How I make my songs "better"
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Forum Name: Music and Musicians Exchange
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URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=60990
Printed Date: November 22 2024 at 12:55
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Topic: How I make my songs "better"
Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Subject: How I make my songs "better"
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 10:45
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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? |
Replies:
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 10:47
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So you have a three minute version of "Moonchild?" Cool.
------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: Negoba
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 10:55
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I've considered doing this to BtBaM Colors.....there's some awesome stuff and some...not so good stuff. ------------- You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all. |
Posted By: Trademark
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 11:00
 I'm not sure Moonchild would make it to the full 3 minutes.The premise here is a unclear to me. You love your 25 min. epics, but feel that they are bloated with unnecessary kitchen utensils. So.... do you really love them? You adore the Flower Kings, but say they are more guilty than others. So.... do you really adore them? How long are your edited versions and what would a truly perfect 25 minute epic have (or not have) that prevents you from enjoying them now? It's probably one of those things that winds up being down to taste and perception. You might be editing out my favorite bits. It would be interesting to hear half a dozen versions of The Devil's Playground though. I'm game if you are....
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Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 11:25
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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? |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 12:01
| ^ I think he's asking what's wrong with the epics you don't enjoy and how would a perfect epic differ from them. |
Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 13:25
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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. |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 13:27
| But what would it have instead of them? |
Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 14:15
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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. ------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu  Even my |
Posted By: sealchan
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 17:12
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I like "Moonchild" because on repeated listening I can anticipate even the long, long string of seemingly random musical sound effects that the bulk of this song (its jam session) consists of. Certainly if you only listen to it a few times in less than quiet and undistracted circumstances, it will seem like a waste of tape/CD/disk space. If you "buy into it" though it can bring you way down into a quiet, alien world that you grow more and more fond of the more you visit it. Also, this has the effect of clearing out some of the ringing in your ears from blasting side one before you get back into the grandiosity of "The Court of the Crimson King".
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Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: September 03 2009 at 20:54
| 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. |
Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 02:23
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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 ------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 02:24
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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 ------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: Lionheart
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 09:05
| This is really a question about "arrangement". |
Posted By: sealchan
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 09:11
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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.
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Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 10:08
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I have nothing against whatever makes your day.
But i wonder why so many prople dislike Moonchild, in my book its an important part of "In the.......G"
And sure would't be the same without it, reminds me of the journalist asking McCartney if he would leave some of the lesser tracks out if he could, retrospectively.
He said.: "What ? Hell no, its the ¤#%/%¤ White Album" ! ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: The Runaway
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 10:23
------------- http://www.formspring.me/Aragorn224" rel="nofollow - Trendsetter win! The search for nonexistent perfection. |
MartyMcFly89 wrote:Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 12:19
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Umphrey's McGee was the name. But thank you for reminding TGD. Little bit forgetting these days.
------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: infandous
Date Posted: September 04 2009 at 13:27
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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). |
Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 05 2009 at 07:07
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Lot's of good points here. For my part, I can see no difference between cutting out the parts of a song i don't like and skipping songs on a CD i don't like. I edited "Comfortably Numb" (P.U.L.S.E.) today. 1 verse,1 chorus and straight into THAT guitar solo! The integrity of the structure wasn't compromised but (for this version) there's too much starter with the entree. http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/admittedly&ei=WlGiSt2QPMje-Qa6qrz0Dw&sa=X&oi=spellmeleon_result&resnum=1&ct=result&usg=AFQjCNGzu4bRvv5_9kbGi9vPRec8Lx-utg -
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Posted By: JD
Date Posted: September 05 2009 at 09:36
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Strictly speaking, it doesn't sound like you are talking about 'your' songs, but songs by others. That being said I have done a similar type of editing with the Queens of the Stone Age's first album. I found the radio chatter between songs to be very annoying and there were several songs which I felt were not worthy of being on the album. So I did my post production editing thing and created what I thought was a much stronger album. Of course that's just my opinion. Others might feel as though I've ruined the work by chopping it up and leaving out songs. But at the end of the day I'm the one who gets to listen to it so I like it better. ------------- Thank you for supporting independently produced music |
Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 05 2009 at 14:11
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A bit pedantic but you are correct. I would imagine that if I started a topic entitled "HOW I MAKE SONGS BETTER" or "HOW I MAKE OTHER PEOPLE'S SONGS BETTER", the discussion would have become a tad more personal. I inserted the "MY" quite deliberately. |
Posted By: Henry Plainview
Date Posted: September 05 2009 at 16:36
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Purist? Editing out sections of songs is the least purist thing I can think of. ------------- if you own a sodastream i hate you |
Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 04:40
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Pure in way as concentrate juice for example. If somebody seeks just melody, not middle improvisation & jam parts, he will either abandon whole song, or skip these parts/edit them, to listen only these concentrated. Maybe I'm using bad word by presuming that pure = concentrate. Take for example song The Flower King, which is about 14 minutes long. Singing is for first 3-4 and last 3 minutes. The rest, guitar solos. I don't want to be devil's advocate, I just know that you can't tell people what's good and what they should do. I used to skip, but don't do it anymore. I grow tired from these dense (as all main melodic music was for few minutes instead of 10min) songs and now I seek and enjoy only full songs. And not only song, I learned to listen full albums too. Pure music fan - don't skip/edit Pure (concentrated) music - edited song don't mix these two terms You can say that I'm cured, just like former junkies. And I'm aware of what I did wrong. ------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 06:04
You sir, are a philistine.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 12:09
| I didn't say "I" was the purist. |
Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 12:14
Bit strong, but to each his own. Now I'm glad I didn't mention my habit of overdubbing (some of )Roine's solos with me on the banjo!! |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 12:21
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That's so blasphemous and potentially troll-worthy to some on ProgArchives I'm positively giggling with the thought of their reactions to it. :) ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 12:29
You take a hatchet to someone else's creative work and then claim that you've "made it better". Philistine isn't strong enough. ------------- What? |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 12:33
Republican's more like it.  (Though I don't actually care. The joke's what counts.) ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 13:20
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Of course it's bad. But if somebody wants to do that, you, I, we can't stop him. But can you imagine how many people were doing this ? How many ARE doing this ? For me, I'm glad that I listen full tracks, full albums. ------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: Henry Plainview
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 20:09
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I never actually liked Comfortably Numb that much. ------------- if you own a sodastream i hate you |
Posted By: A Person
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 21:11
Me neither. The only thing I do is that I purposely never rip "Not Now John", it ruins the flow of the album, if it had been earlier in the album it might not be as bad, but it isn't that good of a song to begin with. I always think about doing the same thing to The Grand Viziers' Garden Party, but I always rip it anyway. I would never edit a song though, except to paste them together, but only if it makes sense, like the first twenty minutes of Tarkus, or other multi-part songs like The Fountain of Lamneth. |
Posted By: smashwagon
Date Posted: September 06 2009 at 21:52
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There's no shame in changing other peoples music to fit you better. I sometimes wish that there was a music format that kept all the channels seperate. That way the listener could mute certain parts of the music or change the volume. So many modern bands (last ten years or so) mix the vocal tracks way too low in the mix. I would love to be able to boost the vocals, mute parts where the bass goes out of tune with other instruments, etc.
Less emphasis has been given to the mixer / producer in most cases anyhow, the days of heros like Martin and Spector are pretty much over, and there shouldn't be any requirement to mix down to only right and left stereo outputs anymore.
Why listen to a three minute five note boring blues guitar solo everytime you want to listen to a particular song when what you love about the song is the vocal harmonies and chord progressions.
Also when a lot of bands think they are clever by spacing thier tracks together with samples from thier favorite films and whatnot. Do you really need to hear that right as a group of musicians are launching into an interesting bombast?
Obviously if you only like, say 30 seconds of a 20 minute song than you might as well find another band to listen to, there are lots and lots of bands. But if 30 seconds of that song are absolutely torturous to you, snip, chop, splice and tape. The musicians probably don't mind, most are just glad that you are listening and supporting them.
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Posted By: Juan Dayatatime
Date Posted: September 07 2009 at 13:12
I'm not getting dragged into a tit for tat encounter so this will be MY last words on this subject. Hyperbole aside, your last missive is just plainly incorrect. I don't "claim" to make them better...I do make them better....to me! Music is subjective after all. I know i would rather listen to my edited version of "I AM THE SUN" than the original. What I don't understand is how you can say my version is without merit....until you actually hear it. Is that how it works in your world? B.T.W. I have joined Parts 1 & 2 together to make one joyous piece of music. Can I get a "blasphemy" from you?  |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 07 2009 at 14:09
I don't believe in blasphemy, so "no".
I don't care what you do with the music in the privacy of your own home - cut it, chop it, play it backwards, play it at double speed, whatever, if that turns you on go for it, if it is "better" for you then fine. I just have no desire to hear it because if I wanted a cut version of I Am The Sun, I'd listen to the officially released cut version.
 You asked "What do you think?" - I answered.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: Big Ears
Date Posted: September 07 2009 at 14:51
| Obladi Oblada by the Beatles on the White Album is great, Revolution No. 9 on the same album is rubbish. Marmalade's version of the former is good too. |
Posted By: akamaisondufromage
Date Posted: September 07 2009 at 15:03
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I didn't read the whole thread I edited it to make it shorter and easier to understand (I might have missed a few things though)
I think
I must be weird : whats wrong with Moonshine? And whats wrong with Oh Bla di ? ^^ damn beat me to it
 Maybe you prefer popmusic?
I think
Editing Comfortably Numb is potentially madness part of the enjoyment is surely the expectation. Why not just listen to the guitar solo? I think it might just lose some of its apeal pretty quickly.
But do what you will ------------- Help me I'm falling! |
Posted By: zachfive
Date Posted: September 07 2009 at 15:09
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I do not think I'd enjoy the last minutes of Plague of Lighthouse Keepers if it was not preceded by the "controlled chaos" that is the sound of VDGG. The above is only one example of many. I believe all parts of a song are integral when listening to music. If I may quote Satan from South Park B.L.U, "But what is evil anyway? It is reason to the rhyme; without evil there could be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometime." Evil being the "bad" or "not-liked" parts of songs. Consonance and dissonance people... we need both. |
Posted By: The Sleepwalker
Date Posted: September 07 2009 at 16:19
I completely agree. Another good example of this is Willow Farm from Genesis' Supper's Ready. The part is right in the middle of the suite, and that's excactly the place where it fits best, it is a very unexpected turn after the somewhat melancholic How Dare I Be So Beautiful. If Willow Farm would be the final part of the suite, it would be not much of an epic ending, so I probably wouldn't have liked it. As a seperate song, it would have been some sort of laugh maybe, but it wouldn't be a strong song. ------------- 
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