper into break – :05
Bumper out of break – :06
Segment 2 8:30 – 3rd music bed :55, 4th music bed 3:00
Bumper into break- :07
Bumper out of break – :03
Segment 3 7:30 – 5th music bed 1:00, 6th music bed 2:55
Extro (the closing segment of the show) 1:00 – closing theme :50

For the above show, I have four different length of bumpers, I use 6 different music beds, I have an opening theme and a closing theme (often the same music). I do not edit the music on the show myself, but basically provide the music on CD to the producer, who takes it to the editor when the show is being packaged, and they use whatever they want to make the segment and the show all work. The producer sends something called a musical “cuesheet” to an organization called SOCAN, in Canada (the American equivalent would be BMI or ASCAP) for each episode, and SOCAN decides how much money I’ve earned as a composer.

Television music, in some ways, is hardly noticeable because a viewer is really paying attention to the content. But if you saw a segment WITHOUT the music and then with it, you’d notice the difference! It does a lot to carry the feel of what’s going on in the segment. In a sense, a show without a music bed here and there would be like a lyric without the music. That is true for movies as well…I once saw a James Bond film, many years ago, that was actually a pirated copy (don’t ask!), and it still hadn’t had the post production music on most of the film. It was BORING! You don’t realize how much the music works to drive your emotions in a film, to telegraph what’s coming, and to really milk the happy or sad parts, until you see a film without it.

You notice a lot of songs in films these days, which has become almost an industry in and of itself. A movie soundtrack can do very well for an artist if the movie is big. But television doesn’t quite have those theme music “stars” unless you’re talking about someone like Mike Post, who has composed music for some of the biggest and most popular television series around like NYPD Blue and Law & Order. My work is pretty small potatoes compared to him 

There are rarely any lyrics in the music I do for television…occasionally I will use vocals as some kind of background part, but today’s themes are quite different from the era of the Flintstones and Gilligan’s Island  In fact, I would venture to guess that there was a lot more work involved in older television themes. For instance, they used live orchestras then, whereas today you can almost get away with being a one-person composer with a lot of synths and effects instead. The audio editing tools we have today make life SO much easier. If I want to create some bumpers, I can edit bits of the main theme and use them rather than creating them from scratch.

My work in television has been fairly lucrative at times for me. I get inquiries from time to time from other newer composers who want to get into what I’m doing. As you can see, in my case it was who I knew! And this, unfortunately is the reality for those who haven’t gotten their foot in the door yet. Once producers have used you, if they generally like your work, they won’t necessarily be on the hunt for anyone else. I have a feeling that the music industry itself is full of the same situations, and I feel extremely lucky to be doing what I’m doing. I know, however, that it won’t last forever. One day another young buck will come along with amazing skills and blow me out of the water! New producers will take over and won’t know me from Adam (well, I’m a GIRL, how could they?) 

In the meantime, I love what I do and it supports my songwriting…what could be better? 

IJ

The Real Deal – Songwriting Websites I Recommend

 I spend a lot of time surfing the web in search of websites for songwriters, usually because I’m looking for something to write about in my monthly column at the Muse’s Muse :) (For anyone interested, the newsletters along with my articles are archived here).

Occasionally, people will ask to use my articles on their songwriting-related websites, or to link up with me. In the beginning, I would readily allow anyone who wanted to to use my tips or link to my page. But these days, I’m a little pickier! Now I check out these websites as thoroughly as I can before associating myself with them. I have noticed that there are a growing number of websites that offer lots of promises, but they really don’t deliver. I hate to say it, but anyone who wants to charge you for something, should cause you to send up a red flag, with a few exceptions.

Let’s first talk about the “free” websites, good places to start with when you are just beginning your search, and some of these you will return to again and again. The Muses’ Muse is simply one of the best songwriting websites out there, if not THE best. Jodi Krangle, the proprietor, makes little or no money from her website, and yet it always manages to be fresh, up-to-date and an extremely thorough collection of links, articles, advice and services for the beginner to the advanced songwriter. It is a HUGE site, so be prepared to spend a lot of time there! I have known Jodi since I first came online in 1996, and I’ve never met a nicer person! We have continued to help each other to promote and support the idea of songwriting on the web, and The Muse’s Muse continues to exist because of a person who is truly committed to the art and craft of songwriting.

Another really huge, and wonderful website is Just Plain Folks. Again, Brian Austin Whitney has created a wonderful community for songwriters that is almost too much to explain in one small paragraph! You have to see it to believe it. Brian has extended his JPFolks community out into the “real” world, with events all over the US and Canada, and branches of his organization in just about every major city! Again, this website is so full of stuff, it’ll take you literally weeks to go through all of it.

Even if a membership in an online organization is NOT free, ask yourself if you are in a place to truly benefit from their services. For instance, a lot of songwriters ask about TAXI and whether or not they are legitimate. In my opinion, they are. But many songwriters are simply not ready or at a level yet in which to really make use of what they have to offer! You wouldn’t buy a car before you even knew how to drive it. The same rule applies here. If you don’t yet ‘know’ how to write a song, why spend mega bucks on a service where you will be competing with a zillion others who DO know how to write? That sounds very practical, but I have met many, many songwriters who are ready long before their songs really are. So TAXI is a part of my list because I believe they offer a legitimate service for a fee.

Another legitimate service is SongU.com . I will say right up front that I am associated with them, because I’ve written two courses for their website. Danny Arena and Sara Light are IN the business of songwriting, they teach it and they live it. SongU.com will eventually become a collection of online courses which the songwriter will pay to use. Many of the gurus I’ve already mentioned are contributing courses to this website and it will become quite a full and fascinating resource for songwriters at all levels. SongU.com hasn’t fully launched as of the writing of this article, but in the meantime, you can also check out Danny & Sara’s other website, Craft Of Songwriting.

These are only a few of the major websites that I can personally recommend, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t more that are equally as good…there seems to be another songwriting website popping up every month or so. But the ones I’ve mentioned here have built up over time and have become as successful as they are because of all of the hard-working people behind them. Give them all a visit and tell ’em Irene sent you!

IJ

The Verse’s Purpose

In a more recent article “Don’t Bore Us, Get To the Chorus“, we discussed the obvious importance of that part of a song. But while the chorus might be considered the “sexiest” or most pivotal part of the song…the verse is what really sets the chorus up to succeed. Behind every successful chorus is a strong verse :)

So it’s important to understand that the verse plays as crucial a role as the chorus, and that you need to pay a lot of attention to whether or not your verses are doing their job. If the chorus is the summation, the peak, if you will, of the song, the verses are the storytellers that help to make the chorus make sense. And when I say story, I don’t necessarily mean “once upon a time”. This is something that confuses a lot of people at first, because not all songs are little 3 minute stories in the traditional sense of the word. However, all songs need a beginning, a middle and an end. When you look at your verses from a lyrical standpoint, sometimes it’s a good idea to give a one-line summation of each one, just to see how they are adding up within the context of the song.

For instance, the first verse might be “I met him (her)”, the second “we had a great time” the third “something went wrong”. That’s just a very basic story line, but you get the idea. You can examine other songs that way to see how they work. I took a look at a couple of more recent pop/rock hits, for no particular reason and with no bias toward any, other than the fact that my guitar students have wanted to learn them. One of those was “Bubbly”, by Colbie Caillat. Now I wouldn’t exactly call the lyrics of that song brilliant or inspired, but they are kinda cute.

Bubbly is basically just a love/lust song, describing how he gives her “tinglies in a silly place” :-). So how do the verses stand up to the story test? The first verse starts with “I’ve been awake for awhile now”. The second describes being in bed and “the rain is falling on my window pane”. And the third verse begins with “I’ve been asleep for awhile now”. The rest of the song more or less describes how he makes her feel, especially the chorus. But the verses do meet the criteria of creating a beginning, a middle and an end. Waking up, fooling around, going back to sleep :-).

Another song is “Hey There Delilah” by the Plain White T’s. This song is almost written in the form of a letter, the first verse being a kind of “hey, how are you and how’s it going?”. “Hey there Delilah, what’s it like in New York City?”. The next verse is expressing the thought that one of these days things won’t be so hard and we’ll have a better life together. The last verse more or less says take care of yourself…something you might end a letter with. The chorus, interestingly, is just one line “Oh, it’s what you do to me.” repeated over and over…the melody is what makes that chorus stand out. It’s beautiful. So in this song, similarly to “Bubbly”, the verses are telling the story, the chorus is simply expressing or describing a feeling.

The third song I’ll look at is Taylor Swift‘s “Teardrops On My Guitar”. Again, this is a love song…this one about unrequited love. It sets up the story with the first line “Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won’t see”, and goes on to lament the fact that Drew has somebody else, but the singer is still pining for him. There’s continuity with the first line of the second verse, “Drew talks to me, I laugh because it’s so damn funny”. And the third verse begins “Drew walks by me, can he tell that I can’t breathe?”. In this particular song, the bridge carries on the story “So I drive home alone…”, and at the very end of the song, the last line is a repeat of the first line “Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won’t see”. This is a little songwriting trick that I’ve used myself before. I call it the 360, because the effect is to create a feeling of coming back to the beginning again, coming full circle. In a song like this about unrequited love, the feeling is never resolved, is it? So the effect of the 360 is that the story continues on indefinitely.

One very critical final point about the verse; the first verse, specifically. The first line has to draw the listener in, so in spite of all of the hullabaloo over the importance of the chorus, pay attention, very special attention, to your first line. Sometimes the chorus is sung first for a similar effect…to draw the listener in.

So far we’ve only discussed how verses can work best in a lyrical context. But what about the music? Usually there is a musical contrast between verse and chorus, and more often than not, the chorus melody lifts to some degree. I once heard someone say that the chorus always contains the highest note in the song :) I can see why he’d say that because there is certainly is a feeling of a lot of choruses being at more of a fever pitch compared to the verses. Sometimes that is created just as much by the production than anything else; lots of background vocals coming in, maybe strings or other extra instruments being introduced, and the drummer riding the cymbals. This can give a sense of the chorus being louder and “higher”.

If you listen to the song I mentioned above, “Bubbly”…the melody of the chorus is not all that different from the verses, the notes are simply organized a little differently, they are shorter in length and the chords change more frequently. The melody in the chorus of each of the other songs definitely lifts up to some degree.

“Teardrops On My Guitar” follows the classic contrast of a softer verse and more emotionally dominant chorus. The notes are longer in the verses, the melody is in the lower register, but there’s a kind of intimacy in the way it is sung that pulls you in. Verses do tend to be more low key (I don’t mean IN a lower key, I just mean softer), but if you make them too much so then you take the chance of losing a listener pretty quickly. Where else do you think the line “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” came from? :) Songwriters often make the mistake of paying less attention to the verse melody and chord progression. But just as the verses need to drive the “story”, they also have to be compelling musically, enough so to keep those listener’s ears perked long enough to get to the chorus, if there is one. The performance, of course, also has an integral role. A lackluster vocal performance will make even the best melody a little mediocre. But I digress!

In “Hey There Delilah” the verse melody is again in a lower register, but the verses are more developed and much longer than the chorus. That’s because they are really doing the job of telling the story because the chorus has only that one emotional statement and that’s it...”Oh, it’s what you do to me.” You could write just about anything around a chorus like that. But it is made stronger by the verses, which do exactly the job they are meant to do, melodically and lyrically–to set the chorus up. Sometimes as you’re writing or re-writing a song, you realize that your verse melody seems to stand out more than your chorus. This is a good lesson…what do you do? One possibility is to switch them…make the verse melody the chorus and vice versa. Or you might want to find a new melody for the chorus altogether.

So now that we’ve examined the role of the verses more carefully, it’s time for you to go back through your songs and see how they measure up! It doesn’t mean you have to re-write anything that doesn’t work (although that’s certainly a good exercise!), but it will make you more aware of the function of the verse the next time you sit down to write a new tune. And remember, that sometimes things just work because they work, even if they break the so-called “rules”. Think of everything here simply as a guideline…but remember that sometimes it’s just as interesting to colour outside the line :)

IJ