How I make my songs "better"

One for the purists....

I LOVE my 25 min epics but sometimes I feel some bands throw in the kitchen utensils to make them longer than they really have to be.

I detest the quirky doodlings/ 3 min jazz fusion romp/stop-start bass and drums. I adore The Flower Kings but they are more guilty than others.

I go in with a bog standard music editing prog and edit out some of the "deadwood" (I.M.H.O.) and to my mind I am not distracted by the annoying bit about to come up.

What do you think? 

I've considered doing this to BtBaM Colors.....there's some awesome stuff and some...not so good stuff.

Just because SOME groups overegg the pud on SOME epic songs doesn't take away my love for this type of song per se.

Does the fact that The Beatles gave us "OH-BLA-DE" mean I can't adore them either.

"....what would a truly perfect 25 minute epic have (or not have) that prevents you from enjoying them now?"

Sorry, it might be me but I don't understand the question. If it was truly perfect (in my eyes) why would I be prevented from enjoying it?

As I said in my first post....

"I detest the quirky doodlings/ 3 min jazz fusion romp/stop-start bass and drums"  and a perfect epic (to me) wouldn't have any.

This "thing" in Moonchild is quite empty and music lacking. Oh yeah, there is "Softly moonchild...", but after that? Before that ? My favourite one is Epitaph, not MCH. But maybe I didn't get it at all.

With TFK, in their long epics, there are mostly melodic parts, which are quite short and then there are these ... well, other parts, but learning how to appreciate them also is significant. It took my one year to enjoy these parts too.

If you cut off the long jam session from Moonchild you get a 3:27 minute song, and I think it could be called The Dream (for it is divided in two parts, if I remember well). As far as I'm concerned, I like the song much better this way, it is actually very beautiful. I've done something similar with ELP's Take a Pebble, cutting the long middle section out and pasting the end; I ended up with a song 5:17 minutes long and I find it extremly enjoyable. I didn't very much dislike the middle part I edited out, but I think the son ended up more coherent and less boring. With Tarkus, if I only leave Eruption, Stones of years, and Battlefield, I really love the song, while I find rather annoying the middle part I leave out, and the last part is a bit boring. Sometimes editing out parts of a song can work out very well for you, most of the times the great songs are gorgeous just the way the bands presented them.

So in fact he was right.. It's for purists, if by pure you mean concentrated essence of song.

But you'll lose a lot by this

I have to admit it would be interesting to hear some of these edited songs.  I won't deny that one could make a fresh alternate arrangement of a song.

MartyMcFly89 wrote: These word pleased me. In my case, I see tendency to slowly shift from melody rich parts to listening them all. I like Phish, they're also little bit jamming. And this USA group famous for that, I forgot the name... I like this change. And for these editings, well, that's something which a lot of people capable of it does. I remember doing this to In Held Twas (speech intro). But now, time came to face my fears and listen to full songs

I believe this american band you speak of is The Grateful Dead...

A strange topic to me.  Usually, if  I don't like all aspects of an epic track, I end up not liking it as a whole.  After all, what's the point of having a 25 minute song with only half of it being good?  Obviously, this is subjective, but it can't be anything else really.  I see these lengthy pieces as a single entity.  If I don't like some of it, I don't like all of it.  Moonchild though, is great, all 12 minutes of it (same with Take A Pebble).

Still, speaking of the Flower Kings, they always did a 12 or so minute version of I Am The Sun when they played it live, and as much as I love the whole 25 minutes of the studio version, the shortened version works just as well (possibly better in a live setting, as the studio version has lots of mellow, quiet bits).




Edited by infandous - September 04 2009 at 13:27