This article is for all of you who want to become mixing engineers. This stuff is trickier than you can imagine, especially when you’re dealing with an unknown mix. What do I mean by an unknown mix?

Somebody comes to you and says “I got 24 tracks here that I want you to make sound good.” You’ve never heard the song before, have no idea how it sounds and somehow you have to make some sense out of it.

What do you do?

I’m going to now detail what I do. Please note, this is not the only way to go about doing this and the procedure may actually change somewhat depending on what kind of song it is, how many tracks there are, how much time you have to work on the project and so on. This is just one example.

First thing I did was download all the tracks, unzip them and import the wav files into my Cubase DAW. The easiest way to do that, especially when you’re working with 24 tracks like I was, is to highlight all the tracks in your explorer and drag them directly into your DAW. If it asks you if you want a single track for all the wav files or individual tracks, definitely go for individual tracks.

Now I’m looking at 24 sliders in my mix console and I have no idea what each one does outside of the description of the wav file. Here’s where you have to use a little common sense. Naturally, it helps if you have some clue about musical arrangements such as what instruments are probably main and what instruments are probably background.

I took all the 24 sliders and moved them down to zero. I then looked at the instruments and vocals and started moving them up one at a time, starting with the piano. I guessed at a level for each one realizing that as I kept adding sliders, those levels might have to be further raised or lowered. Rule of thumb is you never want to raise. You always want to lower if you can. Otherwise, you end up going into the red and have to bring everything down. I had a lot to work with here.

1 Piano track
4 vocal tracks
10 strings stracks
2 guitar tracks
6 percussion tracks
1 main track

My best guess was that the piano would be the main comp and it was. I went with the main vocal being next with the 3 background vocals being somewhat behind while the strings, percussion and guitars further in the background. Naturally, this would change depending on how each part was played, what instruments came in and went out during the course of the song and so on.

Next thing I would do is process each instrument individually. To get the best mix, you want each instrument on its own to sound as good as it can. If the samples you’re given are dry, and they should be, then you’re pretty much free to do whatever you want with them. Now, the guitar parts I got sounded like they were recorded through busted amps. I don’t know if that’s the sound they were going for but there is no way they’re going to cut through a mix the way they sound now.

So, the guitars need some major work. I’m going to run them through my guitar rig and process them as if they were dry. Some reverb, compression and a good distortion and these guitars will sound passable. They’ll never sound great because of the quality of the original recording, but they can be made to sound decent. Either way, you probably don’t want them too forward in the mix.

Now, the piano sounds totally dead. It’s going to need some overhead compression and a good convolution reverb. Not too much. Don’t want it to sound washed out. It’s still your main instrument so you want it to cut through. A Barry Manilow like sound should be fine.

As for the strings, they’re simple. First thing you want to do is send them to one bus so you can mix them together to get a nice level on all of them relative to the rest of the mix. Then I’m going to put a nice concert hall convolution reverb on the whole bus. I’ll mix them in the background. I don’t want the strings overpowering the mix. It’s not that kind of song.

The percussion needs to cut through because there isn’t much in this mix that’s keeping a beat. The piano is playing a lot of broken chords and arpeggios so I need something that’s going to keep somewhat of a beat. So the percussion I’m going to keep dry and just throw some compression on it. I will also group the percussion in one bus as well.

Now we get to the vocals. There are 4 vocal tracks. The main vocals and the background vocals. What I usually do with 4 vocal tracks is I bring the main vocals up front, I pan two of the 3 background vocals left and right and take the fourth vocal and set it just slightly back of the main vocal with some delay on it. Makes a really nice effect. I don’t group the vocals in one buss for one reason. I find that vocals processed as a group don’t sit well in the mix. I find that by processing them separately I get a better mix.

After everything is mixed the way you like it, bounce it all down to two stereo tracks. But we’re not done.

You now have to take the stereo mix and process it. That means EQ, compression, limiting, whatever you have to do in order to get a radio ready mix.

It’s a long process. But the key to it is taking things one at a time. If you don’t look at the whole project as a whole project and freak out at how many tracks you have and just take it one track at a time, you’ll be fine.

And that’s how I work with an unknown mix.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Got into an interesting discussion the other day about originality in music. Now mind you, this is just a matter of opinion. Nobody has ever come up with a definition for originality that, in my opinion, really defines the word.

Here’s what the dictionary comes up with for a definition.

the ability to think independently and creatively.
“a writer of great originality”

the quality of being novel or unusual.
“he congratulated her on the originality of her costume”

Okay, we have two very different aspects of this definition. One is on the process and the other is on the finishing product. So let’s take them one at a time.

“The ability to think independently and creatively.”

Interesting concept. To think independently or, on one’s own. Do we really do that? Can we really do that? Aren’t we all influenced by everything around us, everything we’ve been exposed to? If not, can you honestly say that, when somebody plays something for you that they’ve written, that you’ve never heard anything like it?

Okay, we can argue independent thought all day long and we probably won’t get anywhere. I contend that, because we don’t live in a vacuum and because we are constantly exposed to the outside world and the thoughts of others, we can’t help but be influenced by these thoughts. And if we’re influenced by them, are we truly thinking independently?

As far as the second part of that first definition, to think creatively, well, we’d need a definition for creatively. So let’s go there.

“resulting from originality of thought, expression”

Ah, okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Now we have to look up the definition of originality and I think we’ll have it.

1. present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest.
2. created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation.

Ah, there we go. Number 2 is a pretty good definition. Not an imitation.

Now, here is where we run into problems and arguments.

What is an imitation?

For some people, an imitation is an exact duplicate of a piece of work. In the case of music, an exact duplicate of a piece of music.

However, for other people, they don’t take this definition so rigidly. For them, it’s an approximation or something that is similar that doesn’t make it original.

And this is where my “nothing new under the sun” comes in to play.

See, there are varying degrees of similarity between music. Take for example, classical symphonies of the 18th and 19th centuries. You can pretty much listen to any four or five of them to get a decent sample.

Notice anything about them?

They all have a particular sound. The notes might be different in places and the tempos might be different as well as the keys that each one is in, but they all have a very identifiable sound. When you hear a symphony, no matter who has written it, you know it’s a symphony.

But I’ll go one further. Take somebody who doesn’t really know much about symphonic work. Play them one piece by Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and then play that person three different pieces by each one and ask them to pick out which piece was written by which composer. How many people do you think would be able to do it who have never been exposed to classical music before?

I have been listening to classical music my whole life. We’re talking a good 50 plus years. And let me tell you flat out, a lot of it sounds like the same old same old. Sure, a few pieces stand out because they have such identifiable melodies. But a lot of it is very derivative. With few exceptions I couldn’t tell you one Mozart symphony from another and outside of Beethoven’s 5th and 9th, forget it.

But okay, that’s classical music and it was a long time ago and things were different then and now we have all these new instruments and synthesizers and stuff and things are different. Now we can be truly original.

Are we?

Think about this. A lot of people will say that such and such band is original. But are they really? Let’s take a group like Queen. How were they original? Well, they had a very different kind of sound highlighted by Freddie Mercury’s vocals, Brian May’s guitar and those harmonies. And yes, I can honestly say that I haven’t heard anything that sounds like Queen in my life.

Now, some people will say that Queen was a rip off, harmonically anyway, of the Beach Boys. I don’t really hear it but a lot of people do. Does that mean they’re wrong? Well, again, there is no right or wrong here. This is all just a matter of opinion.

But my point is this. If somebody can listen to another person’s music and say something like “That reminds me of…” or “You sound like…” does that mean it’s not original?

It may be original as far as the group or person is concerned (they truly did think it up on their own) but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s something new or different.

Boston had a very unique sound with their guitars thanks to some effects pedals that they band members created. But was the music itself really so different? Wasn’t it just guitar based rock and roll? What made it different to us was the sound. And again, how many Bostons do we have in the music business?

Have you ever listened to rap artists? Now in this case, we’re talking about spoken word so you don’t even have melodic voicing to differentiate these artists. in fact, rap producers purposely go after a specific sound because they know what sells in the industry. If you go too far off the beaten path, you’re not making money unless you are so original and so unique and so good that people can’t help but listen.

Except that’s risky because in this business, and this is the kicker to this whole subject, there is a lot of money involved. And when there is a lot of money involved, you have to play things safe. You have to go with what’s tried and true. And that’s why there is so little creativity in the music industry today.

But by all means, prove me wrong. Send me a song by somebody, a song that you think is truly different from anything else ever made. I’ll find something that sounds like it, guaranteed. That is of course unless it’s by some dude living down the street from you making noises in his garage.

Anybody can make noise in his garage. But if you want to make money in the music business, there really is nothing new under the sun.

One man’s opinion.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Today’s article should be a lot of fun and hopefully we’ll all get something out of it. In my case, inspiration to write something. In your case? Well, I’ll leave that up to you. We’re going to discuss song stability and whether or not you want to leave the listener wanting more. Let’s begin.

Okay, first off, what is song stability? Well, we actually have song stability on two levels. The one level is lyrically by itself. This isn’t really the best barometer of actual stability of the song because once the music is taken into effect, it can totally change the feel of the song and suddenly unstable lyrics can turn into a stable song. Confused? You won’t be after this episode of…Oh, sorry, I drifted off into weirdsville.

Where was I?

Oh yes, music can turn an unstable lyric into a stable song. Okay, what makes an unstable lyric?

A lyric is made up of lines. Each line has a line length as far as syllables. So, if we combine all the different possibilities of lines (odd or even number) and line lengths (same, shorter, longer) we have the following possibilities as far as combinations.

Even number of lines and same line lengths – Stable.
Even number of lines and shorter last line – Unstable wanting more.
Even number of lines and longer last line – Unstable with spotlight.
Odd number of lines with any line lengths – Unstable.

So as you can see, the number of lines is the most dominating factor that determines whether or not a verse or chorus is stable or unstable.

In general, a stable chorus leaves the listener feeling satisfied and fulfilled while an unstable chorus leaves the listener wanting more.

Listen to the 1970 hit “Indiana Wants Me” By R.D. Taylor. The chorus is three lines, which is very unusual for a chorus. But even at the end when the tag line is left out and it’s just the two lines, the chorus is still unstable.

But why? Because the choruses second line ends on the dominant. Whenever you end a section on the dominant, it begs to go back to the tonic. This song never does. Plus it’s going in and out of key like a drunk composer. It’s classic R.D. Taylor. He clearly left the listener wanting more throughout the whole song. He never really let the song resolve, ever.

Is this a good thing?

Well, kind of depends on your perspective and what it is you’re trying to achieve.

If your goal is to leave the listener feeling satisfied after the song is over, then musically, “Indiana Wants Me” just doesn’t do it. It makes you want to sing that chorus over and over until you drop from exhaustion.

But if your goal is to do just that, make the listener sing your song over and over, then this song succeeds in spades. The tension continues throughout. The only thing that really resolves is the story, kind of. Look at the last verse.

“I hope this letter finds its way to you
Forgive me love for the shame I’ve put you through and all the tears
Hang on love to the memories of those happy years
Red lights are flashing around me, good Lord, it looks like they found me.”

They have found him but have they caught him? Did he maybe get away? We really don’t know. The last verse leaves us hanging. Absolutely brilliant songwriting. It should be required study for any songwriting course.

So why do most choruses resolve so nicely? The answer is simple. We as human beings like it when things are wrapped up in a nice tidy little bow. And this isn’t just true with music. it’s true with movies and TV too.

Don’t you just hate it when you watch a movie or a TV show and it doesn’t resolve? It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.

Remember when they had that Criminal Minds spinoff? Did you watch the last episode? The villain was counting down until he was going to shoot the one FBI agent while somebody else has a gun on another FBI agent and then suddenly it goes black and we hear a gun shot. We have no idea who has been shot. And that was the end of the series. It was canceled after that.

I don’t know about you, but that was just cruel.

Same thing with that remake of the Fugitive. At the end of the last episode, the cop catches Kimble with the one armed man, we hear a shot and go to black. That was the end of the series.

We don’t like that. We like things to have a beginning, a middle and an end. That’s why when TV shows today have season ending cliffhangers, we don’t mind as much as long as we know the show is coming back. And if they announce it’s the last season, at least these day anyway, they make sure they wrap everything up. It’s for that reason that I’m sure there’s going to be another season of “24” because they can’t leave us hanging like that.

Songs are no different.

Guy meets girl.
Guy gets girl.
Guy loses girl.
Guy moves on with this life.

It’s complete. It’s not a particularly happy ending, but at least it resolves, story wise.

Most songs will do this. But yes, there are exceptions. And those exceptions drive is crazy, to a degree.

How much of a degree will depend on the music. If the music at least leaves us feeling satisfied, it’s not so bad. R.D. Taylor did neither. The last verse makes us wonder if he got caught or got away and the last chorus, always going back to the dominant, never really resolves musically.

It’s plain torture. And I love it.

So, when you go about writing a song, think about how you want your listener to feel after they’re done listening. If you want them to feel satisfied, don’t do what R.D. Taylor did.

Because that’s a sure way to really tick your listener off unless they’re like me.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

What is music? No, don’t go to a dictionary and look up some lame definition. In your own words, define music. Can you do it so that another person will clearly understand what you mean and be able to duplicate music given your definition and their ability to create?

Okay, I’m going to give you my definition and then we’re going to discuss it.

Music definition: Pitched sounds strung together in some kind of rhythmic sequence which may or may not also contain spoken or sung words.

There you go. That’s my definition of music and I’m willing to defend it to the death.

Okay, you’re probably wondering why I brought this up and where I’m going with it. In order to explain, I need to provide you with a little background information.

I woke up this morning, turned on the computer and went to a music forum for a course I’m taking on songwriting and somebody made a comment that this wasn’t music.

Is This Music?

So I went to the video and listened to it. I don’t know about you, but not only is that music by the “accepted” definition but it’s not even the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life. In fact, I kind of got into it. It has a good beat, some interesting melodic phrases and it’s certainly different.

Musical taste is a funny thing. One person’s piece of crap is another person’s work of art. And I can understand somebody saying that they don’t like a particular piece of music. There’s music that I don’t particularly care for. As much as I’m trying to get into dubstep, there are some real hard core tunes that just have way too many drops and wubs for me to get into. After a while it all just becomes a little overwhelming, especially when you’re listening to a 90 minute mix.

But I digress.

Point is, even though some dubstep is too hardcore for me, I will never go as far as to say it’s not “music.”

When we start classifying things as music or not music because of our personal tastes, we diminish art in general.

I don’t know how old you are. I’m getting there. I’ll be 57 this November. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, my mom would always make comments about rock and roll not being music. Do you know that just before she passed away in 2009, she was actually playing stuff on the piano by Kansas and ELO?

Our tastes change as we grow. But music doesn’t change as far as definition.

So, having said that, how can we now expand ourselves as composers? If we take away the limitations that we’ve imposed on each other and ourselves, what can we possibly come up with?

Now let me make something clear. I’m not talking about going out of your way to hit a kitchen counter top with a spatula, run the sink and blow into a bottle to make “music” although that would be one interesting experiment. I’m talking about letting your mind run free to come up with things that you might not have come up with otherwise.

Let’s try something. I’m going to assume or at least hope that you have some kind of DAW and some synths that you can use to make sound. If not, try to imagine what I’m about to describe and see if you can one day duplicate it on your own setup.

First, I’m going to start with a drum beat. I’m not going to use the whole drum kit. I’m just going to use the kick drum. I’ll set the tempo to 250. That’s some blistering fast stuff. I’ll sequence the kick to play 32nd notes. This should pretty much sound close to a machine gun.

Next thing I’m going to do is bring up a bass sound. I’m going to make it a wobble bass since I am getting into dubstep these days. Now right there, we have a mismatch. Dubstep is usually between 138 and 142 BPM. We’re past jungle tempo now so a wobble bass will certainly sound out of place.

We’re going to take that wobble bass and sequence a pattern of 8th notes. Now we have an interesting contrast. We have the kick drum going at 250 BPM playing 32nd notes while the wobble bass is playing much slower at 8th notes. I can only imagine what that sounds like.

But we’re not done.

Next I’m going to bring up a good lead synth plugin Something like NI’s Massive. That should do the trick. I’m going to program a simple square wave lead with a slightly slow attack so it’s not so immediate. I’m also going to program lots of reverb into it so that it sounds like it’s mile away. Also, in relation to the kick and bass, I’m going to turn the volume way down low so that it’s barely audible. I’m going to play a single drone throughout the whole song. I’m going to make sure that the drone is in a completely different key than the wobble bass is playing in.

Finally, I’m going to bring up a sampler with lots of prerecorded sound effects and search for a police siren. I’m going to run that over the synth drone.

I’ll let the piece run for about 2 minutes.

How long before it drives most people mad? It might even have me running from the room as well. I can only imagine what that sounds like.

But guess what?

I will NEVER call it not music.

And you know what? Somewhere, somebody must have done something like this. I think it’s called experimental music. Have you listened to experimental music lately? I admit that I haven’t. But there was a time when I did (many years ago) and admit to thinking to myself “this isn’t music.” But that was a long time ago. I’ve learned a lot since then. There is beauty and worth in everything musical.

You just have to open up your mind enough to find it.

What is music?

It’s whatever YOU want it to be.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Ah yes, the joy of accomplishment. That moment when we hop on our two-wheeler and ride down the driveway yelling “Look ma, no hands” just before we crash into the Honda across the street. Suddenly, that moment turns into one of embarrassment.

We’ve all been there and have the T-shirts to prove it.

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this one. Well, sit back, relax and I’m going to take you on a journey of success and failure. If you think you can have one without the other, you are sadly mistaken. The two go hand in hand in just about anything.

Music can be a cruel business. Of course if you’re not at all in it for the money and just want to have a good time writing, playing or whatever it is you do, then probably none of what’s going to come next is even going to matter to you. But if you want to someday get at least a little recognition for what you do, then you might find this article helpful.

I want to make something clear right from the start. I am coming from a viewpoint of very little success with my music. Notice I said “very little” and not “no success.” Believe me, it makes a difference.

When I first started composing in 1979, I didn’t do it with the idea that I was ever going to make money doing it. I did it to get over a girl. Yes, a girl. I was in this bowling league on Friday nights and this girl on my team was, well, she was my “dream” girl at the time. She was also gay. I knew I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get involved but I did and ended up with my heart carpeting the living room floor.

To escape the pain and heartache of losing my “dream girl” I started playing the piano in my living room (my mom was a concert pianist) and started making up these “songs.” Needless to say, they were dreadful. But they were good therapy. So I kept at it.

Eventually, I started to really get into it. I then imagined myself writing songs and even recording them. That’s when I went out and blew a few thousand bucks on keyboards, synthesizers and a 4 channel recorder.

I had my first home studio.

As the years went by, I got more and more stuff. My writing started to improve (which isn’t saying much) and I started to submit songs to publishers.

This was my first rude awakening.

Needless to say, the comments on my songs were not pretty. Most publishers were kind enough to simply respond “not what we’re looking for” but others were not so kind. They mostly tore my lyrics to shreds.

Eventually, I found one publisher who wanted to publish my song “And The Angels Sing.” In retrospect, this is probably the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was my “look ma, no hands moment” that ultimately had me crashing into that Honda.

See, this song contract made me think that I was a real songwriter. All those other publishers were wrong. I was great. Well, the song never got recorded and I never got another song contract again.

What happened?

In short, this song contract, which made me think I was a songwriter, also made me stop trying to improve myself. After all, I was a published songwriter. I didn’t need to get any better. I just had to find the right person to appreciate my talent.

Yeah, right. I kept crashing into that Honda without even knowing it.

Pride and ego can make you do some crazy things. One of those crazy things is thinking that you’re better than you are. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not the worst composer in the world. Even I know that much. In fact, I still scratch my head at some of the stuff that makes the radio these days. But I’ve learned over the years that there is always room for improvement.

That’s why I just recently enrolled in two online classes. One is an introduction to music production and the other is a course on songwriting. Now, I probably know most of this stuff, but even if I learn just one or two new techniques or tricks, it will have been time well spent. And if nothing else, it’s a good review.

I look at my life right now and it’s nothing like it was in 1979. I have a wonderful wife and daughter. I have my dream recording studio right in my own home. And for the first time in my life, I am starting to see some real success with my music. There was a time when I never thought any of this would happen.

As to the future, I have no idea what that holds in store for me. Nobody does. For all I know, it can all come crashing down around me. There are no guarantees in life. I learned that much a long time ago.

But I also learned this. If you keep working at things, no matter how futile it may seem at the time, eventually, you will see results. They may not be the kind of results you were hoping for, but they’ll be results just the same, even if it’s the confirmation that you probably should be doing something else with your life.

In the meantime, I take things one day at a time. I do what I need to do on a given day and then when the day is over, I put it behind me and move onto the next day. One foot in front of the other, day after day.

Otherwise, you ended up frustrated and discouraged. I mean can you imagine? 35 years of music writing and it wasn’t until this year that I started to see even a hint of success. You have to have an amazing amount of patience and persistence to last that long in this business.

If I can do it, you can do it.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

What’s in a rhyme? Good question. Why do songs rhyme anyway? Did you ever think of that? Is it something that we just accept as “that’s the way it is?” In this article, we’re going to discuss rhyming in songs. Hopefully, by the time you’re done reading this, you’ll have a better handle on how to create rhymes in your songs.

Let’s start off with why songs rhyme. Songs rhyme for a very simple reason. They’re easier to remember and they sound better. They’re easier to remember because we group the sentences together by rhymes and they sound better because the rhyme tends to complete the thought. It’s just the way our brains process words. How this was discovered and who discovered it is unknown. My guess is, rhyme was created many centuries ago.

Is they why even important? At this stage of the evolution of songwriting, not really. It’s doubtful that this practice of rhyming songs is going to change any time soon, if ever at all. So we just accept it as standard practice and move on.

What makes a good rhyme? Now that’s where things get a little trickier. A good rhyme is different depending on the medium. For example, if you’re writing for Broadway, rhymes MUST be true.

Here’s an example of what I mean by a true rhyme.

You made me love you
Now I don’t know what to do
I feel like a fool
You used me like a tool

There you have a true rhyme. You and do and fool and tool are true rhymes.

If you’re writing for Broadway, you better stick to true rhymes or you’ll be thrown out of the business. I mean this literally. There is no room on Broadway for the other kind of rhyme which is a false rhyme.

Here is an example of a false rhyme.

I gave you all my love
But it just wasn’t enough

Love and enough kind of sound alike because of the “uh” sound, but they’re not true rhymes because love has a “v” sound at the end and enough has an “f” sound at the end.

That’s the difference between a true rhyme and a false rhyme.

You will find false rhymes a lot in popular and rock music. It’s more acceptable. Why? It just is. Then again, popular music is more forgiving about a lot of things and much more flexible than Broadway.

So when coming up with a rhyme for a lyric, you first have to be aware of what medium you’re writing for. If you try to get away with the second example for a Broadway tune, you’re going to be tossed out of the business on your ear.

Moving on.

What about rhyming structure? I’m sure you’ve noticed that if you look at a verse or chorus in a song, there are various ways that the rhymes come together within that verse or chorus.

For example.

Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

In the chorus from Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World” lines 1 and 2 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme.

Now look at this song from Mama Cass

Make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along

In the above example from “Make Your Own Kind Of Music” lines 2 and 4 rhyme. Lines 1 and 3 don’t really rhyme even though they technically do because it’s just the same word repeated. The important lines in this chorus are 2 and 4 as far as the rhyming scheme goes.

Usually, with a song where lines 2 and 4 rhyme, lines 1 and 3 won’t rhyme to provide some contrast. If there is too much rhyming going on, sometimes it just sounds forced or unnatural. That’s why you’ll notice a lot of songs that fall into this form.

Does every verse in a song have to rhyme? No, not really. But you do want there to be some consistency in your verses. In other words, if you start out the song with a verse that doesn’t rhyme, you probably want all the verses not to rhyme. This not only builds consistency in your song but also makes the chorus stand out that much more.

Think about it. If none of your verses rhyme and your chorus has some great rhymes in it, it’s going to stand out from the rest of the song more so than if the verses did rhyme. This is one method of highlighting a particular part of your song. And in most cases, it is the chorus that you want to stand out. After all, that’s the main part of your song.

Are there songs that don’t rhyme at all? Yes, they exist. You have to be a very clever wordsmith to keep a listener’s attention with a song that doesn’t rhyme at all. If you can manage to do that, you’ve established yourself as one heck of a writer. There aren’t too many songs in pop music that don’t rhyme. A great example of a very big hit that didn’t rhyme is Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner.” But those are few and far between in this business.

Over the years, certain words to rhyme have become a no-no because they were so common at one time that people are sick of them, especially people in the industry and won’t accept a song with these rhymes unless the song is truly exceptional in spite of them. Rhymes like above and love or self and shelf. Use these at your own peril.

If you’re having trouble coming up with a rhyme for a song, use a rhyming dictionary. It is your best friend. Rhymes will usually be grouped by true and false rhymes. So all the true rhymes will come first and then all the false rhymes will follow. And the words will be listed under a type of sound like “uh” or “et.”

Hopefully, this general article on rhyming will at least get you started. It’s actually a complex subject and we’ll get into it in more depth in future articles.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

As much as we all love music, if you’re writing songs that contain lyrics, at least according to the industry pros, those lyrics are the most important part of the song. Anybody can write a decent melody. It’s the lyrics that make or break the song. So, what we’re going to do in this article is go over developing lyrical ideas and actually do it in real time, right before your eyes.

First off, how do we come up with a story idea to write a lyric for? You need to have a basic idea before you can even write one word. Well, there are lots of ways to come up with an idea to write about. You can use your own experience. You can look in the newspaper, watch the TV, go for a walk in the park and even eat a good meal. Ideas can come from anywhere. Maybe you have a friend who just went through a messy divorce. Our world is loaded with ammunition for writing song lyrics.

However, the trick is to find something that you have a true feeling for. The world can spot a phony from a mile away. If you try to write about something that you really don’t have any real knowledge of or feel for, people will know. And worse than that, you’ll know. The song won’t ring true to you. And as a wise person once said, “To thine own self be true.” So stick to what you know.

Well, we all know about pain and suffering, don’t we? Okay, some of us less so than others. But still, every single one of us has feelings. We’ve all had some kind of disappointment at one time or another in our lives. Tap into that disappointment. I’m sure there is a song idea in there somewhere.

And if we can’t relate to our own problems (hey, some of us are just very fortunate) then maybe you have a friend who’s going through a difficult time. Maybe you can sit down with this friend and talk to them about it. Get as much information as you can about the problem. So that this doesn’t come off as being totally mercenary, offer some advice on how to deal with the problem. You can even incorporate that advice into the song itself.

For example, you have a friend who’s in love with this girl but the girl turned out to be gay. Oh well, it happens. You might want to offer some advice along the lines of “Well, it’s her loss because you’re a great guy and she’ll never find somebody like you.” The title of the song could be “Somebody Like Me.” It could be about this guy who loves this girl but doesn’t believe she could love “somebody like me.” But eventually, he realizes that he’s a pretty good catch and that line takes on a new meaning later in the song.

Maybe it can go something like this.

Met this girl not very long ago
She was everything I hoped she’d be
But there was no way in hell
She’d ever want somebody like me

I would brood over her all the time
I would try so hard to make her see
But nothing I did could ever make her
love somebody like me

Those are the first two verses. Now we come to the bridge where we explain why she can’t love somebody like him.

See it turns out this girl liked girls
I don’t know how I didn’t see
But it explains it all so clear
Why she couldn’t love somebody like me

And then we finish the song with a twist.

Well that’s okay, I’ll be just fine
And she can go on with her life chasing “she’s”
But no chick she finds will ever be
As good as somebody like me

Now the lyrics need some polishing as far as meter goes and fitting them to music, but that’s the general idea. Call our first draft an outline. Then we can fine tune it to make it flow a little better.

Not bad for 7 AM in the morning before I’ve even had my breakfast.

In case you missed it, the above lyric is AABA form. There is no chorus. The refrain at the end of each verse is “Somebody like me.”

You will notice that it’s a relatively simple idea. Guy meets girl. Guy likes girl. Girl turns out to be gay. Guy realizes she’s the one who has lost out because she’ll never meet somebody like him, meaning no girl will ever be as good to her as he would have been.

A little self absorbed and self centered? Maybe. But if you don’t believe in yourself, who will? Everybody needs confidence in this world. But I digress.

See what I did there. I took a basic idea (guy falling in love with a gay girl) and turned it into a song lyric. Yes, it needs work but the foundation is there.

In the 35 years that I’ve been writing songs, I’ve had more songs rejected because of flawed song lyrics than you can possibly imagine. Sometimes it would be just one line or even just one word.

One song was rejected because I combined the general with the specific (birds and a specific bird) in one line. That was a no-no according to the publisher and thus the song was rejected.

Another song was rejected because I used the word resume instead of portfolio. Yes, in this line of work that the person in the song was in, they used portfolios and not resumes. So shoot me.

Your lyrics have to be absolutely flawless to be accepted by the industry pros. If they are not, you won’t make it. It’s that simple. So make sure you develop your lyrical ideas fully. Go through the whole story and don’t leave anything out. They want lots of detail so give them lots of detail. At the end, they want a twist or some play on words. Make sure you give it to them.

If you do all that, you give yourself a good chance of writing a “hit” lyric.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Well, I’m getting into an argument with somebody over this issue today so I figured why not write about it? You’re probably not going to want to read a lot of this because it’s quite brash. But it really drives me crazy when people mistake tools for creativity learning. So let me first just come right out and state the bottom line of this article.

You cannot teach creativity…period.

Now, if you want to keep reading, enjoy. If you like a good rant, you’re going to enjoy this one.

So I’m taking this songwriting course and there’s this forum that we all attend. Somebody mentioned something about how they were disappointed with the course so far because it was just teaching them rules and not teaching them creativity. I responded saying that you can’t teach creativity. You can give somebody the tools to try to become creative, but you can’t teach creativity.

He disagreed and pointed to some Odyssey Of The Mind program online.

So I checked it out and this is right off their web site.

“students learn skills that will provide them with the ability to solve problems”

Notice the words in bold. Let’s start off with skill.

A skill in music would be something like being able to construct a verse or chorus to a song. You learn what makes up those things and then you create one yourself. Well, all you’re learning is some ABCs of how to do something. You’re not teaching creativity. You’re giving them the “ability” (the next word in bold) to be creative.

This person is unhappy with the lessons we’ve gotten so far on how to map out a song, what a verse is, what a chorus is, what a bridge is, and so on. He wants to learn something that will make him creative.

I’ve been writing music for over 35 years and I’m sitting here scratching my head trying the damnedest to come up with something, anything, that would be considered “creative” thinking when it comes to writing music, something that can actually be taught.

Well, I can come up with some stuff that I’ve learned over the years. I don’t necessarily agree that it’s “creative” or that it’s going to teach you creativity but here goes.

One thing you can do in order to be “creative” is to randomly make up a song. What do I mean by random? Take the various elements of a song and randomly create them. In order to do this, you will need some kind of a random generator that can be programmed to return different values.

Let’s go through the various parts of a song and see what we can come up with.

First, we have the title. How can we creatively come up with a title? Using our random generator, we program it to come up with numbers from 1 to 26. These represent the 26 letters of the alphabet. We also need a random number generator programmed from 1 to, let’s say 5. This is going to be used to determine how many words are in our title.

We use the number of words generator first and then, after we determine how many words, we use the letter generator to generate the first letter of each word.

So let’s say we get 3 for our first generation and then (running the second generator 3 times) we get F, T, P as our letters. Now we have to come up with a title that has the letters F, T, P as the first letter in each word.

How about Free The People?

Not bad. Okay, but how did I come up with the title? The method didn’t make me creative. It just gave me a tool to come up with letters in order to come up with a title. But I still had to be able to look at the letters and come up with the title. Now, I could have programmed a random word generator, but then that’s not creativity either. That’s just spitting out words from a computer. I can get a monkey to do that.

But okay, we have our title. What’s next?

Well, we need a melody for our title. We’re going to need another random generator for this from 1 to 12. These are the 12 notes we have available to us in tonal music. Let’s program it to give us 3 numbers from 1 to 12. These will be the first 3 notes to our song.

Let’s say we got 4,9 and 3. Starting from C, that would be E flat, A flat and D. Sounds kind of funky mysterious. I guess it could work. But is this teaching us creativity? Not really. We have 3 notes randomly generated. We still have to come up with a whole tune from these 3 notes. And with some note combinations, that’s going to be hard to do for some.

What about song structure? Well, we can make a list of all the different kinds of song structures such as…

Verse/Verse/Chorus/Verse/Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Chorus

And assign a number to each structure (1 through whatever)

Or…

We can assign a number to each part of a song such as

1 Verse
2 Chorus
3 Bridge

And then generate numbers from 1 to 3 and use each type of section in that order. Oh, but what happens if we start off with our Bridge? That becomes a problem. I think option 1, list all the different song structures, is the better option here.

But again, is this teaching creativity? Not really. All it’s doing is saying “Here, this is the song structure you’re going to write. Go ahead and write it.”

These are nothing more or less than tools to help you jog your mind a little. They are no more or less creativity tools than the box method or anything else that you might learn in a songwriting course. They’re just tools.

If you want to learn creativity or how to be creative, you’re going to be seriously disappointed. All anybody can do is give you tools that will help you think of ways to do things. No tool is any better or worse than another as far as breeding “creativity.”

It’s what you do with the tool.

But in the end, that’s all they are…tools.

All of them. Every single last one of them.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

A big problem that songwriters have is after they’ve come up with their first verse and refrain or chorus, they don’t know where to go from there. And a big reason for this is that they’ve said everything there is to say in the very first verse and chorus. They’ve left nothing else to say.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. This is a verse and chorus that I just came up with off the top of my head. Forgive how had it is. It’s 7:16 in the morning on a Saturday.

“There was this girl that I really liked
I just had to have her for my wife
So I asked this girl to marry me
And be with me the rest of my life”

Chorus

“And we lived happily ever after
We lived happily ever after
We lived happily ever after
Until the end of time”

See what I did? I essentially told our whole story in that one verse and chorus. There was this girl I liked. I asked her to marry me, to which she obviously said yes. And we lived happily ever after.

There is nothing left to say. I have said it all. Oh sure, I can just go on about how our lives were wonderful and what we did, but it’s just more of the same. There is no real development of this story possible. And this is what most beginning songwriters do. They say everything they have to say right up top and there is no where left to go.

And even worse in this case is that the chorus is so final, that even if the first verse wasn’t complete, there is no place left to go with a chorus like that. This is about as bad a lyric as you can get. Yes, I’m very good at writing bad lyrics. I’ve had lots of practice.

Okay, how can we make this lyric better aside from throwing it in the scrap heap? Well, what we want to do is map out kind of a story board. One instructor I had called them boxes and each box had to be able to fit in the box that came after it so that the story had room to grow. So if boxes work for you, we’ll use boxes.

What do we put in our first box? We want to basically tell the same story about how a guy met a girl, really liked the girl, wanted to marry the girl and eventually did get the girl of his dreams. But we can tell that story in a way where we don’t say everything we want to say right up top.

Let’s try something like this.

Box 1

Guy meets this girl. Really likes this girl. Wants to go out with this girl but doesn’t know how to go about it. Dreams of being married someday.

Box 2

Guy tries every trick he can think of to win this girl but nothing works. Still dreams of being married.

Box 3

Realizes that all he had to do was be himself and the girl falls in love with him. He no longer has to dream of being married.

There you go. The story now has a natural progression from the time when he first met the girl to when he finally does get the girl and he no longer has to “dream” of being married, hinting that they did in fact get married.

I’ll leave it to you to write the actual lyric. There should be at least 3 verses and a chorus after each one. Shouldn’t be too difficult for you to write.

Let’s do another one.

“My son went off to war
He was such a brave son
But then I got the news the other day
My son was gone”

Chorus

“He was gone, gone gone
He was gone, gone gone
He was gone, gone, gone
Forevermore”

Again, nowhere left to go. Son went off to war, died and now he’s gone. Another example of a really bad lyric. How can we improve this? Well, let’s go back to our boxes.

Box 1

I remember when my son was born. Seems like yesterday

Box 2

I remember him growing up. Seems like yesterday

Box 3

I remember him going off to war. Seems like yesterday

There you have it. A natural progression. He’s born, he grows up, he goes off to war. And each box can dive into the life of this boy in some great detail until finally he goes off to war and it all comes to an end.

Not the happiest song in the world, but at least it tells its story in a nice sequence of events.

If writers would use the box idea and map out their songs in advance, they’d find that their songs didn’t run into dead ends so fast.

But the main reason why this happens is because, usually, the main idea is flawed to begin with. The songwriter will pick a subject from a particular starting point and there’s just no place to go with it. They’ve boxed themselves into a corner before they’ve even started.

Unfortunately, recognizing these dead end subjects and starting points is not always easy. Sometimes you don’t realize that you have no place to go until after you’ve completed the first verse and chorus. And this is a very common problem when the chorus basically says “and this is the way it ends.” When you do that, you leave yourself very little room to wiggle out of that corner.

This is why a lot of pop songs either don’t really say much of anything at all (it’s easier that way) or they come up with a chorus that is just a lot of catchy words but don’t really have any meaning. They rely on the music, and not the lyric, to drive the song and turn it into a “hit.” This doesn’t mean that the song is any good artistically. Yes, I’m a snob. Deal with it.

If you want to be a good writer and not just make money, think about how you can make your songs better. One way to do that is by thinking about where you’re going to go from here.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

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