Ep 140: Why Your Song Sounds "Almost Good" (How To Find The Broken Part)

Neither one is greater than or less than.

They all have a job to do, and the job is working together.

That sets it up so much more for the demo, for the final production, for a great mix, for a song that does well, for a song that gets attention, for a song that, in my case, for licensing, the supervisor goes, yeah, this really does feel, the music editor goes, oh, this is perfect for the scene.

It just works really well.

Okay, I want you to imagine for a second we take your recent song, and we're gonna tear it apart.

Chords, lyrics, and melody.

Now each of those things we're gonna put in a separate room.

If I go to room one and look at your chords, I should get a very clear feeling.

If I go to the next room and look at your lyrics, I should get that feeling as well.

If I go to the next room and listen to just your melody, I should get that feeling.

If at any point I feel conflicted and I'm getting mixed messages in whatever room I'm in, that needs to be the fix.

It's not a, oh, we'll figure this out in production or, oh, you know what? It's just a taste, taste problem.

You know, you have a different taste.

No, it's a problem and you have to fix it.

What we would do, and we'll walk through this step by step and what I'm always looking for.

When I get into the first room and I'm looking at lyrics, My first thought is, is it too abstract? Are you dancing around what you're trying to tell me? Again, we try to get too clever, too crazy with the verbiage and things that we're choosing because we've been so ingrained in what we're trying to say and what we wanna communicate and we wanna be poetic and we wanna be deep, but we forget that a listener is about gonna, they're gonna have 30 seconds maybe And maybe they'll stay for the full song, but most of the time they're in that 40 seconds a minute.

And if I check in and I'm kind of going through your lyrics, do I get an overall sense of what you want me to feel? Or does my brain have to work really, really hard? Because this is a big difference between writing a book and lyrics.

A book, you've got way more time to elaborate on your story, share more of the details, go into character analysis and all of that jazz.

But right here, you've got to tell me pretty clearly what you want me to feel.

If at any point I'm sitting there and I'm like, I have no idea, the average listener has no idea either.

And that is tough to reconcile for some people, especially when they're very connected to their lyrics.

We think complication and deep meanings need to be the way that we deliver that emotion.

But sometimes being very clear in what we're trying to get the listener to feel we need to be very clear in our words.

And that's what's very important.

It's hard to go deeper and deeper into the lyrical side of it because every song can have a nuance and be different.

But that's the thing that I'm always looking for.

If you gave your lyric sheet to a friend, and you didn't tell them what you want them to feel, could they clearly get that emotion in reading your lyrics sheet? If the answer is no, I'm like, okay, then we've got a problem because it shouldn't be like take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

So that's the first one.

So we have lyrics.

Let's go into the next one.

Now, melody is very important because it's the conduit that is carrying those lyrics, those things we want them to feel.

And we have to be very careful in the amount of notes that we use and what we're trying to do.

So for instance, if you're telling me you want me to feel like things of optimism, things of hope, things of change, and we're not having lift, I never feel like we're getting past the ceiling, that we're soaring a little bit, that we can see beyond our current scenario and that things are gonna get better.

That doesn't mean we're blasting and singing that in full volume, but even high falsettos and light things can really echo that feeling of hope and optimism.

Yet if you're having a lyric that is dark and somber and things that you want me to feel regret or something, and yet we're having just these bounces and they were throwing these notes here and there and more notes, more notes, more notes, more notes.

I never take time to sit with the feeling or even think about it because I'm so confused with the amount of notes you're throwing at me and that we're having all these jumps, we're all over the place and yet I'm never being able to sit with that sort of brokenness in my melody.

And that's what I love about when you listen to a melody with no words.

that's usually where I find that there is a disconnect.

Because maybe the lyrics are on point and they're getting there, but the melody and the conduit in which we're delivering them is just all over the place.

And I have no feeling whatsoever.

Now the third room is my favorite room, obviously.

The guitar room.

Far too often... we are tending to go with the chords that we feel comfortable with or know, and we slap them on.

Because we think, well, I'm not really a guitarist, I'm not really, I just wanna get, you just wanna get it out there.

You just wanna get the song done.

So the chords end up being the thing that people spend either not a lot of time on, or let's go to the polar opposite.

It's way too busy.

And they think complexity with very complicated chord patterns and ever-changing chord patterns will be the thing that will lift the song up.

The problem is, if I just listen to either of those types of chord structure, like slapped together or far too complicated, again, like the lyric side or the melody side, it makes my brain work way too much.

Because remember, the listener needs to do all three of those things, lyrics, melody, chords, at the same time, the very first time that they hear it.

And if we are making one, if not all of them, incredibly complicated, the likelihood of a listener staying with the song, let alone wanting to come back, let alone wanting to share, let alone wanting to save on Spotify, let alone wanting to stay at that open mic and watch you, and then come up afterwards and say, hey, I really enjoyed that song.

We need to be sure that all three of those things is not wearing on the listener.

And so your chord structure doesn't need to be complicated with the amount of chords.

But this is where I always feel the type of voicing that you choose, the position in which you're playing, realizing the type of feeling that you want to convey in melody means the chords need to support that melody, which means the melody needs to convey the lyrical feeling you want.

They're all connected.

That's the whole point of this.

Neither one is greater than or less than.

They all have a job to do, and the job is working together.

Neither one is greater than or less than.

They all have a job to do, and the job is working together.

That sets it up so much more for the demo, for the final production, for a great mix, for a song that does well, for a song that gets attention, for a song that, in my case, for licensing, the supervisor goes, yeah, this really does feel, the music editor goes, oh, this is perfect for the scene.

It just works really well.

Okay, I want you to imagine for a second we take your recent song, and we're gonna tear it apart.

Chords, lyrics, and melody.

Now each of those things we're gonna put in a separate room.

If I go to room one and look at your chords, I should get a very clear feeling.

If I go to the next room and look at your lyrics, I should get that feeling as well.

If I go to the next room and listen to just your melody, I should get that feeling.

If at any point I feel conflicted and I'm getting mixed messages in whatever room I'm in, that needs to be the fix.

It's not a, oh, we'll figure this out in production or, oh, you know what? It's just a taste, taste problem.

You know, you have a different taste.

No, it's a problem and you have to fix it.

What we would do, and we'll walk through this step by step and what I'm always looking for.

When I get into the first room and I'm looking at lyrics, My first thought is, is it too abstract? Are you dancing around what you're trying to tell me? Again, we try to get too clever, too crazy with the verbiage and things that we're choosing because we've been so ingrained in what we're trying to say and what we wanna communicate and we wanna be poetic and we wanna be deep, but we forget that a listener is about gonna, they're gonna have 30 seconds maybe And maybe they'll stay for the full song, but most of the time they're in that 40 seconds a minute.

And if I check in and I'm kind of going through your lyrics, do I get an overall sense of what you want me to feel? Or does my brain have to work really, really hard? Because this is a big difference between writing a book and lyrics.

A book, you've got way more time to elaborate on your story, share more of the details, go into character analysis and all of that jazz.

But right here, you've got to tell me pretty clearly what you want me to feel.

If at any point I'm sitting there and I'm like, I have no idea, the average listener has no idea either.

And that is tough to reconcile for some people, especially when they're very connected to their lyrics.

We think complication and deep meanings need to be the way that we deliver that emotion.

But sometimes being very clear in what we're trying to get the listener to feel we need to be very clear in our words.

And that's what's very important.

It's hard to go deeper and deeper into the lyrical side of it because every song can have a nuance and be different.

But that's the thing that I'm always looking for.

If you gave your lyric sheet to a friend, and you didn't tell them what you want them to feel, could they clearly get that emotion in reading your lyrics sheet? If the answer is no, I'm like, okay, then we've got a problem because it shouldn't be like take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

So that's the first one.

So we have lyrics.

Let's go into the next one.

Now, melody is very important because it's the conduit that is carrying those lyrics, those things we want them to feel.

And we have to be very careful in the amount of notes that we use and what we're trying to do.

So for instance, if you're telling me you want me to feel like things of optimism, things of hope, things of change, and we're not having lift, I never feel like we're getting past the ceiling, that we're soaring a little bit, that we can see beyond our current scenario and that things are gonna get better.

That doesn't mean we're blasting and singing that in full volume, but even high falsettos and light things can really echo that feeling of hope and optimism.

Yet if you're having a lyric that is dark and somber and things that you want me to feel regret or something, and yet we're having just these bounces and they were throwing these notes here and there and more notes, more notes, more notes, more notes.

I never take time to sit with the feeling or even think about it because I'm so confused with the amount of notes you're throwing at me and that we're having all these jumps, we're all over the place and yet I'm never being able to sit with that sort of brokenness in my melody.

And that's what I love about when you listen to a melody with no words.

that's usually where I find that there is a disconnect.

Because maybe the lyrics are on point and they're getting there, but the melody and the conduit in which we're delivering them is just all over the place.

And I have no feeling whatsoever.

Now the third room is my favorite room, obviously.

The guitar room.

Far too often... we are tending to go with the chords that we feel comfortable with or know, and we slap them on.

Because we think, well, I'm not really a guitarist, I'm not really, I just wanna get, you just wanna get it out there.

You just wanna get the song done.

So the chords end up being the thing that people spend either not a lot of time on, or let's go to the polar opposite.

It's way too busy.

And they think complexity with very complicated chord patterns and ever-changing chord patterns will be the thing that will lift the song up.

The problem is, if I just listen to either of those types of chord structure, like slapped together or far too complicated, again, like the lyric side or the melody side, it makes my brain work way too much.

Because remember, the listener needs to do all three of those things, lyrics, melody, chords, at the same time, the very first time that they hear it.

And if we are making one, if not all of them, incredibly complicated, the likelihood of a listener staying with the song, let alone wanting to come back, let alone wanting to share, let alone wanting to save on Spotify, let alone wanting to stay at that open mic and watch you, and then come up afterwards and say, hey, I really enjoyed that song.

We need to be sure that all three of those things is not wearing on the listener.

And so your chord structure doesn't need to be complicated with the amount of chords.

But this is where I always feel the type of voicing that you choose, the position in which you're playing, realizing the type of feeling that you want to convey in melody means the chords need to support that melody, which means the melody needs to convey the lyrical feeling you want.

They're all connected.

That's the whole point of this.

Neither one is greater than or less than.

They all have a job to do, and the job is working together.