How to make a song: Sarah style...

Okay, I'm going to do something relatively useful with this blog. I'm going to use it to demonstrate how I make a song. But I'm going to have to start with a semi constructed song otherwise it would be incredibly boring and you'd stop reading after about 4 seconds. Which most people will still do anyway.

The song I am working on has a working title of "Mind Games" but has been called several other names in the past. It's a song that is nearly 5 years in the making and started off as a spoof of The Veronicas. Here's that spoof:

It's pretty bad, hey? But it actually has a really good pop foundation, which I have used in the new version. What I started with was the drums, because obviously I already had the chord structure from "Key Change". And that song was written while very drunk, on an out of tune Behringer guitar made of cardboard. The beats were made in Fruity Loops and so was the synth.

For this new version I have thrown together a basic beat in Reason using Redrum. When I go back and edit drums I will probably play them in using my Dr Rhythm 606 as a controller. Makes them sound more live and can quantise them later if they're slightly off beat. I also did a rough bass line as a guide, which has been replaced by real bass in this version I'll demo below. So, using the beats and the guide bass I did a whole pile of acoustic guitar parts. I do acoustic guitar because if everything sounds good on acoustic, it will usually sound pretty epic on an electric guitar. Sometimes I make the lead parts into piano or synth or whatever instead of keeping them as guitars. I just noodle about for a few takes and keep the bits that I like and delete the bits that are stupid or don't fit.

Finally, I do a rough guide vocal. Now, these are generally 99% in tune, but I am naughty and I don't bother to warm up and I always do them in one take. Warts and all for demo vox. This song is placed within the centre of my range so it's pretty easy to sing and doesn't sound out of tune that much. Most people can't tell when it is anyway.

So that's where I'm at now. I've done my rough vocal and a quick backing part for the middle 8, just to remember what I want it to sound like.

Here's my first demo:

I'll update this in about a week or so. However long it takes me to record an electric guitar for the rhythm part. This is a song I'm actually going to work on properly, I usually just stop at the demo phase, which is what I just posted.

Peace. xx