disappointment

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Disappointment – To fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of.

Okay, so perhaps as a nation we were again a bit full of ourselves to think we could win the World Cup… but we always have that hope.  To be honest it’s the ‘hope’ that keeps a lot of us going.

What is it with England and disappointment?  I think it’s in our DNA.  But cheer up guys, it’s not all bad!  We are what we are.  Some of our brightest lights have shone from a place of disappointment.  Take a listen to Nick Drake.  Sometimes, just sometimes, from a bleak place can come a beautiful thing.  The Americans have a “build them up and take pride in them” attitude to life.  The English come from a different place.  We dwell in “build them up and knock them down”.  Our music can be bleak.  Listen to Pink Moon, or any of the wealth of bleak albums that this little island has produced.  I love bleak.  I love sad.  I love empty.  Some people shine brightly, but just for a moment… then they’re gone.  But never forgotten.  Here’s to all the people that others will never forget.

And don’t worry… we’re gonna win the World Cup four years from now!

summer solstice 2010

Posted on Posted in artTagged , ,

We could all use a little inspiration from time to time.  An evening stroll through Dartmoor a couple of nights ago reminded me of the wonders on my own doorstep.  I always take a camera with me when I’m out and about, and often the resulting pictures fuel the creation of a new song.  The images I captured on the longest day of the year are certainly food for thought and I can already see possibilities for some new confession of the whole school artwork!

a collection of found notes

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Isn’t a song a great thing?  You know the feeling… when you’re young and you’re hearing all these great sounds for the first time – whether it be rock, Britpop, punk, dance, dubstep, whatever particular era you have connected with.  I’ve had a few ‘eras’ in my time!  Ha ha.  The beginning of an ‘era’ I remember very fondly was hearing “Babies” by Pulp for the first time.  Do you remember the first time?  I certainly do.  I was very much into rock at the time… and then this amazing geeky, glam style band comes on Top of the Pops (or something similar) and blows my mind.  It sounded fresh and spectacularly weird.  But intensely catchy and emotional.  Little did I really understand at the time that they were just tapping into a style that had been and gone long before – it didn’t matter… it rocked my world.  Led me into my ‘indie’ era very nicely.  I had a band at the time.  We had previously been tapping into my indie/punk/pop past… but the whole Britpop thing really swept the nation’s bands in a wave of new thinking and eventual mediocrity.

The song is an amazing thing isn’t it?  I mean… what is it?  As an entity what is it exactly?  It is a collection of sounds that can move people – make them laugh, cry, dance, get them angry (Henry Rollins I’m pointing at you!).  Some of you out there (in fact most, if the amount of dross on the net is anything to go by) are in a band these days.  Or solo.  Or a ‘dj’.  Whatever.  So… what is a song?  How does it come to be?

Paul McCartney likes to claim that ‘Yesterday’ came to him in a dream.  I can kind of believe it.  There was a time, long ago, when I had a dream that I was in a band and we had written the greatest ever song.  And in the dream I had it all, the verse, chorus, lyrics, tune, everything.  And it really was great!  When I woke up, for a few minutes I had it in my head… and it was really special!  But a cup of tea later… gone.  All of it.  Gone.  That could have been my ‘scrambled eggs’ – I mean ‘Yesterday’.  The point being that a song can come from no-where.  Absolutely from no-where. And then I phoned Jack Black and told him all about it!

So, what is a song?  One minute you have nothing.  A little later, after a bit of tomfoolery in a studio you have something that never existed before.  I sat down today with my acoustic guitar and just let my fingers stroll around the fret-board.  I pressed record on my studio desk and within 5 minutes I had the foundations of a new song.  It didn’t exist while I was out for Father’s Day earlier… but now it does.  And it may exist for evermore (if it goes on the album).  A song is such a random event.  If your favourite artist hadn’t picked the guitar up that day.  Or if Lady Ga Ga was washing her hair that particular evening.  Or if the Wombles had been tidying Wimbledon Common like they were supposed to be in the 70s rather than hanging out with Mike Batt.  You see what I’m saying?  A song is a tragic chance of a missed opportunity.  The greatest song I could ever have written may have been conceived a couple of days ago during that dire England match.  But I chose to watch the overpaid sock puppets rather than pick up my guitar.  Thus… the song does not exist.  What is a song?  Is it something that occurs when someone can be bothered to write one?  Thank God Jimmy wasn’t going to the Post Office to renew his car tax on the day he wrote “Stairway to Heaven”!

What is a song?  A song is a hit and miss, random, never to be repeated, one-off event.  Blink and you miss it!  Blink and you miss the hit you could have written.  So what are we songwriters left with?  We are left with a collection of moments.  A collection of ‘found notes’.

A collection of found notes can change your life.  Alter your attitude to life, shape your character.  The emo kids in town huddled under the trees.  The club girls out on a Saturday night dressed as fairies complete with skimpy underwear and wand!  The metallers… the indie kids… the punks. Everyone.  Everywhere.  And all because they once heard a collection of found notes that struck a chord (literally) with them.  Found a route direct to the heart.  Formed their being.

That’s not to say you can’t then be influenced by a new collection of found notes.  You see, with Brit-Pop, although the first of the bands found a collection of notes, the bands following in their slip-stream didn’t bother.  They just re-used those notes… again and again.  And hence Brit-Pop was over.  You can also assign political reasons to the collapse of the music… but really, all music is just waiting for the ‘next big thing’ to come along and knock it off its perch.  Nirvana destroyed Hair Metal.  Oasis destroyed Rock (before then becoming it).  Something is always there to destroy something else.  Now pop is the king again.  Everyone is trying to find out what Lady Ga Ga has hidden in her pants.

What is a song?  A song is an Easter egg hidden for the kids to find.  And everyone knows the kids are alright!  When that first human first strung some sounds together little did he (I’m gonna assume it was a he!!!) know the influence he would have on the world.

What is a song?  A collection of found notes.  If someone else finds them before you do then I’m afraid you can kiss the hits goodbye.  You will be forever playing Wonderwall outside the shopping precinct.  Come on buskers… find some DIFFERENT notes!!!

epicness

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Just watched Part 1 of the Doctor Who series finale.  In my humble opinion – really great stuff.  Universe scaling, balls to the wall tea time tele!  And a reminder to everyone that being ‘epic’ is pretty much always a great thing.

Crossing the road… not epic.

Making a cup of tea… not epic.

Knitting a new scarf… not epic.

So what is epic?  I consider epic to be something on a colossal scale.  Something that takes your breath away.  So, what’s this got to do with music?  Well my little Confessioners… if you take the time to listen to the music that your mentor is creating for you you’ll hear the journey towards epicness.  The aspiration to fulfill the perfect ‘epic’ song!

How do you make a song epic?  Well, let’s forget about how YOU make it epic, let’s talk about me a bit more!  I love epicness.  There, I’ve said it (well, typed it… but it’s the same thing really and not worth pontificating).  I digress… I love ‘big’ songs.  Always have done.  Whether it be ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’ or ‘Kashmir’, there is something ‘above and beyond’ about a song which has its sights set so high.  There are many musical methods to create an ‘epic’ song.  I suppose the easiest way (and I say ‘easiest’ with the hugest pinch of salt) is to use an orchestra.  This leads me to the next term.  CINEMATIC.  This is a word I have used to describe my music for a long time.  But what does it actually mean?  Well, I would consider a song that paints a picture in your mind a cinematic song.  Some songs are throw-away songs.  Catchy they can be… but do they linger?  Do they make you weep?  Do they make your day?… make your life???  I ‘feel’ a cinematic song.  It is a statement of intent.  The writer has a passion for a subject and they want to inject it straight into your heart or your brain.  How much longer must we endure the average?  The mean?  The mode?  I live for the epic.  Listen to the ending of songs such as The Comedy is Over, Fall or Where We Go Next.  These are songs that make you want to set fire to your furniture (then cry as you realise you haven’t even paid for that damn sofa yet!).  I want emotion.  I don’t want emoticons.  I want the real thing.  I want Coke!!!

Um, anyway… Yes, I watched Doctor Who tonight.  An epic episode.  I like epic!!!

the key change

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Here’s one for you… the concept of the key change.  I know, sounds incredibly boring – and probably is – but here goes anyhow!

I once presented a song to a producer and he refused to let me record it as it had a key change at the end.  The key change, for those of you not familiar, is a pretty standard musical device employed in every Eurovision Song Contest entry!  Ha ha.  To be honest it’s a standard musical trick used in many a classic song.  You just take the main phrase of the song and transpose it up or down the keyboard.  What this means in simple terms is usually a feeling of euphoria as the song takes a (usually) upward shift in pitch – you know… the “let’s see those hands in the air” part of the song!

Annnnyyyyywaaaayyy…..  this producer thought the ‘key change’ was a terribly cheesy thing to put in a song.  And I must admit that because of this one piece of throwaway off the cuff advice I pretty much dumped the whole idea of the key change for ever more.  The positives?  I haven’t written a song that sounds like it could be entered in a contest that only 1,000,000,000 people watch.  Hmmm… I haven’t written a song that sounds like a generic dance song.  Seriously… you’re one of the lucky ones if you’re even reading this page – There is a hell of a lot of generic toss out there!  Give a thousand chimps a thousand DAWs for a thousand years!!!

(DAW – Digital Audio Workstation.  I know, when you have to explain the gag…)

The negatives? (and the rest of this paragraph needs to be read aloud in a Vincent Price impersonation)  I need the opportunity to claim back the key change and prove the producer wrong!  The new song has a key change at the end.  Yes… please, don’t fall down at the back.  And anyone who ever knew me during the barren key-changeless years please roll your tongues back in!!!  I’m going to show that a key change doesn’t have to be purely the territory of Vegas.   I’m going to do it with style and a certain swagger.

… and if it sounds like sh*t, what the hell – I’ll dump the key change! After all… key changes make your song sound like a Eurovision entry!!!  😉

Japan

Posted on Posted in song discussion

So my fellow confessioners… I have made the most strangest of additions to the latest song today.  I have added a cute little tune using wine glasses (I do like to have running themes!) which sounds distinctly Japanese.  I don’t quite know why.  It must either be the sound of the glass or the particular scale I’m using.  I will have to read up on my Japanese music theory and get back to you.  In any case it has lifted the song, and also taken it down yet another path.  The trick is to gel the song together in its final moments.  Right now it sounds rather disparate.  I am the master of pulling a song together though!  Let (samurai) battle commence!

back to the notepad

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No… not a belated sequel to a Michael J Fox franchise. I’ve got the notepad out again and I’m sketching ideas for a new song. Where we go next was a great success and therefore I’m trying to get that lightening to strike the same place twice (a clock tower perhaps?)! I shall again try to get the skeleton of the song jotted down in my cool little notepad. This pad will be worth a fortune one day! People will queue to touch it!!! Ha ha!

The new song already has a musical motif. A strong tune and a driving drum beat. I shall keep you all updated with the progress of the piece. I would have liked sites such as this when I was growing up. To have been updated about the ins and outs of the songwriting process as it was happening with my favourite bands/songwriters would have been a total insight. I’m not necessarily saying I’m a songwriter anyone should admire (well… I am), but I certainly think the creation of a song is sometimes just as interesting as the final product. I was always one for “making of”s and “behind the scene”s. Ha ha, maybe I’m the only person who listens to all the commentaries on a DVD! Let’s be clear… I’m not saying anyone needs to know what a song “means” – I’m all for ambiguity. I just think it’s nice to be included on the journey. In this case… as it happens. Over and out fellow confessioners!