In today’s article on songwriting, I’m going to get into the meat and potatoes of structure. I’m sure you’re going to find this more than interesting and helpful whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro. Let’s begin.

For you newcomers to songwriting, structure is the way your song is made up. There are a variety of structures that you can use. Commercial music makes use of only a few. Those into avant garde or experimental music will go way beyond this. But for now, we’re going to keep things relatively simple.

Before we get into what actually makes up the structure of a song, why do we want structure in the first place? Can’t we just write a bunch of notes and some words and call it a song? Well, we could. And I am sure that somewhere, somebody has done just that. But again, I’m focusing on commercial music for this article so let’s stick to that form.

We want structure in our songs because structure makes the song easier for the average listener to follow. They can identify each part of the song almost immediately and that in turn makes it a more enjoyable experience. Again, I am talking about the average listener. Not you guys that get off on Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk.

So to make our listener feel at home with our music, we give him structure. What kind of structure? Well, we break the song up into parts. Each part serves a different function. Some parts can serve multiple functions depending on the overall structure of the song itself.

For example, let’s take the beginning of the song which is commonly referred to as the verse. The verse serves to give the listener information on what the song is about. The verse is rarely the main part of the song but without it, the rest of the song has little meaning.

Now, some songs don’t start with the verse. Some songs start with what I call a little teaser or intro. I’m not talking musically here. I’m talking lyrically. A great example of a song with a teaser is Carol King’s “It Might As Well Rain Until September” which starts out with this little teaser.

“What shall I write?
What can I say?
How can I tell you how much I miss you?”

So right there, we are taken into her little dilemma. She’s trying to think of what to say to this person to let them know how much she misses them. After this little teaser, the main part of the song starts, which is the verse.

Here is the first verse of this song.

“The weather here has been as nice as it can be
Althought it doesn’t really matter much to me
For all the fun I’ll have while you’re so far away
It might as well rain until September”

See that last line? That’s the refrain. It’s the main idea of this song. Essentially, she’s saying that it doesn’t matter how nice the weather is. As long as this person is away, it might as well rain until September for all she cares. We know this is the refrain because it’s repeated again in the next verse.

“I don’t need sunny skies for things I like to do
‘Cause I stay home the whole day long and think of you
As far as I’m concerned each day’s a rainy day
So It might as well rain until September”

If you listen to these two verses, you will find that they have the same exact melody. All the words are different except for the very last line, which is the refrain. Yes, the refrain, which is actually part of the song structure, is usually just one line.

When we have one verse following another verse like this and have a refrain, which means we don’t have a particular song construct that I will cover later, we are said to have two “A” sections. If we follow these two “A” sections with another “A” section we are said to have AAA form.

However, most popular music that uses the AA form will follow up with what is called the B section or middle 8. That’s what Carol King does in this song. Here is the middle 8.

“My friends look forward to their picnics on the beach
Yes everybody loves the summertime
But you know darling while your arms are out of reach
The summer isn’t any friend of mine”

Notice how she shifts focus to her friends and other people whereas in the “A” section she is focused solely on her lover. Combined with the change in melody and it’s clear that this is a “B” section.

Finally, she finishes the song with one last “A” section.

“It doesn’t matter whethee skies are grey or blue
It’s raining in my heart ’cause I can’t be with you
I’m only living for the day you’re home to stay
So It might as well rain until September
September, September, oh
It might as well rain until September”

Notice how she repeats the refrain at the end of the last “A” section. This pretty much signifies that she’s ending the song.

Carol King and Gerry Goffin, who wrote the lyrics, are such great writers. Their songs are flawless. This is great writing.

But this isn’t the only type of song structure.

Another common type is verse/verse/chorus.

Verse/Verse/Chorus is similar to AAB form but with these differences.

In the verse, there is no refrain or part that repeats with each verse. The chorus is where we hear the main idea of the song and it’s usually several lines long whereas a refrain is usually just one line.

Here is an example of a chorus from Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World.”

“Singin’
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls, now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me”

Notice that it’s much longer than a one line refrain. Verse/verse/chorus is another common pop music structure.

But what comes after the chorus? Well, usually two more or one more verse followed by the chorus again. Some songs will then follow that up with an instrumental break or a middle 8 or bridge, which is similar to the middle 8 in the AABA form.

“Joy To The World” has no bridge. It’s just verse/chorus/verse/chorus/verse and then repeats the chorus several times at the end to fade. No, it doesn’t even do two consecutive verses like many songs do. It was a simple song with a simple melody that was easy to follow, which is probably why it was the number 1 song of 1971.

These are your most common song structures. There are others and there are variations. But these are the ones you’re most likely to run into.

Now, I already went over the purpose of the verse and the chorus (to give the meat and potatoes info of the song and then to deliver the main idea). But what’s the purpose of the bridge in a song, especially in a song that’s verse/verse/chorus form?

Let’s take a look at “I’d Rather Be A Cowboy” by John Denver which clearly shows a great example of a bridge.

Verse 1

Jessie went away last summer, a couple of months ago.
After all our time together, it was hard to see her go.
She called me right up when she arrived, asked me one more time to come,
but living on an LA freeway ain’t my kind of having fun.

Chorus

I think I’d rather be a cowboy, I think I’d rather ride the range.
I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

Verse 2

When we were just beginning, it was such an easy way.
Laying back up in the mountains making love for sunny days.
She got tired of picking daisies and cooking my meals for me,
she can live the life she wants to, yes, it’s all right with me.

(Repeat Chorus)

Bridge

I’d rather live on the side of a mountain than wander through canyons of concrete and steel.
I’d rather laugh in the rain and sunshine and lay down my sundown in some starry field.

Okay, I’ll stop there because the rest of the song isn’t important to pointing out what the bridge is doing.

In the verses, he’s clearly stating what he doesn’t want. He doesn’t want the L.A. freeway. She got tired of the country life and essentially left him. That’s fine with him. He’d rather be a cowboy anyway.

So now we get to the bridge. The bridge, aside from giving us a different melody and thus breaking up the song a little music wise, gives us more insight into what he really wants. He’d rather live on the side of a mountain and laugh in the rain. The bridge moves away from the “negative” feeling of the verse and gives us more positive like the chorus but in more detail.

That’s the mark of a good bridge. It doesn’t just take up space. It adds something to the song.

Pretty basic stuff, I know. But hopefully, it’ll give you something to work with. I’ll have more advanced stuff on song structure in later articles.

Until then, enjoy!

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Today’s article in songwriting is going to focus on point of view. I hope it is helpful in improving your own point of view choices when writing your own songs. Let’s begin.

What exactly is point of view?

Point of view (hereafter referred to as PoV) is the perspective from which the songwriter, or storyteller, is coming from. How the story is being told. There are several PoVs and I’m going to list and explain each one next.

Third Person Narrative

Third person narrative is when the storyteller is singing about other people or events that he is not directly a part of. A great example of this PoV is “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar.

“This is a story about Jack and Diane”

Right away you can tell that he’s telling a story about these two kids growing up in the heartland. He is not in any way a part of the action. He’s just telling a tale of other people. This is an example of third person narrative.

First Person Narrative

This is when the storyteller is telling a story about himself. An example of first person narrative is “Let It Be” by The Beatles.

“When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking Words of wisdom
Let it Be”

“And in my hour of darkness…etc.”

The singer is referring to himself through the song. When HE finds himself in times of trouble. When HE is in his hour of darkness.

Second Person Narrative

This is when the singer is singing to a second party using the word “you” in the song but the subject matter doesn’t involve anything the “you” does with the narrator himself.

An example of second person narrative is the song “For No One” by The Beatles.

“Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all the words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you”

The narrator is singing to another person about problems that person is having with yet another person, but not the narrator.

In other words, it’s like saying to the person “You gave her everything you had to give and yet she didn’t return your love.”

Second person narrative songs are probably the least common form of songs in popular music. The most popular is probably the form I’m going to cover next.

Direct Address

This PoV is when the singer is singing directly to the person and the conflict is directly between the two of them.

You can sum up the general theme of direct address in one line.

“I gave you my heart and you tore it apart you no good bitch.”

This is basically every “You done me wrong song” ever written.

Need an example of direct address PoV? No problem.

“Without You”

No I can’t forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that’s just the way
The story goes
You always smile but in your eyes
Your sorrow shows
Yes it shows

No I can’t forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow
When I had you there
But then I let you go
And now it’s only fair
That I should let you know
What you should know

I can’t live
If living is without you
I can’t live
I can’t give anymore
I can’t live
If living is without you
I can’t give
I can’t give anymore”

This is the classic “Without You” written by Pete Ham of Badfinger and first performed by Harry Nilsson and then Mariah Carey. The singer is singing directly to the woman who he can’t live without. I can’t live without you. This is direct address. You are battling it out directly with the one you love, hate, think is a dope, whatever. It’s just you and this person and the rest of the world is watching.

So there you have it. That’s a basic explanation of the various PoVs.

Moving on.

What do we do with all this? How do we decide what PoV to use when we sit down to write a song? Well, we want to pick a PoV that best fits the kind of song we want to write. What is it we want to say in our song?

If you want to tell a girl you’re in love with how you feel, probably the best way to do that is simply to tell her directly. That’s direct address. Sure, you can subtly tell her by telling an esoteric story about this guy who loved this girl but didn’t know how to tell her (3rd person narrative) but will it be as effective? Will the girl who you’re trying to tell that you’re madly in love with her get that it’s about her? The chances are pretty slim.

What if you have a friend who is having problems with HIS girlfriend and you want to tell him how to handle the situation? What’s the best way to do this?

Second person narrative, of course. It’s not the only way (again, you can tell a story and hint at it) but its the most effective way to get the point across.

And if you want to get something off your chest that’s bugging you personally, again, you can hint around the problem by using third person narrative, but wouldn’t it be more effective if you simply wrote…

“Man, I am really pissed off and here’s why.”

Taking the path of shortest resistance is usually the most effective way to get the idea across. Don’t beat around the bush.

And of course if you want to be really creative, like some songwriters are, you can mix your PoV. Just try to do it in a way that doesn’t totally confuse your listener.

What I’ve covered above are the basics. But they should be enough to have you coming up with a PoV that will clearly get the point across that you’re trying to make in the most efficient and effective manner.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Since I wrote about songwriting the other day and how I felt it should be taught, I figured why not continue and do a short series on songwriting itself? After all, if you’re a composer, this is probably a subject that you’ll have some interest in. I’ll try to cover a variety of topics so that there is something in it for everybody. If the subject doesn’t interest you, you’ll probably want to shy away from this blog for a while. Having said that, let’s begin.

Today I want to talk about keeping your song on course. This is probably one of the biggest problems that new composers have. They start out in one direction and end up in a completely different place from where they started. When you do this, you confuse your listener. He can’t follow how you got from point A to point B and as a result, the song experience is less than it could have been.

What do I mean by keeping your song on course?

Here’s an example.

Imagine you want to tell a story about how you met this girl when you were a little kid. Maybe you were both 6 or 7 years old. And you want to tell the story in a way where you end up with the two of you getting married when you’re, say, 25.

How would you go about doing this while keeping the song on course and going in a straight line?

Probably the simplest way would be to tell about different time periods in your life. You might start with when you were 6 or 7 and then maybe jump ahead to when you both got into high school at age 13 for the next verse. After that, you might focus on the years when you went to college together. Maybe for the next verse you talk about the start of your professional lives apart, how you each went in such different paths and seemed to drift apart. But then in the last verse you reach that magic age of 23 or 24 when you found each other again and got married.

Notice how the song takes a very direct path from point A to point B? It flows. Even though there was that period of time when the two of them drifted apart, the timeline was consistent. There was no jumping from past to future to present to all over the place. You told the story in chronological sequence. That kept the song on course.

Time is one way to keep your song on course but it’s not the only way.

Another way to keep your song on course is through mood.

Let’s say you want to write a song about the way you feel. How are you going to do that? Well, if you want to keep the song on course, you’ll pick an emotion that describes the way you feel. It can be happy, sad, angry, aroused, whatever. After you pick the emotion, you make sure that every verse in your song deals with that emotion. You don’t want to jump from happy to sad to, well, you get the picture. Your audience won’t be able to follow you if you do that.

Here are two songs that I just popped out of my head focusing on mood. I’ve written three verses for each one just so you can get a bit of an idea.

Every time I see you
My heart starts to race
I feel like a sprinter
running in place

You make my blood boil
You make my hands sweat
I swear that I will have you
I swear I’ll have you yet

I think my head will explode
If I don’t have you soon
And they will find my body parts
Up there on the moon.

I think it’s pretty obvious what the guy is feeling in that one, right guys? Notice how that feeling of “tension” (it’s a family blog folks) continues throughout the song until he finally can’t take it anymore and ends up, well, you know.

Now, let’s take this mood.

The moment that I saw you
My fist clenched oh so tight
I saw red in every shade
And darkness in the light

My eyes they burned right through you
My mind a lethal box
I pictured you in prison
Pounding on those rocks

I can’t contain my outrage
At seeing you go free
I swear one day I’ll get you
For what you did to me

It’s quite obvious what this person is feeling is not all warm and fuzzy inside. He’s pissed to put it mildly. And thus, we’ve kept the song on course by sticking to one emotion, however you personally want to describe it. You could call it anger, rage, hatred, whatever. But it’s pretty consistent throughout the song in how it is expressed and without actually using the words anger, rage, hatred or whatever. You paint pictures of emotions by describing the emotions, not using the word itself. If you can do that effectively, you’ve taken a big step in writing a good song.

Now, it is quite possible to write a song that does not stay on course and still have it be a good song.

For example, you can write three verses, each talking about something completely different that seem to have nothing in common with each other and yet intrigue the listener because they wonder where you’re going with this unusual tale.

And then, in the fourth verse, you tie it all up with a little bow and the listener says, “Oh, I get it. I see how those 3 things are all related now.”

Lots of songs do that and it’s usually the last chorus that actually does the tying up. It could be a play on words that connect the three different ideas.

So there are exceptions to every rule. But by knowing the rules, you can know when to break them and how.

Keeping a song on a course is certainly not a rule, but it gives you a better shot at keeping your listener interested all the way through to the end of the song.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Yesterday was a very interesting day for me. I signed up for and started my second online music course. This one was on songwriting. Now, you’re probably wondering what a 35 year veteran of songwriting is doing taking a course on the subject. That’s for another article and beyond the scope of this one. Let’s just say I was curious as to how the course would be taught, which is really the focus of THIS article. Why?

Well, it seems there are people out there who don’t agree with the manner in which the course is being taught. So for you to answer the question that I’ve put forth in the title of this article, you first need to know exactly how the course is being taught. So let’s begin there.

More or less, the course is being taught pretty much the way I expected it to be taught, with rules. And while the instructor pointed out that these were more guidelines than rules, take my word for it. If you want to write a song that has the best chance of being accepted by the masses, you better at least know these rules so you can know when and how to break them.

So far we’ve learned about constructing an idea for your song using the box method where you put a small box into a bigger box and then into yet a bigger box. We learned about song structure, such as verse, bridge, chorus and so on. These are all basic concepts that you will find in most popular music. Agreed?

Well, one of the people who was taking this course along with me and many others posted at the discussion forum that he was not happy with the way the course was being presented with all these “rules” and “restrictions.” He was hoping for a more “art focused” curriculum.

I asked him to explain exactly what he meant but he never really answered me. All he said was that he didn’t feel teaching us all this structure was what learning how to write music should be about. You should be able to just do what you want.

Well, I have to admit. I was kind of puzzled. If you just want to do what you want, why do you need a course to begin with? Just sit down with a piece of paper or your guitar, or whatever, and just start writing whatever comes to your mind. You don’t need a course on songwriting to teach you how to do that. And when I asked him to design this course the way HE would want it taught, he couldn’t do it.

You can imagine my confusion at all this. But eventually, I figured it out. What this person wants is a course that will inspire us to find that inner talent that we have and express it in a way that was better than the way we expressed it prior to taking the course.

Got it. But again, when asked how to go about doing that, I got no answer.

So let me ask you a question. Assuming that you also believe that the “rules” stifle creativity, how would YOU teach a course on songwriting?

I’ve been at this for over 35 years and I gotta tell you…I don’t have a clue. If somebody came to me and said “Steve, teach me how to write a song” I would pretty much go about it the way this course is going about it.

Now, I could probably write a series of articles on songwriting techniques but that would probably bore the heck out of most people who read this rag on a daily basis.

Or would it?

I honestly don’t have a clue what people want anymore. I certainly never expected to hear somebody complain about the way a course on songwriting was being taught because it was actually teaching you how to, um, write a song> is it just me or are you confused too.

By all means, if I’m the oddball here, let me know it. My contact info can be found on this site. Email me. Let me know how YOU would go about teaching songwriting if not by teaching the rules.

I mean, imagine we had no structure to songs. All we did was play a bunch of notes and sing some words without any rhyme or reason. Yeah, I know…we did that shtick back in the 70s (see Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc.) but it didn’t last long and got old very fast.

How many people would listen to our songs if they weren’t soundly structured? If we didn’t build up our story from beginning to end, would people keep their interest?

If you listen to your favorite songs, no matter who the artist is, you will find, like it or not, that there is some serious structure behind these songs. And I’m not just talking about verse/chorus structure. I’m talking about taking an idea and developing it throughout the song using certain “techniques.” The really GOOD songs are the ones that don’t let you hear that they’re actually doing this. But if you sit down and analyze the song, you’ll realize that it is doing just that.

Allow me to ask you. Is this a bad thing? Does it shatter your perceptions of music to know that songwriters actually use a “formula” to write their songs? Is it like finding out that there really is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny? Man, I hope not.

If our music world was built on nothing but random thoughts and chaos, it wouldn’t be a very enjoyable world for many of us. Oh sure, there are those of us who enjoy that stuff, but the masses aren’t going to stick around for the show. If you don’t care about that sort of thing, then by all means, write your “art music” and forget about taking courses on songwriting. They won’t help you.

But if you want to learn how to write a song that a good number of people will probably enjoy listening to, then I suggest you bite the bullet and learn how to actually write a song.

Unless of course you have a better way.

So tell me. How should songwriting be taught?

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Let me start off by saying that not all musicians are egotistical maniacs. Having gotten that out of the way, this article is kind of a life story, if you will, of my experiences with other musicians. Obviously, having been in this business for over 35 years, I can’t cover all my experiences but I am going to touch on what were the main ones for me. If nothing else, I hope you find this article amusing. No real names will be used in this article in order to protect the innocent and the guilty.

My first experience with another musician was back in 1979 with my friend Rory. Rory was a guitarist. He played mostly acoustic but did have an electric as well. In fact, he had an acoustic 6 string, 12 string and an electric. He was a fairly decent guitarist, if not great. Of course none of us were great back in 1979.

I wanted to write songs. Rory was up for that. So we attempted to write songs together. It turned into an absolute disaster. Why? Simple. Our musical styles were so drastically different that we just didn’t gel together. We tried for years to make this work but we never really could. His best songs he wrote himself and my best songs I wrote myself. It was during this relationship that I realized that collaboration was a very difficult thing to pull off because of musical differences.

My second musical experience was with my friend Will. This was in the early 80s. Will played drums and played them like a beast. He was an amazing drummer. He then took up the piano and he was a natural. He could also sing very well. In short, Will had talent to burn. In fact, he was much more talented than I was or will probably ever be. That’s what made our relationship musically so difficult. Had I been at a similar skill level, we might have actually done some amazing stuff together. After a while we kind of drifted apart. It was inevitable.

At this time I was pretty much kind of done with musicians. Not that I had anything against them. I just realized how difficult it was for two people to have enough in common for their talents to gel together. So I stopped looking for musicians and started looking for lyricists. Why? Well, because I knew that my lyrics just plain sucked.

This search for a lyricist was a painful one. A friend of mine who I had known since childhood wrote lyrics for me but quite honestly, they weren’t all that good. Some were downright awful. Of course my music wasn’t anything to write home about either. Point is, I found I had trouble writing music to other people’s lyrics. This was probably because I would usually write the music first and then write lyrics to the music. I had never done it the other way around and discovered it was a very different and, for me, difficult process. This probably explains why all my subsequent collaborations with lyricists over the years were such disasters.

Except for one.

At my last job just before the turn of the century, there was a girl who I worked with who wrote some very inspiring lyrics. They lead to a song called “Dangerous Games” which is probably one of my better tunes at that point in time. I had hope that maybe someday I would be able to collaborate with another person and do something really special.

What was probably the most frustrating part of collaborating with other musicians was the disparity in skill level. I never seemed to find somebody who was at my own level.

For example. I met this one guy, we’ll call him Joe, who wanted to collaborate with me. He said he had this great idea for a song. I said, cool. Can you play it for me? He said he would sing it for me. I said, cool. He started singing.

What followed is still, to this day, so hard to describe that I don’t even know where to begin. Imagine taking a slow ballad and playing it at 1/4 speed and removing all sense of tonality from it. That’s what came out of his mouth. It was beyond dreadful. This was somebody with zero talent. None. To this day (it’s at least 30 years later) I have never forgotten that encounter.

Then there was this guy who my mother knew. He was a teacher at the school where she was an itinerant pianist. We’ll call him John. John was so talented it was scary. I still have his recordings here somewhere. Well, no surprise. He was, after all, a music teacher. He knew his stuff. Played rings around me and wrote some very catchy tunes. There was just no way I was in his league and could ever hope to do anything with him. I didn’t even ask.

And this went on continuously. I could never find somebody who was right where I was musically. I’ve since given up looking. It has been about 14 years since I’ve collaborated with anybody and probably never will for as long as I live. In fact, I am amazed at all the groups out there who have made it big. How did they ever find a room full of people who actually complimented each other? It still boggles my mind.

Would I love to collaborate with somebody and produce something really special? Of course I would. I mean working alone is okay, but to share something with somebody else. To create something with somebody else. That’s special. Look at what Lennon and McCartney did. Granted, there aren’t a lot of Lennon and McCartney duos in the world, but still, it IS possible.

I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe my dream of working with another person and becoming successful because of it will someday come true. Until then, I’ll just keep cranking out my royalty free music and working on my dance tracks and see what happens.

For whatever it’s worth, it’s been an interesting ride.

And it ain’t over yet.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

If you know anything about flying, there’s a saying “flying on instruments” which basically means that you’re flying your plane not based on what you see with your eyes outside of the plane but what you see on your instrument panels. This is done simply because our senses can fool us. If a plane flips upside down, we wouldn’t know it unless we looked at the panel.

So what about music? Do we produce music based on what we see on our meters (EQ, gain, etc) or do we produce music based on what we hear with our ears? I’ve given this subject a little thought and I’m going to put in my two cents in this article. I hope you get something out of it.

First off, what exactly is it that we’re trying to do when we produce our music? That’s a very good question in itself because our goals can be different. And if our goals are different, won’t that make the way we go about the production different?

Let me give you an example.

Take that classic from 1972 by Derek and the Dominos, “Layla.” The original was very hard rocking. It had a big sound and the second part of the song, with the guitar solo, had a very ambient sound to it. It wasn’t in your face.

Now, zoom ahead to the unplugged remake done in 1992. The song was considerably slowed down, played on acoustic guitar and had a more in your face “unprocessed” sound. The recordings had nothing in common as far as how they were made and yet it was essentially the same song.

Okay, I wasn’t in the control room during either of these recordings so I have no idea if the sound engineers used their ears, instruments or a combination of both, but I do know that we got two completely different results out of the same song. That tells me that a “robotic” way of going about engineering a song can’t be the best way. Otherwise, the engineer would have just said, “Let’s just process this like the original because that’s what people are used to.”

And that’s the key phrase here, “used to.”

Did you ever sit down and think to yourself why certain kinds of songs always seem to have the same kind of sound to them, more or less? This can’t be anymore obvious in dance music. Go ahead. Listen to just about any dance tune that you’ll hear in a club. They all sound the same, production wise. Even something as innocuous as “Shoegazing” has a very distinct sound to it. The vocals are all processed the same way with that dreamy kind of ethereal feel. You get the impression that when the engineer sits down to mix this stuff, there’s a formula on his desk that has a list of EQ, compression and reverb settings and he just pulls them up.

I mean let’s face it. If we look at our own DAWs and pull up any of the effects processors that come with it, or even any third party processors that we purchased, what do they ALL come with? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with P and ends with S and it’s not panties.

Presets.

Every effects processor, synth and what have you comes with presets. You don’t even have to use your imagination anymore. Making a dance track? Just pull up your compressor and plug in the preset that’s labeled “dance master” or “fat dance master.” Same thing with your limiters. There’s a preset in them for every occasion.

In short, we can probably mix our tracks without having to hear them short of just making sure that the levels of each instrument aren’t totally out of whack. Beyond that, the effects processors will take care of everything just by pulling up a preset.

But I have to ask. Is that the way we “really” want to produce our music? Well, I guess it depends on who you’re producing your music for. And this is where sometimes we have to compromise our principles if we want to eat.

If a client has hired us to do a soundtrack for him and he expects the track to have a certain sound, you’re pretty much locked in to the industry “standard” for that sound. Experimenting can be dangerous. If you try something different and he doesn’t like it, you have to go back to the drawing board and start over. And trying something different means not totally depending on your meters. They’re already telling you what your song is “supposed” to sound like based on the levels. But what do your ears tell you?

So what if everything seems perfectly compressed and sterile? Maybe you want to do something a little different. Maybe you want the snare to be a little more pronounced than it would normally be for this type of tune. Maybe you think it needs less reverb or more compression. Maybe you want to be totally crazy and run it through a phaser.

If you take your standard sound and do something totally unique and off the wall with it, your instruments aren’t going to help you much. In fact, they’ll probably tell you that your EQ around 5K is too high or your limiter isn’t clipping enough. But what do your ears tell you? Do you like the way it sounds even though it’s not the norm for the type of music you’re producing?

Creativity begins with taking your meters and tossing them out the window. Sure, you don’t want the gain to go into the red because that makes a distorted ugly sound. But what if that’s the sound you’re looking for? Maybe we want a recording so hot that it makes people take notice? I used to record way into the red back in the 80s because I wanted that distorted sound on some of my tracks. I liked the way it sounded. Now, everything sounds so sterile and predictable.

Use your meters. But for crying out loud, if you really want to create something, use your ears too.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

As I write these articles on a fairly regular basis, I sometimes wonder.

Is anybody reading this stuff?

Honestly, I really have no way of knowing unless somebody tells me. And since I’ve disabled comments on this blog (can’t handle the spam) that’s not even possible. Oh sure, I guess they could contact me via email to tell me but that’s not likely to happen either. So am I really just spitting into the wind?

Do you ever feel that way about your music? I don’t know what you do with it or where you put it up online whether it be YouTube or Soundcloud or wherever, but do you ever wonder if anybody is listening to it?

Sure, with YouTube and Soundcloud you do have counters that let you know how many times your video or sound clip was played, but is that really a true indicator of how many people are really listening? Anybody can click on your video or sound file and then walk away from their PC or whatever device they’re using to listen. Or they could maybe listen to a few seconds and then just shut it off. And hitting the “like” button doesn’t prove they really listened to the track.

Point I’m trying to make is this. Without direct contact with the person, either face to face or at the very least speaking through some type of communication device (phone, Skype, etc) the Internet is a very impersonal place and because of that, we have no real way of knowing how the person on the receiving end of our links feels.

Does it matter? If there isn’t anybody out there listening to your stuff, watching your videos, or whatever, does it make any difference to what YOU’RE going to do with your musical life?

And this, my friends, is where we get to the whole crux of the point this article is making.

Yeah, it’s great to get some validation from others that our work means something. But as a very wise person once said to me, “If you seek validation from others to make your life meaningful, you are going to be very disappointed.”

As much as I wanted to argue with this, contending that the only thing that matters in life is what others think of you, I finally realized that this just isn’t true. Sure, you don’t want the whole world to think you’re a rotten S.O.B. (or maybe you don’t even care) but the only thing that really matters is what you think of yourself. Are you being the best person that you can be? And in the case of your music, are you writing the best music that you can write?

That’s when I had to take a long hard look at myself in the mirror and I wasn’t entirely pleased with what I saw. So now it’s a little honesty time.

Am I writing the best music that I can write? The honest answer to that question is yes and no. Why yes and no? Let me explain.

I know that I’m only so talented. The other day when I went to Soundcloud and listened to some of the stuff up there (especially from this guy Doc Jon) I realized that there are people out there who are so much more talented than I am. There is just no getting around that. I am limited as far as what I was blessed with. Everything I do comes from hard work. So in that respect, what I do IS the best I can do, at least right now, because I only have so much to work with. Like I said, I have to work hard at this.

And therein lies the reason why the answer is also no.

See, because this stuff doesn’t come easy to me and it is hard work, I sometimes get a little lazy. I don’t always want to work hard. I want music to be fun all the time. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not fun. Sometimes it’s a downright chore. On those days when I feel like that, I admit it, I sometimes cut corners. I’ll take the easy way out.

How? Here are some examples.

I’ll be laying down some tracks and I know that I probably could use a few more synths in the background at certain parts but I just don’t feel like doing the programming to get the sounds I want or write out the various parts, so I’ll listen to what I have so far, say to myself, “It’s good enough” and put it in the can. I can’t tell you how many songs I have done this with where I just don’t feel like laying down 50 tracks, even though I know that the song needs it to be really special. So I took the easy way out.

Another example is in writing the song to begin with. This is where I really get lazy sometimes. I’ll be writing the song and I’ll get to the bridge section. I’ll want it to be really good, but after trying and trying, I can’t get a chord progression that I want that will fit it just perfectly. So I finally just dig into one of my stock bridges that I might have done a dozen times before and plug it in.

Pure laziness.

Or I’ll do something like this. I’m laying down some strings on a rock track. I want them to have some reverb but not sure what kind. Then I think about all the testing that I’m going to have to do in order to find just the right reverb and I finally say “screw it!” and pull out my East West Quantum Leap Spaces module, bring up my trust Northwest Hall reverb and be done with it.

Again, pure laziness.

So if I’m being perfectly honest, no, I’m not putting out the best music I can. Would a better reverb make enough of a difference given my limited skills as a composer, arranger and producer? Not sure. Maybe, maybe not. And that’s where I need to do some soul searching.

But if I’m not putting out the best product that I can, does it matter whether anybody hears it or not? The only thing that matters is that I’m being the best that I can be.

So the cutting corners and downright laziness has to stop. I know I won’t put an end to years of habit overnight, but I have to at least take some baby steps in that direction. That should at least begin with making sure I compose the best song possible given the talent that I have.

What about you? Are you being the best that YOU can be?

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Well, I can’t believe it. After all these years, I finally signed up with Soundcloud. I have no idea where this is going to lead but I’m going to share my initial thoughts on the site.

First off, for those who don’t know, Soundcloud is a site where you can upload your music for other people to hear and comment on. The site has other functionality as well, such as the ability to message other members.

Now, the free account (you knew there was a catch) limits you to uploading 2 hours of music. That’s not a lot when you’ve written thousands of songs like I have. There are two other account options The one is pro, which allows you to upload up to 4 hours and the highest level is unlimited which has virtually no restrictions at all as far as uploading of music. If I wanted to, I could upload all 5,000 plus songs that I’ve recorded.

Pro costs $6 a month or $55 a year and Unlimited costs $15 a month or $135 a year if you pay it all at once. All in all, it’s a pretty good value.

In just the one day that I’ve been a member, I already have 4 followers. And I did this without any promotion of any kind. That is very encouraging.

Of course the bottom line is what you can get out of this site. Well, a lot of that depends on what you expect to get out of it. If it’s just exposure for your music, I can already see that happening as I already have close to 50 plays of my various tracks. And I haven’t even uploaded that many yet. There is no question that my musical exposure will grow over time.

But what exactly is this going to do for me?

That’s the question that’s hard to answer at this point in time. Honestly, I don’t know. Right now, other than getting me a few followers and having some of my music heard, it hasn’t really done a heck of a lot. I can see potential here and that’s what I want to touch on next.

One thing it can do is attract somebody to my music who might want to hire me for some scoring work. I’m going to assume that not everybody who goes to Soundcloud is a musician. Maybe some people visit the site to check out artists for the purpose of hiring talent. I’m obviously guessing here but it is possible. I would not rule it out just yet.

More likely, however, is this scenario. Another artist on Soundcloud hears my music and wants to collaborate with me for whatever reason. This collaboration, should I chose to go ahead with it, could lead to some great things. You never know. Like I said, it’s only been a day so I really don’t know what to expect. These are just things I’m spit balling around.

If nothing else, Soundcloud gives me another place to upload my music to should I run out of server space with my hosting account. I’m not sure, but I think there is a private upload option which will help me protect my work from being downloaded if I want to upload music for selling purposes. Not sure how that would quite work yet. But I’m guessing there is a way.

So far, I’m liking what I see. The site does take a little time to get used to. There are some quirks to it that are a little annoying.

For example, let’s say you go to another member’s page and he has about 50 songs on it. You go through the list and decide that one song looks interesting and decide to play it. After the song finishes playing, it doesn’t stop. It goes down to the next song in the list and plays that one.

Now this isn’t a big deal if you’ve decided you want to listen to all of this person’s music. But if you just wanted to hear the one song, well, it’s a little annoying to have to manually stop the playback. A little nitpick? Yeah, I guess. And if that’s the worst thing about the site, I’d say the site was pretty darn good.

There are a lot of statistics you can get from the site if you go pro or unlimited. For the free account the stats are very basic and not very useful. Another way they get you to cough up the money to upgrade. Hey, they have to make a buck or the site goes out of business.

Soundcloud does have a search feature and it’s quite good. You can’t imagine how much music there is in any one category. You could literally spend hours on the site and not even put a dent in it.

Oh, one other feature I want to touch on that I think is pretty cool if you’re a paid member.

They give you the ability to “spotlight” one of your tracks. What this does is it pins it up at the top of your page so it’s the first thing people see when they get there. So if you have some new music, or something you want people to hear above everything else, this feature will allow you to do just that.

Unlimited gives you another extra feature that I think is pretty cool. At least it sounds cool. This is right off their site.

“With Pro Unlimited, in addition to Pro stats, you can also see where your tracks are being played most; from blogs, to apps, to social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr) and even individual pages on SoundCloud.”

Now THAT is what I call tracking data. I’m probably going to upgrade to unlimited. At $135 a year that comes out to $11.25 a month. In my opinion, that’s a pretty good deal. The exposure alone is worth it. After all, Soundcloud is a pretty big site.

So, if you’re a musician and you want to get your music out there, Soundcloud is one way to do it.

You can check out my Soundcloud page below.

Steven Wagenheim’s Soundcloud Page

You never know what it might lead to.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

If I had to pick out the main parts of getting a killer mix in your tracks, what would they be? We all know there are lots of things that go on in making up a song, but if you had to pick out just a handful of items, which ones would go at the top of the list? What you’re going to read in this article are my choices. They may surprise you and you may not agree with all of them. But you may want to at least take some time to reflect on them. I think you may end up agreeing with me more than not. These are in no special order.

One thing we can definitely do to get better mixes is to make our arrangements better. I truly believe that a good mix begins with the song itself and how the composer chooses to represent that song.

Arrangements are infinitely flexible. You can produce your song with one track (a solo piano) or dozens of tracks. The more dense the arrangement, the harder it is to get a good mix. Why? The simple fact that many instruments are fighting for the same frequency space. For example, if you have a bass line running throughout the song, any other instrument that occupies the lower frequencies is going to bump into that bass line. This can not only produce a muddy mix but can also introduce some ugly dissonance into your song.

Imagine you have a bass line playing this pattern.

C1 – E flat1 – G1 – B flat1 – C2

And while that’s going on you have a piano playing a C chord around C2 but having its bass line going…

C2 – B flat1 – G1 – E flat1 – C1

The E flats and B flats are going to bump into each other. Now, that may not produce horrible dissonance but it very well might change the feel of the song and it will introduce a bit of mud into the mix because of the low frequencies with different pitches. It will stand out. Make no mistake about it.

So arrangement is important. You don’t want your instruments fighting for space and playing time. Sometimes less is more. Have some instruments drop out from time to time or play minimalistically. Not every instrument in the arrangement can shine. Some will have to be relegated to the background of the mix. It’s okay if an instrument is just slightly noticeable. The absence of that instrument will be just as noticeable. If you plan your arrangements better, your mix will have a better chance of being good.

After arrangement, there’s the stereo field. If you have an arrangement with a lot going on and there is just no way around it, then another way to get a good mix is by using the whole stereo field. This is another way for instruments not to bump into each other.

For example, let’s say you have a song with the following tracks in it.

Drums
Bass
Rhythm Guitar
Lead Guitar
Organ

That looks like a pretty basic rock track. Imagine if this was recorded in mono. Every instrument would be taking up the same part of the stereo field, dead center.

One way to get a better mix, without even having to fool around with the volume levels is to start panning instruments left and right. Some things you will leave dead center.

In the above example, here’s what I would do.

For the drums, I would break up the drum track into separate tracks for kick, snare, high hat (closed and open), and say 3 tom-toms (typical 5 piece set) this way.

Kick and snare I would center. High hats I would pan hard left. The toms I would have them going from high to low left to right in the stereo field. So the high tom I would pan slightly left, the mid tom slightly right and the low tom a little further right but not hard right.

For the bass, I would keep that dead center with the kick as that’s the foundation of the song.

The rhythm guitar I would pan just slightly right. The lead guitar, just slightly left. The organ I would leave dead center as it’s probably in stereo anyway between left and right side of the keyboard, especially if there is a stereo leslie effect on it.

With this setup in the stereo field, simply because the instruments are taking up different parts of space, your mix is going to be better.

Now, take this one step farther. After separating the instruments into various stereo fields, you then adjust the levels accordingly. When an instrument is panned, it is not taking up it’s own space so it’s more easily heard. This means that it doesn’t have to be as loud as it was when it was dead center in the stereo field. Therefore, you can probably lower the volume of some of the instruments. Use your ears to do this. No visual monitoring aids can replace the human ear.

Want to send things further back in the mix. You can do this two ways. You can lower the volume or you can add some reverb or delay to the instrument. This should actually be the least important thing in getting a good mix if you’ve done everything correctly up until this point. And it all starts with that arrangement.

Finally, there is the use of EQ. This is so important, especially for making it so that frequencies of other instruments don’t bump into each other. For example, you would take out the lower frequencies from a vocal line so it doesn’t muddy up the bass. Add a little filter to that and you’ve got a crystal clear vocal, if maybe a little thin. You can always beef it up with some compression.

Yes, there are other things you’re going to do to get that killer mix aside from the main things I’ve gone over in this article. But if those main things aren’t taken care of, no little things are going to make a bit of difference. Your mix is still going to be a mess.

Arrangement
Stereo Manipulation
Volume
EQ

If you put me up against a wall and made me pick 5 key things to a killer mix, those would be my top 4. I’m not sure what I would put at number 5 because there are a lot of little things. But without these 4, you are fighting an uphill battle.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Pretty broad topic I’ve decided to tackle. After all, the music industry covers so many smaller industries. For example, there is music for movie scores, TV shows, TV commercials, Broadway, meditation products, and the list goes on and on and on. And each individual sub industry has its own little quirks not to mention particular skills that have to be mastered.

On the plus side, and this is a HUGE plus, the opportunities are virtually unlimited. So what if you’re not into writing pop tunes for female artists between the ages of 18 and 25? That’s just a very small sub section of one sub industry.

So what you need to do, if you’re going to give yourself the best chance of being successful, is focus on one specific part of one specific sub industry. Learn everything you can about that part, not just on the music side but on the business side as well. The more you understand about how a particular industry is run, the more likely you’ll be able to break into it if for no other reason than when you speak to somebody in that industry, you’ll actually sound like you know what you’re talking about. That is going to impress somebody.

There is another plus to the industry being so huge. That means there is a lot of money to be made. A lot of people are afraid of getting into industries that are so large. But the truth is, they should embrace it as the pie is so large, even a small piece of it can lead to an amazing yearly income.

But everything isn’t all roses when it comes to creating music. There are downsides to this main industry regardless of which sub industry you get into. Some sub industries have more downsides than others. Some just have different downsides. If you’re looking for perfect, it doesn’t exist.

If I had to name the one thing that kills just about any industry, regardless of what it is, it’s greed and politics. Which one do you want me to tackle first? They’re both poison? I know. Let’s do this alphabetically.

Greed.

There is an old saying that people get wrong almost all the time. The saying that people think is correct is this one.

“Money is the root of all evil.”

This is wrong. The actual saying is this one.

“The love of money is the root of all evil.”

We get into trouble dealing with anything to do with money because we as a race tend to value it over everything else. I’m not talking about those of us who just want a place to live and food on the table so we don’t starve and freeze to death. I’m talking about those who will do anything for money in order to live some life style that we’ve been conditioned to believe we have to have in order to be happy.

I spend about $10 a week on myself. My wife gets the food and pays the taxes so we can keep our humble home. I think the last time we went anywhere was on our 25th anniversary 5 years ago.

Point is, we don’t need much. Which is a good thing because my income is close to nothing since moving into the music business.

I digress.

Because of this greed, the corporations, or the ones who hire us or make it so that we can actually do our music for a living, care about one thing and one thing only…how much money they make. And to that end, they don’t care what kind of product they put out. If it sells, they’ll sell it. So that will often times mean that they’ll dictate to the artist what they want that artist to put out. This isn’t open for debate with many labels. So you end up more of an assembly line worker than a musician simply because you’re not really doing what you love. You’re making a buck by making the record label a buck.

And that’s not even the ugliest part of greed in the industry, whatever industry you’re in. The ugliest part comes from all the selling out that companies will do such as catering to a demographic that spends the most money regardless of how low they have to go in order to attract that demographic. That doesn’t just cover the music itself. It also covers promotional campaigns. Have you seen some of the advertisements on TV these days? 40 years ago they would have gotten an “R” rating if they were a movie. Anything goes today. The other night I was watching a show on a non pay station that used the “S” word twice. I’m not talking HBO or Showtime here folks. I’m talking a station that any kid can turn on regardless of the age.

But I digress again.

Point is, nothing is off the table. And the artist who is willing to wallow in the mud the lowest is the artist who, more often than not, is going to get the gig. If you’re one of those ones who sticks to his principles no matter what, you’re making it much harder on yourself.

Even I am selling out to a degree. I stumbled onto a market that is in need of dance mixes. To this end, I am putting together a massive dance mix package. It’s not because dance music is my favorite kind of music to write and produce. It’s not. But right now, it will give me the best chance at making a few bucks. Granted, I’m not wallowing in the mud too deep, but still, I’m compromising my principles to some degree. If I wasn’t, I’d be still trying to make it doing orchestral scores.

Let’s be straight here. The symphony and piano concerto that I wrote aren’t going to land me on the cover of CMJ New Music Monthly. If I want to actually make money with my music, I have a better chance doing that if I give some group of consumers what they want instead of just doing what I want.

Having said all that, I still love this business and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I’m not sure what that says about me.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim