Ashtonmon
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10/21/2008 9:24:47 AM
Never the same pattern twice
OK, I promised to talk about techniques for putting core tracks down, so here goes.
I guess the first advantage is we know pretty much what the melody line is from the guide tracks, so we have an idea about how the orchestration of the song is going to work – in other words, where to leave space for backing vocals, keyboard parts, colour parts etc.
This makes it simple enough to decide on some key aspects for keeping the basic tracks interesting – when to reharmonise a final verse or chorus, when to slip an unusual chord in, and just as importantly, when to keep the chord structure nice and simple.
For example, the opening track on the record is going to be Hook in My Heart and that will be at 212 bpm. At that speed, there’s not a lot of room for anything fancy, so simple approaches like restating the main hook as the solo break work fine. Later on, when the album slows down a bit, we can look at everything from playing the reprise chorus a tone higher to using completely different chords under the same melody line for a reprise chorus.
Our watchwords are ‘never the same pattern twice’ – in other words we’ll change an inversion, or substitute a chord, or add further instrumentation; and never the same technique too often – in other words, not every reprise chorus will rise a tone, not every song will fade out into the distance.
It’s time now to live with the basic tracks for a few days and then move on to vocals and keyboard parts – looks like this will be my busy time as the singer and keyboard player in the band!
I’ll tell you all about it next time,
Cheers for now
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