How Do You Know If You Have a Truly Original Composition?

This is an issue for every songwriter. How can you tell if your song is really yours? Now it's hard to really answer the question off the bat. But there are ways to prevent you taking someone else's work and calling it your own. One thing you can do is to give it time. Once you come up with a song, record it, and then listen to it a few days later. If your song is something that you've heard before, you will be most likely to determine this if you're in a different frame of mind. Re-visiting your songs is a very good way of preventing plagiarism. Another method that works is having an audience. Get as many people to listen to your song as possible. You don't even have to have a mixed and polished version of it. Just make a rough recording that you can present to people. Get your family and friends and let them listen, and see what they say. If none of these people recognize it, then things are looking good for your original composition.

This is a problem that I've had to deal with many times. A lot of the time, I've made up songs and then realized they were too similar to an already existing piece. About a year ago, I woke up with a beautiful melody in my head. Since I was half asleep, I wasn't fully thinking. So I figured it out on the piano and went about my day. Once I came back to it, I was very disappointed. It was "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," by Elton John. This just goes to show that if you re-visit your songs in a different frame of mind, you're most likely to notice more. 

Now although plagiarism is illegal, you can still create your own music using the foundations of existing songs. If there's a song you really like, you can figure out the chord progressions. The chords are the structure behind the melody that give music it's special feeling. If you like the way a song sounds, you can figure out the chords that were used in the song. You can then play around with these chords and try to construct a new melody on top of them. You have to be careful though, because it still has to be different from the original. Listening to music is very important, because you learn a lot from it. You can be inspired by different songs. Often, what you listen to determines what kind of musical style you have in your own playing. Believe it or not, your playing is strongly influenced by what you listen to. I believe that every piece of music is inspired by something, even if we don't' realize it. 

Some artists that I listen to are The Beatles, Queen, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Wings, and other classic rock artists. Classic rock is my main kind of music I'd say. But I do enjoy other things too. I enjoy jazz, electronic, disco, orchestral, pop, and show tunes as well. I see many elements of all this music come into my own work. Songwriting is a skill, and you can only get better at it. 

A Different Approach to Songwriting

Hello everyone. In this post i'm going to explain a method of writing original music that has been useful for me. Now you may be familiar with the concept of a Ouija board. Where you put your hands on the planchette and it moves around the board, as you try to make contact with the paranormal. This technique uses a similar idea, only it's not for contacting the dead, it's for creating an original composition! All you have to do is turn on a tape recorder, and sit in front of a piano. Just begin hitting notes at random.  That's right, that's all you have to do. Now it's best not to just start banging on the piano, playing clusters of notes at once, because that'll get you nowhere. Play with form, like you normally would. Close your eyes and just move your fingers wherever you feel like. It'll sound like a huge mess at first, but as you keep going, something will come out of it. It's important not to stop though, keep going for a good few minutes. Then, listen to your recording, and listen for the good bits. It's impossible to go through this exercise without getting anything. I've found that you'll always get something.
I got this idea from the book ,The Day Metallica Came to Church. There's a part in that book where the authour gives a theory that songs are just floating in the air. All musicians have to do is reach out and grab one. That idea really amazed me and blew my mind, because in a way, it's true. Just look at all the different composers throughout the years. All the many varieties of artists. The billions of songs that exist across the globe, each one unique in its own way. Surely they don't come from nowhere. The same thing can be said about other forms of art, such as painting or writing. It's ridiculous to think that people come up with these things on their own without any spiritual help. Whether they know it or not, they're all being inspired by an energy around them. At least, that's what I believe.
I've experimented using this method and found that it's quite effective. You may not always get beautiful results, but you get results. So if you're looking for something to do, I'd highly suggest you give this technique a try. As with anything, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So try it out, you've got nothing to lose!

Go To Sleep

Hello everyone. Another track has been completed for "The Gramollie Experience!" As you may have guessed already, this song is an original composition called, "Go To Sleep." The track starts off with a little introduction of random noise. Now you may think at first, "Oh no, not another Mustard in the Wind." Don't worry people, this is not another Mustard. I thought it sounded weird with no intro, the beginning was too sudden. So I decided to take about 25-30 seconds to give a taste of the atmosphere. It just felt right. I wanted this song to sound really creepy. I wanted it to be something you may here in a 1980's horror movie. While creating this song, I was thinking along the lines of sleep and nighttime. I thought of originally calling it "Dead People Watch Me While I Sleep," but I quickly decided on "Go To Sleep." While making this song, I was thinking of thoughts that some may find disturbing. What if dead people surrounded your bed while you were sleeping? Is that the reason we humans have eyelids? So we can block out the shear reality of the spiritual realm? Now I must make it clear that I don't personally believe this, I'm not that insane. But I was thinking of that concept while writing it. This song isn't complicated at all. In fact, it's extremely repetitive. It spans out to just over four minutes. I may possibly shorten it, but I don't plan to. I'm going to wait until I get feedback from my test audience. I'm personally very happy with this track. It just may be my favourite song that I've recorded already. I'm generally very judgmental of my own work. I'm a perfectionist, which is why it's sometimes hard for me to listen to things that I've recorded. But I actually enjoy this track. I love how catchy and eery it is. It's far from perfect though. The audio quality is not too impressive. I'd like to re-record it in the future. Also, some white noise got into there that I couldn't take out, so that was frustrating for me.

It was quite an experience recording and mixing this track. I've been doing some experiments, seeing which methods result in the best sound quality. If the microphone is too close to the speaker, it can easily get distorted. You get the best sound if there's a distance between the mic and the speakers, but you mustn't make them too much apart or you'll get every musician's nightmare, white noise. White noise is that little devil that finds its way into amateur recordings, making them sound unprofessional. Naturally, there are ways to prevent this. Getting a better mic works, but I'm trying to save my money currently. Audacity also enables you to remove white noise, and it actually works fairly well. But for some reason, it didn't work well with this song. I'm going to continue to investigate what I could've done differently during this recording session.

My album is coming along very well. Mahna Mahna and Tequila are still being worked on on the side. I don't expect them to be completed until the beginning of January. I predict though that the next song to be fully complete is Sawyer's World. Everything is going smoothly so far for the most part. Thank you very much for reading, and don't forget to check out the YouTube Links page so you can listen to and criticize my stuff. :)

Sawyer's World

Hello my friends! I'm proud to announce that I have another original song prepared for my album. It's titled, "Sawyer's World." I originally wrote it for a video game a buddy of mine was creating, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. So instead it's ended up in my track list for "The Gramollie Experience." Like I said before, this was intended to be used as a video game theme song. When I was writing this I was wanting it to sound like something from an old arcade game. Of course, video game music must be catchy and repetitive. I think that this song is catchy and it's definately repetitive, but my goal is to make sure it's not annoying.I think this track has a groove to it, which helps. I'm still recording it, but I think the outcome can be really good. I have a vision of what I want it to sound like, and if I manage to match the real thing up with my intention this could be really cool. I've recorded three versions so far. Now I've just got to mix them together.

Everything is going very well so far with this project. I really do think that this album will be complete by January. I've learned that to make a successful song, it takes a lot of time and effort. You must put in hard work to get a good final result. You can expect to hear some songs soon. Thank you for reading and remember to keep warm!

Flooding Blue

I'm happy to announce that another song has been completed. It's titled, "Flooding Blue." This was never previouly planned to be on this album before now. I was fiddling around on the synthesizer with a drum beat and came up with this little riff. It was literally put together on the spot. It was improvised, and i thought it sounded good, so i decided to keep it. It lasts for 4 minutes. I recorded it, edited it a little, and now i have an opening track for "The Gramollie Experience." It's not very melodic, but it has a wonderful funky beat. It may be something like you'd hear in the background of a video game. It's by no means the best song ever, or the best song that i've recorded, but I think it's pretty cool. I plan to place it as the opening track to the album.I think it's perfect for setting the atmosphere. I showed it to my test audience and they gave mixed reviews. They all agree that it has potential though. According to them, it would be better if it had more of a melody. However, i'm not going to change it at all. Partly because i'm lazy, and partly because I think it's just how I want it to sound. In my opinion it's perfect for what it is, so I'm keeping it.

While creating this, I learned that you can make something decent on the spot. If you just sit at the keyboard and start noodling around, you never know what you're going to come out with. Improvisation is very important, and you'd be surprised what you could create if you try. I'm very happy with the final result of this track. Meanwhile, Tequila and Mahna Mahna are still in production. Thanks for reading.

NJ

Mahna Mahna/Tequila

Two tracks are in the process of being made. These songs are of course, "Mahna Mahna," and "Tequila." First I'll talk about "Mahna Mahna." I chose to include this song because of the fun, bright, happy feeling it has. It's a very simple tune, yet it's irresistably catchy. You can't help but tap your toes and hum along to the melody. The vocals are done by two special guests, who call themselves Sawyer Scout, and Herbert. The vocals have all been recorded, and now the music just has to be completed. While recording the vocals for this track, I found that the biggest challenge was timing. We recorded using a few different methods. Herbert tried singing along with the original video from the Muppets, Sawyer and Herbert tried singing themselves without the music, and they also tried singing with me on the piano. It's difficult to say which method worked the best, because each one had its own advantages and disadvantages. But I personally think that it was best with Sawyer and Herbert singing by themselves, just with the drum machine. The recording was the easy bit though. This track is going to require massive editing. It's going to take lots of time and effort to put this all together, but it's going to be worth it. I'm very excited to hear the final result.

The second track that has started production today is "Tequila." I chose this song because it's very upbeat and bouncy. My special guest, Herbert, does the vocals. Now the only word spoken in the entire song is "Tequila," but I wrote some lines that will be said while the music is playing. Herbert will motivate you to get up and dance throughout the song. It's going to be a lot of fun. There's a lot you can do with a song like this. It's easy to improvise on because it's so simple. Hopefully I can duplicate the energy that the original song had, while adding more to it. I'm very excited about this one. I've started recording the music to this song, and again, I've learned that timing is the most important thing with music. I've had to record parts over and over again until the timing was precise. It can be frustrating, and it requires lots of patience. I find it most effective to take little breaks every 20 minutes, just to get a chance to relax and think things through. I find once you return to hard work with a fresh mind, it's much easier to concentrate. I've never recorded with a singer before, so this was very new. Really, it was just like recording any other instrument. It was a new experience, and it was exciting. I'm also learning more about the audio editing program, Audacity. I'm getting better at aligning tracks, and removing white noise, which are two very important things.

I'm going to be working on "Tequila," alongside, "Mahna Mahna," for the next little bit. My goal is to complete these songs before the middle of November at the latest. Herbert will return to provide vocals for two more songs on "The Gramollie Experience." Everything is going very well so far. A special thank you to Herbert, and Sawyer Scout for all the hard work that was put into today's recording session.

NJ

Mustard in the Wind

Hello. I'm going to give a better explanation as to what my project is. I'm creating an album titled 'The Gramollie Experience,' that contains a variety of electronic music. Now when I say electronic music, I don't mean modern electronic music like dubstep. I mean old fashioned electronic music. My inspiration is Robert Moog. Robert Moog is a pioneer of electronic music. He created the Moog synthesizer. There are many variations of the Moog synthesizer. Throughout the 60s and 70s, and even in recent times, countless artists have used the Moog. For example, The Beatles used it for a few songs on Abbey Road including Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Because, and Here Comes the Sun. Many artists have also used the synthesizer to make instrumental electronic covers of popular songs. Claude Denjean, Hot Butter, Gershon Kingsley, and Marty Gold are a few of my favourite people who've used it. I personally don't own a Moog synthesizer, due to the high cost, but I do have a Yamaha MOX 8, which works quite well. You can create some pretty cool sounds on that thing, and you can alter the sound further on the computer. I''m using a free sound editing program called Audacity. My goal is to make the tracks on this album in the style of how synthesizers sounded during the 60s and 70s. Hopefully, when this project is at its end, the tracks on this album will sound somewhat "Moogish."

I am nearing the completion of one of the tracks called "Mustard in the Wind." This isn't a cover, it's a song of my own. A lot of people wouldn't think of it as a song though. This is avant-garde music, meaning that it is very different and experimental. It doesnt have just one straight melody, and it goes on for about five minutes. "Mustard in the Wind" is a collage of sound. To get its full effect, you have to close your eyes, and let it take you places. Just like how classical music tells a story. "Mustard in the Wind" isn't about anything in particular. There are many different ways you can interpret it. While making this track, I learned more about the emotions in music. All music has some sort of feeling behind it, and sometimes, when you're making a song, it can be a challenge to give it the feeling you want. The feeling behind this track is confusion, being helpless with no choice to turn back. It's almost like a rollercoaster ride, you're strapped in your seat and you can't get out once the ride has started. "Mustard in the Wind" can take you anywhere. You could be stuck on a boat in the middle of a raging storm, you could be in a state of unconcsiousness after being involved in a bad accident, or it could even be interpreted as what happens to you after death. I'm not 100% sure if people would enjoy this, only because they may not be used to this kind of thing, and they may not understand. The purpose of this track is to make people use their imaginations. You'll only get anything out of it if you put yourself into the music. 

This project is going very well so far. I've been learning more about my synthesizer and what it can do, as well as learning more about editing on Audacity. So far, everything is smooth sailing. I look forward to see what the outcome of my project will be like.

NJ