PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Not sure if this qualifies me as someone to ppst a guide tomwriting god vocal melodies, but im going tombank on the fact that the guy i produced in tokyo is now in the karaoke books and just write the guide. Tho the tracks i did are not, its the stuff later in his career that got on karaoke. (the guy is some dude in the jpop market)

Anyway, early on, when i was trying to get into producing, an a&r agent in taiwan picked me up, and she insisted that i needed to learn how to sing. At the time (1996?) my stuff was completely instumental, and i hadnt really given vocal writing much though.. So her advice made sense, and i joined up my colleges acapella group, doing clasics loke betcha by golly wow and how do i say good by (boyz 2 men).. That was cool to learn the vocal range and characteristics, but it wasnt till i met the song that changed my perception of vocal perfomance that my writing really changed.

That tune was "one last cry" by brian mcknight. K, so ots a mellow tune with just a ballad style singing, but the performance blew me away. I tried to learn to sing it. Not just the fancy frill lines, but the performance and emotions. Of course, a lot of it is in the line, but more of it is in the execution.. Almost like acting. I couldnt sing it right at all, but it lead way into the expressions of the voice at different ranges and the aggregate power the combination of the expression and the line could produce.

Sure, that stuff is obvious as niht and day in theory... But to learn it through actually singing and recording was very fruitful. Since then ive kept working on the same tune on my time.. Some 10 years since thenive grasped more of it, but not being a vocalist by nature its hard for me. But every time i look back, there is more to learn and put to use in my own writing.

Anyways, chech out the tune, see the bits and pieces that go intomthe performance, and learn ot through doing. A tune written by someone who actually sings as a vocalist and one thats not is several orders of magnitude in difference.

Just thought id bring it up. Oh what am i doing on vday? Posting onz cuz my wife and kid is away at disneyworld! Lol

kensuguro wrote:Oh what am i doing on vday? Posting onz cuz my wife and kid is away at disneyworld! Lol

shouldn't you be eating home made chocolate?

kensuguro wrote: A tune written by someone who actually sings as a vocalist and one thats not is several orders of magnitude in difference.

A lot of hit songs are written for artists by specialised song writers who dont perform, if you need a vocalist you could always try vocaloid, good for writing and producing with a guide vocal.

http://www.vocaloid.com/en/

dante wrote:

kensuguro wrote: A tune written by someone who actually sings as a vocalist and one thats not is several orders of magnitude in difference.

A lot of hit songs are written for artists by specialised song writers who dont perform, if you need a vocalist you could always try vocaloid, good for writing and producing with a guide vocal.

http://www.vocaloid.com/en/

The label "song writers" doesn't mean they don't know how to sing. I'd be surprised if the writers couldn't sing through their song, even though not to a professional performer level. The point is, the writer needs to know how singing works. Not necessarily be a pro singer himself.

Personally, I think vocaloid for placeholder is pretty lame.. Vocaloid's a tech toy... Might as well use a tb303 as a place holder.. I'd say go with the nearest available amateur vocalist instead.

Most top song writers would take the target vocalist's style into account. With VariAudio even out of tune vocalist can produce a reasonable guide vocal, but then Id still be prepared to give Vocaloid a go. It would be enough for example to give the real vocalist the pitching and timing. Or even to fully produce certain techno/electro tracks. Its on my list anyway, so will see when I get it.

Hatsune Miku for ever!


yeah, vocaloid is pretty sick...i like Miku's performance though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGH ... re=related



Ken, i don't think it takes a good singer, but it takes someone who understands singing and what a song is.

garyb wrote:Hatsune Miku for ever!


yeah, vocaloid is pretty sick...i like Miku's performance though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGH ... re=related



Ken, i don't think it takes a good singer, but it takes someone who understands singing and what a song is.

I guess what's hard for me to understand is how a writer would understand singing without actually being sort of good at it. Since to understand, you'd actually have to do it (to a certain degree), and unless you reach a certain level of proficiency, you can't really "understand" it. Of course, it's possible to understand much more than you can technically execute.. like a guy writing for piano isn't necessarily a legendary pianist. But you'd bet he could play pretty good. I would seriously doubt a writer would be bad at what his target instrument is going to be.

From what I've seen (just limiting to vocal melody) the better writers are "okay" singers, whereas those who completely do not sing tend to write obscure lines. Though there are exceptions, I'm saying in general.

I guess vocaloid could be a stand in if the person writing already has a very good idea of how to write for voice.. How vocaloid interprets and responds to the melody is in a different dimension compared to a real vocalist. Though like gary brought up, in the case with Miku Hatsune, the vocaloid voice became the target instrument... so that's a different thing all together. Still it takes a great vocalist to not just get the basics down, but to also nail a great performance. Variaudio or autotune can't give you that. (though it can fix a good performance with bad pitch.. such a thing exists!!!)

kensuguro wrote:

garyb wrote:Hatsune Miku for ever!


yeah, vocaloid is pretty sick...i like Miku's performance though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGH ... re=related



Ken, i don't think it takes a good singer, but it takes someone who understands singing and what a song is.

I guess what's hard for me to understand is how a writer would understand singing without actually being sort of good at it. Since to understand, you'd actually have to do it (to a certain degree), and unless you reach a certain level of proficiency, you can't really "understand" it. Of course, it's possible to understand much more than you can technically execute.. like a guy writing for piano isn't necessarily a legendary pianist. But you'd bet he could play pretty good. I would seriously doubt a writer would be bad at what his target instrument is going to be.

From what I've seen (just limiting to vocal melody) the better writers are "okay" singers, whereas those who completely do not sing tend to write obscure lines. Though there are exceptions, I'm saying in general.

I guess vocaloid could be a stand in if the person writing already has a very good idea of how to write for voice.. How vocaloid interprets and responds to the melody is in a different dimension compared to a real vocalist. Though like gary brought up, in the case with Miku Hatsune, the vocaloid voice became the target instrument... so that's a different thing all together. Still it takes a great vocalist to not just get the basics down, but to also nail a great performance. Variaudio or autotune can't give you that. (though it can fix a good performance with bad pitch.. such a thing exists!!!)

well, although he's not one of my favorites, Leonard Cohen is a perfect example of a guy who just can't sing, but has a great sense of the song. ditto for Dylan and Randy Newman. Kris Kristopherson surely wasn't a great singer.

i don't think knowing how to sing has anything to do with songwriting, but knowing how to sing wouldn't hurt, either.

You can attend songwriting courses and learn certain rules. And you can target your writing to artists, thier range, musical style, whats happening in thier lives etc.

But in the end, the way the vocalist sings a well written song is thier contribution more than the writers. If the writer could dictate every nuance, then the singer would not be 'owning it' as much. A well written song will leave enough scope for the artist to make it thier own.

But yeah, ex-singers or singer/songwriters do go on to become accomplished writers for other up-coming artists.

And then you hear the old stories about such-and-such a singer being so good they could sing the bible and make it sound great.

yup, that's why there are singers and songwriters(although the cliche' is more like "he sings so well he'd make the phonebook sound good"). who'll make a venn diagram showing the crossover between the two different sets?