Songwriting, as I'm starting to realize, constitutes a plethora of different approaches; just as it is with women. I'd previously been quite a firm believer in either one or the other when it comes to composing. You could begin with the words, and then the melody, progression and riffs that match the lyrics... or the other way around. Analogously, you could either come close to a girl at the bus stop and engage in a conversation similar to the following... "Excuse me, do you know what time it is?" "930am." "So you from around here?" ...OR, alternatively, if she's not wearing a watch... "Excuse me, do you know what time it is?" "No." "Well, it's time for you and me… to have a drink baby!" So you see, writing a song is in a way similar to talking to a girl. Every approach, resulting in a different result, which is nothing new really; as you could possibly deduce from the conversations above. But as I said, my two-way, ‘either-or' understanding of the process is a thing of the past. For I have, in recent times, discovered a few other aspects that influence the characteristics of a song. Things that go beyond sitting down and trying to come up with lyrics and melodies. In other words, the way the environment and condition that you're in, during the course of the song's formation, affect its mood. The constraint of time, for example, creates an urgency for the documentation of a song. More than ever as melodies could come when they're least expected. This, breeding a fear of memory loss. Legend has it that Gregg Allman wrote the jam band masterpiece Whipping Post using burned matches, on an ironing board because he couldn't find a pen in the middle of the night. "It came so fast. I didn't even have a chance to get the paper out. That's the way the good songs come... they just hit you like a ton of bricks." The excitement upon the unearthing of a melody plays a role as well. Everytime a new tune strike me, I get the same anxiety rush I got during my first encounter with Jessica Rabbit; as an 8-year old boy. Still do, these days. Under the same influence the other day, the urge to get some words into this new song we wrote crept into me. Not knowing the actual direction or story of the song, however, I simply penned down words that seemed to befit the notes; with none of the sentences making actual sense... Through the rivers I try to make it rightSee what I mean? A few days later, I tried to revisit the song and get the words sorted out. To rewrite it, if you will, and give some sort of a meaning to the whole song. No matter how hard I tried, though, no amount of newer, more sensible lines sounded better than the existing ones; leaving me no other option but to just stick to them. So the lesson I learned from this exercise lies behind the correlation that the nonsensical lines have with the melodies; as opposed to the logical ones. In other words, the chemistry between the words and the notes in which they are sung in, is more important than the construction of the sentences itself. Such is the beauty of the art of songwriting... logic is only as significant as the points on Whose Line Is it Anyway. A certain Mr. John Lennon may agree. Goo goo g'joob… Addendum: I got this super neat Sony Ericsson K770i a day before our session last weekend and being the giddy little girl that I am whenever I get a new gadget, I couldn't stop playing around with it and managed to capture the following bit along with a few other tracks we were trying to cut. It's in .amr format which is mainly for speech, which is expected of a phone sound recorder anyway. Hence the quality is no Dolby Stereo yet for those unexpected moments of enlightenment, I should at least be able to hum into the phone and get some melodies recorded. Here's two minutes of a yet to be named song recorded through it. The 3.2MP camera ain't too shabby either. At RM500 a pop, you can't go wrong with this bad boy. 
Comments:
suggestions:
sideA: sellout indon marone 5 manloque kinda songs sideB: blues/classic rock-boogey-funky stay true kinda songs -pak andak-
Hang on... 'manloque kinda songs'...
Bwaaaaaaaaaahahahaha... Manloque are you listening? Pak Andak, cracks me up everytime. Some demos coming your way brother! Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] |
About
Fed Hi is a Blues Rock band from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The band was formerly known as The Big Pink. They are currently working on their debut recording in the studio. Asrif Yusoff: Vocals, Guitar Uda Bahar: Guitar, Vocals Ikram Omar: Bass Naim Aminnudin: Drums Contact 
Videos (Thanks Zhin!)
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