what happened to songwritting?

[deadly_habit]

[paravrais]

I was like yep...yep...yep...yep...pendulum?

[ChadDub]

Typically I don't listen to EDM for song writing, I listen to it for the obnoxious wubs.

[elendarsilvermoon]

Computers have made musicians really lazy and have made it so your average hack can warez a copy of FL or something and put together a "song" rather quickly. Songwriting hasn't really died, rather the ease with which people can "write" music has raised the noise floor of the industry so you hear more copycat MyJustinRebieber Cyrusblack artists and less of the timeless music like Horse With No Name.

[cloak and dagger]

I think it got auto-corrected by spell check =P

[RmoniK]

I was like yep...yep...yep...yep...pendulum?

i agree. All pendulum does is go up and down the blues scale a bit.

[kaiori breathe]

I was like yep...yep...yep...yep...pendulum?

i agree. All pendulum does is go up and down the blues scale a bit.

... Seriously?

/facepalm

[RmoniK]

seriously. If you want me to respect their production, sure. But i think their stuff is dull as fuck and i have no interest at all in their music. Their music is just easy to get into for the kidz. There's no other reason they are famous.

[ChadDub]

Wait, people actually care about music theory in EDM? Why?

[oprs]

Wait, people actually care about music theory in EDM? Why?

haha chads back with his, oh so sarcastic style.

any new dubs chad? bigger then a stove eh?

[ChadDub]

I actually took around a month break from producing, but now I'm back. I got a cracked FL10 which is pretty neat, but I lost all my samples and patches from me having to format my hard drive due to me getting a virus from a Pakistanian porn site.

Boutta be doin a collab with mah boi Manny (maybe), so that should be tight.

[wolf89]

Don't like any of the tracks in the OP.

Don't see the point of the thread either?

[monkfish]

You're looking in the wrong places.

[paravrais]

I actually took around a month break from producing, but now I'm back. I got a cracked FL10 which is pretty neat, but I lost all my samples and patches from me having to format my hard drive due to me getting a virus from a Pakistanian porn site.

Boutta be doin a collab with mah boi Manny (maybe), so that should be tight.

MUTHA FUKKIN ANTI-VIRUS CHAD

USE IT!!

[-[2]DAY_-]

thy used to have to work with tape, so editing wasn't such a breeze. result -- performances that actually resembled song structure, with dynamics, development, climax, etc. The performance aspect is dead, the "fix it in the mix" mentality is overbearing and destructive.
you don't need a theory degree to convey those things, just ambition, pride in ur work, a sense of chronology and dynamics...
as far as most EDM however, i tend to think of the mix as the "song", and the tunes as, well... samples. making it the DJ's job to write the song. its a long ass song, too.

[nowaysj]

Best (brain) dance music is 100% forgettable, and that is a good thing. The songs are experiential. Complete immersion, ego death, transcendence, and then a return to reality. Who knows what happened when you were in there?

Now old school songs, yeah, melody you can hum to, lyrics you can understand and relate to in some way, evocative, personal, and memorable. Different type of phenomena altogether. I wouldn't privilege one over the other, they are both fascinating to make and consume.

[efence]

Now old school songs, yeah, melody you can hum to, lyrics you can understand and relate to in some way, evocative, personal, and memorable. Different type of phenomena altogether. I wouldn't privilege one over the other, they are both fascinating to make and consume.

why hum when you can go
DOEENNN YEEEEEOOOOOOWW WOOOW WOOOW WOOOOW YEEEEOOOWWYOOWWW YOOWWWW

[nowaysj]

The bro is neither of those two types of songs

Something else entirely.

[ChadDub]

Best (brain) dance music is 100% forgettable, and that is a good thing. The songs are experiential. Complete immersion, ego death, transcendence, and then a return to reality. Who knows what happened when you were in there?

Now old school songs, yeah, melody you can hum to, lyrics you can understand and relate to in some way, evocative, personal, and memorable. Different type of phenomena altogether. I wouldn't privilege one over the other, they are both fascinating to make and consume.

I hum Scary Monsters all the time. The melody and the bassline.

Ohhhhh yahhhhhh. aift aift oh ee ah oeahh. ay ay o ory ory ah ift ift oee oee. bayrrrrrr EEEEE ohee aaahhhh bida baaah di ahhhbee.

[kaiori breathe]

seriously. If you want me to respect their production, sure. But i think their stuff is dull as fuck and i have no interest at all in their music. Their music is just easy to get into for the kidz. There's no other reason they are famous.

If you don't like their tunes that's fine, but I think it's a bit foolish to disregard them as being famous because 'they're easy to get into for the kidz'.

They're fantastic song writers.

Song writing doesn't have to be about making something intellectual and challenging for the listener. Sometimes song writing is about writing a song with 5 chords and a simple melody - doing that well and making a final product that sells to a mass audience is much harder than writing something intellectual.

When you write something intellectual you have the world at your fingertips, you can do anything, you can play any chord you want, you can move into any time signature you want, you can use any instruments you want, you can play in two key signatures at once if you like, hell you can disregard tonality and play all the notes at once over and over again for 7 minutes if you'd like.

Now, if you want to make something that will sell to a mass audience, all those options are rendered unavailable to you and you've got to start making pure gold out of nothing. You've got the first the fifth and the fourth and you've got to make it not sound like shit; then you've got to make it sound like it's going somewhere, when it's not; then you've got to write a powerful melody using maybe only 4 or 5 notes. When you've done that you're still not done because you need to put words to it that 8/10 people will either relate to or enjoy. When you've done all that, you're still not done, you've got to sit down and remove every weakness and imperfection, you need to go completely by the book, things like movement in parallel fifths and doubled up 3rds will fuck you in the ass when you try to sell music to a mass audience, these things are proven to be less enjoyable (to the majority) and ultimately, less sellable; you need to hone the structure to damn near perfection, it needs to rise and peak in the right places, it's got to move on before it gets stale, it's got to end leaving you wanting more, it's got to be crafted so it will work on the radio and the dance floor and in somebody's living room... Oh and you've got to make it sound like they haven't heard it before, when they have.

...Then, when you've done all that, and you're finally done... You need to compete with every other fame hungry wanna be pop artist who just went through the same hell you went through.

Writing to a formula as limited as the pop formula is damned hard and incredibly competitive and you should have a lot more respect for anybody who can do it even if you don't personally like it.

Best (brain) dance music is 100% forgettable, and that is a good thing. The songs are experiential. Complete immersion, ego death, transcendence, and then a return to reality. Who knows what happened when you were in there?

Truth is true.

Can't remember a single venetian snare tune yet he's one of my favorite artists.