The Song

Ok!!

Enough bashing. I think I have sufficiently vented about my pet peeves that I hear over and over again in the popular songs of today. I think now we should turn to dissecting the creature that keeps the music industry running. Biological analogies aside, I am of course referring to “The Song.”

If we were to turn on the radio at any station at any time, grab whatever song is playing, shove it in a bag with some air holes, bring it back to our rooms, duct tape it onto a table, and finally shine the lights on it, here is what you would probably see:

Before any dissecting is done, before we really get our hands dirty, we might notice that the length of our particular specimen (whether or not he came from a Country, Hip-Hop, Rock, or Alternative radio station) is approximately 3-4 minutes in length. This came to be solely because of technological limitations in the past that do not exist today. At the turn of the 20th century, after Edison had invented his phonograph, the popular medium for recording and distributing songs was the analog record. They are like CD’s but bigger…

I don't understand...

…

Yea, so anyway, early records like the popular 78 rpm records could only store about 3-5 minutes of sound. Thus, songwriters (like the famous Tin Pan Alley songwriters) kept cranking out 3-4 minute “hit” songs. Any longer and you risked having to use to records for one song. And who wants to have to get up and change records during the middle of a song? As a side note, Led Zeppelin almost made 7:55 the new 3 minutes, as this length of their hit single “Stairway to Heaven” proved to be the perfect amount of time for a radio DJ to leave and have a cigarette. Some music writers have even said that this may be the reason why the song got such extensive air play and why the song became a hit in the first place. There exist quite a few interesting tidbits about this song including its length and radio play as mentioned, as well as accusations of plagiarism and hidden backwards lyrics. Check it out when ya got the time=> Stairway to Heaven

Now we whip out the scalpel. Once again, the innards of a typical song are usually the same across the many different genres. Here are the organs of a song, presented in their usual order of appearance:

1. Intro
2. Verse 1
3. Pre Chorus
4. Chorus
5. Verse 2
6. Pre Chorus
7. Chorus
8. Solo/Bridge
9. Chorus
10. Outro (optional)

And there you have it. To many, writing an effective “hit”song just means writing and implementing these parts to make the whole. Over the next few posts, I’ll examine each of these parts (Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo/Bridge, and Outro) in order, and discuss how songwriters optimize their effectiveness in doing whatever it is they are supposed to do. For my next post, let’s start at the beginning and talk about the “Intro,” the “legs” of the song that give it a foundation off which to work. See you next week.

(Sorry no playlist this week)

The Elusive Tambourine

Go ahead and watch the first minute of the above video. I’m sure many of you have seen it. Admit it…Yes it is a Fall Out Boy music video. So did you watch it? Yea? Notice anything odd besides Pete Wentz’s outfit? It happens right around the 0:49 second mark. The band is grooving on their catchy little bass riff, the crowds clapping along with the snare drum, and then…what the, WHO’S PLAYING THE GODDAMN TAMBOURINE??!

As you look around and notice that the other instrumentalists do not have a hidden tambourine somewhere on their

Guy behind Patrick=Tambourinist

instruments, and Patrick Stump’s hands are empty, the only other explanation is that someone in the throng of prom-goers must be the secret 5th member of Fall Out Boy. Yea. That must be it.

The truth is that many popular bands, if we were to examine their music like this, would also have secret 5th, 6th, or 7th band members comitted solely to full-time tambourine playing. Now, a note before I move any further. Technically this “elusive tambourine” trend is more of song producing trend rather than a song writing trend. In other words, during live performances of Fall Out Boy’s Dance Dance we may or may not hear the secret 5th member’s tambourine; and I doubt that when the band was actually writing this song one of them stopped and said, “we need to add tambourine right here.” In other words, the elusive tambourine added to the final version of a band’s “hit” song (the music video version) is a recording or production trick or technique used to add a strong rhythmic backbone to move the song along.

In some songs that use this technique the tambourine is quite audible like in the Fall Out Boy song above and Fountains of Wayne’s Stacy’s Mom. Others, such as The Jonas Brothers’ S.O.S. song, I believe are not really supposed to be noticed. Hence the elusiveness of this tambourine. There are many songs where the rhythmic backbone that is the tambourine is not meant to be heard consciously, but rather subconsciously. It is almost as if the production engineer didn’t want you to notice that there was a tambourine, but did want you to notice that there was something about the song that really “made it move.”

Since it is so often hard to hear, here (wow back to back homophones! Awkward…) are some tips for finding the elusive tambourine within the song “jungle.” It’s a treasure hunt! Crikey!

1. Very often a tambourine is incorporated into a song with a very slow tempo, as can be heard in Blue October’s Hate Me, Foo Fighters’ Wheels, and the very beginning of Weezer’s Perfect Situation. Thus the tambourine helps to “move the song along” and somehow actually weakens our perception that the song is moving at a very slow tempo.
2. Most of the time the tambourine only plays, or is predominant in the chorus of the song. The chorus is after all the most important part of the song, and often times a tambourine will just add that extra sparkle. An example of a song where the tambourine is only used during the chorus is Blue October’s What if We Could.
3. When listening for the tambourine, be aware that, relative to the meter of the song, the tambourine is almost always playing 16th notes. If the tambourines played 8th or quarter notes then they wouldn’t be the rhythmic powerhouses that they are! If they played 32nd notes or something, well, then it just wouldn’t sound humanly possible. All five of the examples given so far have 16th note tambourines.

Here is a playlist of the songs mentioned already plus other tambourine-happy songs. Enjoy, and I hope you might do some tambourine hunting yourself!

Tambourine Playlist

More Pop Song Trends!: Lyrics

Spinal Tap was way ahead of me on the topic that I would like to discuss. As a satirical rock band, Spinal Tap managed to make fun of everything rock n’ roll; their most popular skit being the “turn it up to 11!” scene from their fake rockumentary “This is Spinal Tap.” Besides the gags, they have also managed to write some very clever songs. One of my favorite Spinal Tap songs (mainly because I can remember playing it on Guitar Hero II) is “Tonight Im Gonna Rock You Tonight.” Haha they used the word “tonight” excessively! They really only needed one!.. yes I know. I know. Thank you.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why did they decide to use the word “tonight” instead of any other? Well, either rock n’ roll lyric writing followed the same trend as many lyricisits are following now, or Spinal Tap could see into the future. I’m open for possibilities really.

This trend in either incorporating the word “tonight” or at least having the story or content of the lyrics take place during nightime is probably the most pervasive trend that we have talked about thus far. It can be seen in pretty much all genres of music, but is especially prominent in the Pop/Alternative music coming out of B 97 everyday. Some songs, like Spinal Tap’s song, are open about its lyrical content and have the word “tonight” in the title. Examples include Chris Daughtry’s “Feels Like Tonight“, The All American Rejects’ “It Ends Tonight“, and the Jonas Brothers’ aptly titled song “Tonight” (which, by the way, can be found under countless other artists). Other songs like The Black Eyed Peas’ “I gotta Feeling” and Secondhand Serenade’s “Fall for You” don’t actually have the word “tonight” in the title but still make plenty use of it.

The #2 iTunes download right now is Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister”, and I am all over this one. For not only does it randomly throw in the word “tonight” at the end of the chorus, but it uses that darn I V vi IV chord progression for the majority of the song. An interesting similarity arises when comparing this Train song with Boys Like Girls’ song “Great Escape.” During the choruses of both of these songs, the singer is going along telling his story all fine and what not, only to pause for a second at the end to insert a “tonight” to qualify it as a hit song I guess. I don’t know.

Like I said earlier, while some lyricists don’t actually overtly use the word “tonight” or “night” in their song, many of them still center the lyrics around nightime. Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” (#4 iTunes download) and Owl City’s “Fireflies” are both popular examples of this.

In thinking about why this trend exists, I have come up with a number of reasons. The first two deal exclusively with the songwriter. 1.) Since I enjoy writing songs as well, I understand that the usually ideal time to really write a song (especially the lyrics) is nightime. Nightime provides the quiet atmosphere often times needed to sit, reflect, and write. 2.) Many songs are about emotional encounters or aspects of the songwriter’s life, and, in my opinion, I would say that most of these emotional encounters occurr during the nightime. If you just broke up with someone, you can’t stop thinking about someone, your best friend just got way to drunk and did something stupid, it is probably nightime. Or not.

The other two reasons deal with the listeners or audience that the music targets. 3.) Alot of the Pop/Alternative songs are being heard primarily in dance clubs and bars by this target audience, and what time of day do you go to bars and clubs? Thus it would only make sense for the music to which they are listening to talk about how “tonight’s going to be a good, good night.” 4.) Teenagers are also the other big target audience, but they are too young to go to clubs and bars. But that’s OK. Nightime is the teenager’s world. After being in school all day, they listen to their music and talk to their friends primarily at night. So, it would only make sense for Boys Like Girls to sing to them about how we are going to make a great escape tonight and not today. Where does a song like Train’s “Soul Sister” fit in? It’s definitely not club music, and judging by the age of these guys, are they really going for teenagers? Is the word tonight just thrown into the song because the lyricist saw this trend? Once again, I don’t know. What do you think?

Here is a playlist of the songs mentioned in this post as well as other relevant songs:

“Tonight” Playlist

The Future of Music: A Chaos Theory (finale)

 

What kind of popular music will we see in the world 10 years from now? Twenty years from now? I have relentlessly given my opinion that whatever kind of music is in store for the future, it will surely be even more experimental, unformulaic, and creative. But hey, maybe this theory is just my subconscious trying to make my hopes and dreams for the future of music a reality. 🙂

Some other questions that I have asked myself when thinking about the future of popular music and popular songs. What kind of genres will be popular 20 years from now? An even more mind-boggling question: what will the popular instruments be for making music and writing songs? What kind of crazy instruments might come out of near future technological advances?

I would like to first talk about the questions dealing with instruments. Looking through history, there is no doubt that a major change in technology will always create  a major change for the music industry. Songwriters, musicians, and producers are eager to use the latest up-to-date instruments, software, and hardware to more easily and creatively make and distribute music. Who knows what new instruments will be availble 20 years from now. Thinking about your typical popular band, the bass guitar, electric guitar, keyboard, and drumset have been the instruments of choice for quite some time now. But these instruments can’t reign forever…can they? A friend of mine and I were discussing the possibility of “mind based” instruments becoming popular in the future. Whatever you need to write and make music is implanted right into your brain. You can then wirelessly connect your “brain instrument” to a speaker and manipulate the sounds coming out just by thinking about them. You could form a band with other mind musicians and play in front of your local audience as you stand shoulder to shoulder with your band mates, no instruments to come in between you and your audience, and stare blankly into space to start your song.

Wow.

As far as popular genres go, it doesn’t seem like rock n’ roll, rap, or country are going anywhere. Will a new genre only emerge alongside new instruments? I think so. And if no new popular instruments should appear… well the songwriters only other choice is to experiment more and more within your instrument and your genre as you slowly seem to run out of “new” and “exciting” things to do.

I’ll keep this one nice and short so as to allow plenty of time for contemplation on the topics just discussed. What do you think we will hear when we tune into our HHHHD radios in our flying cars 20 years from now?