How to Make It in the Music Industry

Stratums are ‘note-ranges’ in music, and planning stratums are important for making tracks sound professional. They will prevent the melody getting muddled up and losing focus. The listener will naturally hear the melody as the highest note, so it’s important not to have higher notes from elsewhere above the melody line.

Typical stratums in music are the bass stratum, chord stratum and melody stratum. Crucially, if the tune were played on the piano, you would be able to divide the keys for each stratum, and the notes relevant to that stratum would never leave that range. This prevents, say, for example, a note of chord stratum appearing inside the melody stratum. Working in this way will produce a much more balanced, less ‘messy’ and more ’solid’ sound.

My Chords Don’t Fit

For bass notes that drift into the chord stratum, drop them an octave.

For chords that do not fit within their stratum, you should invert the chord. Inversion means playing the same chord but reordering the notes… e.g. C Major - C E G might be rearranged and played (from low to high) as E G C. Notice that this now means that the root note of the chord, C, is now the highest note. This might make the chord sound ‘thinner’, however, when played with the bass stratum, this illusion vanishes, and the chord will flesh out.

Don’t Clutter Vocals

If you are using harmonies for vocals, consider carefully how using the harmony will affect the listener’s perception of the melody. Usually, harmonies lower than the melody will not affect the way the melody sounds. If the harmony is higher than the melody, you might find the listener singing the harmony instead of the melody, and this will weaken the melody. Make sure you consider how any arrangement will be perceived by the listener.

Conclusion

Stratums might seem like a chore to think about, but the only reason that this discussion exists is because it is a more advanced technique of improving a track in a methodical way, and you should at least try arranging your tunes with the stratums in mind and seeing if they sound better. Often, they will.

Jack, the producer, and I, have been working in the studio to record “Don’t Fall For Me’, my latest tune, and hopefully the one I need to get me on my feet. The quality of it is sounding tip-top and am very excited about playing it to you.

I’ve also been playing a lot gigs around West London, mostly open-mic nights, and the response has been lukewarm to astonishing, depending on the crowd. I’m optimistic that it will improve as I finish off some new songs I’ve been working on and introduce those to the set. We shall see :-).

I’ve also been hassled a lot to get a MySpace. I promise I will as soon as ‘Don’t Fall For Me’ is finished.

Lastly, if anybody has any suggestions for a band name or act name, other than my own name, please make it known!

Take it easy,

Chris xx

If you are the singer or songwriter of a band, you have a pretty substantial responsibility. One way or another,the music will be cast in your own image. If you do not play any instruments but only sing, the challenge can be tougher when having to write songs. You will need to write with a band.

So here is my golden rule for songwriting with a band: turn up with lyrics. Ideally learn them. Do not come in hoping you will be inspired during the practice- you probably won’t. Make sure you have a decent selection, a lot of stuff might not work the way you planned. Turning up without anything is seriously bad form.

The process of writing songs with a band can sometimes be more natural than with a solo artist. The guitarist will probably play something, and everybody else will join in. You then do your best to adlib a melody for your lyrics over what is played. Usually this manifests in a variety of revisions suggested by different band members until the song begins to sound pretty good. Funnilly enough, this doesn’t always depend on the talent of the individual members of the band. Often a band will be formed with very capable musicians, who are incapable of playing together (’Dreamtheater’ is a good example of this). Such a substantial part of it is chemistry that nothing could be better than a bunch of friends getting together to have fun playing (e.g. ‘Arctic Monkeys’).  Consquently, chill out and don’t worry too much about it. Ego and music rarely mix.

Remeber the golden rule number 1, always make sure you turn up with well penned lyrics. The quality will be much higher and all the other problems will work themselves out.

Have you ever met somebody who says they play a little piano or sing a little, and you ask them to play something for you, and they go ‘Oh no, no’ and a multitude of excuses come out. We’ve all been there, on both sides of the fence. But for a musician wanting to go pro, this isn’t good enough. What this means is, if somebody asks you to play, or the opportunity arises, you damn well get up and play.

I’d like to tell you about an acquaintance of mine from Manchester. This gentleman, at 21 years old, was quite an exceptional singer/songwriter. He played most nights of the week in the bars around the city, and I even found him playing to a queue of people outside a nightclub, doing an impromtu, uninvited, gig. Here is the mark of a true performer; one who loves to perform. This gentleman, at the wise old age of 22, was signed to Lavolta records, recorded his first album with Danton Supple, the producer of Coldplay’s mega successful ‘Rush of Blood to the Head’ and ‘X&Y’, and went touring the UK. You can look him up, his name is ‘Liam Frost’.

My point here is brash, and will come across as too strong for some people, but this is only because it is what they do not wish to hear. In order to play successfully, you must play as much as possible. There is no use ‘working on the album’, or ’searching for ideas’. It’s all about performance, if you do not like to perform then you had better quit now. If you do like perform but don’t, you had better put your singing hat on and get started.

Performing can be difficult. Everybody has bad nights, and every so often a night will be a disaster, where you hang your head in shame, and leave quickly and silently. When you start out, it’s the most difficult because this tends to happen more often, and lessens as you improve with performance experience.

Performing is a skill that is only learnt by doing; it isn’t something you can learn from a book. The only way to become a good performer is to start by being a rubbish performer and improve. It’s not often that you will be the best performer of the night, and if it is, often enough somebody will come along and show you up. It’s just the way art works.

The ‘Edge’ - Experience

There are dreamers, and there are do-ers. Getting experience means going on stage, swallowing the nerves, cocking up royally, taking the abuse and lack of applause, and then going back and doing it again. This can be a relatively traumatic process, but it can be made relatively painless if you see it as a means to an end. Unfortunately, you have to go through this process to go from a bad performer to a good performer.

Eventually, after having done enough shows like this, you will become much more able and develop a thicker skin, so when things go wrong, you can just laugh at yourself and forget about it.

Experience Will Make You Better than Everybody Else

People who are born with talent annoy me. The rest of us have to work at it. It is, however, what you do with it that counts, and by playing more, you will gain something that they do not have, so even if they are better musicians than you, play more instruments, write more songs or whatever, you will be able to upstage them with your performance. The ability to do this is essential to being singed.

Conclusion

The simple conclusion of this article is to dream less, play more. If you haven’t played many shows, do it. It is scary at first, but it won’t kill you. Do it a few times and you’ll wonder what you worried about. If it all goes horribly wrong, don’t worry, just book another gig and try again. Success comes from unwillingness to give up, so that if you can make that a virtue of yourself, all will be well.

When performing a show, it’s important to always to speak to the audience. In my experience, they are much more likely to listen to you play if you’ve spoken to them before. It’s also a good chance to ‘break the ice’, tell them who you are, when you are playing next, if you have a record and crack a joke or two. Generally, it’s unfriendly not to at least introduce yourself. You don’t need to bother with song titles unless you have good reason to, but if you fancy explaining the story behind the song go ahead. Relax, and laugh along with audience, and this will create a much better impression, and you are also more likely to enjoy the gig.

When Not to Speak to the Audience

I saw famous American metal supergroup A Perfect Circle play live a couple of years ago, with James Iha on guitar. For anybody who knows what kind of music they make, it is very heavyweight, serious, emotional music, and the show was in a very large auditorium. Between the songs, they cracked rubbish jokes and talk about nothing, and this completely and utterly destroyed the mood. Consequently, the impact of the band was substantially reduced.

Often successful bands will elect not to speak to the audience, but to go from one song the next, to deliver maximum ‘bang’. This only works if you’re in the right setting, so consider carefully.

Conclusion

A good rule of thumb is, when playing a small gig, is to always speak, and when playing a larger gig, with a band, speak less.  Make sure you thank the audience for listening, and for clapping, and pay them a compliment or two. That way you’re sure to get the keenest ears and maximum impact from your performance.

Writing a song without physically ever writing it down, but just working it out in your head and on instruments of your choice may seem tough, until you’ve done it. But it’s a practice I find works well. Celebrated rapper Jay-Z (reputed by some to be the best rapper in the world) is well known for writing his tracks simply by listening to the backing on loop and working it all out, without pen and paper, and when he’s ready, he delivers it to the mic.

Why You Might Want to Try This

In my experience, this method of writing produces better songs. This is for several reasons. Unless the lyric you come up with is any good, you’ll forget it in no time. This is good because it disposes of less than golden lines. Secondly, working something like this out will require you to practice over and over, and use your ears. This means that the finished product is very well rehearsed, and all the writing and lyrical glitches and bumps are ironed out. Most experienced song writings will be able to relate to this in some shape or form.

The best songs I’ve written have been mostly or entirely worked out this way. These days I write down much less than used to, but conversely play much more.

How to Do It

Easy. Play your guitar/piano /whatever over and over again and sing over it. Just make up the words, any crap, doesn’t even have to make sense. That will give you a natural hook all on it’s own. I find if you don’t constrain yourself you automatically gravitate to a strong melody. Now repeat, over, and over, and over, everyday, and the ideas will surely come. Sometimes I am cycling ideas around literally for months, a few times every day, and the end result is then a masterpiece.

It’s Easy

This is a very easy thing to do and very effective. Don’t be put off because you sound stupid just babbling at first, or because the songs you are singing naturally aren’t the songs you want to sing (e.g. if you want to sing about death but all you end up writing are love songs, get over it, you’re a romantic). Make sure you don’t try and force yourself in any particular direction too early on.

Probably my best song to date (’Don’t Fall For Me’, which you will hear when the studio sessions are over), was written this way.

Conclusion

There is a case against this method- I have also had brilliant success writing by other means, and this merely proves there are no rules in songwriting. The best thing to do is keep this in mind, and one day pull it out of the hat and write a splendid tune with it.

Last night I performed at ‘The Honest Cabbage’ in Kingston upon Thames. A friendly, unprecocious open mic on a Thursday eve. Unfortunately, the audience was very small. This has happened to me before, where you are playing to a sort of ‘empty room’, and you can hear a pin drop when you stop. Personally I find this harder than playing to a bigger, roudier audience. Nerves did get the better of me, but I pushed it aside as best I could.

I think the toughest part is ‘going for it’ proper gig-style when you know you’re being closely watched. It takes a lot of courage to stay calm and relaxed when playing in this situation. I think it’s good practice for a perfomer.

Fortunately, I was well received, for which I’m very grateful, and that was nice! I’d say that at every open mic night you get a different audience, and so the challenge is different every time, and doing a lot of these nights gives you experience and knowledge that cannot be gained any other way.

Should you quit your job so you can focus on your music? Well, the answer is probably not, but I have. I kidded myself into starting my own business, but that didn’t work. Really I quit just to work on music. I’ve not seen any tangible results yet (as in million dollar royalties), and nobody’s invited me to any awards shows, but it’s early days.

Quitting Your Job To Work on Music

This, actually, in retrospect, is double ended sword. My reasoning is this:

You get a lot more time to do music stuff. Practice is very time consuming, and it helps greatly to have the time to do it. Few people start an instrument in their 20’s and progress to professional level- society has made it too late for them- they had their chance when they were young.

On the flipside, however, I found because I play guitar and write every single day now, I have far fewer ideas than I did when I had to go to work every day and forget about music. Some days I find myself even needing to take a break from music and do other things (like this blog). I think you can also get stuck in the nitty gritty of song writing when you’re thinking about it continuosly, and not see the bigger picture.

It’s worth pointing out that inspiration does not come out continously during the hours of 9-5, and it’s often that inspiration strikes when you least expect it, or when it’s least convenient (e.g. on the motorway). Consequently, if you intend to spend all day writing songs, this is very unlikely to happen.

Depression

I heard a statistic on the television yesterday that said 50% of long term unemployed people suffer from clinical depression or anxiety. Having been unemployed myself, I can relate to this, and I think others can too, and would say it is a danger of being sat inside after a while. If you do decide to concentrate on music, but end up sat inside watching television/internet/smoking all day, you ought to get some kind of other activity, even volunteering. In my bitter experience, being depressed does not help you write music, it rather hinders it (and anything else you might want to do), and is consequently worth avoiding.

Being Responsible About Money

Everybody needs money. Music doesn’t pay. It might pay, but as a general rule it doesn’t. The smart thing to do is to keep earning, even on a part time basis, and push your music hard until you can start earn something from it. That is, after all, the struggle of this entire blog.

Don’t Listen to Me

I should point out that I hated my previous job anyway, and worked long, stressful hours, so probably would have quit anyway.

This article is unfortunately a little bit ‘preachy’. That’s not my intent. It’s only my intent to share my opinion on the matter. Do let me know though what you get up to!

This is a simple exercise that my friend, and impromtu vocal coach and producer, imparted to me one night while working late in the studio. The purpose is to help improve the natural transitions in a singer’s voice, particularly from chest voice (normal voice) to falcetto (high pitched and less deep), till they are seemless and smooth. The benefits of this to singing in the long term are practically limitless. Crucially, it helps to develop control over one’s voice, so that when you ‘go for it’, notes come out just the way you expect.

The exercise is simple to learn. Sing or hum as low a note as you can manage. Then slowly and continuously slide the note up until you get to the highest note you can realistically manage, and then, once again, slow and controlled, bring the note back down again to where you started from, hence replicating a siren. Make sure you do it slowly- doing it quick defeats the point. Relax and listen carefully as you do it. The goal is to make sure that as the note slides up or down, there are no ‘jumps’ as your voice transitions, and the movement is perfectly smooth and silky.

Once gain, this takes practice but the improved control is well worth it.