Back from the Future

For my usual preamble, and as it’s been a while… Allow me a bit of a ranting session.

So you record a song, then lose all your rights to it. And there are still people recording on US labels. Have any more doubts about it being for the money? It seems to me there’s only way to beat the bastards (read: Major Record Companies), and that’s to release any and all of your recordings on your own label. If you own the label, you still retain your rights.

Of course, this is going into hearings, but I’m not very optimistic about the results. Once the big companies are involved, they usually buy the ending they want.

Remember a few years ago when they were sued for fixing prices? Never even made it to court.

However, I am happy to report that 28 beautiful states in the US have filed a suit against the five major labels for price fixing!!!! Canada is proposing to follow with its own suit. Again, I’m not very optimistic about the results. The direct results, that is. Hopefully, enough people will hear about this for something to happen.

Maybe we should all plug into Napster and agree to send $1 per album to each artist we download files from. Pay the artists direct and bypass the Record Companies completely. Might keep Metallica happy too.

Anyway, now it’s out of my system, let’s go to this week’s topic.

Looking Back to See Ahead

So we’ve seen a lot of the past in the last two weeks. Songs, music in general was meant to tell stories. Music was meant to tell stories, but then something happened. Something that had absolutely nothing to do with music. It was the Industrial Revolution.

With the Industrial Revolution, it was now possible to make more complicated, more sophisticated, better-sounding musical instruments.

With these new instruments, the Orchestra was born. Then music took a sharp left turn. This was the age of Baroque, what we now call “Classical Music”. Here the words were completely abandoned in favor of the music itself. For the composer, it was no longer a matter of using words to say what he meant, but making the feelings clear through the music.

“If you hear a Marching Band, you march. If you hear a Waltz, you dance. If you hear a Mass, you take communion.

“It is the power of music to carry one into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no choice, it is like hypnotism.”

These words are from Bernard Rose, writer and director of Immortal Beloved.

I could not have said it better myself. It also helps to explain why most people don’t pay attention to the music: They are already hypnotized by pop culture. Nothing more can get through. I’ve said it before, music is supposed to be felt, not heard.

Although there were composers who fitted the genre in later years, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Wagner, etc, the golden age of Classical music ended in the last years of Beethoven (he died in 1821). Already, words were returning as that’s what the people demanded. Beethoven himself added words to his Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy.

You might take notice, though, that when you hear the Ninth Symphony, you rarely hear it with the words…

Cycles

Richness in music, since then, has been cycling. It returned in the early 20th Century with Jazz. Then words were also added to Jazz… There was Progressive Rock in the 70’s. Some acts like Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre (no, they do not do New Age) went the musical way. But all of them have at one time or another, often frequently, had recourse to lyrics.

The 90’s saw some more remarkable acts like The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam and a few others who had recourse to beautiful, complicated music. Music that was a basis rather than an afterthought.

There was even one French band from Ontario in the 70s who took songs written as far away as the 13th Century and redid the music to make it complicated. The results were quite pleasant, although they never made it out of Canada. Perhaps that was only due to poor marketing.

So, what’s up for the future?

Obviously, the 3-chord song will last forever. Any fool can write a 3-chord song. Then again, very few can write a good one. Fewer even can write something using 12 or more chords. Maybe that’s not the way you wish to go, but it’s definitely something you should try.

Last week I mentioned that with Storytelling you should keep it simple. That’s advice that should be heeded every time you try something new. Start simple, then make it more complicated-once you get the hang of it.

If you’ve never touched a guitar, don’t try to play by learning Hendrix.

If you find that your songs are stale, try adding a new chord somewhere. If, for example, your verses have 2 chords, then 2 more, then repeat this pattern before going to the chorus, try 3 chords, then 2, repeat and put an instrumental section that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the song.

It might not work, but it may open new doors for you. You may find a totally unexpected world out there.

The major companies will always employ song designers: people who formula-write according to specific conventions. And they will always find new Celine Dions and Brittany Spears’ to sing them, but the public in general require more than this.

Problem is that when you go to the Labels, they’ll listen to what you have then tell you what they want. You’re then faced with a choice: do what they say or don’t call back. There will always be people who will prostitute their art for a chance at a lucrative contract. Fortunately, these are usually untalented people to begin with.

As we’ve seen over the past few months, it’s relatively inexpensive to record an album these days, and the prices are going down. More people are recording than there ever were. And the numbers are increasing daily. People record an album, put it on the Net and expect a miracle.

Very few acts have made it via the Independent labels. None have made it big. Problem is they don’t have the marketing budgets necessary to be heard.

However, these people do influence what happens with the major labels. Over time, the Majors have to follow the trends. They don’t make the trends, they just flood the market with it.

Anyway, the important thing is to always be happy with what you write. Right?

Next week I unclog my email and answer questions that tend to relate to many people.