datamusicata

I had a young songwriter ask me how to choose the best tempo for the song and I thought that was a good question and a good topic for today’s column.

Choosing a tempo is critical to the success of the song in terms of listeners getting it. As a songwriter who writes primarily with the guitar, I frequently have a feel that sort of starts the process off and then I tend to keep the song at that tempo.

But it’s a great experiment to change your tempos around when you are practicing. I already told you how I practice with a drum machine and I put the songs at very different tempos from where I usually play them. Too fast or too slow, and then force myself to play in that pocket. This is great practice for improving your timing chops.

But taking a song that is already known or like the above example, a song you’ve written, deliberately change the tempo. If it is a fast rocker, slow it down, see what happens. Change the time signature and see what happens.

My pal, John Batdorf (www.johnbatdorfmusic.com) and I did an album called All Wood and Stones (www.allwoodandstones.com) and did that very thing. We took well known classic Rolling Stones (www.rollingstones.com) songs and completely rearranged them.

The rocker Under My Thumb became a waltz. We moved it from 4/4 time to ¾ time. It completely changed the perception of the song. We took the raucous Let’s Spend the Night Together and made it a mid tempo shuffle. Check it out. It should give you some ideas for changing and possibly improving the songs you’ve written.

Now if you have a new song and you are trying to find the right tempo, there are several things to consider.

First how wordy is it. If there are a lot of words then a slower tempo might serve the lyrics better. Alternatively, if it’s really rhythmic and wordy, it might seem like an avalanche of lyrics if you did it really fast.

Ask yourself what your vision of the song and/or the recording is and try to serve that. Tempo frequently sets mood, so ask yourself if you want it to be slow and moody or fast and celebratory. There’s an old blues song by Jesse Fuller called San Francisco Bay Blues (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkumuirtwbo) and while the lyrics are sad, poor me I lost her lyrics, the melody and the tempo are uplifting and fun.

It all depends on what you want to do with the song, and further, how can you best perform the song?

You want to put the song into a tempo that allows your particular gifts to shine while at the same time serving the lyric and emotional content of the song.

I remember writing a song called Afternoon Rain for my first recording for RCA/Wooden Nickel. When I wrote it I was a little blasted and the tempo just fit, but later when I tried to play it, I couldn’t find the place where it sat comfortably. I finally got one of those strobe tuners and kept track of the different tempos until I found the place again where the song worked, and I wrote down that tempo.

It might have been my limitations as a guitar player at the time that caused part of the problem, because now I can pretty much play any song at any tempo and make it work—it may not be the way it was intended, but I can make it work.

On my new CD, New Traces of the Old Road, I do a Dylan song entitled, Most Likely You Go Your Way, And I’ll Go Mine. Dylan’s version was a cacaphonous, horn infused party of drunken revelers. I decided to take the tempo and some of the feel of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, (www.algreenmusic.com) and make that the framework for the song. It came out entirely different than his version, and many folks seem to seriously enjoy what I did to it.

In the final analysis, there is no right or wrong tempo. You play the song at various speeds until you find the place that works for you. If it feels good, trust yourself. Do it there.

I’d like to talk a little bit more about song writing today, as I did a show this weekend and talked to various folks about different aspects of the craft.

People frequently ask, “what comes first, the music or the words?” and of course, there is no right answer. Sometimes the words, sometimes the music, sometimes all at once, sometimes just a musical or lyrical phrase that sticks in your head and sometimes it’s just the title.

My pal, Stephen Bishop (www.stephenbishop.com) keeps notebooks full of titles and he almost always works from the title forward. Titles can be tricky, because you don’t want someone to confuse your song with another, or to think that instead of coming up with something yourself, you simply chose a title that had already been a hit.

While it is true that titles cannot be copyrighted, it doesn’t make any sense to take a title from a well known hit song. All that you do is invite comparison between your new song and the song that is already familiar and successful to the listener. You always end up on the short end of that stick, unless the title is so old that no one remembers the other song.

Another friend of mine, frequently got his ideas from book titles. He even wrote a song once from a McMurtry novel title, only to find out after he’d recorded and released the song that McMurtry had gotten the title of his novel from a Merle Haggard song...with the same title. Ouch!

For me, it is rare that I work from the title forward, with the notable exceptions of Mary January from the Eternal Contradiction (www.jamesleestanley.com/eternalcontra.html) and Daddy’s Eyes from the musical that I’m writing entitled Straight From the Heart. The song can also be heard on the Peter Tork/James Lee Stanley CD, Backstage At the Coffee Gallery – Live and on my Domino Harvest CD.

I usually start with a position or point of view that I’m trying to describe, but I have worked from chord progressions, as well as guitar licks, or melodies that spring full blown into my head. And once, I dreamed a song and woke up and wrote it down. Words and music all at once. It is also on the Domino Harvest CD. It’s called “Everybody Knows” because it’s obvious that no one does. At least they don’t behave that way. And yes, I have since come to find out that Leonard Cohen (www.leonardcohen.com) has written a brilliant song with that title.

And you are going to run into that as you go thru your creative life. Straight From the Heart, a beautiful song I wrote with my pal, John Capek (www.johncapek.com), that has become the finale song of the musical from the same name, is preceeded by no less than four other songs with that title; one a particularly wonderful one by Lowell George. I must admit that if I had heard his version first, I would have never written my song. But that’s the way this title game goes.

When Tom Robbins and I wrote the song, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” we thought, because he was the author of the book that that was a pretty safe title. It turns out that there are at least twenty songs with that title. When I was being considered for the job of musical director for several permutations of the film I even considered using every single one of them in the soundtrack. Imagine what that soundtrack album would have looked like. Every song with the same title but sung by different artists and written by different songwriters. A publishing nightmare.

All I can advise you to do is to write the best song you know how and derive the title from what you have said or how you have said it. That seems to be the safest and most original way of doing it.

I am just taking a break practicing for tomorrow night’s concert at the Boney Mountain Concert Series in Newberry Park. I have been practicing every song from the Eternal Contradiction because I intend to do that album for the first set, and I’ve written a show around it. So I know what I will be saying when and what songs will come in what order. I have discovered that a structured first set has enormous impact on the audience and on CD sales, but I digress.

While practicing a song called Let the Tree Fall, I realized that I was avoiding the sixth string during the build up to the chorus so that when I hit the E min that begins the chorus I have that deepest note of the guitar to give it a big bottom for impact.

It got me to thinking about the arrangement I did for that song and how I used the guitar strings to build it into one of the most effective performances of the set. When you are performing solo, you need to think a lot about building the arrangement. The following arrangement would only be effective with a band if they all acknowledged what I was doing and contributed to that building process by laying out and paying strict attention to the inversions of the chords that they were using. In any event...

I start out with an arpeggio; single strings ringing over each other; a motif that I bring back several times throughout the song. No actual chords except what the overtones suggest as they ring against each other.

(Many people have asked me what tuning I use for that song. With a few notable exceptions, I use standard tuning; almost exclusively. For me, it is the most versatile and the most useful, not to mention that by staying in standard tuning, you actually learn the neck of the guitar and the relationships of chords to each other more readily than when you retune.)

After the motif, I begin a simple triad of G with a pedal tone high E on the four of each bar, using only the first four strings of the guitar. The progression goes, G, then pedal tone E, Gmin, then pedal tone E, then D, then pedal tone E, the an E7/9, raising the high E to an F# and then finally hitting the low E on the E min walk up to the A, which is the dominant chord or the five of the key of D that the song is in.

This makes the E, F#, G, A starting on the 6^th string of the guitar much more impactful, because that low tone hasn’t been heard in the song til now.

Then the verses start with the standard G chord using the 6^th, 5^th and 1^st string finger positions and leaving the other strings open. So I have now used a different sounding G chord on the verses. This differentiates the sound of the intro from the sound of the chorus.

You can hear the song at www.jamesleestanley.com/eternalcontra.html.

Throughout all my guitar/voice arrangements I employ different inversions of the chords to give it subtle differences. The audience may not be able to say exactly what has happened, but they respond emotionally to the colors that the different inversions create in a listener.

Inversions also serve to keep the song from sounding the same from one end to the other, which for me makes a performance boring. I want to hear forethought, arrangement choices, I want to hear and feel a momentum building and I want that sense of a destination in mind and that we are going to arrive at it.

I also employ that technique in the lyrics that I write. I want there to be a musical and lyrical pay off. A destination implied and a bona fied arrival. ( I love that word, just watched O Brother Where Art Thou? Again and they use that word a lot...always makes me smile).

So what I am stressing here today is for you to try different positions of the chords that you use. If the chorus is the biggest part of the song, then use the biggest version of the chords for that section and see what kind of smaller and different position of the same chord you can use for the verses.

Try different inversions and see and feel what they suggest to you. After you have mastered this and learned to apply dynamics (discussion for another day) to your performance, you will become a performer who delivers a song and a show.

As house concerts have become a bigger and bigger part of the acoustic musician experience, I have talked with several presenters and gotten their feedback on what they expect, and I have already written a piece on what they performer expects of the presenter, but here is what one house concert presenter sent to me:

“After 7-1/2 years of hosting house concerts in our home, we’ve had some fabulous experiences... and some that were not ideal. One singer-songwriter (now our best friend!) showed up at our house with high-end chocolate truffles! You don’t need to go that far to win our undying affection, but there are things you can do that make a difference for us. Below are some tips that might be useful for performers as they decide to play at a house concert.”

Top 10 TO do:

1. DO make a commitment to perform and keep it. Cancelling on us may damage both your credibility and the relationship.

2. DO post the gig on your web site with accurate information... but no more information than we want advertised (like our home address, which we want to keep private until reservations are confirmed).

3. DO tell us in advance if you have dietary needs/restrictions so we can plan to accommodate them.

4. DO tell us if you need extra space (including for dinner!) for other musicians you’ll be bringing with you.

5. DO say “thank you.” Maybe more than once. We’ve worked really hard to make the show a success. Regardless of how it came out, please acknowledge our efforts.

6. DO offer to play a favorite song of ours. We picked you to play in our home because we like your work. See if there’s something especially meaningful to us.

7. DO offer to help with the dishes or other pre-concert tasks as we scurry around. We’re not likely to accept your assistance, but it sure is thoughtful to ask.

8. DO give us a choice of your CDs among those you have with you.

9. DO offer us feedback as to how we can do it better next time. Just do it gently.

10. DO make yourself available to vouch for the credibility of our series with a fellow performer if we’re having trouble reaching/booking him or her.

11. And a way-cool bonus? DO email or call the day or two after the show.

Top 10 Things NOT to do:

1. DON’T book another gig close by in geography or date without talking to us about it. There may be no problem... but there may be!

2. DON’T have your agent force us to do all the work... including finding you other gigs in the area!

3. DON’T send an email to your list without letting us know in advance. It’s probably helpful, but we might already be sold out and won’t want to disappoint your local fans.

4. DON’T forget to tell us about folks you’d like to comp for the show... far in advance! If we’ve already sold out, it’s awkward for us to squeeze them in.

5. DON’T be late to our house! It throws off our schedule... and our nerves... when you’re late. (And please don’t sneak out early! We may want to hang out for a few minutes, totaling up the $$$, drinking a beer with you, chatting, etc.)

6. DON’T tell us who we must book next. We definitely appreciate suggestions, but we probably have a long list of folks we’d like to present and don’t want to feel obligated to you.

7. After doing all of these, DON’T query about being booked again next year

8. DON’T spend all the pre-show time talking to the other performers, leaving us out of the conversation.

9. DON’T express disappointment in CD sales or the ultimate financial outcome for the night. It’s probably too late to do anything about it, and it just makes us feel badly.

10. DON’T forget to bring lots of product. It’s awful to create enthusiastic new fans who aren’t able to take some of your music home!

Welcome to another Monday. I’ve spent the last five days wrestling with my laptop (new) trying to get whatever worm/virus/caca that got in there to leave and allow me to go back to just using it effortlessly. So far, I am screaming at the wind.

Which brings us to today’s post. No matter what you are doing. No matter how important or unimportant it is. No matter how little you change it. Try to remember this, cause it’s a big one.

BACK IT UP!

I have been unable to post the articles that I have written because they are locked in the ether in the laptop. I have tried for days to extract them to no avail. Hence the lack of posts here, because I kept thinking I’d get them back any second and wouldn’t have to reproduce them from memory. No chance.

BACK IT UP!

Put it on a flash drive...put it on a cd or dvd, but put it someplace else so that you can go and get it and install it on another computer because as wonderful as these things are, they are also squirrelly. Computers are almost reliable. NOT RELIABLE! Almost reliable, so you have to head them off at the pass.

I’ve been working at my studio computer on a new CD, “Backstage At The Resurrection” and I have five or six things almost done. And I have’t backed up anything?

What am I? An Idiot?

BACK IT UP!

The best way to do this is to keep all the info for each song in it’s own separate folder. Then put each folder on a separate CD so that each song has it’s own CD, you see? And don’t forget to make two copies...yes, two copies.

And put them in different places.

One copy and things can happen to it. Statistically, you stand a pretty good chance of being able to retrieve your data if you have two copies of it. Something can still go wrong, but at least you have done your best to cover your act.

So the short post for today, in case you forgot, is...

BACK IT UP!