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This is less a bio about me and more a bio about you…
You have a song. You think more people than just your mom and that creepy guy that comes to every one of your shows will completely flip their lid over it. You are probably right. But from here it starts to get complicated. Do you add guitars with super shreddy solos and wailing whammy bars, or go all Florence And The Machine on it and add harps and Travertine Monks in an acid parade? Oh so many decisions.
And the truth is, there are about a million right answers here. It seems like the old adage of “find your sound, write 20 songs in that sound, make sure one of them is a radio hit, and get ready to live in a van for 7 years playing out at bars in North Dakota” is slipping away. Let’s be totally truthful here, you want one or two or five songs to sound really rad, you want something people want to buy/download/burn, and you wouldn’t argue if Grey’s Anatomy somehow heard your epic tune and decided to make it their new theme song. This is the new landscape—and it is really fun. A lot more fun than North Dakota.
Even though you can literally do an infinite amount things to a song to make it sound cool, not all production choices really benefit the song. You still need to make sure there is some musical hook that centers people into the song; you need to make sure that there is emotional movement that reaches a climax so people don’t get bored and skip to the next tune; you need it to say/evoke exactly what you—the writer—have in mind; and you need it to sound clean. It’s a balancing act but it is important…and at the end of the day, it’s your song…your words that you are throwing out there for other people to connect with.
My goal, whether I am composing for a film, writing a song for a TV show, coming up with some hooky guitar part*, or subcontracting Travertine Monks while creating a drum/harpsichord/banjo hip-hop loop, is to get what is in the head of the artist/producer/director into the recording…all the while paying special attention to what drives the song and what it seems the intended audience wants to hear. Capiche?
*It is not a musical law that all hooks must be played on guitar: pianos, vocals, mandolins, drums, glockenspiels, bell trees and didgeridoos can all get in on the hooky excitement. No chimes allowed though.
