Jachin's Songwriting and Performance Journal

This week we covered harmonic modulation in class⁷, and the various ways it can be achieved. I was particularly interested in common chord modulation, as I love how the pivot can sound and the surprise it gives to the listener. The lesson caused me to consider one of my own songs and how I achieved modulation from the pre-chorus to the chorus. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zfkleixvv8n5y4t/%25%20For%20Someone%20Else.m4a?dl=0

The song’s verse is in Db, and the pre-chorus starts likewise – but to arrive the chorus key of F#, I use the following progression:

Ebm – Ab – Ebm – B – Bm – F# 

Ebm is the pivot chord – it’s the ii of Db but it becomes it’s enharmonic equivalent D#m as the vi of F# – I then move to the IV and iv of the new key before returning to the F# tonic to execute a minor plagal cadence as the chorus begins. 

However, while it’s helpful to self-analyse, I also wanted to see an example of this technique as used by a master of their craft –  so I looked at one of my favourite songs of all time and how it uses modulation to great effect: 

Incredibly, the song’s verse, pre-chorus and chorus are all in different key areas – F, Ab, and Bb respectively. These modulations are all of the abrupt variety – giving that shocking feeling as they occur, but they also give the song momentum as the new key is higher than the one previous. The more I learn from analysing songs I love, the more I feel I’ll be able to give my own music the same effectiveness.

7 Habel, Robyn. “Harmonic Modulation”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1B, University of Adelaide, September 2, 2019.

The focus for Robyn’s lecture⁶ this week was on detail and action in lyric writing. I feel that I had already gained somewhat of an understanding of the importance of detail in lyric writing, looking back at past songs that I have written. Here are some lyrics I’d written as an example:

V:
If he loves you let him go
To the forest with the doe
And the bucks that rest their antlers on her hooves

If he loves you let him go
There’s a fox beneath the snow
And he’s making sure there’s room enough for two

Ch:
Yeah you won’t find
Peace of mind
If there’s another mind to choose

Yeah you won’t find
Peace of mind
If there’s another mind to lose

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gdqzlj64ykyyr7q/%25%20Another%20Kind.m4a?dl=0 This is the link to the song – lyrics in question start at 1:09

The first line of each stanza reaffirms the key idea of the verse – that the subject of the song finds love unnatural despite the world around them proving very much otherwise. This strong juxtaposition is enhanced by the imagery of describing specific animals and their actions, rather than simply saying “foxes love each other” or something equally banal. Specificity in songwriting is an important tool, and this week was a good reminder of that. 

6 Habel, Robyn. “Detail and Action”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1B, University of Adelaide, August 26, 2019.

Robyn’s class this week⁴ was all about motif development, and the plethora of ways this can be achieved. 

To wrap my head around how motif development can function in pop songs, I looked at the motif development in Keep The Customer Satisfied by Simon and Garfunkel⁵, as an example of a hook with a strong melody. The chorus features motif extension on the words:

One step ahead of the shoe shine – original motif

Two steps away from the county line – extends motif by a note

In addition, the lyrics moving from “one step” to “two steps” as the motif develops is an example of prosody in Paul Simon’s songwriting, which was interesting as a takeaway to improve how I approach matching lyrics to melody.

4 Habel, Robyn. “Motive Development”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1B, University of Adelaide, August 12, 2019.

5 Simon and Garfunkel. “Keep The Customer Satisfied”. Bridge Over Troubled Water. By Paul Simon. Produced by Roy Halee. January 26, 1970.

This week Robyn’s lecture² had a focus on line progressions, which prompted me to consider songs that I liked which utilized them. As it happened, one of the first songs I had learnt to sing and play on piano contained a line progression – Step by Vampire Weekend³: 

The chord progression follows the descending line pattern with Bb – Bb/A – Gm7 – Bb/F – Eb before turning around with a three chord pattern of Bb – Eb – F. The effectiveness of the descending bassline inspired me to incorporate one such progression into the bridge of my band song for this semester. In addition, I varied the progression so that the first time through it ended on F, but the second time added the secondary dominant E major and ended on Fm as shown here:

C – C/B – Am – G – F

C – C/B – Am – E – F – Fm

NB: Here is video from Forum of the song in action: https://youtu.be/w3L-YdOAOcI?t=1213 descending progression starts at 20:15

2 Habel, Robyn. “Line Progressions, Pedals and Ostinato”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1B, University of Adelaide, August 5, 2019.

3 Vampire Weekend. “Step”. Modern Vampires Of The City. By Rostam Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig. Produced by Rostam Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtstaig. March 19, 2013.

This week Robyn talked about techniques for lyric writing¹ , such as analyzing metric feet. I was already conscious of metric feet due to study in high school, and had even already applied deliberate use of iambic pentameter as part of a stanza in reference to Shakespeare in one of my songs: 

So no I won’t beware the Ides of March

Though it led Caesar to his brutal fate

Into the Bard read in as much you like

I find he lacks in journalistic weight

By utilizing a typical syllabic rhythm of his writing, my invoking of Shakespeare contains another layer of complexity to give the lyrics additional depth.

The other device that was covered in the lesson was the use of lyrical modes – or as I had known them: first, second and third person – and I reflected on how I had used them interchangeably in my songwriting depending on how I wanted to convey the message. In the lyrical passage above, I’d even switched between all three in one stanza: with Lyrical mode in the first and last line, Narrative mode in the second, and Dramatic mode in the third.

1 Habel, Robyn. “Prosody, Metre and Lyric Modes”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1B, University of Adelaide, July 29, 2019.

May 8 Rehearsal – 2pm to 4pm – Madley – Members Present: Amber, Chloe, Declan, Jachin

It was good to start the scheduled rehearsals after meeting with most of the other band members in the holidays, and given we were only one person short we made a decent start on Chloe and Amber’s songs. While my song was also written and I was able to present it to the other group members on piano, I would have to wait until our keyboardist was present before we could rehearse it as a group.

May 15 Rehearsal – 2pm to 4pm – Schulz Basement – Members Present: Andrew, Amber, Chloe, Declan, Jachin

With everyone present, we were able to work on everybody’s song on their own instrument, which helped us to properly settle into our group and work out how we would proceed. I would stick to drums, with Andrew on piano, Amber on vocals, and Declan and Chloe would swap between bass and guitar throughout the songs. We ran through everyone’s song except Declan’s, who had to polish some lyrical ideas.

May 22 Rehearsal – 2pm to 4pm – Madley – Members Present: Andrew, Amber, Chloe, Declan, Jachin

Unfortunately this week we had to rehearse in a room with no drum kit, so I had to contribute ideas via chair percussion, but it was still helpful to run through everyone’s song (Declan had finished his lyrics and so we ran through his song finished for the first time). In addition, the verses of Andrew’s song had changed so we practiced those adjustments.

June 17 Rehearsal – 11am to 1pm – Schulz Basement – Members Present: Andrew, Amber, Chloe, Declan, Jachin

After a number of rehearsals in the Madley with no drums, we finally managed to have a rehearsal back in the basement and we could apply the full instrument ensemble to the songs we had rehearsed thoroughly in the previous weeks. The potential of Declan’s song was finally realised with the addition of percussion, and we ran through the entire set in order confident that we would be ready for the recital in less than 2 weeks time.

This week’s lecture, Robyn focused on placement and balance of melodic structure, and in particular how variation of this is key to creating a vivid and engaging tune. Melodic phrase length especially is something I’d never particularly isolated as a technique to utilise, but Robyn’s use of I Want You Back by The Jackson 5¹⁴ as an example in this week’s lecture¹⁵ was an excellent example to demonstrate the effect that it can have on a song – the mix of phrase lengths help keep the song from growing stale or predictable (that bassline certainly doesn’t hurt either).

14 The Jackson 5. “I Want You Back”. I Want You Back. By The Corporation. Produced by The Corporation. 7 October 1969.

15 Habel, Robyn. “Melody Part 2”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, May 3, 2019.

Secondary dominants. I had no idea how they functioned before this week, and was surprised to discover how widespread they are used in the music I listen to. After this class we had to find a song that featured the use of secondary dominants, and suddenly numerous chord changes in songs I’d been playing on piano for years that had never made sense finally did. I found this especially applicable for the band Radiohead, who I’ve been a fan of for many years and whose chord progressions have always fascinated me, and I discovered that they used secondary dominants consistently throughout their career. From their grungy breakout hit Creep¹¹ in 1992, to the poignant album closer Motion Picture Soundtrack¹² in 2000, to the angelic bridge of 2007 track Reckoner¹³, all three tracks utilises B major as secondary dominant (the first two tracks are in G major, making it the III chord, while the latter is in C major making it a VII chord). That insight into Radiohead’s songwriting was valuable to me as it helped to further demystify the process of progression writing, and led me to include a secondary dominant in the kids song in my portfolio, which primarily features the progression F-G-Bb-F, which uses G major as the II secondary dominant in the key of F major.

https://soundcloud.com/jachin-mee/growing-up

11 Radiohead. “Creep”. Pablo Honey. By Albert Hammond, Mike Hazlewood and Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway, Thom Yorke). Produced by Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade. 21 September 1992.

12 Radiohead. “Motion Picture Soundtrack”. Kid A. By Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway, Thom Yorke). Produced by Nigel Godrich. 2 October 2000.

13 Radiohead. “Reckoner”. In Rainbows. By Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway, Thom Yorke). Produced by Nigel Godrich. 10 October 2007.

As I mentioned in the first entry on lyrics, I am a big fan of looking at the simile and metaphor potential in lyric writing, so this week was a great opportunity to develop those techniques. I particularly enjoyed the freedom provided by the exercise Robyn set for us involving creating metaphors from seemingly unrelated words¹⁰. Sometimes I find myself focusing on purely adjectives that directly connect to the subject, but this often leads to cliches or predictable writing, so I enjoyed the contrast of random selection and the ensuing bizarre constructions such as “euphoric door” or “homeless mountain”. In my mind, this idea of nonsense metaphor making reminds me of the idea mentioned in Robyn’s first lecture on creative process¹ of how if you’ve set aside time to work, sometimes your mind finds solutions to problems in the time you’re ostensibly not working – I found myself coming up with legitimate lyrical ideas while we were just listing random adjectives and nouns. This led me to construct the stanza that I brought in the following week:

everybody’s got a story

they don’t want to tell

everybody’s drinking water

from their hidden well

but if you decide that you’re drowning

every now and then

time will tell you to rebuild and

like the setting sun you’ll rise again

Using a sunset over the sea as a starting visual point, I constructed this verse to emphasise the effect metaphor and simile can have.

10 Habel, Robyn. “Lyrics (Imagery and Metaphor)”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, May 20, 2019.

1 Habel, Robyn. “Creative Process”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, March 4, 2019.

This week we looked at arrangement, and this was an area I already felt quite comfortable in. It was a good experience to contribute to the lecture by giving examples of the variety of feels and fills that the drums can contribute. It was also worthwhile that the lesson culminated in a full band jam, as it provided a practical application of the knowledge and theory we’d built up over the past few weeks – while I’ve drummed in groups for a while, the portion of this week’s lecture that covered the keyboard’s role in an arrangement (as well as the lessons on harmony and melody) assisted me in playing piano in a collaborative setting. Since Robyn had just mentioned the piano’s ability to add riffs and counter melodies⁸, that was fresh in my mind and I was able to apply that directly in the group jam. That was a rewarding moment for me personally.

8 Habel, Robyn. “Arranging – Part 1”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, May 13, 2019.