A song that can't be sung effectively by 1 person & 1 instrument isn't a great song

ZV Yoda · 30-11-2010 1:16pm #1

A song that can't be sung effectively by one person with one instrument isn't a great song

I'm on the email list for David Mellor's website. He sent this article today. Call me old fashioned, but I'd have to agree with him...

A good endorsement of the book "Zen and the Art of Mixing"... haven't a few folks on here metioned this book before? Must be worth a read

woodsdenis · 30-11-2010 1:30pm

ZV Yoda wrote: »

A song that can't be sung effectively by one person with one instrument isn't a great song

I'm on the email list for David Mellor's website. He sent this article today. Call me old fashioned, but I'd have to agree with him...

A good endorsement of the book "Zen and the Art of Mixing"... haven't a few folks on here metioned this book before? Must be worth a read

He as a slightly skewed perspective on the reasoning behind "produced demos"

I think it would fair to say that a good song should be able to be played with piano and voice etc but say something like "Relax" and "Two Tribes" by FGTH are still great records which rely on production chops. Are they great songs ?

The premise about having to produce record quality demos is a fact of the business these days, primarily because you are selling the song and the production. This was really pioneered by Max Martin/ Cherion guys in the 90s. You got sent a track demoed by a boy/girl that was produced as a record, and you bought it in its entirety . Like it or loathe it most pop records are made this way.

Blazer · 30-11-2010 1:32pm

load of bollix...some great songs by Iron Maiden/Thin Lizzy etc and they can't be sung by one person (the complete song)

woodsdenis · 30-11-2010 1:42pm

Sc@recrow wrote: »

load of bollix...some great songs by Iron Maiden/Thin Lizzy etc and they can't be sung by one person (the complete song)

Fair point. Led Zeps "Black Dog" would be kinda hard. I fact the
the only Led Zep song that can be done is the one that is consistently murdered in guitar shops every day !!!

30-11-2010 2:05pm

Im actually half way through the book...its a very good read..
if you're into that sort of thing..

Aridstarling · 30-11-2010 2:18pm

Nonsense really. I'd like to see someone pull of a Mogwai song by themselves for instance...

Zen and The Art of Mixing is worth a read alright.

krd · 30-11-2010 3:44pm

woodsdenis wrote: »

I think it would fair to say that a good song should be able to be played with piano and voice etc but say something like "Relax" and "Two Tribes" by FGTH are still great records which rely on production chops. Are they great songs ?

Yeah, they could probably be pulled off by a good enough singer/performer.

They wouldn't be to everyone's taste but they could be done.

I have played Relax on acoustic guitar. It works. Try it yourself. It's got great lyrics and great pieces in it. You can play FGTH's Power of Love with just single instrument.

Good songs have a charisma in themselves. They can be played so many ways and they will still sound good.

What drives me up the wall about indie music, going on quite a while now, most of the bands have no songs. There is nothing there - everything is filler. Filler lyrics, filler melodies. High sheen production on everything but if you stripped it back you have nothing.

But the argument is true if you strip back as song to basics, if it's a good song it will still shine through.

My favourite example is Yael Naim's verions of Britney Spear's toxic. It's just more or less piano and voice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETh0Kfxk2BY Stripping it back reveals it's a better song than how Britney performs it - where there's so much production it's hard to tell what's underneath.

If there isn't a song there in the first place. No end of production will make it appear.

krd · 30-11-2010 3:50pm

Aridstarling wrote: »

Nonsense really. I'd like to see someone pull of a Mogwai song by themselves for instance...

Zen and The Art of Mixing is worth a read alright.

Most of Mogwai's, at least their earlier stuff, is instrumental music. Songs are something that gets sung by a person.

DamagedTrax · 30-11-2010 4:10pm

so instrumentals arent songs? :pac:

30-11-2010 4:18pm

Out of curiosity, what does he make of classical music? Beethoven, Mozart, Bach...

splitrmx · 30-11-2010 4:22pm

ZV Yoda wrote: »

A song that can't be sung effectively by one person with one instrument isn't a great song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHNjiwXXYF8

krd · 30-11-2010 4:28pm

DamagedTrax wrote: »

so instrumentals arent songs? :pac:

If you can't sing it. It's not a song. A song must be sung.

You'll notice in dance music - the tunes are nearly always called tunes and rarely songs. As generally there's either no singing on them or just snatches of vocals - not songs.

DamagedTrax · 30-11-2010 4:56pm

semantics :P

a song is a song is a song.. vocals or not.

or you're right. in this weather i really dont care

madtheory · 30-11-2010 6:49pm

Before ye get carried away on semantics, make sure ye're arguing about the right one...

ZV Yoda wrote: »

A song that can't be sung effectively by one person with one instrument isn't a great song

shofukan · 30-11-2010 6:57pm

Bohemian Rhapsody can't be played with one singer and one instrument..
It's arguably one of the most loved tracks of all time..
Explain how something like this isn't a great song?

madtheory · 30-11-2010 7:29pm

What's "a good song"? What does "good" really mean? Is Firestarter a "song"? Doesn't it depend on the performer's skills? I can think of plenty of people who could do Firestarter with acoustic guitar and vocal, and carry it off with sheer charisma. That says nothing about the "song".

What is true though, as woodsdenis pointed out, is that publishers almost always need to hear the full production before they can understand how it's going to work with the artist. Perhaps they're not as musical as they used to be? Who knows. It just means that some musical types will be more astute and get the songs others missed.

ZV Yoda · 01-12-2010 2:44pm

I suppose it’s one of those things that’s very subjective… personally I’d define as song as something with a substantial amount of lyrics/vocal put to music (a “song” should be “sung”)… but that’s just me.

I also like a lot of instrumental music (from classical to dance) but I would class them as “tracks/compositions” as opposed to songs. I don’t think a “song” is better than a “track/composition”… they’re just different. Like a poem is different to a short story.

I don’t think there’s a hard & fast rule about constitutes a good song either (it’s down to taste), but the Frankie Goes to Hollywood reference is interesting… I was a big Frankie fan back in the 80s… but they were primarily about production & marketing – not songs. It’s well documented that Trevor Horn took FGTH’s original version of Relax & produced an entirely new song that only retained Holly’s vocal & (so the story goes) the splash made by the band as they jumped into a swimming pool. Horn did everything else himself. Their original version was shyte… but I don’t think it’s a great song by any means… all Horn did (IMO) was make the best out of average song. In fact today, about the only FGTH you’ll hear on the radio is “The Power of Love”. Why?... because it’s arguably their “best” song… the rest just didn’t stand the test of time.

No doubt I'll get slated for posting this clip, but here’s an example that illustrates the opposite point (again purely IMO)… the original “produced” version of this song was bland radio bubblegum pop… but I think this version shows it’s actually a good / well constructed song (granted, it’s not exactly my cup of tea but I was surprised when I heard this version & liked it a lot more than Britney’s original).... and, yes, there's more than one instrument on this, but it's just an example...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4mfUyjfuA0

dav nagle · 01-12-2010 3:42pm

seanor3 wrote: »

Bohemian Rhapsody can't be played with one singer and one instrument..
It's arguably one of the most loved tracks of all time..
Explain how something like this isn't a great song?

Surely freddie playing it solo on the piano is a great version?

madtheory · 01-12-2010 4:33pm

Does it strike anyone as odd that Mr. Mellor doesn't know who mixerman is?

ZV Yoda wrote: »

A good endorsement of the book "Zen and the Art of Mixing"... haven't a few folks on here metioned this book before? Must be worth a read

What I've seen quoted from the book leads me to conclude that it's good advice, as long as you're working exclusively with US Rock. It's too genre specific to be of use to most people IMO.

ZV Yoda · 01-12-2010 4:49pm

dav nagle wrote: »

Surely freddie playing it solo on the piano is a great version?

madtheory wrote: »

What I've seen quoted from the book leads me to conclude that it's good advice, as long as you're working exclusively with US Rock. It's too genre specific to be of use to most people IMO.

I agree with both of those comments... I suppose Mellor (or anybody else's) comments on topics like this tend to be broad generalisations by defintion anyway.

Seziertisch · 01-12-2010 5:06pm

madtheory wrote: »

What I've seen quoted from the book leads me to conclude that it's good advice, as long as you're working exclusively with US Rock. It's too genre specific to be of use to most people IMO.

He also states in the book that anyone can feel free to disagree with him about anything contained there in. His "rules" are intended as generalisations; in this case I would say that more often than not if it can't be played with one instrument/voice it probably isn't a good song.

madtheory · 01-12-2010 6:43pm

And on the other hand, there's a GS thread where he was insistent that stereo miking of acoustic guitar should never be done because according to him it never works. Again, possibly good advice, but only in a certain context and certainly not to be insisted on as a rule.

I guess in the US it's possible to stay working within a certain genre. I've never come across anyone on this side of the pond who can afford to do that.

Seziertisch · 01-12-2010 7:26pm

madtheory wrote: »

And on the other hand, there's a GS thread where he was insistent that stereo miking of acoustic guitar should never be done because according to him it never works. Again, possibly good advice, but only in a certain context and certainly not to be insisted on as a rule.

I guess in the US it's possible to stay working within a certain genre. I've never come across anyone on this side of the pond who can afford to do that.

As I said already, he states clearly at the outset that the opinions offered in the book are his opinions, albeit based on his experience. He offers guidelines which he says should be ignored if you feel doing so is to the advantage of the project.

I got the book a couple of weeks ago and am still picking my way through it. It is definitely a good read, even if just from the point of view as to what you should avoid when tracking. The practical stuff on dealing with clients etc. and how to run a session is also really good.

exaisle · 01-12-2010 7:29pm

Whomever came up with that idea is a pr@t.

Most songs, good, bad and indifferent, are composed by 1 person on 1 instrument. Including Bohemian Rhapsody...

eoin5 · 01-12-2010 8:39pm

I love this kind of musing

For me that statement isnt too far off the mark but its not actually saying very much. For instance you could play pretty much any funk or soul song on guitar and vocals effectively but its the groove that drives those types of music. Its the bass and drums that makes songs like dance to the music and good times "great" if you get me.

ludwit · 01-12-2010 10:19pm

any statement about art can ultimately be disproved. its not science, once someone makes a rule, someone else will make a huge effort to break it

what does sung effectively mean anyway? i know what the op is trying to get at, not to damn by faint understanding, its something that someone wants to be true and feels that its true but it doesnt have to be true

does this one person have to be a good singer or just an average one?
i've butchered many a great song with my voice and 1 instrument, does that make it a bad song all of a sudden? does it count if we could find 1 person who could do it justice.

does the instrument have to be one that can play chords or is a single note instrument ok?
does a keyboard with multi assignable sounds count or is that cheating?

and even when a song sounds good with 1 voice and 1 instrument it can be because we carry the memory of what the recorded song sounds like and the recorded songs energy.
we would need someone who had never heard the song before judging it on these terms.

currently butchering shipbuilding and actually preferred brittney's version to matt curdle's.

BumbleB · 12-12-2010 1:50am

I wouldn't roll with that at all but I came to this realisation the other day that if you write a melody that a 3 year can and wants to sing you're onto a winner.

Last week I heard my niece sing love me do she absolutely loves the song at the age of 2and 1/2 she finds its captivating.

Also last week I heard the neighbours little girl singing the melody of lady gaga "telephone". I know some of you may baulk at that statement but to a little child music is just music and that the way it should be.

BTW i've also heard kids sing Celine Dion songs.

Mellor has interesting ideas but they are merely opinions so I wouldn't knock him just for that.I 'm not gone into that britney spears cover very bland,
However a song I think sounds brilliant on its own has to be umbrella by rihanna ,the first time I heard it I knew it just reeked Country music and as it turned out it was meant to be destined for a country artist but that never happened.

Most songs from the 80's do not stand the test of time because they relied on technology that doesn't sound fresh today ,for example anything with a linn drum nowadays wouldn't get airplay .(except maybe Prince) .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYMQDPdfu-Y

Trevor Horn is a fine producer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Companero · 12-12-2010 5:38pm

song can only be played on one instrument sounds a little Puritan if you take it too seriously, however it does have some truth to it.

A few things I would say:

An interesting melody and chords are the only parts of a song that do not date - and thus are often held in higher esteem than the merely sonic aspects of a song: Take Leonard Cohen's "Im Your Man" for example: The production is utterly woeful , horrendous 80s FM synths and gallons of stinky reverb, but the chord changes/melody/lyrics are so strong they rise above the awful production.

If however, the music were riff or groove based music, without a strong melody and chord changes, this would not be the case, which is why 99% of the electronic music ever made ends up in a landfill 5 years later: Once the sonics have passed from fashion, the records essentially become unlistenable.

Furthermore, as any musician knows, it is far harder to write interesting chord changes and a melody than it is to write a riff or a groove: Most of us can bang out grooves without thinking about it when we're jamming (and forget 'em 5 minutes later!) , but only once in a while does a really special melody and a chord change that melts your guts come along.

Thats not to say that riff/groove based music isnt good - I know I like it when Im cutting a rug/working out at the gym. - but we do rightly hold in higher esteem those few lucky folks who can write songs with complicated chord changes, melodies that soar, and lyrics that mean something.

A song that can't be sung effectively by 1 person & 1 instrument isn't a great song

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