Tutorial Archive - Nadine de Macedo

Understanding song structures

Nadine — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 19:10:41 +0000

When I chit-chat with musicians, we talk a lot about melodies, lyrics and instruments, but we don’t talk about song structures. This is even more essential to keep the listener to the end or intentionally kick them out of their comfort zone. I wrote this article to explain some well-known structures and offer options for new ones. Song parts and their functions Listening to modern music, you may figure out that each song is constructed by repeating parts. Analyse the lyrics and chord progressions to figure out which part comes when. I grew up with electronic club music of 8 minutes length, where the length of every part has been divided by 32 or 16. In pop and rock music the structure of 8 or 16 bars is quite common, whereas blues is mostly in 12 bars or 16 bars. It’s an unwritten rule, that feels best to most listeners, musicians and DJs, but you can also try different things as long as the same parts have the same length and sound consistent. Let me introduce you do the most common song parts and their function. Intro (I) There is only one intro in a song, and it’s right in the beginning. The intro consists of atmospheric sounds, a foreshadowing of the chorus, or something completely disconnected to the song. My rule of thumb: the longer the song, the longer the intro. However, the intro shouldn’t exceed one third of a song. The function of an intro is creating an atmosphere and rises the tension. A good example of my discography is the progressive metal song “Truth” starting with ticking clocks and synthesizers. Outro or coda (O) Opposed to the intro, but following the same rules, the outro occurs once at the very end of the song. It creates an atmosphere and releases the tension. Most of the time, intros and outros are connected, but it is not a must. If you see a song as a journey, the outro could have a completely different mood. Some people also call the outro coda – but for me, a coda is a special type of outro that is directly connected to the chorus. For example, on “Fit Right In” we repeated the last half of the chorus followed by a ritardando (slow down). Believe it or not – Even the final chord could be an outro, if you’re technically precise. Verse (V) The verse is one of the main elements of a song. Usually, all verses have the same metric and melody. The main function of a verse is telling a story. Neglecting the chorus, you can read a song as a poem! A usual pop song has two verses, sometimes three. In very old songs and folk ballads, the whole song can consist of verses. The lyrics and instrumentation may change, but the harmonies and metric are the same. Chorus (C) The chorus is the catchy sing-along part that occurs at least twice in a song. It usually has a different melody and chord progression than the verse. The chorusses usually have the same lyrics, but it is not a must. There is an example below, where we used the same metric and melody for a different lyric. Solo (S) Most rock and metal songs have at least one solo. That soaring, uplifting, complex lead guitar everybody waits for, close to the end of the song. It’s often played on the same chords of the chorus, but some people prefer writing a completely different chord progression. Be careful with jazz and blues music, though lots of musicians play solos, not every part is a solo. If the vocalist and soloist have a conversation, we’re probably not in a solo part. Bridge or middle 8 (B) To avoid too many repetitions of the verse-chorus-structure, many songwriters insert a bridge (or middle 8 – standing for 8 bars) in the middle or last third of the song. Its melody and chord progression differs from the chorus and verse and creates tension. Lyrically, the bridge is characterized as the turning point of the story. In pop music – especially ballads – bridge are often used to change the key (modulation). The bridge of “Going My Way” starts with “I wanna scream out” creates a big tension by changing the rhythm. Post-Chorus (PostC) / Interlude It’s a kind of simple, catchy interlude that is intentionally after the chorus. If you listen to electronic dance music, you’ll know this sing-along synthesizer that plays nearly the same melody as the chorus. But it’s also used in other genres. Most of the time, the post-chorus is instrumental or filled with a very striking rhythm and simple lyrics. One of the most striking post-chorus I wrote is the reoccurring guitar solo on “Where does it end?”. This part is also called interlude, especially when it’s followed by the next verse. Pre-Chorus (PreC) / Mini Bridge Most pop songwriters connect verse and chorus with a pre-chorus. This section, which is sometimes also called mini bridge, usually consists of 2-8 bars and is a good place to do a modulation on key or tempo before the chorus kicks right in. “Don’t tell me if it hurts” has a very strong and pop-rock typical pre-chorus. It’s the part around “Does your heart skip a beat…”. In contrast to a verse, the pre-chorus leaves a virtual question mark at the end, that is resolved by the chorus. Drop (D) / Break Down A breakdown is a special kind of post-chorus or bridge, where a song changes completely its mood. It can be an intentional anti-climax of some bars… or a sudden drop. My former trance productions all have break downs, but I think the one of “The Awakening” is quite striking, it’s where the orchestra kicks in. It was pretty unusual in handmade music, but nowadays most metalcore songs also have break downs or even drops. The difference between these two is only the length and intensity. Drops are shorter and heavier. Usual schemes Verse Chorus in Pop Music I call myself a songwriter for pop music, because I mostly stick to the pop scheme. The combination of verse, chorus and solo is known to most listeners, easy to handle and results in a handy song of 3-4 minutes of lengths. You may notice that not every pop song has an intro and an outro, but all have the verse followed by a chorus and sometimes a pre-chorus in between. Some variations: The classical rondo The word rondo sounds like round, and this is what it’s all about. It’s a song structure from the middle ages, classical and baroque music where one part occurs more often. Some usual structures look like this: If you call A a chorus and B, C, D verses, you will get: So yes, there are some pop and rock songs in rondo form! Quitting the schemes The pop scheme is user-friendly, but boring. When you don’t care much about writing a chart topping song, you can experiment or arrange the parts in a way that it feels consistent with the message. Here are some example of my exotic arrangements. Sleepless – Open end with a solo Let’s start with an easy example, how to screw up listener’s expectations. “Sleepless” roughly follows a typical pop scheme, BUT (a) there’s a drop inside the verse, (b) the chorus sounds like a pre-chorus and (c) It ends with a solo. Everybody waits for another chorus, that doesn’t come. I decided to go this way, because the lyrics start with self-pity and then, he just lets go. This guy found some sleep, cause this song’s ending is positive. The structure is:I – V – C – PostC – V – C – B – S – O Hero – Multiple key changes and a two-part chorus Though following a rough verse-chorus pop scheme, we completely mess up people’s expectations on melodies and keys. The verse is in F-major, so the obvious pop chorus should start with a C-chord. Instead, we start with a D major chord, applying modal shifts and borrow chord weirdness. If you listen closely you will also notice that the chorus consists of two parts. Another interesting aspect is the very short intro (one chord!) and outro (part of the chorus). It was important to follow a quite usual scheme, otherwise the song would have been too complex.I – V – C1 – C2 – V – C1 – C2 – B – S – C1 – C2 – O September – Two different choruses “September” is telling a story from beginning to end. The whole song is based on 4-5 chords, but we have multiple verses and chorus with the same chord structure and metric. The lyrics tell a story, so there is no reoccuring part unless you consider the metric. Another interesting aspect is a variation on the chorus (C2) that occurs twice. The song structure is:I – V1 – C1 – PostC1 – V2 – PostC2 – C1 – C2 – S – B – C1 – C2 – O Truth – Chapters as a concept One of the weirdest song structures I created has been for our multi collab “Truth”. It has neither verse nor chorus, but reoccurring musical themes. Listen carefully to the piano theme in the intro. You will find the same theme in a different key, as flute, in another different key and the intro in the very end. This song tells a story with no way back, so why should there be a chorus?! It’s hard for me to write down the song structure, maybe something like:I1 – I2 – C1 – Interlude – V1 – Interlude2 – D1 – Interlude3 – V2 – V3 – S1 – S2 – D2 – S3 – V4 – D3 – C1 – S4 – Interlude2 – C2 – O Play around with the structure If you’re new to songwriting, using one of the usual schemes is a good way to go. But if you got stuck in a rut, play around with the structure. There are no rules in art, only best practises. The worst thing that could happen is that your audience is confused and quits the song after 30 seconds. Others may love a monumental work of progressive rock. If you recorded and documented everything neatly, you can still change the structure of a song after recording.

This post Understanding song structures was published at Nadine de Macedo.

How to get stuff done and get rid of creative debt

Nadine — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

People often ask me, how I manage multiple collaborations and projects at the same time and finish so many musical projects. There’s no easy answer, but I try to give some tips and tricks how I handle reoccurring issues and get stuff done. Creative debt Technical debt happens when you implement your solution as quickly or easy as possible without thinking about long-term consequences. It’s a term from software development that describes the huge amount of work to fix a problem that is rooted in a decision you took many months and years ago. This concept can be applied to many fields of work, including creativity. Creative debt most often occurs, when you start a new project without finishing your previous ones. To get rid of creative debt, it’s best to accumulate as less as possible, which means (a) have a great concept and (b) evaluate it and (c) maintain and check your running projects and (d) document everything well. Creativity may be untamable, but if you’re interested in getting stuff done, there are a few rules to stick. Biggest impediments and distractions Look, there’s a squirrel! It can be so tempting to turn that spontaneous guitar riff into a new song. If you don’t jot down the idea from beginning to end, you may forget about it next week. So you record a guitar riff or loop. After a few months, you have a dozen great guitar riffs and 8-bar loops, but no song. Listening to your old drafts some months later, you may not be able to reconstruct the emotion or reason you recorded it. You jam along for half an hour, but you cannot find a verse to an existing chorus. Later, you may come up with the idea of merging multiple loops into a song, but they won’t sound consistent. You’re stuck. Worst of all, you cannot delete your 8-bar loops and guitar riffs, because each of them sounds like a potential hit. Take a look into your archives. How many of these 8-bar songs did you turn into a full song? I bet you’re better off recording a dirty one-take draft of the whole song instead of a perfect recording of the riff. Don’t forget to write down the chord progressions, tabs or lyrics. In case you want to rerecord this draft neatly, it will be much easier to remember the emotion and learn the song. Neglecting your needs Most creatives get super inspired and hyper when they’re asked to collab, so they say yes to everybody. They may be hyper focussed and get the first two songs recorded. Suddenly the big pile of promises feels like a heavy weight. You may get some stuff done if you turn your nights into days or force yourself to draft. You may feel guilty of promising things you cannot keep. It’s impolite to cancel three months after your commitment, so you try to postpone in hope that you find more time or inspiration someday soon. After a few weeks or months, your collab partners may get nervous or angry because they wait for your part. Be honest. You have burnt the candle on both ends. Decide if you (a) step out and burn bridges or (b) keep your promise with a massive delay while avoid writing new songs. In the long run, keep track of your capacity and needs. Learn to say “no” when you’re full. In the worst case, cancelling projects before somebody wrote, recorded or adapted anything for you is even better than letting your band wait for months and years. The band might still have a chance to find a new person and tailor it to their needs. Piling up too many projects Not everybody is made for multitasking. I am multitasking for years, because I cannot work on a sad ballad when I’m angry. I usually have two, but sometimes also five completely different projects in parallel. Being highly dependent on other people’s recordings, I can use my waiting time for working on other projects or preparing social media posts. Multitasking is fine, if documentation is your secret superpower. You need a lot of self-discipline to focus and finish things even if you’re not fully in the mood to master a ballad. However, most people work on many different songs as an excuse to look busy. They’re procrastinating because they’re scared of finishing or scared of admitting that they’re stuck and need help. Having too many projects at once can lead to decision paralysis and information loss due to context switching. Which song do I do next? What was missing in this song, again? If you find yourself switching between many things without finishing anything, you may have hit your capacity limit or a creative block. More below. I have a big spreadsheet with ALL running projects with status and to do’s. I know who is working on which song and what I have to do. This won’t help you, if you’re a rather chaotic and spontaneous person. You should try to set a maximum amount of parallel projects, get them done as soon as possible and learn to say “no”. Trap of perfectionism Talking to fellow songwriters, I often hear something like “I cannot finish this song. We need a great solo, but it’s not good enough”. It’s OK to be stuck here and there. But sometimes, we have to take a decision if we want to get the best possible solo (and put this song on hiatus for years) or perform an average solo to get the song done. Even if you decide to get the best possible solo, it doesn’t mean that YOU have to record or write it. If you’re stuck for too long – ask your best friend for a collab. They might come with an idea you never thought of. Perfectionism is a trap. Most people won’t bother if that solo has been played by an organ or guitar, if it suits the song. Nobody is able to read your mind and listen to your original idea. Circumventing the critical path When I write songs, I think about them as projects. My role as songwriter, arranger and producer is related to project management. I have a clear goal (release a full recorded song), a deadline (release date), a product vision (for example a hard rock song about driving down the Route 66) and a team (band members). I can break it down into milestones (draft, recording, mixing) and subtasks (record guitars), that can be assigned to different people. If you’re deep into project management, you may be heard of a critical path. It’s the longest chain of tasks that cannot be completed without the previous. This may result in massive delays or cancellation. The critical path points out, that you cannot parallelize everything. Same in songwriting – It’s pointless to record the vocals in parallel to the backing track. The vocalist won’t be able to jump into the groove of the rhythm section or circumvent the lead guitar. Most likely, one of them has to rerecord. This will end up in fights. Try to find your critical path and force people to stick to it. If they don’t, your bandmates may not be the right people to work on a multi-collab or musical chain letter with many dependencies. You can still have fun with them in a jam session or in a two-way collab. Otherwise, you may have to take hard decisions like: cancel, restaff or postpone. Nobody will be happy about them! Out of fuel Are you completely out of ideas? Or busy working on twenty projects in parallel? Sometimes it’s better to stop and get things done. There’s nothing wrong about a creative hiatus if you communicate it to your collab partners and bands. You don’t have to be there 24/7 and write 365 songs a year. Writing too much can lead to creative debt, too. Take a break and decide which songs are worth finishing. Are there some you can achieve on your own? Some that may need a little help from your friends? Is it better to cancel or archive some? Don’t start new projects while you’re sitting on a pile of unfinished songs. Otherwise, your creative debt will grow bigger and bigger. It won’t help you to refuel. How can I get rid of creative debt?

This post How to get stuff done and get rid of creative debt was published at Nadine de Macedo.

Songwriting in modal scales – Part II

Nadine — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:33:00 +0000

Some years ago, I extended my songwriting skills by using other scales than major, minor and harmonic minor. I unintentionally wrote songs in dorian and lydian, that have a minor feel but use different notes. This year, I took it one step further and wrote songs in even weirder scales. Disclaimer: When I write music, I do whatever feels right and don’t spend much time music theory. This website is not the right place for a profound understanding of music theory. This article is a follow-up of this post about modal scales. If you hear the word modal for the first time, you should check my previous article. There are more modal scales Everything happened when I composed a guitar riff for a song. It’s based on an A major chord, but has a very weird and melancholic feeling, because the song is NOT in A major but in D melodic minor starting with A. I figured out that I used a scale called A mixolydian b6. It’s one note away from natural minor and mixolydian. I didn’t bother about the name, until I wrote another song called “Good Morning Blues”. I had serious trouble finding harmonies, because the scale was super weird. Talking to musicians, we figured out that my melody is based on the E lydian b7 scale. Another weird name I heard for the first time. So I started some research and wrote a summary about my results. Modes of the harmonic minor scale If you remember my blogpost about modal songwriting, you obtain the modes, when you do cyclic shifts on the natural minor (aeolian) scale. Starting with A, we do the same with the harmonic minor scale and get this: Indeed, these scales have weird names for people who are not into music theory. The # and b say which tone of the scale has to be altered. For example, you get the aeolian #7 from the aeolian scale by shifting the 7th position up by one semitone. In case of A aeolian (A – B – C – D – E – F – G) the G goes to G# on the A aeolian #7 scale, that is also known as harmonic minor. Modes of the melodic minor scale Some people may know that the melodic minor scale plays differently upwards and downwards. The down direction is equal to natural minor (aeolian). You can find the modes in my previous blogpost. Thus, we only scare about the upward scale. Apply the same trick here and end up with the following modal scales: This is where things are getting confusing. There are so many scales with a similar name, that you have to give the information about the alterations or use the aliases. On top of that, people may have different understandings of altered scales, so it’s best to include the notes of the scale you’re using. It may also help to talk to people who are not into music theory or jazz standards. Every musician knows the name of the notes, but not necessarily the name of the intervals or modes. Are there more scales? Indeed, there are many more scales. The ones I mentioned above are all you can get from playing around with major, natural minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor. If you start alternating other notes or change the amount of notes (like pentatonic, hexatonic blues or bebop scales), new horizons will open up. In different cultures, other tunings and temperaments (mathematical divisions within an octave) play a big role. You could also end up with microtonality; scales that include notes in between the notes. This world can be quite intimidating and confusing, so don’t try to learn everything at the same time. Using modes and exotic scales adds interesting flavours to your songs. The uncommon and complex your progressions are, the less they will stick in people’s heads. It’s a nice toolbox, if you want to try something new or drift into jazz, fusion, art pop, world or experimental music. Implementing these into a catchy pop song is hard, but it works. Coldplay use lydian and dorian a lot – and Metallica love phrygian for a reason. Microtonal prog metal may be an extravaganza, but I heard some Arabic scales in trap music. I haven’t heard a pop song in superlocrian yet. The trouble with harmonizing Working with jazz scales and exotic scales is not easy, because harmonizing a major scale with triads doesn’t like expected. The scales of this article are not parallel to ANY major scale or natural minor. They use different intervals and have alterations that make it really hard to make standard chords like major, minor fit right in. You will end up in chords like diminished, augmented, alternate, 6/9 or 7b5 – Chords, types most pop or rock musicians haven’t heard of. If you really want to understand how to harmonize, you have to visit a course on jazz theory. Understanding these scales as shifts of harmonic and melodic minor helps you to get some quick ideas, but you only get the modal feeling when you hit certain chords and notes that are charismatic. Here is a simple example: Are you able to write a song in A minor using mainly major chords? It will be very hard, because the most characteristic traits of A minor are the chords Am, Dm and Em. Otherwise, the song is mistaken for C major. Where do you learn which chords and notes are charismatic for the scale you’re using? There are tables in jazz theory books that tell you that locrian has m7b5b9 and 11b13 inside, but what exactly does that mean? How would you harmonize a hexatonic scale with the tiny bit of theory you had in school and writing pop songs in major scales?! Trial and error?! How can I use modal scales? I have to admit: I am not able to write a song in arbitrary scales. Okay, except for a super obvious four chord song in major and minor. When I write songs, I don’t care about the cadences and notes. I just write, and it’s alright, when I end up in weird jazzy progressions in G super locrian same as a catchy four chord song in C major. When I jump around the scales or use borrow chords, that’s fine too. I wrote this article to think outside the box. Stop thinking that an unusual chord progression is wrong! Start listening to songs that use borrow chords, modal scales, key changes and other extravaganza. Knowing modal scales is not a must, but it widens your horizon. You can write good music with complex chord changes or mess up the major scale in a way that it sounds good. P.S. I am not into music theory. Please indulge me, if I use the wrong terms or comment. I’m ready to fix that blog entry for you. I do not receive any money, backlinks and products for naming other people, their works or websites. The reason I write is sharing information and knowledge.

This post Songwriting in modal scales – Part II was published at Nadine de Macedo.

Songwriting techniques worth trying

Nadine — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 14:15:00 +0000

Do you have favourite techniques for songwriting? Some artists may develop a certain process to write songs more quickly. In this post, I’ll discuss different processes and methods of songwriting that may help you on how to write a song from scratch. Talking to plenty of musicians and lyricists, I figured out that everybody developed a process to start a song from scratch. I noticed, that people who call themselves lyricist, start with the lyrics or vocals first, whereas drummers are more likely to create a groove and add a bass. In my honest opinion, there is no right or wrong. These are different attempts, and most of them are worth a try. Theme oriented songwriting The main idea about theme oriented songwriting is to write down a topic or a musical theme and construct the song around. Here are some ideas on how to write a song. Start with lyrics Are you a wordsmith? Some songwriters already have a topic in their minds and write down the lyrics first. Most of them already have a metric and rhyme scheme. Even without knowing the melody, words of a skilled lyricist flow naturally in rhythm. You may only vary the pitch to create a melody. About a year ago, I tried another method which has been completely unknown to me: Word clouds and mind maps. You start with a keyword and generate words that are linguistically or contextually related. For example, building is connected to house or construction, construction may be connected to noise and dirt… Once you found a couple of words, you build phrases. This has been an interesting and challenging experience. Another quite related method to start a song with lyrics is creating 2-4 phrases and search for end rhymes with a rhyming dictionary. This will set your focus on metrics and rhyming. Be careful not to use super obvious rhymes like “you” and “blue”. You can also write down your spontaneous feelings and thoughts about your perception. Just a snapshot of your life or the situation you’re observing right now. It’s a more natural way to use a word cloud. This technique seems to be used quite often in singer-songwriter and country lyrics. Sound design first I must admit, I’d never have heard about this method, if I never talked to producers, keyboarders and guitarist who left their heart on sound design. You can spend hours and hours on your amps or synthesizers to recreate the sound you have in your mind. Sometimes, a certain sound inspires you to write a melody. Once you’re done, you create the next sound and the next element. Working this way is very, creative and intense experience, leading to a song with a strong atmosphere. Genres like ambient, lo-fi, shoegazing or djent cannot live without sound designers. Even if you don’t know the meaning of all the knobs of your gear, you can follow the sound design first approach by using presets. Take a sound, play some notes, jump to the next. Put some weird effects on it and listen. It’s interesting to turn some arbitrary knobs and hear the outcome. “Neotokyo” happened this way. I used odd compression settings on the piano and wrote the chords later. Getting the rhythm straight In my early beginnings, I wrote plenty of songs, starting with the rhythm section. I picked a tempo, choose some nice samples or drum sets and created a typical 16-beat intro for club music. By adding more and more percussion elements, tonal FX and loops you start a good build. The next natural step would be adding the bass, and then you start with fragments of melodies turning into full themes. I always thought it’s an approach for writing club music, but I talked to rock and fusion drummers and bassists who also work this way. It’s been interesting to hear, that a drum riff could be as catchy as a guitar riff. I never thought this could happen to me with non-electronic music, until I wrote “Wrench in the works” based on a 6/8 drum groove using plenty of toms. In my honest opinion, the interplay between drums and bass is very important, no matter if acoustic or electronic music. A good song needs a strong groove. Starting with the rhythm section first urges you to structure a song, cause the drum groove should not become boring after a couple of repetitions. Building a song around a melodic theme In classical music, soundtrack and jazz, the idea of writing a song to an existing melodic theme is quite common. Of course, it’s boring to loop the same melody over and over again, so musicians modify the theme by using different instruments, accentuations, keys or inversions. If you want to dive deeper into the topic, I recommend listening to classical variations or visit jam sessions. There are different ways to write strong themes. If you wrote the chords first, you can figure out the scale, interpret it as a limited set of notes and improvise. Some people write melodies based on arpeggios from the chords they used. Pragmatic songwriters do not even know the scale they’re in, they just write! As soloist or arranger, you may also have tried a technique, I’d call harmonizing with melodies. Once you found your main melody, you try a new melody with a different instrument instead of using a chord. This may limit the amount of chords you can use for harmonizing. Arrangement oriented songwriting The above-mentioned techniques are great to write a song with a consistent feeling, melody or groove. But if you’re deep into arrangement, you can try to write the structure first and add interesting details. Composing with the main instrument In series and movies, songwriters are usually portrayed as guitarists or pianists playing their instruments and singing along. There may be some truth in it, but it is not the only way to approach a song with an instrument. If you’re deep into arrangement, you may write the chords first or in parallel to the melody. Use your main instrument to play the whole song, add more layers later. “Going My Way” has been written on the piano, before I created a drum groove, a bass and a guitar. Talking to fellow musicians, I feel like there are music theorists and pragmatists. People, who are really deep into music theory, deal with chord progressions, key changes and improvisations in a completely different way. I learned, that harmonic function theory and cadence theory are two approaches to (a) find the next chord according to a certain mood and (b) find chords to an existing melody. Jazz theory may even go deeper. Arranging final or draft takes Composers, instrumentalists and arrangers have different views on the moment you hit the record button. I know people, who prefer to learn to play a part properly, record it and jump to the next. Digital tools make it possible to change the order of the recorded parts or to re-use them. So they work part-wise, write and arrange their songs during their composition. I also know people who need the full arrangement before hitting ANY record button. And people, who love to write a first lousy prompt on their acoustic guitar, do plenty of re-recordings and go real big on their DAW. The idea is quite the same as composing a song with a main instrument, but every instrument of your first arrangement is a draft. When you’re done with the arrangement, you (re-)record everything neatly. Start with the full instrumentation Another huge point of discussion seems to be the question of where you start with your composition. Should you start in the beginning and create an intro, a verse and work your way up to the full instrumentation (tutti)? Or should you create the chorus or tutti first? Both methods have interesting con’s and pro’s. I noticed that sound designers love to create intro and outros. The full focus on the first part of the song ensures that the listener is carried away by a mind-blowing atmosphere. However, the length of commercial music decreases, and it is very challenging to write an intro for a song below 3 minutes. If you decided to work on the full instrumentation first, you have to make choices about when and where elements should be dropped. Writing an intro and verse is challenging, because looping the chorus chord structure can take away some drive. What is my approach? Thanks for reading my lengthy thoughts on songwriting. You may have noticed that I tried a lot of these techniques. I had serious issues writing a song based on sound design, rhythm or a word cloud. This is where I figured out that I’m definitely more arranger. I prefer to start my songs in the chorus or tutti. My reason for this is quite plain: I love catchy hook lines and starting with the tutti I know the maximum amount of instruments for that song. I’m flexible enough to add another element as soloist later on, but knowing the instrumentation makes it quite easy for me to decide who starts when. My biggest difficulty is writing verses. They need less instrumentation and have to fit in harmonically without being too close to the chorus. I also figured out that I love songwriting from rough drafts to final recordings. Trying different techniques on songwriting has been a pleasure. I learned so much about music or the way I work. How do you write a song from scratch?

This post Songwriting techniques worth trying was published at Nadine de Macedo.

How to draw a check shirt

Nadine — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 17:43:00 +0000

Right after posting the cover of The Verge single “Back In Town” somebody asked me on Instagram, how to draw a check shirt. Since it will take a while until my speed painting is ready, I’d like to sketch how to draw plaids, tartan and stuff. While reading this post, you may also learn, why check shirts are so important in rock music and why these patterns are quite hard to draw. Why do so many rock stars wear check shirts? First, you may notice that there are plenty of patterns which are spread all over the music scene. While analysing the type of check shirts, you can find out which music is performed by these bands. Tartan is widely spread in the British punk rock scene, whereas American and Canadian emo core and metal core bands wear black-white or black-red plaids. You can also see black-white plaids in the ska punk scene, especially in combination with vivid colours like green or yellow. Lumberjack shirts were typically worn in the 90s grunge scene, but there are plenty of post grunge bands, who seem to like them too. The internet band The Verge titles herself as an alternative rock band. We have a diversified musical background, but you can hear the influences of grunge and punk in our music. Therefore, the young man on the cover of our current single “Back In Town” had to wear a check shirt. Though “Back In Town” is a skate punk song, I have decided to draw him in a grunge outfit. The reason for this was the colour of our logo. The muted greenish olive colour is made for plaids. As some of you may already have noticed, the cover illustrations of The Verge singles are deeply connected to the lyrics. I have made a video of the process on YouTube, where you can see how I draw the check shirts. Analysing lumberjack plaids How to draw a typical lumberjack plaid or check shirt? Many attempts have been made to understand the typical pattern of a flannel check shirt. Having a closer look into this pattern, you may notice, that it consists of two patterns. There are coarse plaids and finer plaids inside them. You need different colours, different line thicknesses and lots of layers to draw plaids. It is best to give each line and colour a new layer. To draw a check shirt, I had a closer look onto my own flannel check shirt and analyse the plaids. The thickest line is not a thick thread, but a special hatching. You can construct it by using several tilted parallel lines either in black or grey. I used a digital brush for sketching and hatching, modified it a bit and draw the main lines. The best way to achieve a 3D effect is to visualize the body as mesh. Now the drawing looks like this: Two kinds of plaids In the second step, we can subdivide the checks into segments of four. The lumberjack check shirts look way more appealing, if you draw two different colours for either vertical and horizontal lines. In my honest opinion, the best choices for line colours are black, grey, dark blue, dark green, dark red and brown. As I decided this plaid to be olive, one of the lines is dark grey and the other dark blue. We have finished drawing all lines. The best trick to set these, is to switch the layer mode to multiply and pushing all the line layers to the top. You can play around with the opacity. Please note, that any colouring layer will be under all these multiply line layers. Use multiply layer effect for a realistic looking plaid pattern Drawing and colouring all these checks can be quite confusing. Don’t think too much about checks, try to see stripes instead. First, I colour the horizontal stripes. One row olive, the other in a muted beige. You can use the colour you like as long as it is mildly unsaturated and not too dark. The colours you choose should work well together, because they build the fundament of the check shirt. It is very important to follow the lines and to think about details when drawing a check shirt. How many stripes are missed, if the sleeves are rolled up? Is the shirt neatly buttoned? Depending on the scene, it can also happen, that you see parts of the backside. The pattern has to be consistent. I also use this step to fill in some shading. Now, I hide the horizontal stripes to concentrate on the vertical stripes. I add a new multiplication layer on top of the horizontal stripes and fill in a new colour. This one should be mildly saturated and not too dark. Choose a colour which has a slightly different hue and it not completely complementary. I’ve chosen the greyish green tone of our logo. Magic happens, if you set the transparency to something in between 30% and 70%. Make the horizontal stripes visible again. Due to the multiplication effect, the colours on the vertical layer will be added on top of the other colours. This trick does not work, if you’ve chosen a very light and very saturated colour, since white is neutral to multiplication. Now it’s time to play around with opacity until the check shirt looks nice to you. That’s what the illustration looks like after finishing the plaids. I hope that you got some idea, how to draw check shirts and plaids. You can save a lot of time, if you see a plaid as a layered combination of different stripes. This is only one kind of plaids. The subdivision of the lines may vary. If you want to draw classic tartan, you may subdivide one check into three lines, these three line once again while leaving some of them untouched. It’s best to download pictures of clothing and analyse the divisions and colours. The idea of separating lines and colour layers stays the same. Why screen tones are not the best way to draw checks and plaids If you came from Manga or Graphic Novels, you may be used to screen tones. These are transparent self-glueing foils with printed patterns. Many mangaka and illustrators use them to save time. This is a nice technique, if you glue these foils onto flat backgrounds and rigid objects. Using screen tones on clothing and curved objects may end crucial, since screen tones do not follow the curvature of the object. So don’t try to use these foils on living and complex objects, or use irregular and abstract patterns instead. How do you draw plaids?

This post How to draw a check shirt was published at Nadine de Macedo.