Most of us tend to think about vocal parts in a straight forward way.  If you write rock or country music, you think about adding singing parts.  If you write rap music, you think about adding rapping.

But what if there were more directions you could take with your music?  I don’t mean on every song… or even for a whole song… but what if you could come up with some things that were slightly outside the box to make your songs more interesting?

Other thoughts to consider about vocal parts

-Effects can be our friends as we’re trying to be creative. Vocals that sound bland on their own might sound cool with delays, distortion, phasing, wah effects, choruses, vibrato, tremelo, etc, etc, etc.  How about running them through a VST effect?  Or artificially doubling them?  Or time stretching them?  Or artificially changing their pitch?  Any tweak like that can change the texture and feel of the vocals, and might give you an interesting sound.

-Turning vocals backwards can lead to interesting things. Turning them backwards and adding reverb or delay, then turning them back to the original way can lead to cool creepy effects.  That effect is called Reverse Reverb.  You’ve probably heard it done on snare drums back in the 80s.

-Try recording reversed vocals that will make sense when they’re reversed. Meaning…. Let’s say you wanted to say the phrase “It’s time to rock”.  Record yourself saying the phrase.  Turn it backwards.  Try to “say it” backwards the best you can, learning all the different sounds as if they are new words.  Record yourself again, this time trying to say the “new words”.  When you flip the new recording backwards, hopefully it’ll sound a lot like the original phrase…. but it will create a unique effect.

-You don’t have to stay serious in everything you do. A funny song is just as much “music” as a serious song.  Be willing to get crazy from time to time.  It’s a GREAT way to get your mind thinking outside the box.

-Not everything has to make sense. Obviously if you wrote “jibberish” in everything that we did, it would get tiresome, but for artistic purposes if it gets us going we should go for it.  I mean, rock n roll spent the better part of a decade singing stuff about girls named “Rama Lama Ding Dong“, or singing “Wop Bop a Loo Bop“. Even Kid Rock got famous by singing “Bawitabade bang de dang diggy diggy diggy said the diggy said up jump the diggy”.  And I’ve never understood a word of any Bush song.

-Sample Yourself! Have you ever recorded other vocalists doing other songs?  Have you recorded yourself doing other songs?  Sample them!  Have you ever shot video at a birthday party, holiday, or just hanging out with friends?  Sample the audio!  See what you can reuse in new and creative ways.

-Mix It Up! You don’t have to stick with traditional arrangements when it comes to writing lyrics.  Perhaps we want to write a song that has a guitar melody for the verses, then some kind of vocals for the choruses and bridge.  Maybe you want to write a song that is just a vocal verse, a musical bridge, then the song ends.  You can’t let traditional styles hold us back.

A while back I took a quick look at the parts of a song.  Today’s post will actually be somewhat of a follow up to that post.  I’d recommend glancing at the original post first, then coming back to this one.

Now that we have defined the common song parts, let’s take a look at less conventional ways we can put them together.  Once again, this will be a list of ideas to get you started with looking at arrangement creatively.  It’s FAR from an exhaustive list.

Arrangement thoughts

-It’s possible to use all these elements, although it would probably make for a looooong song.

-Try to change up which elements are used, as well as what order they’re used.

-It’s possible to have two different verse sections, like in  Intro / Verse A / Chorus / Verse A / Chorus / Verse B / Chorus / Verse B / Chorus but unless each part was pretty short, the song could get too long really quick.

-Try using unconventional arrangements…. starting with a bridge instead of a verse, using a music solo as the chorus, etc

-Sometimes end a song with a repeat of the first verse, or maybe a couple lines from the first verse

-Use both a pre-chorus and a post-chorus, but structure them in ways that it somehow reiterates the hook of the song

-Use breakdowns before a powerful part of the song to make it more powerful.  Usually there is only one breakdown in a song, but experiment with using more than one.

Vocal Parts Don’t Have to be Singing Parts

I’ve been writing musical parts, pieces, and songs for a long time.   Guitar riffs, chord progressions, piano parts, synth layers, loop arranging… I’ve been into creating things like that for years and years now.  It has just been in the last two or three years, though, that I’ve ventured into writing lyrics and vocal parts to songs.

Even then, though, I was striving to search for things that were different.  I have and have had the luxury of working with some really good singers and lyricists over the years.  I’ve had band mates that have done it, Casey from BHP, my dad is a songwriter, my wife is a songwriter, I’ve had several friends that are good singers… so for me, writing lyrics or vocal lines wasn’t always a necessity for me to complete a good song.

Because of that, when I started writing I felt like I had a lot of room to explore and try weird things, even if I knew they might not be “hit song” material.

Singing?  Computers Can Do That?

One of the things I’ve played around with is using Text-To-Speech (TTS) software and/or websites to do vocal parts for me.

I’ll tell you right now that if you experiment with it, it’s not going to sound natural.  Don’t really even attempt it if you’re looking for a fair substitution of a real singer.  They’re really only good for experimental sounds, weird projects, and “for fun”.

But since I personally love experimental sounds, weird projects, and “for fun” music, I was all over it.

A few months ago I mentioned a song called “Jim’s Acoustic” in a post.  That was an example of using text-to-speech software to sing the chorus of a song.  I wanted to go a little farther on the next song.

For my musical experiments I often use pieces of muse that me or Jim (James Blair, part of BHP, occasional writer for this blog) have laying around that never got used in anything else.  A quick side note, Jim and I write a LOT of stuff, and we record EVERYTHING.  What that means is that the best parts and pieces get selected for projects, and the others lay around in a “riff library” that we’ve built over the years.  When I’m just trying to experiment with something or hone my lyric writing skills, I often go digging through that library.

I wrote a collection of about 10 “experimental” type songs to riffs that Jim had written over the years, and to challenge myself, I tried to keep the title of the riff that Jim had originally given.  “Jim’s Acoustic” was one of those songs, for example, so I wrote the lyrics about Jim’s Acoustic guitar.

Okay, back on track… the reason I brought all that up is because the text-to-speech song that I’m talking about today was another one of those songs.  Jim had originally entitled the riff “Falling Behind”, so I wrote the lyrics based around the title Falling Behind.

The verses were done “spoken word” style, but I used a website TTS program (I don’t remember which… there are tons.  Just use Google) to record the parts.  For the choruses, I used a very simplistic melody and programmed the singing with FL Studio (Image Line FL Studio 9 Fruity Edition Regular)

Here’s the song:

(If you’d rather download it than use the play button, click here)

Here are the lyrics to the song:

Verse 1
——–
Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up
Like the waves are over my head
I feel like I can’t face the day
Like I should’ve stayed in bed

When life gives you lemons you gotta make lemonade
Boy, that’s sure easy to say
But the truth is sometimes the lemons taste so sour
That they can ruin any day

Chorus
——-
Life keeps throwing me curve balls
I can’t stop falling behind
Life is loaded with pitfalls
I can’t stop falling behind
With hurdles coming my way
I have to stop and pray
Guide me through my life
Stop me from falling behind

Verse 2
——–
I know I have to stay calm and keep focused on my goals
And keep the end result in mind
So that I don’t fall off the track in life
So I don’t keep falling behind

Even though it’s easier said than done
I know that I can make it through
I can do all things through he that strengthens me
That much I know is true

As you can see, it creates a different sound, but for the musicians out there looking to experiment and find odd and unique sounds, it might be something worth playing with.

Has anyone else ever tried stuff like this?

Is it possible to write a song without playing an instrument?

I’m fascinated with finding new ways of creating music.

One thing I’ve played around with a little, but haven’t quite grasped it’s full potential is MIDI.  Even though I’m far from a MIDI expert, though, I feel like I’ve done some cool things with it over the years.

One of the things that has really made MIDI useful in recent years is the emergence of really good (even sometimes free) VST instruments.  For those who have never used VST instruments, basically what they do is take your MIDI notes and translate them into different types of instruments.  Basically they turn your computer into a limitless synthesizer.

Sometimes, VST instruments sound incredibly realistic.

Well, one day a while back I wanted to experiment with VSTs and MIDI a little bit.

I pulled out a program called Guitar Pro which is a pretty cool little piece of software.  Guitar Pro allows you to write out music in Guitar Tablature notation, then it turns that notation into a MIDI track.  You can lay out parts for multiple instruments, and the software will play back a MIDI version of what you created.

In Guitar Pro I started laying out parts for acoustic guitar tracks, piano tracks, violin, drums, and other instruments.  I tried to think outside of my own boundaries by designing parts that I wouldn’t typically play if I was playing the actual instruments themselves, or a keyboard to emulate those instruments.

When I was done, I exported the song to a MIDI track, and loaded it into my DAW software (I use Reaper.  You should check it out).

I dialed up some appropriate VSTs for each of the MIDI tracks, did a little mixing, and this is what I came up with:

I have to say that I was fairly proud of myself that  I ended up with a song like this without touching a single instrument.  It’s a completely original piece, using nobody’s previous ideas, no pre-recorded loops, and I did it completely with a mouse and a computer keyboard.

Like I said, there are lots of free VSTs out there to use if you want to try something like this.  Guitar Pro isn’t free, but I’m betting there is something at least somewhat similar that is.  Anybody know of anything?

Last week I showed someone playing the Super Mario Brothers theme on a ruler.

Today I have something that was a probably little more time consuming to set up.

Someone set up a series of glass bottles in the proper order and spacing so that when they drove a remote control car past (set up with something to hit those bottles on the way by), the Super Mario Brothers theme song would be played.

I can’t understand what the people are saying (they’re not speaking English), but this is an impressive feat!

I understand the meaning and the reason behind writing good solid songs that don’t do anything outside of the ordinary.  I try to write a lot of them myself.  But I really love spending time trying to find new ways of making great sounds.

Here are some quick outside-the-box things that maybe you want to try.

1. Try to write a guitar riff where you pick can only touch a string on the 1 count of every measure.  All the other notes have to come from hammer-ons, pull offs, or taps.
2. Run your keyboard through your guitar effects processor.
3. Run your vocals through your guitar effects processor.
4. When working with VSTi’s and MIDI, load 3 or more VST instruments on the same MIDI track
5. Write and record a riff or chord progression, then reverse it using your computer.  Write the rest of the song around the reversed track.
6. Using MIDI, write/design/program a musical part that would be nearly impossible for a human to play on whatever instrument you choose.
7. Experiment with mic placement and your guitar amp.  Put them both on separate sides of the room.  Put them both in an echo-ey bathroom.  Face them in the opposite directions from one another.
8. Buy an instrument from the Toys department of your favorite department store.  Try to write a serious sounding song around a riff or progression that you can get from that instrument.
9. Get the cheapest keyboard and cheapest mic you can find ($15 each at Walmart?).  Write an entire song using only musical sounds you can get from that keyboard and vocal sounds you can get with that mic, and spend time trying to make it as good as possible.
10. Pick up an acoustic guitar.  Write and record a full sounding song using that acoustic guitar as your ONLY source of instrumentation.  Use it to create percussion parts, chord progressions, record a bass line then drop it a couple octaves on your computer to fill the low end.  See how many interesting layers you can get using only that guitar

Try some of these out.  Maybe they’ll inspire you.  If not directly, maybe a new idea will pop into your head because of what you read here.

If anyone tries any one of these out, I’d love for you to send me the results.  Email me at jason@creative-music.org

Home made Instruments: Percussion

I think a lot of musicians who are driven by being creative are fascinated by the idea of making their own instruments.  Quite a while ago I linked to a few sites about homemade instruments, and it was an article that a lot of people seemed to enjoy.

Recently I found a website that I’ve known about for years, and I decided I should share it with you guys.

The site is called Homemade Percussion.  Basically the entire site is about making your own percussion instruments.  The projects vary from very simple things that you could do quickly, to more advanced things that might take you a little longer.

The authors of the site have made drums out of coffee cans, pork rind jars, water bottles, and a lot of other things.  They have sound samples for a lot of their stuff.

If you’re into percussion, check it out!

Uh… check this out…

Very interesting.

When I see things like this, I don’t see it as a “replacement” for a guitar… I don’t think the guitar will ever go away.  Instead I see it as an innovative new instrument that most guitar players will be able to pick up and make use of.  Obviously if there are no real strings, it should be possible to change the types of sounds that are coming out of this thing.

This is the only video I’ve seen on it, but my mind can already see lots of different possibilities.

For more info you can go to the creator’s website:  Click Here

If you want to talk about musical creativity, maybe one of the most outside-the-box ways of thinking you can find is creating your own musical instruments.

I’ve always thought the idea was incredibly fascinating, but to be honest, I’ve only done very simple things when it comes to instrument creation, and they’ve all been percussion-based things.

Some people, though, are creative, innovative, AND handy, and those kinds of people are the ones that can do some amazing things.

Check out this site I found.  It’s called “Bret Hart’s Ho-made Instruments”

It looks like it’s an older site that hasn’t been updated for a while, but the site has some descriptions and diagrams of several of the instruments that the author has invented himself.

Here’s another site that has some diagrams and instructions for making your own instruments… some of them traditional instruments, but several of them unique variations of common instruments:

WEBPAGE of DENNIS HAVLENA

And if you really want to see some interesting stuff, search YouTube.

In fact, click HERE to link to my YouTube search for HomeMade instruments.  There are all kinds of crazy things on there.

This just goes to show that if you want to make music you don’t have to have the high dollar guitars and pianos, and you don’t have to spend years taking lessons.  You just have to be willing to try out your own crazy ideas!

A lot of music sounds better with vocals.

I love creating music, and I’m lucky to be around a lot of other creative people, several of which are good singers.  But, you know, it’s just the way things go that sometimes those people aren’t available for every project I want to work on.

And the fact is, more often than not, I find music that has some kind of vocal part to be more interesting than simply an instrumental.  That’s not to say that instrumentals can’t be amazingly good.  I’m just saying that if I was going to listen to 100 songs in a row, I would prefer that over half of them had some kind of vocal part.  Not everyone is the same way, but most people are.

What if I can’t sing?

I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to music sometimes, and for the longest time I completely hated the sound of my voice.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t hit notes, but I just didn’t like the tones and textures that my voice created.  Over the past year or so I’ve started forcing myself to sing more, and to honest my voice has improved because of it.   It makes me wish that I would’ve been pushing myself all along.

But the bright side of all of this is that quite a while back before I was as comfortable singing as I am now, I created a list of ways that I could add vocals to my music without having to actually do any singing.  Even though I’m much more willing to sing these days than I used to be, it’s still nice to have a list of ways that I can stretch the boundaries of “typical” music a little bit.

Non-Singing Vocal Ideas

-Rapping

This may seem obvious, and it may even seem like something you’re not into, but before you automatically discard the idea, think about it for a minute.  Rapping is associated with hip hop music these days, but does it have to be?  Rapping is basically the idea of talking to a rhythm.  Can you fit that into your musical tastes at all?  Toby Keith wrote a song several years ago called “I Want To Talk About Me” that was basically a country rap.  What other directions can you take the idea of rapping?

-Spoken Parts

How about spoken word parts?  Not rapping… not necessarily tied in with a meter and a beat… just talking over your music.  Putting some kind of message that you want to get across into your song without worrying about dividing it up into verses and choruses.

-Sampling/Looping

If you go to Google and search for “vocal samples” or “vocal loops”, you’ll get a plethora of results.  This is something that I’m not personally good at, but there are people with enough ability at arranging sounds that they could come up with very interesting vocal lines just by using samples and loops.  Can you do it?  Have you ever tried?

-Singing Software

This is an idea that’s interesting, but you’re only going to like it if you’re really willing to let your songs be on the experimental side of things, and you’re willing to invest some time in laying out your songs.  Have you ever played around with software singing programs?  The basic idea is you use whatever format the program uses to “teach” the melody of the song to the software, then you type in the words.  The computer then spits out a computer generated vocal part for you.  There are several programs that do it.  One of the more prominent ones (but it’s a bit pricey) is Vocaloid.  Do a search for it and check out some of the demos.  FL Studios will do some similar things, although it wasn’t really built with that function in mind.

To give you an example, I’ll put up a song that I created using this idea.  The song is called “Jim’s Acoustic”, and it was created using a piece of music that my friend Jim had sitting around unused.  I did a spoken part for the verses, then I let a software demo “sing” the choruses for me.

You can download it here:  Jim’s Acoustic

I can’t remember the name of the software I used.  Whatever it was, it was just a free demo program that was a trial of some bigger piece of software.  Do a google search.  You’ll come up with plenty of options.

-Whispering

If you want to try some creative things, try whispering your vocals, then use effects to make them stand out.  Guitar effects do crazy things to whispered vocals.  Experiment, experiment, experiment!

-Using a Talk Box

Think Peter Frampton.  If you’re too young and you’re not familiar with him, then go to YouTube and check him out.  Frampton made the Talk Box famous.  The idea of it is pretty simple:  You play the guitar into this box (basically a miniature amplifier).  The sound comes out of a tube, which you put in your mouth.  You make talking shapes with your mouth while you’re playing the guitar, and the guitar sound comes out of your mouth, basically becoming your voice.

You don’t play guitar, though?

How’s this for some creative thinking… a talk box can be used with pretty much any instrument that can be plugged into a speaker or amplifier.

Can you play the bass through your talk box?  How about your keyboard?  How about electric drums?  What else can you come up with?

Most importantly, mix and match all of the ideas

This can apply to even those of you who do sing well.  How can you take the ideas from above and mix and match them.  Maybe you can…

-Write a song where you talk for a verse, then use a talk box for the chorus
-Write a song where one person is rapping while another person whispers some vocals
-Write a song where you use vocal samples, then use a software singer to harmonize

Remember, the point to all of this is to be creative.  Take my ideas and run with them.  Make them your own.

If you have any ideas to add to this, I’d love to hear them.  Drop me a comment!