LYRICS
When thinking about what I want from the song I took a look at my previous wrk and had a look at what I could improve on. I want to spend more time with the lyrics and getting the flow right especially for this project. I have been listening to a few UK artists that might help with the accent Side of things as I primarily listen to American artists such as Eminem being the main one.
When looking into the process of lyric writing I first looked at Eminems writing process and from what I found out, he just constantly writes in his notes and uses the best of what he writes. Heres a few links to YouTube clips talking about his writing process:
Reference list
www.youtube.com. (2022). Rick Rubin Explains Eminem Creative Writing Process #shorts #eminem. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/8UdbaPL_jEY.
– In this clip, famous producer Rick Ruben talks about when he was working with Eminem, Em was writing everything down in his notes to stay in the writing mindset and keeps him in the mood to write, however most of what he writes he never uses as I can imagine he used the best of the ideas he writes down
I also saw Eminem and Lil Wayne on Lil Wayne’s radio show (2:00-3:16) –
(www.youtube.com, 2020)
He and Eminem talks about song writing and how they write their lyrics and how they keep it ‘fresh’. They go back and research their own lyrics to see if they have already written them down. I have done that because I want want to repeat myself. They also talk about how its hard to come up with new lyrics and ideas after making so many songs and projects and features as after rapping about most things its hard to keep things new and interesting especially to cater to the newer rap fans that might criticise the “old school” artists.
When it comes to writing lyrics for tracks I try to do it all on my own without any sort of help and not looking into many ways on improvement.
My Process – I think of a topic then write down how I feel about that. I find the beat and try freestyle some lines off the top of my head and see what comes to mind straight away. I then pick out some key elements of that subject and try to piece a few lines together. I worked with an artist a few years back who works with a local organisation and he taught me the process of putting a work at the end of every bar and create the flow from there. I use this when I’m struggling for ideas with a certain track.
WAYS I COULD IMPROVE MY LYRIC WRITING
- Dive into topics with more detail
- Improve my syllable rhyming with some multi-syllable rhymes
- Improve my free styling which will help me when trying to pick out some early lines
- Put more time into each word and line racer than just typing/writting it down.
- Try make everything connect in some way
- Don’t repeat too much.
I could experiment with different lyric writing gadgets such as similes, metaphors, Onomatopoeias. These will overall improve my work with writing lyrics and will also make it more interesting for the listeners experience. This will also add to the whole aim of my lyrics for most songs which is to make the listeners pause and go back to really hear the lyrics. Taking inspiration from Eminem even when he freestyles I always try catch the lines whenever he puts anything out or even listening to his older work.
I need to watch out for when I write lyrics and structure songs as there’s a few things that could decrease the listening experience for the audience such as:
- Repetition too frequently – This could make something sound less “hard hitting” or less “significant”
- Rapping about ‘offensive topics’ – This is debatable however as this could also bring attention to your work. An artist like this is one called “Tom Macdonald” Who often raps about topics such as “BLM’ “homophobia” and “politics”. This can be seen as controversial however it brings him the attraction. Even artists like Eminem raps about controversial topics and that ganres attention.
I think lyric writing is a different personal process for different people and everyone has their own way of doing it. When I listen to music I keep my focus on the lyrics more as I can take inspiration from what other artists say. When Eminem dropped his “Music to be murderd by side B” Album I was straight away catching all of the bars throughput all of the tracks. His flow and skill pattern throughout the tracks is remarkable with his multi-syllable rhymes, inner rhyme schemes, puns and the way he can just have a song that doesn’t really have a meaning but he just goes as hard lyrically as he can and still makes it flow.
Different types of song
I love the idea of a “diss track” and throwing some “disses” into a song. It reminds me of Eminem’s songs back in the early 2000’s. I also love the thought of competitive rap. Im personally a competitive person when it comes to what I like to do and music is the main one. Doing that can “in time” and progressively increase the ability to rap. I believe that if you have a reason to write raps, for example, You’re angry because someone criticised your music. All that anger can fuel yourself to write better and write more meaningful lyrics about that topic. A few ideas of these are “Killshot”/Bump Heads” and “Hail Mary” all by Eminem. He wrote these songs to ‘Respond to comments” and he felt angry during the process. In an interview he did with “Kxng Crooked” about his Music to be murdered by album release Crooked asked EM “are you happy” and he said “No” then stated “there’s something that makes me happier when I’m angry”. I think this is because there is more motivation to write when you’re passionate/sad/angry about something, especially after doing music for so long.
Writers Block
When I experience writers block I try to find a reason to write. I try to just write down some nice words to create rhyme chains from. I try to do something musical that might help me that isn’t lyric writing. I try to to just “give up”.
One thing I do when I get writers block and even in general is I will go through my music and listen to it back and try pick out a few things that I need to work on and I will try think of different ways that I could do that, weather that be lyric writing, production, recording or marketing.
Production
I have had experience will Ableton and have produced a few tracks so I have a good idea of what to do but I want to experiment with the different effects it has to offer to improve my work. While looking through the effects I googled some of them to get a better idea of what they are and how they could be used in certain parts of the song. Im stepping away from the predominantly trap music I make and looking at some older drum flows and some more instrumental range. I also want to try add more instruments to the beats as building instruments on beats could me a difference
I also want to try improve my ears to samples and sampling as a whole. even if its simple vocals chops, they could still be somewhere in a beat that could first and I want to improve that ability. This will help me in the future as well as with this project. I like vocal samples with reverb in particular ( or adding reverb to the vocals when mixing) as well as pitching them down and up when matching them to the beat. Im also a fan of adding reverb to the sample as well as the drums. I like adding large hall reverbs to make them sound distant or ‘large’ in the track. I heard a song by Post Malone called “love/hate letter to alcohol” where it sounds like there is reverb on the drums as well as the melody for the track. Even though can’t sing to a level of post Malone I enjoy the fell and “vibe” to the whole track. I have also been listening to a few old songs and old singing such as ‘Frank Sinatra’ ‘Elvis’ and have been looking for some vocal chops that I could try use in my tracks.
One of my favourite producers, Dr Dre uses an Akai MPC 3000 to produce his tracks, mainly his older work. It was launched in 1994 and was an improvement to the previous MPC60 (Mk2).The Akai MPC 3000 can sample music and also chop it up as well as changing pitch. It can also be good for recording the samples from tape and vinyl easily. You also don’t need a computer to produce with this as it has instruments in the product. Dr Dre used it on his studio album ‘2001’. J dilla used the Akai MPC 3000 as well who is another producer I like, especially his track “life” which has been used by rappers in songs after its creation.
The whole sampling process is something I have been more interested in recently after listening to more hip-hop songs. My ear for samples have improved since then and I try think of different ways to add different samples into my newer or older tracks.
Some of the biggest sings that people listen to are sampled in some shape or form, for example, “Shook Ones pt 2”- The piano and drums are sampled from a couple of different pieces. The drums are sampled from a piece called “Dirty Feet” by Daly-Wilson big band and the piano is sampled from “Jessica” by “Herbie Hancock”. Another example of sampling is “No church in the wild” by Kanye west and Jay-Z. The main melody is sampled from Phil Manzanera – K-scope from 1978. Kanye is one of the best in the game when it comes to sampling if you take a look at his catalogue of music that has iconic sampling.
Kanye West used a ‘Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer’ when he produced his album “808’s and Heartbreaks”. He has also used the “Gemini PT-1000 II Turntable”. These were used before DAW’s were around to be able to create the tracks to a high standard. Many of the equipment that they used are discontinued. For that time these pieces of equipment were some of the best you could get for making the music they were expected to make.
The equipment now sounds much more crisp and clear compared to the older equipment and can handle a lot more power. Some songs and some parts of songs would probably benefit from “older sounding equipment”. For example, there could be a slight vinyl sound on the drums or melody sample to create a more realistic sound rather than the clean electronic sounds we have in the recent years.
For Ableton/most DAW’s you can use a drum pad which can help with recording drums in and is also good for sampling for different tracks. These can be good for speeding up/slowing down samples and chopping up parts of the sample.
DAW’s
- Since DAW’s have been introduced there have been a few main ones such as Logic Pro, FL studio, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Serato and many others that all types of artists use.
- Many well known artists such as Taylor Swift, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, and Ed Sheeran have all been known to use Logic Pro for a lot of their work.
- Artists like Post Malone, S-X, Tyler the creator have been known to use FL Studios for some of their work.
- FL is overall better for electronic music production whereas logic gives you a lot of features in terms of live music recording and mixing. Logic also has a bigger music library and is overall more popular. Fl is known for having a “confusing system” when using the DAW for production and is known for being difficult for users.
- A famous artist that has used ableton is ‘T-minus”. He is signed to OVO sounds which was founded by ‘Drake’ back in 2012.
- Using the website – https://blog.native-instruments.com/t-minus/ – I have learned that T-minus has produced for Lil Wayne and has frequent work with J Cole. He goes for a melodic approach with his production. He goes for samples all with his work and if he doesn’t have one he goes straight for the keyboard and especially likes the guitar rig and likes to have it stand out in the track. He especially takes care in his drums and how he crafts the drum patterns in his tracks as he describes it as relaxing and therapeutic which I can relate to with all music with most of the process with making a song.
Reference list
Native Instruments Blog. (2022). Making beats with T-Minus, producer for J. Cole, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar. [online] Available at: https://blog.native-instruments.com/t-minus/ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2023].
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Rick Rubin Explains Eminem Creative Writing Process #shorts #eminem. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/8UdbaPL_jEY [Accessed 18 Apr. 2023].
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Lil Wayne’s Young Money Radio: With Eminem, Kevin Durant, and NAV | Apple Music. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/KX-CaY-wU8w [Accessed 18 Apr. 2023].