pop songwriting thread

just making a thread for this. don't have anything to say yet but if you have knowledge feel free to drop it

how do you write melodies?

copy other people's chords. and keep it simple. the best pop songs are playable on one hand on a piano.

is that true?

what are the best pop songs in your opinion?

for me it's stuff like

dancing queen, fernando, knowing me knowing you - abba

elvis costello songs (surely not simple music)

scritti politti (not simple)

beach boys (not simple)

i like the melodies that wind all around, not necessarily the ones that are hugely popular

the reason why abba songs are successful is that they have simple melodies that you can play on one hand, and everyone can sing along too. plus they have a driving disco beat that makes people want to dance.

to make commercially successful pop music, it has to be danceable.

i wouldn't start off trying to write beach boys harmonies - there's more to them than meets the eye.

also...one more reason why abba are successful....

VERSE

CHORUS

VERSE

CHORUS

SOLO

CHORUS

CHORUS

CHORUS

FADE OUT

seriously, unless you're a genius, don't divert too far from this.

Most melodies just pop into my head. The dumber the better.

Make a good chord progression and the melody will follow.

For fun, try making silly instrumental jingles - something that would work on a TV commercial.

If it sticks in your head more than a day, you might be onto something.

Sometimes I use literary elements - foreshadowing, rising action, flat and round characters, conflict, resolution, etc. in arranging songs.

Did you know Elvis Costello's Armed Forces album was strongly influenced by Abba?

oh shit. no i didn't know that. that's great news. "accidents will happen" is a masterpiece to me.

costello is to me more of a genius than brian wilson. well that's kind of stupid. i just admire his talent more. brian thought everything out it seems, while i get the feeling but don't know for sure that costello just had that shit up in his head.

imperial bedroom and armed forces are my favorite costello. imperial bedroom is more coherent and masterful, but accidents will happen is about as perfect as a melody can get in my opinion.

Melodies, for me, is just going "doo doo da doo, doo doodoo doo" & then figuring out what notes I just onomatopiaed. Weirdly enough, learning to sing seems to have helped me in this regard.

  On 4/30/2010 at 11:24 PM, vamos scorcho said:

costello is to me more of a genius than brian wilson. well that's kind of stupid. i just admire his talent more. brian thought everything out it seems, while i get the feeling but don't know for sure that costello just had that shit up in his head.

Elvis Costello is known to gush about how much he loves Brian Wilson's music.

Brian Wilson claims that he can't take credit for his songwriting. He feels he's just channeling it from God, which can be interpreted as very modest or completely pompous.

i think it is worth noting that pop has a lot of subcultures too

dance pop: liam of teh prodigy said they'd play stuff live and see what made people flip a shit and dance -- then they'd make more like that, and try 'em on the crowds again. after enough of this they'd get an album that makes you push yourself real hard when you're jogging or dancing.

then they stopped touring, and their albums started sucking. they did some touring again recently, maybe the NEXT prodigy album will be good?

for abba sort of pop, singing and whistling about the house are usually a good technique. that or just fuck about at a piano.

Depeche Mode:

The usual suspects for chord progressions, but much time spent on patch creation and lyrics that speak to the depressed and drug addled.

No, but by pressing on a certain key, it plays a little melody.

  On 5/1/2010 at 6:54 AM, ieafs said:

  On 5/1/2010 at 2:47 AM, acidphakist said:

No, but by pressing on a certain key, it plays a little melody.

that's just an arpeggiator

ha!

  On 4/30/2010 at 11:57 PM, scones to die for said:

Brian Wilson claims that he can't take credit for his songwriting. He feels he's just channeling it from God, which can be interpreted as very modest or completely pompous.

That's how creativity works, I always thought. See Elizabeth Gilbert's excellent TED Talk on the subject.

  On 8/6/2010 at 5:38 PM, ZoeB said:

That's how creativity works, I always thought. See Elizabeth Gilbert's excellent TED Talk on the subject.

Nice talk.

  On 8/6/2010 at 5:38 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 4/30/2010 at 11:57 PM, scones to die for said:

Brian Wilson claims that he can't take credit for his songwriting. He feels he's just channeling it from God, which can be interpreted as very modest or completely pompous.

 

That's how creativity works, I always thought. See Elizabeth Gilbert's excellent TED Talk on the subject.

Yes, the sooner you realize this and let go of trying to control the process after some formula or method, the better your music will be.

repeated notes+trills

that elizabeth gilbert talk is great. i've been calling my 'genius' my 'creative jesus' (i'm not too religious, but it really is a miraculous feeling ) for a few years, and he/it certainly comes and goes.

as for pop songwriting, i've found that the easier you can whistle a melody, the more likely it is to get stuck in your head... it helps to have a chord progression down when you're writing the melody/whistle test.

I think there is something to be said here. Writing a "catchy" tune takes a tremendous amount of skill and luck.

Songwriting has an uncanny witchcraft like ability to get stuck in someones head for a long time. Some of the most powerful melodies resonate with me to the point where I find myself thinking about specific melodies first thing in the morning and for the rest of the day subconsciously.. I'll catch myself whistling or repeating lyrics. I notice these melodies have classic music theory elements and tend to go where you expect it to melodically.

The evil magicians however who figure out this witchcraft and exploit it drive around in lamborghini's and date super models. People like Dr. Luke and Max Martin are the devil incarnate. It almost gives me hope tho that there is some secret formula out there through technomancy to create a million dollar monstrosity myself someday.

Most pop songs you hear lately arent catchy melodies. Theyre just pads with a solid beat and some singing. The last pop song I heard with a proper melody was the Riverside track, and that was an awful melody line.

I've only ever written one melody line, I was pretty proud of it actually. The rest of the time I use chord progression.

I found it haha, bare in mind this was 2 years ago when I first started making music.

  On 8/7/2010 at 9:26 PM, chassis said:

Most pop songs you hear lately arent catchy melodies. Theyre just pads with a solid beat and some singing.

I'm a bit behind with pop, but have you heard much by music production team Xenomania? They certianly write catchy melodies and funny lyrics too, not just pads, beats and singing. (Though in the case of pop music, the lead melody will always be sung, so you have to count that.) I'd recommend their work as sung by Sugababes, Girls Aloud and Frank. Yes, seriously. You could probably mistake an instrumental version of, say, The Show for being some respected IDM. Conversely, as I've mentioned before, you could set lyrics to PWSteal.Ldpinch.D and mistake it for catchy pop.

PS Nice avatar. After seeing Moon the other week it suddenly makes sense. :)

  On 8/8/2010 at 10:13 PM, ZoeB said:

you could set lyrics to PWSteal.Ldpinch.D and mistake it for catchy pop.

 

 

yeah true

  On 8/7/2010 at 7:57 PM, luke viia said:

As for pop songwriting, i've found that the easier you can whistle a melody, the more likely it is to get stuck in your head.

That's exactly what Jason Blume said in his book. Write a melody catchy enough to whistle in the shower or hum while grocery shopping and you're set.

  On 8/7/2010 at 8:18 PM, acid1 said:

I think there is something to be said here. Writing a "catchy" tune takes a tremendous amount of skill and luck.

 

Songwriting has an uncanny witchcraft like ability to get stuck in someones head for a long time. Some of the most powerful melodies resonate with me to the point where I find myself thinking about specific melodies first thing in the morning and for the rest of the day subconsciously.. I'll catch myself whistling or repeating lyrics. I notice these melodies have classic music theory elements and tend to go where you expect it to melodically.

 

The evil magicians however who figure out this witchcraft and exploit it drive around in lamborghini's and date super models. People like Dr. Luke and Max Martin are the devil incarnate. It almost gives me hope tho that there is some secret formula out there through technomancy to create a million dollar monstrosity myself someday.

I found this while researching Max Martin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub9AH15J83E

the part at 1:30 has so much from windowlicker and jackson. never seen max Martins productions from this perspective. In my opinion pop is all about to take what worked for the top10 and make something new out of it by using these elements as said in the manual by klf and practiced by daft punk. but its much harder to really do it than it sounds