The Verge Archive - Nadine de Macedo

The Verge is Back In Town

Nadine — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 13:05:00 +0000

Right after finishing Someone Else’s Song, my alternative rock internet band The Verge thought about our comeback. The title of our new song couldn’t have been more programmatic: Back In Town. It’s a self-deprecating punk rock / melodic hardcore song full of power and excitement. Special thanks go to Horace, who had this splendid idea and to ibzstrat, who arranged the drum set. It was fun to arrange, record and produce that song. We assure, that no guitarists were struck by lightnings during our recording sessions. As usual, our song is available as free download at Myownmusic, SoundCloud and Reverbnation. We look forward to comments, likes and shares. The Verge wishes you a Happy New Year. Since firecracking was forbidden, we provide some noise for your stereo!

This post The Verge is Back In Town was published at Nadine de Macedo.

Someone Else’s Song – A new ballad from The Verge

Nadine — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 17:25:00 +0000

The alternative rock internet band The Verge returns with a brand-new song. As some of you may know, we have tried a lot of genres, but Someone Else’s Song is our first pop rock ballad. Time to close that gap! The story behind “Someone Else’s Song” In Someone Else’s Song the narrator was not able to foresee the signs of a breaking relationship. Instead, he tried to be somebody else and forgot his needs. This song deals with the inner struggle, when you get to know the new partner of your ex. Lyrics and melody came directly into my mind while playing some chords. This song could not have been as pleasant without the riffs, licks and chords of the guitarists ibzstrat and Horace. As in all previous The Verge songs, Horace lends his charismatic voice. I’d like to thank you for the excellent cooperation! As usual, you can listen and download our song at SoundCloud, Reverbnation or Myownmusic. I am proud, that The Verge has interpreted a pop ballad in its very own way.

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September – Songwriting and Arrangement

Nadine — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 16:40:00 +0000

The alternative rock song “September” of The Verge uses interesting songwriting and arrangement techniques. Each step was carefully planned. I would like to present them in this blog post. An exclusive insight to songwriting and music arrangement of alternative rock music. Songwriting of a rock song An autumn love story “September” is about a young man falling unhappily in love. After being rejected, he still tries to understand the reason. Though this love story is quite easy to follow, the musical background is interesting enough to fill a whole post. Plenty of thoughts, songwriting and arrangement techniques and stylistic methods are implemented in this rock song. Within this post, I often link to Wikipedia to explain technical terms. Please comment, if you have questions. But first, I’d like to show you the song “September” on our SoundCloud page. Choice of words, rhymes and phrasing The verses describe the love interest of the narrator. You may expect flawless traits of character and appearance, but the choice of words has a mocking undertone. Each stanza ends with an impure rhyme or homophone. This song does not appear like a poem. It resembles a diary entry. It is quite obvious, that is written after the narrator got the brush-off. During the song, the choruses are slightly modified. The diary theme is picked up, using different days of September with the same amount of syllables. Of course, September the 31st doesn’t exist. Thus, it is a metaphor for the catastrophe. Changing the narrative form After the ditch (2:41) the narrative form switches from storytelling into a dialogue. The words are heavily influenced by the feelings and interpretations of the narrator. It seems quite clear, that the narrator rejects the second chance. Arrangement of an alternative rock song How to write an alternative rock song with a simple chord progression without being too repetitive? September neither uses complex chords nor many melodies. The whole power lies in the arrangement, where the instrumentation, effects and drum patterns change permanently. One leitmotif – One musical theme The arrangement of this rock song builds on one musical theme. It is a melody which goes upward and slides a step backward. This leitmotif emphasizes the lyrics which jumps from present to past. Variations on that theme can be found in the strings and choir. Five chords that stick in your mind Comparing all songs of The Verge, “September” is the one with the most compact music sheet. The main theme consists of five chords and the melody has lots of repetitions. The only variation is during the bass solo, which was recorded spontaneously. This is the whole sheet: Creating tension with the arrangement The tension is created by adding new elements after each stanza, changing the playing techniques, volume, filters and modifying the stereo field. The subtle transition from palm muted chords to openly played power chords is realized by layering and filtering lots of tracks. We also use psychoacoustic tricks to enlarge the stereo field. The drum line becomes more complicated over the time. We switch from closed hi hats to open hi hats to sound more aggressive. The climax (4:24 – 4:46) is a tutti, a part, where all instruments play. The amount of vocal layers rises dramatically. Near the end we can listen to all layers, ad libs and even a choir. How many tracks does this song have? While dealing with songwriting and arrangement, we recorded over 40 tracks for this rock song. Here is the complete list: Vocal tracks (mono): Instruments: September is a complex song The first time you listen to “September”, you may find it repetitive. After reading this post, you may understand the ideas behind this song. The devil lies in the details. “September” was really demanding to mix, and its effects are used creatively. In my honest opinion, mixing the guitars was a tough job. I had to deal with muted, crunched and heavily distorted records from three different guitars. And there were vocals – plenty of vocal tracks, which have nearly the same frequencies and would have been masked easily. We are very proud of the outcome. “September” is part of our debut album “Something you did not know” that you can download on our SoundCloud profile.

This post September – Songwriting and Arrangement was published at Nadine de Macedo.

Let me go – Writing a song in a dream

Nadine — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 11:51:00 +0000

Have you ever heard about songwriting in dreams? In 2007, I dreamt about a rock concert of a fictional alternative rock / post grunge band called The Verge. Their song Let me go and stuck in my mind. In the next morning, I did my best to reproduce chords, lyrics and riffs of the song I dreamt of. This ain’t a simple task, if you never played guitar before. Songwriting in dreams It sounds weird, but yes, I have written a song a dream. The worst part of dreaming is to remember the details, because you are not able to record or write while dreaming. A week after, I created a MIDI sequence which consisted of the riff, the drums, an organ and the vocal line. Being the first alternative rock song I’ve ever written, I haven’t had the faintest idea if this song can be played on real instruments. But since I neither play guitar nor bass, I wrote into the forums of Myownmusic. I met Horace D. who wrote and recorded punk rock and alternative rock songs. He recorded that song for me, but he had to change some details. His tenor voice fit perfectly into this song. During our collaboration I learned a lot about writing, recording and mixing handmade music. I would have never made these experience, if I stuck in electronic music forever. Is it possible to write rock songs without playing guitar? It is, but it can happen, that the drafts are not playable or sound different from what you expected. Coming from electronic music, one might notice that these songs are created for synthesizers. Their range is about 7 octaves and it is possible to hit 10 keys at the same time. This is technically not possible on the guitar since it has only six strings. In addition, not every note can be found on each string. If you give a guitarist some chords, he or she may use different inversions, depending on what he or she is used to. Importantly, some inversions do not match well with piano. It may happen that you change the melody for the keys afterwards. There are plenty of pitfalls which lead you to understand the instrument and their handling first. Firstly, the range of a 4-string electronic bass is limited. You may rewrite the bassline, if it hits notes below E. Secondly, writing drum lines can go terribly wrong, if you forget that a drummer has only two hands and two feet. Furthermore, the closed hi-hat and the open hi-hat are the same cymbal, which can be switched by a pedal. There is some background you need to learn first. What does a song written in a dream sound like? Check it out by clicking on the image. This link will lead you to our SoundCloud profile. “Let me go” is a part of our first album “Something you did not know” is now available as a free download on SoundCloud. Can you tell by the sound, that this song was written in a dream? I don’t think so. This is quite close to the dream, but the riffs in the verse were improvised by Horace. Becoming an internet band Our collaboration went so well that it led to the foundation of our online band. In remembrance of the dream, the band is called The Verge. I think, Let me go was sort of songwriting in lucid dreams or an intuition to try other styles of music. After solo guitarist ibzstrat joined our band, we did not think about hiring a drummer any more. Therefore, The Verge consists of three members. On some of our songs, other people helped out with songwriting or singing. The drums are still synthetically programmed. The internet band The Verge exists for over ten years. We have finished our first album. I’d like to thank the band and all participants who made this dream come true. Without you, I have never learned so much about rock music and songwriting.

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The Verge Longplayer “Something you did not know”

Nadine — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 14:17:00 +0000

My internet band The Verge has finished their long player “Something you did not know”. Our album is an energetic blend of alternative rock, blues rock, pop and punk consisting of 12 songs about daily life. Now we’re coming to the best news: The Verge’s alternative rock long player is free of charge! You can listen to all songs on our SoundCloud and Reverbnation profile. If you’re a SoundCloud member, you can also download the songs for free. I’d like to thank Horace and ibzstrat for our long-term collaboration and the foundation of the band. While working with you, I have learned a lot about songwriting, mixing and mastering of handmade music. I hope, that The Verge will carry on for a long time. As band, we would like to thank The Witness, Martin S. and Martin B. for contributing on Open Ended Cue, Haunted and Smash. P.S. Our music is licensed under Creative Commons and is made for private, non-commercial use. Contact us, If you want to use it for broadcasts, videos, websites or commercial purposes. Thanks.

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