I admit it. A good part of the reason that I enjoy composing music is because of the challenge. Can I come up with something really good? What will my next song sound like? What genre will it be? Will I attempt something I’ve never done before? What sounds will I use on this particular track? Let’s explore some of these questions and see where they take us as far as the inner man and what makes him tick.

Let’s take the first question I asked. Can I come up with something really good? For starters, what does it matter? Aren’t we supposed to love writing music for music’s sake? Well, I don’t know about you but I’m not quite that pure. I admit it. I want to be complemented on my music. Sure, I love writing and if I was doing it just for the recognition I would have stopped a long time ago as recognition has been very sparse over the years. But let me tell you, when I get it, it’s really nice. Like when I write anthems for my church choir. I love when people come up to me and tell me they liked my music. It makes me feel good. So I constantly challenge myself to write music that people will like Something tells me I’m not alone there. Hey, just being honest.

What about the next questions? What will the song sound like, what genre will it be and will I come up with something I’ve never done before? This, for me, is where the real fun of composing comes from. The discovery. The unknown adventure waiting for me every time I turn on this computer. I never know what I’m going to write next unless it’s a specific assignment or project I’m working on.

For example, right now I’m working on a number of dance tracks for a special project. While it in itself is fun, it’s not the exciting discovery that I usually have on a normal day when I can write just about anything. Sure, there are lots of things I can do with dance music, but I’m still kind of limited. So as challenges go, this particular period in my life isn’t exactly at the top of the list.

But maybe it should be. After all, it has to be a challenge to come up with 150 dance tracks (yes, 150) that sound different. Let me tell you, it’s not easy. Dance music has a very unique sound and rhythm. That kick on all 4 beats and the snare on 2 and 4. That really doesn’t change much. Yeah, you can throw slight variations into the mix, but you better basically stay true to the form or it stops being dance music.

So, as you can see, there are challenges even in the routine such as trying to keep the routine from becoming dull and boring. Sometimes that’s the greatest challenge of all, to keep interested in what you’re doing. In the meantime, I have about 70 tracks left to do. I think I’ll get through this project without driving myself dance crazy.

Then of course there is the music creation process itself. When you have a system, it’s hard to introduce to much variance into it. After all, that’s why it’s called a system. So I try to mix things up as much as I can in order to keep things interesting.

How do I do this?

Well, when I’m not working on a particular project where I have to do a specific kind of song or songs, I’ll randomly choose the next genre I’m going to compose in. That’s right. I have a little random generator that I created in Excel and I run it to help me choose a musical genre. The most exciting challenge is when I get a genre that I’m not very comfortable composing in. Sometimes I even have to sit down and listen to some music in that genre in order to get ideas.

For example, after completing my required work for the day yesterday, I figured I’d try one random track for the site. I got Latin music, a genre I’m not 100% comfortable with being a real WASP. So I went to YouTube to listen to some Latin instrumentals just to get a feel for the flavor. I did notice some similarities, especially in the drum beats, but there were also some interesting differences too. Not all Latin music sounds the same. This was actually a relief to rediscover as it made me realize that I don’t have to write a Latin tune that sounds a specific way. I have some room for experimentation.

What else do I do to try to mix things up and keep them interesting? I’ll play around with how I choose my synth sounds. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, I have hundreds of VSTs so I have a lot to choose from when laying down tracks. What I’ll sometimes do is force myself to use VSTs that I don’t normally use to see what kind of new and interesting sounds I can come up with for a track. I might even use sounds that don’t normally go in certain genres.

Again, for example, in a recent dance track I used a violin sound towards the end of the track. The way it was used and the way it blended with the synths, it didn’t really sound like a violin. Yet, it’s the same one I use for all my classical music where it sounds very much like a violin. So sometimes context is everything. I take this as a great challenge to use conventional sounds in unconventional ways.

I’ve just scratched the surface with the few things I’ve discussed above. All of these help keep the writing and recording experience challenging. Because when we stop being challenged, we stop being creative. And when that happens, well, what’s left. If all we keep doing are the same things everyday, we’re nothing more than assembly line workers.

And trust me…there is nothing challenging about that unless it’s to keep from falling asleep at the keyboard.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

People can be very stubborn. There’s just no other way to put it. I’ve seen some folk try to do the impossible. You’d think after a while they’d get the hint that it’s not going to work. At least not in the way they’re going about doing it. Well, the same thing applies to composing music. Sometimes you just have to learn when to cut bait and move onto something else or try another tactic or approach. That’s what I’m going to be discussing in this article.

Let’s start with the choice of musical genre for whatever project you’re working on. Now it’s true, sometimes you’re just locked into a genre. The client hired you to write an electronic dance track for his video which is a montage of photos of elderly people celebrating their 50th anniversaries. It makes no bloody sense at all, looks and sounds like a joke when you watch it back, and you can’t possibly imagine what the client was thinking when he requested it, but that’s what he wants and that’s what you have to give him. I’m not talking about those kind of jobs. I’m talking about the ones where you have some wiggle room as far as what kind of music you write.

That’s when you have to be able to recognize that the genre you chose, or at least the way you’re going about getting the score down isn’t working. Maybe the tempo is wrong. Maybe the key (major or minor) is wrong. Maybe the instrumentation is totally out of whack. Whatever it is, something is making your creation look and sound amateurish at best or horrible at worst. This is when you have to be able to say “Okay, this is not working” and start over.

Wait a minute Wags, you mean from scratch? Yes, I mean from scratch. Don’t try to just speed up or slow down the tempo. Don’t try to change the key. Don’t try using different instruments for the same melody. Start over.

You have to be asking yourself right now, “why?”

Here comes the explanation.

Did you ever hear something on the radio or TV or maybe at the movies that sounded so bad that you literally couldn’t get it out of your head? How many times have you heard “It’s A Small World” and the rest of the day it’s annoying the hell out of you?

Once we get locked into something, it’s very hard to get rid of it. Our brain wants to hold on, no matter how bad. I’d be composing something, come up with a riff or some melody and after a while, I’d realize that it’s really pretty bad. But by now, especially if I’d been working on it for a while, I can’t get it out of my head. And no matter what else I try to do with the song, I keep coming back to that melody. Had I recognized right from the start that the melody was bad, I would have abandoned it right away and wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in right now.

So what happens? I have to put the entire project away for as long as maybe a day or two in order to get that stupid melody out of my head that, had I just abandoned right at the start, this wouldn’t be happening.

This is where it gets sticky. For one thing, we’re not robots. We can’t always tell that something is bad right away. Sometimes it takes us a while. Then of course, for the rest of us, there is this pride thing going on.

Yeah, pride.

We come up with something and we’re so in love with ourselves that as soon as our fingers hit the keyboard, we fall in love with our creation. It doesn’t matter how good or bad it is. Our pride won’t allow us to even entertain the thought that what we just created is horrible. This goes back to the thing I said in an earlier article about how hard it is to admit that your kid has cancer. Well, it’s very hard to admit when you’ve written something that just plain sucks.

By the time you have to come to grips with this fact (if you even do) it’s too late. That melody is going to haunt you for at least a day or two, if not longer. I’ve been humming this one melody for years now. I know it’s horrible but I can’t get it out of my head. I’ll never use it in a song but I’ll never forget it either.

In short, I’m cursed.

But I’m also smart enough to realize that any attempt to use that awful melody will result in nothing but absolute failure. So I let it haunt me but continue to ignore it and move onto things that are at least marginally better. Yes, I know exactly when to cut bait and after all this time, I have no trouble doing it.

In fact, I can be playing a melody for about 5 seconds and immediately tell if it’s any good or not. I have become very hard to please. This is another problem that I’ll discuss in another article but some people aren’t happy with anything that they do even if it’s really pretty good. But not today.

And knowing when to cut bait doesn’t just apply to composing. It applies to the choice of a piece of software for a project. Sometimes you have to recognize when that piece of software isn’t going to do the job you need it to do and move on to something else. While this can be expensive, most software has a trial period. So try it out before you commit to buying it. You should be able to get a pretty good idea of whether or not it’ll serve its purpose fairly soon. Right now I’m in a trial period with a VST that is a string modeling instrument. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be purchasing it but I still have about 11 days left on my trial so I’m going to use them. I need to be absolutely sure before I make the commitment. And if I’m not sure, I’m going to cut bait. I’m not going to waste my money on something that I might use. Too many people just throw money away on things that they really don’t need like it’s toilet paper. I can’t afford to do that. Trial periods should be taken advantage of and used properly.

So think about all the things you do with your music and think about when you might have hung onto an idea too long. If you can learn when to cut bait sooner than later, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and make yourself more productive in the long run.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I love it when the question comes up “what color is the sky?” And of course everybody says “blue.” Really? Have you taken a look at the sky some days? If that’s blue we need a redefinition of the colors. So yeah, the sky is blue, sometimes, but not always. Sometimes it’s very, well, just plain ugly.

When it comes to music, what color is your sky? If you’re not sure what I’m getting it, keep reading. I think you might find some interesting ideas.

If you look at a stereotypical song from a particular genre, it has a certain color to it. What I mean is, it has a certain sound. You identify with that genre because of the sound. If you wanted to assign colors to each musical genre, you could probably do it rather easily. At least that’s the way things were many years ago before artists started ripping the color pallet apart.

Today, almost anything goes. Of course if you only listen to the stereotypical representations of a particular genre (and yes, they still exist) then you won’t realize that almost anything goes. You’ll still be stuck in that same rut that the genre was in when it first hit the scene. And that’s to be expected. Why?

Let’s take early rock and roll of the 50s. When it first hit the scene, it was very different from anything people were used to hearing. Some of what was said about early rock and roll was pretty brutal. In retrospect, you have to wonder what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, there was a big to-do about early rock and roll. And if you listen to it, it pretty much all sounded the same. Why?

When something is new, it has to define itself. If it doesn’t do that, people can’t relate to it. Can you imagine what early rock and roll would have been like if you had every kind of sound from Marshall Tucker to Uriah Heep? Early rock would have never survived because there would have been nothing in common to latch onto. After some time, however, rock and roll started to branch out. Today, anything goes. There are so many sub genres of rock that it’s hard to keep up with them all.

But since there are new genres of music coming out all the time, in order for them to be recognized, they have to start out with a very solid foundation so that anybody hearing song number 2 after hearing song number 1 will immediately recognize that song number 2 was a part of the same genre. That’s how early rap music started. It all sounded pretty much the same. Then you had groups like Linkin Park that really started to stretch the genre. But you couldn’t have that at the start as there was no foundation or frame of reference.

So, if you’re breaking into the music business and have decided to do so in a genre that is fairly new, then yes, you’re going to want to conform to the accepted sound of that genre. If you branch away from it too much, the public may not accept it as part of that genre, if at all.

But what if you’re breaking into the music business into a genre that is pretty well established and, while it does have its stereotypical sound, also branches out to some unique soundscapes, how do you want to tackle that genre? Do you want to conform or do you want to go out on your own and do something different?

Now obviously if a genre has been a while and hasn’t really branched out yet, this could be your chance to make waves. But that’s always risky as you may not gain acceptance. But it can also pay off big time.

If you could go back to the days of rock and roll BEFORE the use of classical instruments and orchestras, would you have been one of the innovators? Would you have hired a 70 piece orchestra to play on your hard rock track? In hindsight, it’s easy to say yes. But when nobody else has done something, it’s very hard to be that one person who says “Screw it! I’m going to do something different.” You’re sailing into uncharted waters and you just may sink and never be recovered.

Personally, I find it harder and harder to paint my sky something other than blue. So much has been done already, especially in electronic music. I sometimes wonder if it’s even possible to come up with something that is truly unique.

In an episode of Outer Limits, the main character, while playing a Chopin Etude, said “Man does not create. He procreates.” In other words, there is nothing really new under the sun. We just repackage the same thing over and over with a different bow or ribbon and put it in a different box. Was he right? I don’t know. It’s been a very long time since I have heard something that I can truly say is unique. But I don’t listen to the radio nearly as much as I used to.

Still, there is a lot to be said for somebody who tries to stretch the envelope. From time to time I try to sit down and do just that. But 56 years on this planet and all the music I’ve already heard makes that very difficult to do.

This is not meant to discourage you. But it’s important to understand that if you want to be an innovator, one, you may not be able to come up with something truly unique and two, if you do, you may find that nobody likes it. Change is hard. And accepting something new is also hard. That’s why so many truly unique bands from the 60s and 70s never made it. They didn’t have an “established” sound and couldn’t generate enough of a following to make it big.

A perfect example is the group “Sparks” from around 1974 or so. I really loved them but they just never really made it big. Sure, they had a cult following, but you never saw them on the top 40 charts. Russell’s voice alone was so unusual that it was a hard sell to the masses. But Sparks made the kind of music that they wanted to make. Damn the consequences. There is something to be said for that.

Each of us has to decide what color or colors we want to paint our sky. No reason we can’t use blue when it’s required and something else when we just feel like having some fun.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I don’t normally do product reviews but since Komplete 9 by Native Instruments is so popular AND so expensive, I thought I’d do a brief overview of the product in general in case anybody is interested in picking it up. They’re currently having a 50% off sale so now may just be the time to dive in if you’re a music producer.

Komplete 9 is, as the title suggests, pretty complete. It’s a meat and potatoes package that covers just about everything you’ll need to make music in a number of musical genres. So let me go over the individual pieces briefly and my overall thoughts on each one.

I would have to say that the main instrument in Komplete 9 is Kontakt 5. This VST has it all covered from rock to pop to orchestral to, well, you name it. It’s absolutely massive. No pun intended. The sounds are all high quality. Are they the absolute best in the industry? In some cases yes, in others, not so much. But you’d be hard pressed to find anything that sounded bad. Sure, you could probably find some specialty instruments that sound better than the ones in Kontakt 5, but the cost for each of these would probably turn out to me more than the entire Komplete 9 package, which is about a grand. Bang for the buck? You really can’t beat it.

After Kontakt 5, you have your specialty instruments. Let’s start alphabetically with ABSynth 5. This is an interesting synthesizer architecturally as you can program sounds using subtractive synthesis, FM, AM or granular synthesis. The instrument is pretty much known for its soundscapes and complex structures. As for the sound, it’s very digital. In other words, if you’re looking for a fat analog sound, you’re not getting it from ABSynth 5. However, what it does, it does very well. It sounds a little sterile for my tastes but that’s pretty much the nature of digital synths since the beginning of time. But the sound quality is excellent. That can’t be denied.

Moving along alphabetically, there is Battery 4. This is their drum module. In short, it’s great for synth drums. It’s not so great if you’re looking for acoustic sounding drums. For those, you want to turn to Kontakt which has some excellent ones including 60s Drummer and Abbey Road Studios. Battery 4 drums sound great if you’re into dance and electronic music. And there are tons of sounds. Plus you can make custom kits and layer drums to make your own sounds. This is my meat and potatoes drum kit for most of my non acoustic and non rock music.

Next we have FM 8 which, as the name suggests, is an FM synth. No big surprises here. It programs and sounds like an FM synth. It’s strictly meat and potatoes. But don’t get me wrong, you can get some great sounds out of this thing. Oh, in case I failed to mention it, all the synths come with a boat load of presets so you never have to program a thing. Of course if you’re into that sort of thing, you can spend weeks doing just that. These synths are pretty deep and FM 8 is no exception.

Next we have Massive. What can I say about this amazing synth. It has 3 oscillators that use wavetables to make its sound. Two filters, 5 envelopes, LFO, tons of effects and a sound that has to be heard to be believed. It is without a doubt my favorite instrument in Komplete 9 for making synth sounds. My only complaint is that there aren’t as many factory presets as I would have liked. But if you have the patience to really dig into programming sounds, this beast will deliver the goods. It will cut through just about any mix. This one you will really have fun with.

Finally, we come to Reaktor. This is a beast. I don’t even know how to go about trying to describe it. Let me put it this way. With Reaktor, you can design your own synths. That’s right, you heard me. You can design your own synths. Let me make this very clear however. This is NOT easy stuff. And unless you have the time to really study synth architecture (I don’t) you’re probably only going to use Reaktor for the synths that already come with it.

But don’t worry…there are plenty of them. In fact, without ever creating one synth of your own, you can get lost in Reaktor. It is so deep it is like a black hole. I have never in my life seen anything like it. And the sounds that these synths produce are amazing. There are all kinds of synths too including beat boxes, arpeggiators, sequencers and your garden variety synth for making some very interesting sounds.

Here is my biggest complaint about Reaktor and I think it’s a valid one. Some of these synths are rather complex and not very intuitive. A comprehensive manual would have been nice for this product. The manual that comes with it is woefully lacking. So you might find yourself a little frustrated trying to figure out how to use some of the stuff in Reaktor. Okay, it’s not for the novice music creator. You better have a pretty solid knowledge of synths in general to even have a prayer of figuring these things out. I’ve been using synths since the late 70s and even I had some difficulty understanding some of the instruments. And so far I have only been able to create some very simple synths.

Then of course you have all the effects, including Guitar Rig. Let me tell you about that. If you have a decent guitar VST, this effects rack can do it all. It is complete with every cabinet, distortion, reverb, flange and whatever you want that you could possibly want to toss onto a guitar. Just make sure you turn your speakers down a bit first because this sucker can get loud as hell. Simply amazing sound out of it.

In short, I would be lost without this package, one that I, at one time, didn’t even consider getting. What a fool I was. If you’re into music production and need to cover a number of genres, get Komplete 9. I promise you, you won’t be sorry. There are no affiliate links below this review or anything like that. This isn’t one of those sales pitches disguised as a review. This is one man’s honest opinion about one of the best pieces of software he’s ever purchased, period. It’s a little pricey. But considering what comes in it, it’s worth every penny.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

They probably don’t happen often, but don’t you just love those special days of musical perfection? You know, those days where everything you touch turns to gold. Even King Midas would be jealous.

So what is it that makes those days happen? If we could bottle it, we could make those days happen more often. Problem is not so much that we can’t bottle it, though that would be nice. The problem is that we don’t consciously recognize what goes on those days because we’re so wrapped up in them that by the time we’ve had those days of perfection, they’re already gone and we’ve forgotten most of them.

Well, what I’m going to attempt to do in this article is point out what those few little things are that makes those days so special. I’ll be speaking mostly about music composition. So if you’re having one of those days where you’re playing your guitar like Hendrix or your piano like Rubenstein, I can’t offer much insight there. I think it just comes down to a lot of practice.

So okay, let’s talk about music composition. What gives us those days where we write the most amazing music we’ve ever written?

Believe it or not, one of the main things responsible for those magical days is our ability to finally relax.

Look, let’s face it, when you’re composing, especially if you’re composing for a specific project, you’re under the gun. You’re nervous, on edge, afraid you won’t make your deadline and a whole lot of other things going through your mind. It is very difficult to work under those conditions. When I have to write, that’s when I write the worst, if I can even write at all. I think our bodies and minds resent when we “have” to do something. It’s like we rebel against the system.

Take a breath. Relax. Pretend that it’s no big deal whether you write something today or not. If you don’t, so what? If you do, great. You’re ahead of the game. And if you do relax, you give yourself a much better chance of coming up with something special.

Another thing that’s responsible for those magical musical days is when you’re doing something other THAN music. Maybe you have another job or you had to go to the dentist. Whatever the reason, you needed to be away from the studio or computer or wherever it is you do your writing. More often than not, inspiration is going to hit you during thee times. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s loosely tied into relaxing as you’re not thinking about music. But these are the times when suddenly a musical idea will pop into your head.

Look, I have to write almost every single day because it’s my job. And there are some days when I sit at this computer and all I can think of is the same tired lines over and over again. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones where you say to yourself, “Didn’t I write this already?”

And then I’ll be at the dentist or the allergist or wherever and a tune will just pop into my head and I can’t wait to get home so I can get it recorded. As I’m getting older those days don’t happen nearly as often. But boy, when they do, they’re special.

You also probably want to get a good night’s sleep. In fact, you want to make sure you’re active enough the day before so that when the evening comes, you are SO tired that your head hits the pillow and you’re out.

Why is this important you ask?

Did you ever go to sleep and in your sleep you dreamed about writing a song? I know I have. And let me tell you something. Sure, most of them I don’t remember when I wake up, but every now and then I write something in my sleep that sticks with me and the first thing I do when I wake up is head for the computer and get it down. Those days usually end up as magical days, as few as they actually are.

Another thing that’s important to having those magical days is attitude, as in a positive one. I know, better than anyone, how hard it is to stay positive when everything you do is being rejected by publishers or ending up on the cutting room floor. Our egos are very fragile. Failure is not something we take very well. Unfortunately, failure is something we have to learn to thrive on.

Do you have any idea how much failure is prevalent within success itself?

Take a look at a major league baseball player who is not a pitcher. Do you realize that a hall of fame hitter fails at the plate 70% of the time? How successful would these people be if they fixated on the 70% when they either flied out, popped out, grounded out or worse…struck out?

Most written and recorded music, and that’s if it even gets recorded, never gets noticed at all.

I don’t have a really large album collection. But I can list at least 100 albums that I do have that got little if any recognition at all. In fact, many of them are considered collectors items because so few of them were pressed. When you get a chance, look up the album “Chesapeake Jukebox Band” by the group of the same name. I can’t even begin to imagine how few people even own it.

Not everything you do is going to be great. You’re going to have a lot of failures before you have that one success or that one magical music moment. That’s why, and this may be the most important thing of all, you have to be persistent. Those days when you want to quit? Those are the days when you need to go to sleep and wake up the next morning with a hit tune in your head.

In short, don’t ever quit. Because like my wife likes to tell me, “Even a blind squirrel can find a nut.” If you keep at this long enough, you’ll have your magical days,

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Do you know what one of the hardest things in the world to do when it comes to composing music?

Collaborating with another composer.

If you want to turn gray or old or die before your time, seek out another person to write with and see what happens. I’d rather have bamboo sticks shoved up my fingernails.

Okay, so why is it so difficult to work with another person? After all, if you look through the history or pop music there have been lots of successful writing teams. Look at Gerry Goffin, who just passed away, and Carol King. They came out with some really great songs.

Ah but there is a rub here. Know what it is?

Gerry Goffin was a lyricist. Carol King wrote all the music. And let me tell you, writing music to somebody else’s lyrics is hard enough so I give them a lot of credit for pulling this off. But we’re not talking about two composers.

Even Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles didn’t really write their songs together. In most cases, either Paul or John would write the verse or chorus and the other one would write the bridge. Seldom, if ever, did they write the music for the verse or chorus together. And many of the Beatles songs, though it does say on the credits Lennon and McCartney, were written by one or the other.

And you can usually tell the Paul songs from the John songs. Paul’s songs were upbeat and catchy while John’s songs were, for the most part, very odd.

Penny Lane – All Paul
I Am The Walrus – All John

Their styles were as different as night and day. Ironically, after the Beatles broke up, John started doing more melodic and even catchy tunes. Imagine and Happy Xmas come to mind right away.

Even the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland of Motown fame split the work up between them. Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland split up the composing chores and produced the songs while Eddie Holland wrote the lyrics and arranged the vocals. They were as successful as they were because they were smart enough to stay out of each other’s way.

When you sit down with another composer and try to come up with, say a chorus for a song, here is what inevitably happens. I’ll use Steve and Rich as an example.

Steve: I got a great chord progression for this chorus. (Plays C-Am-F-G on keyboard) What do you think?

Rich: Man, I am so sick and tired of everything we do going C, A minor, F and G. Can’t we do something else? How about this? (Plays C Maj 9-D Flat dim 7-Dm 7)

Steve: Are you kidding me? That’s like out in left field from the verse. It doesn’t even fit.

Rich: At least it’s not as boring as C, A minor, F and G.

Steve: Okay, how about this? (Plays C-Am7-F-G7)

Rich: (Facepalms) God kill me now.

And so on. This continues for several hours before they finally give up and go home, having accomplished nothing.

Either that, or they’ll agree on the chorus and then one of the two will come up with a bridge that doesn’t at all go with the chorus but sounds good. Now we have a real problem. Do we scrap the bridge, even though it’s good, or do we redo the chorus?

I have seen songs go from sounding like Rush to Carpenters because of stuff like this. It rarely ends well.

But Wags (you’re thinking to yourself) I really want to collaborate with somebody so I can get some fresh ideas.

Ah, and now the truth comes out. You’re not looking for collaboration just for collaboration’s sake. You’re looking to get something out of it. You want to improve yourself as a songwriter or composer.

Trust me, there are easier ways to go about it and not nearly as painful. I have tried composing with one other person who also wrote music and have worked with no less than Six (count ’em, Six) lyricists. Let me tell you something. I’m not the greatest composer in the world and will never claim to be but these people who think they can write lyrics, trust me, they can’t write lyrics. At least not any lyrics that are ever going to make it to the Grammy Awards. And the truth is, the really GOOD lyricists are already working and don’t want anything to do with an average or above average composer. In other words, fat chance in my ever getting Bernie Taupin to write for me.

So what do you do? How do you actually improve yourself as a composer if working with somebody else isn’t working out or even in the cards?

There are a few things you can do.

1) Go back to school. I’m dead serious. I’m actually thinking of taking some classes this summer just to see if there is anything I can learn that will improve my skills. Classes don’t have to cost a lot of money. In fact, the one online class I’m taking for music production is free. You can never know enough about music.

2) Get some books. If school isn’t an option either because there are no free classes or you can’t afford the ones available, books are great. Yes, believe it or not, there are some amazing books on music out there. One of the best I ever read was Bugs Bower’s book on chords. I learned more about playing Jazz harmony from that book that just about anything else.

3) If you can’t afford either the courses or the books, listen to lots of music, especially music you’re not comfortable with. Get familiar with it. Try to duplicate some of the things you’ve heard. Analyze the music. Try to understand what makes it sound the way it does. Make note of any odd chord progressions you may have not heard before.

There are many things you can do to improve yourself without having to seek out a collaborator who, in the long run, is going to drive you to drink.

That’s if you’re not already there.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

When you have a moment, listen to some 70s rock and roll. It might not be your cup of tea but you’ll learn a lot from it as far as stretching the musical landscape. The cross section of sounds was nothing short of staggering.

It really began in the late 60s with groups like King Crimson. But it wasn’t until the prog rock explosion of the early 70s that you really got a taste of what it was like.

My personal favorite groups included the likes of Renaissance, Yes, Kansas, Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Triumverat, Electric Light Orchestra and Starcastle, just to name a few. What did all these groups have in common? Nothing and everything. Neither Emerson, Lake and Palmer nor Starcastle incorporated classical instruments into their sound the way groups like Renaissance, Kansas and ELO did. ELP’s sound was incredibly different from all the rest. And while Starcastle was a direct copy of Yes, every other group was truly unique to themselves. I mean you knew who each group was as soon as you heard them.

What they all had in common, however, was that epic sound. It was incredibly rare for any of these groups to perform songs under 7 or 8 minutes long. ELO, as they started to become more commercial in the late 70s, did start to write shorter tunes. But their early stuff was ridiculously long. And Genesis? Supper’s Ready took up all of side B at over 20 minutes long.

When you listened to these groups, you were listening to something that bordered on classical music even if they didn’t use classical instruments. Mozart wrote symphonies shorter than some of the stuff these guys came out with.

And this is just one example of a musical cross section. There are so many more.

Take early country music. Early country music sounded like country and nothing else. You almost never heard a country song on a pop or rock chart.

Flash forward ahead to the 21st century and a group by the name of Lone Star came out with an amazing song called “I’m Already There.” Well, there were two versions of this song. One was a typical country version, and even that is stretching it, but the other was pure power pop rock complete with synths and screaming guitars.

When I was with a songwriting group back in the 90s, I remember speaking with Steve Zuckerman one day. In case the name isn’t familiar, he’s the one who discovered Bon Jovi. Anyway, he was very frustrated one day about something. It was these narrow minded songwriters who try to pigeon hole themselves into one genre with their songs. He said to me, and I’ll never forget this, “Don’t these guys understand that you want to crossover?”

If you’re wondering why, the answer is simple. Let’s say you write a song. It has a country flavor but also contains elements of either pop or rock. What happens is this. It probably initially makes the country charts but as the song is heard by others, it makes its way onto the pop or rock stations and suddenly, this country chart hit is now on the main Billboard Top 100 singles. So now, the artist has his country fans but he also has a cross section of the pop and/or rock fans.

A great example of a crossover hit was the 1970 classic “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” sung by B.J. Thomas. Not only was the song a country hit but it was the number 1 song of 1970. You can’t get bigger crossover action than that. And THAT is what songwriters should be shooting for. You want to appeal to as many people as possible.

So how do you do this? Well, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Let’s face it. Big crossover hits are the exception and not the rule. However, if you want to give yourself at least a shot at having a crossover hit, here are some tips.

First off, you want to listen to as much music as you can, especially popular music. You may not like everything that’s out there (I sure don’t) but you need to be familiar with it, if for no other reason than to at least get an idea of what you’re up against.

Then you want to pick two genres that are at least slightly related to each other. It’s tough to have a country hit crossing over to the house charts. That’s a stretch by any stretch of the imagination. Fortunately, there are enough similarities between many genres that you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding at least two that fit together.

After you’ve done that, you want to isolate the elements of each genre that makes it specific to that genre. One way to do this is with instrumentation. For example, in a lot of country music you’ll find pedal steel and slide guitars. Maybe a fiddle too. Now, let’s say you want to cross over to the rock charts. What’s pretty common about most hard rock songs? Well, you’ve got that distorted or fuzz lead guitar sound for starters. And sometimes, that alone can be enough. Add in some synths and you’re pretty much there. That’s what Lone Star did with their monster hit.

Then you just put it all together and voila. You’ve got a crossover hit. Well, a potential crossover hit.

But if you’re going to do this with any degree of accuracy, you’re going to have to listen to a lot of music and be comfortable writing each genre on its own. I wouldn’t even attempt to write a crossover reggae/house song because I can’t write reggae to save my life.

If all this sounds easier than it really is, you’re right. It’s not easy. But nothing worth your time is. The rewards of writing something that appeals to the masses are many and not just in the wallet. The satisfaction you’ll get just from knowing you did it will be reward enough.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

There’s a Jewish expression, “hock mir ein chink” which translated means “don’t hit me with a tea kettle” which further translated means “don’t rattle on and on about nothing.” Okay, you’re probably wondering what this can possibly do with writing music? Well, sit back and relax and I’m going to attempt to make my point in a colorful way, if possible. I think you’ll find this thought provoking if nothing else.

I always thought that music walked a very fine line between monotony and utter chaos, especially when you’re talking about short pieces and most especially when you’re talking about royalty free tracks and their musical motif.

You only have to go to just about any royalty free music site (yes, mine included) and pick out a track to listen to. What you will probably hear, especially in the dance and electronic genres, is the same motif over and over and over with just slight variations. Of course this is nothing really new.

Remember the 1967 hit “Light My Fire” by The Doors? Do you recall the instrumental section? The whole motif is 6 notes played over and over and over on the organ while the guitar plays a rambling lead that doesn’t seem to go anywhere except in a circle.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the song. But not for that 4 minutes of rambling. The Jim Morrison vocals were classic on that one. And it did have a catchy melody. I was very glad that AM radio played the 45 version which was about 3 minutes long.

But I digress.

Yes, music can be monotonous. And sometimes there is a fine line between that monotony being “good” and just being plain monotonous.

So the question I’m going to ask is this. How do you know where that line is? How do you know when you’ve crossed it? Everybody has their own level of tolerance. I know some people who think “Hey Jude” is the greatest Beatles song every written while others think it is a piece of monotonous crap. In my early years, it was one of my favorite songs. Now that I’m older, not so much. Four minutes of na-na-na-na-na-na-na…na-na-na-na…Hey Jude is just way too much for me these days.

Thus, you have to know your audience. If you’re writing classical music for orchestra, you can repeat things (lots of classical music does just that) but 4 minutes of the same loop over and over is going to send your audience screaming for their lives.

When I sit down to write, I think about who my audience is and what the piece is meant to accomplish. If I’m scoring for a scenic video where the scene is changing constantly, I’m definitely not going to be doing too much repetition and will probably do one or two key changes depending on how long the video is.

If I’m scoring for an action video or a fight scene then I might want some kind of rock or even heavy metal track. Most rock or metal jams that fit these type of videos are usually very repetitive. So you’re not going to be meandering all over the place and throwing key changes into a 2 or 3 minute piece.

But there still have to be some kind of diversity even in the monotony or the monotony becomes unbearable.

How do I handle this?

Well, without having to put too much thought into it, especially if I’m under the gun and faced with some real time pressure, what I’ll usually do is lay down the initial beat that’s going to carry the track through. After that, I’ll come up with some kind of a bass riff. I might have a verse/chorus structure but nothing more complex than that. Maybe I’ll do 16 bars for the verse and 8 for the chorus. I’ll play this bass riff out throughout the drum track.

After I’ve done that, I’ll then come up with a lead, usually played on a heavy distorted guitar. I’ll come up with a main motif but will vary it slightly every 8 bars or so. This gives the illusion of their being some diversity when you’re really just playing the same thing over and over. Let’s face it, most guitar leads and solos are pretty monotonous.

Finally, I’ll come up with the outro to wrap it all up.

If you’re going to go this route, for any genre that lends itself to the form, you probably don’t want the piece to be more than 3 minutes. After that, things tend to get a little long in the tooth.

Of course if your audience is the progressive rock crowd, this isn’t as big a problem.

If you do need to stretch things out, another trick is to have a different instrument take over the lead part. It can be playing the same exact melody but because of the fact that the sound is different, it makes the piece sound different.

One of the projects I’m working on now involves three minute dance tracks. They’re very similar in structure to what I described above. What I do to break up the monotony is divide the lead up between several synthesizers. I might alternate between them every minute or so into the track.

Another trick is to bring background synths or pads into the mix on the second or third verse. Maybe some sound effects as well. Let the piece build as it goes along. As long as there is movement, even if you’re playing the same basic melody, the piece won’t sound monotonous.

Thank God “Light My Fire” went from the organ solo to the reverberated guitar solo about mid way through that section of the song would have been a total bore. But really, that middle section was just thrown together.

You don’t have to write “Rite Of Spring” which is about as all over the place as you can get, but if your music doesn’t move, if it just goes around and around in a circle, you’re going to drive your audience crazy and ultimately away.

So don’t hock mir ein chinik.

But if you do, make sure you’re serving crackers or something to go with it.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I know this article is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. A lot of people are under the impression that in order to make it in the music business your stuff has to be of high quality. If only that were true. A lot of people starving right now would be making a living and a lot of big stars would be on the streets begging for scraps. The truth is, quality has very little to do with how successful one is with his music.

But why?

Okay, before I answer that, let me ask you a question. Why is it that very few pop music stars have careers longer than a few years? Even superstars reach a point where their music doesn’t sell anymore.

Paul McCartney just turned 72 today. Why is it that I can’t remember the last time he had a number 1 song? In fact, his last big world wide hit was “No More Lonely Nights” in 1984. that’s 30 years ago.

Did Paul McCartney suddenly forget how to write a quality song? Somehow, I don’t think so. If anything, after all these years, McCartney should be writing the best music of his life as he has so much life experience to tap into.

And if you listen to some of his recent albums, he’s written some amazing music including the haunting “The End Of The End” from “Memory Almost Full” released in 2007. While the album sold well (over 2 million copies) there wasn’t one hit single from it. And “The End Of The End” wasn’t even released as a single.

Point is, where are all the big hits that McCartney churned out with regularity back in the 70s like “Uncle Albert”, “Live And Let Die”, “My Love”, “Let ‘Em In” (which was really a horrible song) and on and on and on?

If “Let ‘Em In” is a quality song, I’m digging into my catalog of crap I wrote in the 80s and sending it to every tone deaf publisher I can get a hold of.

An artist or song is popular, not so much because of the quality of the song or artist itself but because of intangibles that are very hard to describe in any meaningful way.

In short, the taste of the general public is very subjective and very fickle. The public gets tired of things very fast. So while the quality of the music might be the same, the outcome could be totally different.

A perfect example of this is the group Boston. Each album sounded exactly the same as the one before it. But they never duplicated the success that they had with their debut album that sold 17x platinum. By their 4th album, which took 18 years to release after their first album with only 2 in between, they barely made it to platinum status and their last 2 albums didn’t sell at all. This is a group that had a 37 year career with only 4 selling albums. Personally, I was tired of them after the second album.

That’s the key word…tired. Especially since EVERYTHING they did sounded the same. They had a formula, the beat it to death and eventually it killed them.

What about the awful music that became chart toppers? Too many examples to point out so I won’t bother. One just needs to listen to “I’m Too Sexy” or the more recent “Friday” to find out how bad music can become ridiculously popular, even if it’s not for the right reason.

So the question you need to ask yourself, if your a composer or performer is this.

Do you want to write good music or music that sells? The two don’t necessarily have to coexist together.

Can good music sell? Sure! Lots of good music sells. But lots of bad music sells just as well if not more. I can just about listen to the radio these days with all the crap that’s on it. The good songs are in the minority. I sometimes wonder if my chances of making it are slim to none simply because I can’t lower myself to the standards that today’s consumer has accepted as acceptable.

Regardless of what you may or may not think of today’s music and regardless of what you decide you want to do with your own music, if you want to make it in any business of music, whether it be royalty free, pop, classical or whatever, you need to tune in with what’s going on in the world today.

Me? I go to other royalty free music sites to see what kind of music is up there. I look at the genres that they cover and I listen to a good sample of the music in each genre to see what’s popular. You can’t create tracks that people want unless you know what they want. The only way to do that is through research.

What if you’re looking to make it into some form of popular music as a composer? Well, it’s pretty much the same thing. You need to do your research. That will involve listening to a lot of radio to see what’s popular today. Because stations are highly specialized today you’re going to hear a lot of the same kind of music depending on what station you’re listening to. In some parts of the world, country is very big. In other parts, dance music rules the airwaves. Make sure you’re tuned into the kind of music YOU want to create.

After that, it’s all imitation. No, not plagiarism. You don’t steal. You emulate. You’ll notice that most songs of a particular genre have certain characteristics that are carried over from song to song with the only thing really changing is the melody. If you think I’m kidding, watch that hysterical video by Axis Of Awesome about how all songs are four chords. If it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be so funny.

Once you have the formula down, you’re half way there to having a hit. All that’s left is persistence and a little luck.

Yeah, with all that, you still need some luck.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Wouldn’t it be great if every idea that we had turned out to be a winner or every piece of software we bought was amazing or every customer we ever got was a dream to work with? Wouldn’t it be great if life was perfect?

Neh. Life would be boring if it was perfect. We need some conflict to keep the juices going and start that five alarm musical fire. What exactly is a five alarm musical fire? Glad you asked. I’m going to explain what it is and why it’s important to our creativity.

Let me start by saying this. The five alarm musical fire gets harder and harder to come by the older you get. The reason isn’t any more complicated than the fact that the older you get, the fewer things there are that you haven’t done. If nothing else, that song you wrote yesterday, you can’t write it again. It’s done. And when you’ve written thousands of songs like I have, trust me, that pilot light gets harder and harder to get going.

If you haven’t quite figured it out yet, that five alarm musical fire is what happens when you get the inspiration to do something that is really special. And you’ll know it when you hit it. I can probably list all my five alarm fires on two hands. That’s not a lot when you take into consideration that I’ve been writing since the late 70s.

The most recent was probably when I came out with my first Modern Classics CD. It was the first group of songs that I ever wrote with notation software. Up until that point in time, everything I had done was just sitting down at the keyboard or guitar and playing. I don’t think I ever wrote a lick of music until last summer, mostly out of laziness. Notation software changed all that. My first piece, “The Great Days Of Old”, was really something special. It was the first rhapsody I had ever written and was rather lengthy, relatively speaking.

It’s things like that you remember. Yeah, a lot of the daily creativity get lost in the soup because not everything can be a five alarm fire. And some things are just downright awful. That’s why you remember the special moments, because they are special.

You’re probably thinking that this kind of inspiration can’t be forced, that it has to come naturally. Well, to an extent, you’re right. You can’t force inspiration. But you can do things to help it along.

For example, I picked up a copy of Finale 2012 and started to compose real music. In fact, to this day, I am regularly writing music for the church choir, something that would have never happened had I not turned to notation software. In fact, I’d go a far as to say that buying Finale 2012 changed my life more than anything else I’ve bought in the last 35 years.

Why?

Look at these chain of events.

I bought the software and started “fooling around” with it. That lead to me writing a song for the church choir. That in turn lead me to writing more songs, which got me to thinking that maybe it’s time to do something with my music since my old business was falling apart. That lead me to putting up this site. That lead to me coming up with other ideas for my music including the major project I’m working on now.

When you get a chance, watch “It’s A Wonderful Life.” It’s really true. Every life touches another life and can greatly affect what happens to that other life. In the early 70s, I almost drowned but was saved by my friend. Had he not been there, who knows what would have happened.

If you want an ever better one than that, try this one on for size.

In the mid 70s my mom took in cats that another friend of mine brought to her house, though I asked him not to. This lead to us getting evicted and having to move to another town. In that town, I met the mailman who asked me if I wanted to bowl in his league. From there I enjoyed it so much that I ended up joining another league on another night. That league is where I met my wife to be.

All because my friend brought some cats to out apartment.

Music is no different. Everything we do affects how and what we compose. My next inspiration could very well come from this very article that I’m writing. There is just no way to know.

So if you want some inspiration, get out of your comfort zone. If you’ve been writing all your music on a keyboard, toss it aside for a moment and get a hold of some notation software. Force yourself to learn it. You might find that you actually enjoy composing this way.

If you’re the opposite and do all your composing with notation software, put it away. Pick up a guitar or sit in front of a keyboard. Heck, if you play keyboard put that aside and pick up a guitar. Do something that you’re not comfortable doing.

What’s going to happen, at least every once in a while, is that you’ll move to something foreign and that in itself will be what triggers the new idea. At that moment, if you want, you can then go back to your regular method of composing and use it to create your inspirational piece. “The Great Days Of Old” could not have been written on a keyboard. Not a piece that was scored for a full orchestra.

So yes, you’re going to have those times when you’re locked into your new composition tool of choice. And that’s fine. True inspiration will fight its way through it and come out the other side with flying colors.

I truly believe that everybody has that five alarm musical fire inside of them. All they have to do is loosen up and throw caution to the wind.

Hey, it works for me and I ain’t no Beethoven.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim