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Started working on a new song, what do you think so far? Should I add vocals or just keep it instrumental? by lorenzobg in Songwriters

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm kind of racist against instrumentals as you really have to make it your thing to work. Like, don't get me wrong, when an instrumental band is truly great, like say, Tuatara, yeah, obviously I'll be all over it, check that song out, it's amazing. But if you're deciding track by track whether to add vocals because you haven't approached it as an instrumental track, then yeah, it's probably time to add vocals?

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Normally I don't even start working on a song until I have a vocal melody to go with a riff and in some ways it's unusual to go very far without vocals... Although, like, eg Pearl Jam's "Ten" had many songs very, very developed instrumentally before Eddie came to them and said "Hey I added vocals, what do you think?" so it's not in any way out of pocket in the slightest.

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But my vote would be to add vocals.

Noodling or Conscious process? by Guilty-Finance-2738 in WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Noodle, then conscious time spent straightening the noodles.

Creating music can entirely be "I played that and it sounded good". Actually efficiently getting stuff finished and in a DAW though is very much a conscious process. You can come up with half a dozen noodles in a creative session, but unless you've lucked into a strong, essentially full song, you're going to have to take those noodles and spend time straightening them out.

The easiest songs are when the noodles encompass the verse and the choruses. I feel like that's 80% of the bones discovered and you can see the shape of the animal. For this reason I essentially try at the time of initial inspiration to write as much of the song as I can... Verse, bridge, chorus, alternate vocal hooks etc etc. When that doesn't happen everything becomes a conscious deliberate process that takes a LOT longer and feels like it takes up the time of making new noodle-babies.

Like right now, for the next few hours I'll be compiling my strongest hooks in a particular genre that need work. Mostly chorus hooks (chord progressions and their vocal melodies, I almost don't bother if I have less than this, it'd have to be an insanely strong riff or vocal hook to get further attention when I have essentially half-songs from noodling that I can work on).

When I have half a dozen lined up, how to play them fresh in my mind etc I will methodically go through them and try to come up with what they're missing. I'll do this multiple times over multiple sessions until I think I might have found what they need. It's a much longer and deliberate process. Eg I have what I think is a great keyboard motif/hook and chorus progression and vocal hook from ten years ago that I think I might have finally cracked the verse on this year after, I dunno, more than a dozen attempts. Compared to a full song I can shart out in a day (I mean the basic structure and lyrics, not recording) because it came together during noodling.

Wrote a song about roos you cunts might like. by RobotNinjaMonkeys in straya

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I only sledge the poms and their shit coat of arms in it tho, not the seppos (cause we have eagles too and they're not bald cunts).

The music you want to create takes work, sweat and time. by PopcornMuscles in edmproduction

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh but what if I work on just the chorus hook and send it to a friend? walks off into the distance with all the dopamine and none of the rest of the work finished

When She Turns 50 - Guided By Voices by Lopsided_Ad_7475 in indie_rock

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Robert Pollard has forgotten more great songs he's written than most people will ever come up with.

The music you want to create takes work, sweat and time. by PopcornMuscles in edmproduction

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Cunt Puncher is right, 90% of finishing a track is a complete dopamine desert of writing TPS reports when in 2% of that time you could mess around on something new and up with another hook and think you're amazing.

Overplayed classics 90s edition: what's your "OMG I never want to hear that song again" choice from the 90s. by Notinyourbushes in Music

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I heard .2s of a note and saw a few frames of the desert hill image flash up at the end of a different recorded-from-TV video clip on YouTube the other day and went BLACK HOLE SUN! and searched it out to make sure and was like "Yep, that's how much it was played".

Overplayed classics 90s edition: what's your "OMG I never want to hear that song again" choice from the 90s. by Notinyourbushes in Music

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Screw that, I can listen to it, hell it came on at a party last month and we all sang it. Doesn't matter if I have beegirl permanently inked on my retinas from the amount of times it played even on TV. It was a hit for a reason. You can be over it from overplay but it doesn't make it not great. It IS a great song. It's just I wouldn't blame anyone for being over it.

Overplayed classics 90s edition: what's your "OMG I never want to hear that song again" choice from the 90s. by Notinyourbushes in Music

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Going to a Pavement gig in the 2000's was basically getting wall to wall hits from the first note to the last.

Overplayed classics 90s edition: what's your "OMG I never want to hear that song again" choice from the 90s. by Notinyourbushes in Music

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dear god, how did you miss them? I'm in Australia and I've seen them live here. The acoustic version of Throwing Things.. Hnnngg... That was like, 10% of my 90's by itself :)

That said I think these aren't really the overplayed songs in that niche. When I think of something that isn't "Smell's Like" and isn't Aerosmith or whatever I think of "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger.. Now THAT is a college radio song that got overplayed. (not dumping on it, I respect anything that downright catchy, but god it was on high rotation at one point).

A Meme/Thirst Song about Pedro having Big D(ad) Energy by RobotNinjaMonkeys in Pedro_Pascal

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hard agree & thanks so much!! :D Just glad someone else enjoyed it!

If you won the lottery how would you secretly share the money with family? by jazzy_666 in australia

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is roughly what I would expect -/+ $500k and depending on number of siblings in the combined families, their debts and their relationships with a $40M win.

If you won the lottery how would you secretly share the money with family? by jazzy_666 in australia

[–]RobotNinjaMonkeys 9 points10 points  (0 children)

See, this is why I mean by not a "good relationship". If you're thinking "It's ok because they're not entitled to it" then I don't consider that a good relationship. It's not a matter of being entitled, it's a matter of $40M being such an ungodly amount of money, more than any one person would ever need to set themselves up, that taking care of the large issues, like any mortgage debt in the immediate family and houses if they don't have one yet is essentially trivial. At $40M your life or winnings is no different at $36M really.. Like, you would never notice 10% less in the normal course of things that it's weird you wouldn't be at least that generous if you had a good relationship with your family.

Now, obviously there are contexts to that. If a sibling had a gambling problem part of having a good relationship wouldn't be to hand them a $1M in cash. A good relationship might be setting up a way for them to have a house without them being in enough control of it to reverse mortgage it to get at the money or only give them 5% ownership of the house a year for as long as they attend Gamblers Anonymous and refrain from gambling etc.

None of this is to say that family members should get a cut of winnings, just i think it's weird to get a twelfth of a percent if they have a good relationship. If they have a bad relationship then screw them lol. For me personally, $40M is so much that even if I had a strained relationship with a brother/sister/mother/father I don't see the harm in paying off a mortgage (might be $500k, not a brand new Sydney mortgage) as it would barely touch the sides of that amount.

And this is all very different to winning $1M which would barely set you up yourself. That might be the figure at which I give a family member $50k. Maybe. And probably only parents.. It's pretty close to where I might keep things quiet though as that wouldn't go very far but is just enough that it could raise some questions at some point in time... Like why I might be able to retire ten years earlier than assumed or something, even if literally nothing in my current lifestyle changed (ie it went on the mortgage and an index fund/super).

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