 Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you're well, welcome to the 17th episode of Fixed My Mix. It's morning time here in Perth, Western Australia, so I'll say good morning, but of course good afternoon, good evening to you as well. Thank you to the people who are in the chat here, nice to see you here, I'll be saying hi to some of you in a moment, but first of all I do want to thank the sponsor for the show, that's DistroKid, you can see a link for a VIP link I should say in the description down below. If you want to distribute your music through DistroKid you'll get 7% off if you follow that link and I will get a little kickback from that as well, which is very nice. I'm going to say hi to some of the people here, there's Dino, nice to see you here Dino as usual. We also have Kevin again, now Kevin had some of his music on the show a few weeks ago now and I also saw a little video from him the other day in the Facebook group which is very, very interesting, that's the creative source Cakewalk Facebook group, thanks for that Kevin, just go there, follow the links in the description for that and really interesting video that Kevin's made there. And also we have the wonderful Mimo Japan, hello Mimo, thank you for being here and moderating and Doug and of course cute honourer, thank you all for being here. They say that it doesn't take much moderation to be on this show, well I could use that as a segue couldn't I? Everything in moderation, moderation it seems a little sort of, was not very exciting doesn't it? But I will say that there's one person I've got on the show today, well the only person I've got on the show today and he's not very moderate, he's very, very exciting. What a rubbish segue that was, actually I'm just going to pull him up, I'm going to pull him up, his name is Happy Ron and he is my company for today, nice to see you Ron, how are you? Nice to see you again, thank you for having me. Now I've got to say that I was almost late starting the show folks because me and Ron were just having a great conversation just before the show, just getting to know each other, talking about songwriting, we might try and get back to some of that Ron actually during the show because I think it was really interesting but we do have a job to do today Ron and we do have a job to do today. We have real jobs, we're going to listen to three songs today, I'm just going to say this for the folks who are watching and don't know what all of this is about, we listen to three songs from the community today and the idea is to give folks some feedback on their mixes and so that as they work towards releasing their music, you know they've got another opinion about their mixes so far but I see Ron you've got a guitar in your hand as well, are you aiming to give us a little bit of a performance today as well? If you'd like, could go song or... I think that would be lovely, yeah. Look I tell you what, while I'm organizing the show here and saying hi to people, can I just ask you to play a song that you feel like playing Ron? I'll have to be proud to. The song I wrote in 1999 for a woman who didn't think she was enough and it wasn't very good, the song was not enough itself and so I rewrote it and I literally finally released a version of it about two or three years ago that actually is finally finished. So finally the song is enough, the song is called You Are Enough. Don't think you're not enough Don't think I want too much You know that you move me beyond cynical to impossible Your eyes are more than enough They find me with their touch Like soft rain in the night Turns typical to beautiful Why do you think there's more You would have to do When I'm so grateful for every part of you In a world with so much noise I live to hear your voice It echoes through my soul The story spins and my life begins The heart is quiet enough Surrounds me with its love You know it moves me into more From physical to emotional You're beautiful I'm gonna, I'm hoping just whatever the emoticon is for applause folks I don't know why emoticon should do that in the chat What a great start to the show Ron, thanks so much for that We were talking about lyrics and things, weren't we, before the show That song is a good example for me of how people When I first started studying songwriting with the great Jai Josephs in LA I'd drive two LA from San Diego two and a half hours every week To get an hour-long lesson with him And he gave me a piece of paper which basically said An amateur thinks that whatever they write is precious And they can't change it and it's the voice of God and blah blah But professionals will rewrite and I've kind of boiled down that saying As you keep rewriting and getting feedback until it's cool I like that song That song is an 18 year journey to get that song right Not every year, not every year But that song took a long time to get it to where I, to me I think it's a perfect song for what I wanted to do When I look back at the original version Oh yeah, much better It reminds me, you know, just the whole idea I mean we're talking about fix my mix and you know People getting the sound right But you know, so much has to go into the song before You know, we start I really recommend that people Like I go to this website called songew.com And they have classes and you get feedback from professionals And I take my songs through five or ten of those classes And get all sorts of feedback And sometimes it's like getting punched in the gut Because it's, you know, they're very polite But they'll give you and I just keep putting it through Until I start to hear like, yeah, that song is just perfect Or just right or just whatever But is there also a point though, where, because I mean, you know, ask ten people opinions And you'll get ten different Well, what I found originally When I would ask, you know, professionals Like people that really know what they're doing Originally they got 90% of the time looking back They were right And now it's about 50% of the time I think they're right And then 50% of the time I think, well, that's just a matter of opinion Because I've gotten better Right, exactly Exactly There's some things you do in songs that don't work And you don't notice them at first Once you start to notice them Then you don't do those things anymore And you do a song that Then it becomes a fine-tuning aspect of it But I think that's the greatest skill for any songwriter Is to get feedback and to rewrite Until you, until you feel yourself That it's doing whatever it is you want As good as it can be As good as it can be And that's what people don't normally do Because sometimes they work on the mixes But if the original song isn't great You know, you have 100 different mixes And if the song isn't there, it's not It's going to regret it See how I actually done the song first So Well, perhaps today as we listen to these three songs We'll allow ourselves a little bit of songwriting critique We'll try and focus on the mixes As that's why people have kind of sent it in But it's almost impossible to listen to a song entirely In terms of its mix You kind of have to listen to it in its totality To be honest with you Yeah, absolutely We'll try and help these folks out With what we're feeling with the mixes No, I think Ron will be the same as me I'm not saying I'm kind of any kind of real expert Whatsoever When do you get to call yourself an expert anyway That's a whole philosophical question But I guess we're here as just some Interested people who want the best for other people In terms of them achieving their best And we're going to give some honest opinions And the best thing is we're not their mum And we're not their partner We're not people who are just going to say nice things For the sake of it to make them feel good We're going to give them hopefully some Slightly educated critique Through whatever experience we have And I want to impress upon people In the chat here right now First of all, I think Keanu has probably already said it But please do hit that like button for us It's really helpful But I want to impress upon the people in the chat It's really helpful to hear your opinions As well as we listen to this music And you know, we can sort of as a group Help some of these folks out who've sent their music in Big thanks to the people who have sent the music in Because it's brave to do this And have it played when it's really unfinished work In a public forum And also if you would like to contribute your music If you're watching then please follow the instructions For that in the description down below You can send it in by email And pretty much most of the songs do get on the show So if you've sent one in a few weeks ago And it hasn't been on there yet I'm still sifting through I pick songs a little bit randomly I find things I think this week I want to talk about some aspects of it And I throw it on So there's no rhyme or reason to it We'll go on to our first song Ron, as you may or may not know I always allow my guests to read out The names and the names of the artists And then I'll pop it up on the screen Now part of the reason I do this Is because I suspect I've never been diagnosed Ron But I suspect I'm probably dyslexic And this enables me to To just probably just avoid The reading of people's names And make fun of my guests If they get it wrong as well Which is always a pleasure for me So here's the first song that we are going To be listening to today I've got a bit of an email to read But I'll let Ron introduce it Chris Condon with his soon to be hit But I know what love is Now, having said I'm terrible at reading things out I'm actually going to read Chris's email to me And it's a bit longer than But I think I'm going to read the whole thing So folks, I'm sorry about this I think this brings back a fear in me, Ron Do you remember at school When you had to stand up and read something out loud Oh, God, I was so bad at it Well, it's God's way of reminding us To be kind to the people we give the feedback to That's very true That's very true Okay, so Chris was saying to me in his email Back in 1991, I took some audio engineering classes At a small studio in Rhode Island In addition to the classwork The studio provided some studio time At half price for students So my band recorded a couple of tracks I was never really satisfied with the mix Since I was very new to mixing And definitely didn't sound professional for me Fast forward to 2022 I discovered through my public library I could take a bunch of audio engineering courses For free online That sounds fantastic I wish they did that here in Australia And spent a couple of months going through them In addition, I still had the 24 track analog tape from 1991 I send that to be digitized And since early March I've been mixing this song on and off And again in Cakewalk by Bandab So there's a few people who have been on the show And done this Taken a song from 20, 30 years ago And they've come back to recording after a few years And they're having a stab At sort of trying to perfect it Which I think is a great way To sort of get yourself back into the flow again Now he said I'm fairly happy with the mix But I thought I'd submit it to see what you And others and the folks in the Cakewalk by Bandab Community think I'll state up front that the song's chorus is very repetitive And you'll definitely know what the title is Of the song by the time you've finished listening A good producer would have probably pushed the band To rewrite the song To have less repetition But since I was the producer I'll tell you Now it's quite an interesting thing Is that we were talking about this on the show last week It is, you know, there's this fine line with repetition We probably need repetition in songs But how much is too much? That might be a matter of taste And genre of music and all kinds of things It's a balance between repetition and variety If you have too much repetition People get bored If you have too much variety You have jazz A certain percentage of people Will not be able to follow it So the idea is you want the right combination of the two These are like two of the top four attributes Of songwriting repetition and variety And you have to balance them And it's a very delicate thing to do It is very delicate, isn't it? Let's have a listen to this song And look, maybe there's too much repetition I haven't listened to the song all the way through This is my first time I often just listen to the first 20 seconds of these songs Before I go, okay, let's have it on the show So let's see how we go with this one from Chris 8.20 a.m. in the morning here And it's got me smiling I'm kind of woken up And it's got Ron counting Like the count on Sesame Street I don't have a hand But I think the last time he was 28 repetitions I may have been 38 I never had to count the high before So I was a bit... Always guests first here, Ron So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this From Chris Well, I definitely liked I kind of liked the song And I liked the vibe of it and stuff And it's kind of like a basically And it's just my opinion But basically I liked it enough to say that Okay, here's what I didn't like about it And that's... I'm a big Neil Young fan And I was thinking He sure should have turned up the crappy novel a little bit It was a little bit clean, I thought I almost wanted to hear it Like a Neil Young and Crazy Horse Where it'd be like a crunchier sound And I'm just watching on my TV right here So I almost wanted it to be a little bit dirtier sounding A little bit Because it's a good rock song And I wanted just a little bit of that Or like the black keys Like a little bit of that kind of sound Yeah, right Yeah, a little bit more aged to it Yeah, a little bit It seemed very produced Like you'd imagine if this is a band That if you heard them live It might actually sound cooler live You know, if they play together It'd be less polished And then as far as the repetition I think that at the end The last time through They did change quite a lot They added backing vocals They did a massive key change at the end I think it was a truck driver's key change Just up one thing or two Up the tone, yeah Yeah, up one tone or whatever And that was cool And I kind of wish they had done that Earlier in the song At the earlier chorus I think the chorus is like eight or ten repetitions There's an old songwriting thing where If you repeat something more than twice You can do it It's called the rule of threes You can do it But you have to have a reason to do it And so maybe even a change in the In the guitar plane Or the mix or something By I know what love is I know what love is I know what love is I know what love is Something to kind of get a little bit of variety there I think would have been better And they did that very well at the end, I think So those are my two To me, this would be If this was my track, I would look at it as This is probably You know, version 23 And version 25 would be the final version So it was very close for me So that's just my thoughts Cool Look, I think I was just So I was just doing a little bit of googling there Because I was When you were talking about that sort of repetition And Sorry, I'll be with everyone in the moment Let's get that out of the way I was thinking about the song Hey Jude by The Beatles Which is I was just checking there It's seven minutes long And from memory Four minutes of repetition And they're four minutes of repetition at the end And the reason I was thinking about that Ron Because I agree with everything you were saying About the repetition And it just reminded me That despite all of that Logic, which I agree with you on Somehow Hey Jude manages to Defy that logic In the sense of I don't think so at all I think it did exactly what I said it did He sings every single Hey Jude Every single little None of us actually He sings it slightly different There's a different combination of instruments There's a different And it creates It builds energy By building a community sense As people sing it So you want to be closer together But he doesn't keep it boring If it was just The same thing No, people wouldn't stay with it But he adds enough variety To keep it To keep people connected to it So that's kind of the point I was So maybe what it is then What I'm trying to think is true Because it always has puzzled me Hey Jude Because I enjoy it And it never feels as long As it is on paper Do you know what I mean If you ask most people They tell us kind of a normal length song And then you go well it's seven minutes long You know And it's probably got a lot less variation Than say Bohemian Rhapsody Or American Pie Even or something like that, right But they get away with it You know and I've always felt it lovely That they do Get away with it But maybe it's As you say There's changes happening in there But maybe there's somewhat subtle in a way It's not like they're doing key changes Or tempo changes But there's a different colors coming in perhaps Which is just enough Particularly when you get that community spirit That they do in Hey Jude Of you feel like you want to sing along with it You're in the crowd with them, hey Maybe that's what it's all about I do my song terribly happy Tear, terribly happy Tear And I can keep that going for two minutes And I don't change it a lot Because it's a sing-along Also you mentioned Bohemian Rhapsody That's actually You know what Rhapsody means It means no repetition Because Rhapsody is one of the only songs One of the only songs that There's no repeated sections It's five different sections They're all entirely different There's no verse, no chorus And it's the only song that's made it dig On the charts ever That has that little repetition And that was That's kind of the exception That proves the rule, you know That's the exception Because normally you could never get away When they first played it Like that's never going to be a hit But it was And it's the exception that proves the rule And so that's the example of Hey Jude is a very repetitive song But it repeats with variation And Bohemian Rhapsody is the opposite Where there's no repetition But it keeps it just so involving That it works So Go say you look If you want to get better at songwriting Listen to songs And just see what's going on with them a little bit On this particular song I don't have a lot To say about this I think that Chris The idea of taking something that's What 30 years old in fact And then kind of using it To get back into your mixing Is an okay idea But you know I'm dubious about Revisiting old music sometimes I think I think that So the advice I'm going to give you You may not want to take it In the sense of It's sort of like I'm going to suggest that you redo some things But you know Maybe with a 30 year old song It's time to leave it behind And just get as much learning out of it as you can But I actually think the Probably Those backing vocals that were happening there It's a bit of a matter of taste But I think they could be redone Unless You want that kind of slightly rough Drunk and crowd kind of backing vocals I hope that's not too rude by the way But they were just a little rough Now if that's what you want Then keep them in If you want them to be a little bit more refined Then I would re-record them I thought that the vocals as well The main vocals Good singer by the way And nice vocals But they were in need of a little help here and there So I think that in terms of You know typical things that you may not have known back then Doubling up on those vocals Just subtle doubles by the way When I talk about doubling We talked about Queen here Freddie Mercury almost always doubled his vocals And let's face it he was a great vocalist But just to give them that little extra In sort of things like choruses and things like that Just seeing the same line again We've talked about it many times Pan one left, pan one right Keep one in the middle And then make those two duplicates Just you know probably maybe 20% of the original Is usually a good rule of thumb It can just give a little extra something And I found that this good vocal in this song Probably needs a little bit of that Especially for this style of music Where they very commonly do that Apart from that maybe Overall on the mix a little bit of It was just lacking a little in the low end For my headphones which I use all the time So probably a reasonable judge But not much Take all of that with a pinch of salt You know Probably a lot of that is to do with taste as well But yeah it's a funny thing I don't know I would sort of feel like myself If I was grabbing a song from 20 years ago It would be for educational purposes I don't know if I'd want to really put much into Especially for a band which has since broken up And you know It's probably not worth it But yeah a good mix though Overall I think Chris I think that you know We hear a lot of different mixes on this show And you're in the ballpark You're in the right ballpark Just keep mixing and keep doing it You know Keep learning from one song to another How to improve But yeah I think I'll give that a little bit of a seal of approval Yeah Yeah I'm fine actually taking old songs If I find any 20 year old recordings I'm always going to redo the recordings Because I wasn't very good back then Yeah but that's the thing isn't it You're always Yeah that's the point I think if you just want to kind of redo I mean I've I think I recorded a song last year Which I'd written 25 years ago You know It's just um Um but if you're going to make it current it's okay But I just You know Probably enough blabbing about that I'm talking about songs Getting them out there to the world Let's just have a little quick listen about What we can do with the sponsor DistroKid If you do follow the link in the description down below It's going to take you to a special page on DistroKid With this yellow banner at the top That banner is letting you know That you're going to get a further 7% discount Of your first year If you sign up here And let's face it It's already very cheap If we scroll down We can see that year's membership Is $19.99 per year For an unlimited number of albums and songs And so long as it's your own music There are no extra charges And you get to keep all of the royalties From the various platforms Platforms like Spotify, Apple Music TikTok, Pandora, Amazon, Instagram, Tidal iHut, Radio, Deezer and more That was my crass commercial I see I'm saying that because of a particular person Who's in the chat at the moment My crass commercialism My guest last week Ron endorsed my crass commercialism Why not? Why not? I sold out years ago I'm just waiting for someone to buy Hi Honestly And now this is going to sound really crass And I think I said this last week But I just want to make sure I do say this Having a bit of a laugh about this DistroKid actually did provide a really good service I was when I first used them I was like oh this is So this is how you get your music Out to the world these days Because I was way back in I was probably still thinking I had to burn CDs And take them along to my gigs And probably some people still do that But yeah They do a great product folks If you're not getting your music Oh I think it's really important to get your music released I know Pete Johns is in the chat here somewhere Sometimes he comes in and then he goes away again Who can blame him? The guy's always on camera Pete Johns is everywhere Pete Johns is the happy ron of the internet community I was at this T-Pulse thing And a friend of mine Who actually lives in my apartment complex I was up in Joshua Tree Which is 100 miles from here And she walked in and she goes Oh happy ron you're here too I should have expected that You're everywhere It's a good place to be here I know that me and Pete And probably Pete's inspired me in this way To say that it's really I'm going to say cathartic But just really helpful To actually release your music Good or bad in some ways But I found that I had a period of time Where I collected a bunch of songs on my hard drive But I never finished the mix And never released them anywhere And never got them out Always thinking Oh next month I'll get to that And maybe I'll mix it And I'll master it But it never comes around If I might be so bold I found that once I did that And got a few songs out that had been there It was I'm going to upset But it's like having a good crap To be honest with you There was a sense of relief about it It was like finally it's gone Now I can eat my next meal Well I was at the Seapulse songwriter festival And song workshop And I actually literally did something I've hardly ever done Is I wrote a song on the spot Played it on a big stage In front of like 40 people Got a video of it And then like two days later Released a video on my YouTube page And it's a Flawed video I don't normally release stuff Until it's pretty polished But it was such an important kind of moment That it captured the vibe of it Even though eventually the song will be changed And I go through the whole thing I put it on YouTube YouTube stories Facebook Facebook stories TikTok Instagram And all the video services And I find it doesn't take that long To do all that stuff I'm going to start using this Disco Kids soon for my release My next album But it doesn't take that long Compared to the amount of work you put in To put it out there Yeah I mean the Disco Kids thing I think I'll show you one of these things later It's really like It's literally like 30 minutes Once you've prepared your artwork And you've got your you know Your wave files The whole thing's done It's so quick and then it's going out It's over I had probably the last time I did that Ron was not to bring the show down But my father passed away Last year Last year And I spontaneously sort of wrote a song A few months in About a conversation I had with my mum And the way she was feeling After you know the guy she'd been with For 65 years of her life had gone And about how You know on a daily basis She was just wishing to have him back Despite the fact that she knew that Could not be You know she's still maintained this wish And I wrote a song about that conversation I'd had with her Ran into the bedroom Susie was singing something else in the bedroom And I ran in and I said What do you reckon with this And she said Yes that sounds great And I said Can you sing it for me And she so she We came straight up to the studio I laid the guitar part down I chucked a bit of bass And some strings on there And I said I want you to sing this And I sung it in my crappy voice And then she sung it in a beautiful voice And we recorded the whole thing Within a day Of writing the song And then made a video a few months later And it was out there It was gone The only downside to that Is my mother, bless her So I was just being to America For the first time in her life She went to California And she's just been there for three weeks And now she's headed to Australia And she's staying with us And she will be here this time next week I haven't seen her for I think the last time I saw her Was about 13 or 14 years ago And I was thinking to myself Oh my goodness She's probably going to want me and Susie To play that song But I've only ever played it once For the recording And so I picked up the guitar And said What's the chords again? I don't know I can't remember So there you go Sometimes it goes like that But yeah The song I wrote at the Seapult thing We said Write a song about To play it at your funeral And my problem was I'd already written a song To be played at my funeral And people say it's my best song So I come over to another song To be played at my funeral It's got to be a whole concert I guess But all these woodchops I get out That's wonderful Let's move on to the next song It is from someone who's often in the chat I don't see them here today But I'm sure they'll be watching on the replay I'll pop there again, Ron I'll have you read it out You may need some guidance I'll let you have your first stab at it And then I'll correct you Here we go Okay Whoops Whoops Whoops I'm so glad you're doing this not me yet Whoops Whoops I'm thinking ISP It's W-H-O-I-S-P I'm thinking Internet Service Provider I know that's what I did Shall I help you out with this one? So this is quite a clever name But it's actually The way you say it is Who is P? Who is P? Yeah Well he should actually Put Spaces Because we've got to try and make it into a word You know, this is a Is that the name of the artist? That's the name of the artist Okay I think it should be I think it should be I think it should be That's my first comment That's the first critique I met one of the most scary people ever An open mic is His name was BTS of HRT And it was actually Beats of Heart Without the Lows And he was quite the character He showed up in a Sombrero and a ski mask And he did a song called And they kind of escorted him out the door Anyway, the song is Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful And it's not a great song title I have to say It sounds like the sort of thing That you'd actually write Right, I have to say Yeah, well The line in there Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful Now, what did Who Is P have to say? Funny enough, I know Who Is P But I can't say So I will refer to him as Who Is P This is called Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful So the song goes through a few styles Have a few issues with its complexity to mix But I believe I'm about there See what you think I think the hook The synth is too loud I wrote this on an old Casio COP100 I have no idea what Casio COP100 is But it was written on that Which I mainly use for my keys And a drum controller I create effect sounds and samples Using various methods in cakewalk With freezing MIDI to wave So I add various effects and automation So I like to produce Mainly I'm a bass player But I think I can get a tune Out of the instruments And I love to sing Okay It's a great thing to love to sing I think more people should love to sing Whether you can sing or not Everyone can sing If everyone can sing anyone can watch my old videos If everyone can sing anyone can Because I always say to people That I actually really do not care For my singing voice When I listen to playbacks at all But I do like singing The process of singing The vibration in your chest To the Actually if you sing for a couple of hours It's great exercise Well you should feel exhausted afterwards If you sing for a couple of hours It's a great thing to do If you don't sing Then start doing it It's like dancing Dance around your living room Sing whatever Let's listen to the song We were getting We were in the crowd there Absolutely So can I just declare I think something that's going to be true for us both Up front Ron This is not the kind of music that we produce Sorry opinions could be taken with a pinch of salt However I'll let Ron go first I think the First I really like brought positive message The positive thinking kind of thing And then the music was really fun It was a very fun kind of vibe It seemed very well produced The musical track and the way it kind of Kind of took on a journey And it I don't know all the different artificial instruments and stuff But it actually seemed to use them in a way that really worked And it felt real A lot of times people will do electronic music And something about it just doesn't You know whatever Thought the music was great And the lyrics were great I felt like It almost felt like the vocal Except for the very end Was a tiny bit low in the mix Or maybe some of the Some of the levels could need to be Because it's a lyric driven song And I was slightly struggling to hear the lyrics It was my song I might have even put the lyrics in the actual I hear a far, far front of the sound And it'll lay head notes I don't even know if I can't pronounce it I was slightly struggling to hear the lyrics And I think the video was cool But I might have just put the lyrics in the video Because they're very This is not their video I chuck these videos together for people When they send their music in Yeah Oh okay Oh okay great great Great okay then that makes it It was a nice video But I think If I made a video for this I might have put the lyrics in it And like the last person just commented Also I'm wondering if there's an issue With the phrasing Or really having the vocal in the groove Because there's Be your own kind of beautiful Be your own It didn't quite seem to be The vocals seemed quite in the groove Just slightly off And with this kind of a dance type song You really need the vocals in the pocket And I'm sure it's something you could melodyne Or I mean very very subtle But almost throughout the whole song It felt like there was a disconnection Between the rhythm of the words And the rhythm of the music And that's a very common problem Especially with singer-songwriters You don't You have good lyrics But you don't put them in the pocket as much And that was the most Distracting thing that I found But I think it's a very very I think it's very close I sort of feel very much the same In my notes here I was like first of all Overall I think if this is not the sort of music I normally listen to So whenever you can win someone over With a genre of music Then you've done something really really good It means that I don't know You're really peaking In terms of what you're doing with your music If you can get through people's preconceptions About what they think they like And what they don't like The energy was fantastic There was a lot of what I'm going to call Ear candy in there Especially if you have headphones on There was just little sounds That were going on here We talked about repetition And new things being entered into songs There was a beautiful passage in the middle Wasn't there? Where it just went right down And that was just wonderful It was so emotional that part It was just really really nice Unusual So there's so many good things about this I also agree that It finally towards the end of the song The lead vocal was definitely loud enough If not a little too loud At the beginning of the song It was too quiet And the music was overpowering the vocal There was a I can't say exactly maybe 30 seconds in or so Some music came in And that was a little too loud And that was furthering the masking of the vocals But in terms of tones, frequencies All that kind of thing It all sounded very lush to me Very very nice A delight for the ear And there was some great use of rhythm in there As well there were some variations going on In the rhythm sections Or the sort of drum parts And that was just great So what I'd written down Is very similar to what you said Ron I'd made some notes here Because this is more of a songwriting issue Than a production Because I think the production is Like to say with that little bit of change In the balance that's there Very very good Who is P? Probably better than I could do If I had to go at this But there's a thing I want to say about lyrics And me and Ron were chatting before the show About our love of lyrics And one thing I think it's difficult For some songwriters to understand Is that things that are said verbally In conversation don't always sound good Sung There's words which just don't sound good When they're sung There may be a term Like scanning or something as well For the way that words fit rhythmically In with meaning Phrasing Phrasing Yeah Now particularly at the beginning of the song It was the first thing I noticed I was like Oh there's a bunch of words there Which make sense And as a message they're good But they feel awkward There's something about it And I've written down If it helps Who is P a little bit One phrase and this is more towards the end It was a lyric It's impossible to impress everyone Well it's a great message And I agree with it But to sing that in almost any context It's very hard to make that It's impossible to impress everyone I don't know what it was in the song I don't mean to mock it at all But what I'm saying is that sometimes You gotta listen for that There will be lyrics that you'll write sometimes On the page they look good When you sing them Sometimes you actually do have to change a word Or find a different way to phrase that message To make it work with a piece of music Yeah that's called proper phrasing Proper phrasing Yeah It's a problem of question with kind of folk people They'll write a great poem And I'll be like Here's my great poem And it doesn't really connect to the song Great words But where as it should kind of be In the beat of the song Right, exactly The biggest problem most songwriters have Is they don't do that So And I've had folks over the years come to me Who are poets And they write poetry And they say Oh, I've got this poem Do you think you could turn some of my poems into songs And I've tried before and gone No, it's fine as a poem But when you try and put it to music It's just not happening But anyway, that's When I say that's your only critique It's kind of a big critique But look Who is P? Probably not worth changing I think this is a piece of music you could put out But if you feel like you want to change that And perhaps you Perhaps just Sometimes it can be a matter of As I say, just taking a little word out here and there To make it fit with the music Or something like that But really good piece of music Really put me in a good mood Actually for today I think this is so close that If it was me Again, this might be version 23 of the song And I'd probably redo the vocals Or maybe even Melodyne Maybe, maybe not And just really get the phrasing right And getting the Like you said that one phrase that you couldn't understand And then slightly raise up the vocals And it may even be You raise up certain frequencies Just a little lyrics come through A little bit stronger At the first part of the song Just because the lyrics are so good So that's just my opinion, of course Really good fun Um, look I was just about to say something About Distro Kid again I was just about to play One of my little reels Yeah, one of the things that they do Is they get you on playlist They help you to get on playlist This is, I don't really understand How to promote music I'm not very good at promoting my own music But I do understand that if you can get on a playlist That really helps you Ron, I see that you've got a guitar in your hand Let's have a go Rather than me going to that little advert Let's write a little jingle now Here and now for Distro Kid We'll pick a key I'll go for the people's key of G What we're gonna say is get on a playlist Right, this is gonna be Do you think there's a good enough hook, Ron? Get yourself Get on a playlist with Distro Kid Get on a playlist Yeah, like Get on a playlist with Distro, Distro, Distro Kid That was going somewhere for me Yeah That was going somewhere for me That was, I was, I was Had harmonies in my head there Continue, Ron I'm just gonna have a listen Get on a playlist with Distro Kid They will make you happy Because your music will be heard I don't like triton songs in public in front of people Because I don't really know what I'm doing This is actually in that key of C Lovely, like it I'm gonna download that section of the show And play it every single week on the show, Ron And in the tradition And in the tradition of the music industry I'm gonna pay you no royalties Whatsoever for that as well Oh, great I'll do it for exposure Yeah You know, funny thing is most When I hung out with Steve Polk, you know He's a reasonably successful person And he says, he, from the beginning Like 30 years ago He would say, copy my music Get my music out there Tape show is playing for people Because the real money for most people Is not gonna be and getting streams It's gonna be in performances and advertisements And movie things like that So, yeah, play my music Just don't charge for it I used to do a show on Fridays In a place called the Market Bar In Fremant or here in Perth And there was a lovely musician there Called Meredith And she used to play every week And she had a great line about this Because deal was You got paid a little bit from the bar But it was really busking So we had our case out in front of us And when everyone would get into it And people were clapping And she would say at some point She would say, thanks so much for clapping For my music But please do put some money in the case She said, because unfortunately I can't go up to my landlord At the end of the week and say Great house, great house Nice line Keep that if you're a busker or a street musician Now, we're gonna No difference between a musician and a pizza Pizza can feed a family of four What do you call a musician Without a girlfriend? Homeless Yeah, yeah That's not all right That's not too big of a musician Jokes I've heard for 30 years And it's so true Moving on Thank you so much for relieving me For having to do my crass commercialism Here, Ron Now, you know what? I have stuffed up here a little bit I've somehow Oh no, I haven't stuffed up I thought I'd lost my notes Now people often say Or often feel that there'll be certain types of music That won't get played on the show And I disagree I'm prepared to play anything here on the show I even play some long form music I play instrumentals I've had acapella I've had happy Ron I've had all kinds of different music on the show And this is a different kind of music I take pleasure in playing pieces of music Which are not normally found on these kinds of shows And indeed Types of music that you can't really go along And sing a song right at night And that kind of thing as well There's certain types that often don't get much airplay You know, people who write game music Or people who write jingles Or something like Ron just did then You should be a jingle writer, Ron You've obviously got a bit of a talent for it Well, I told you I was at the Steve Pultz The thing and he said the first thing he said was Write a jingle Write a jingle ahead And I heard it I heard the jingle ahead in the first five seconds Trojan Trojan You really make me go, man Trojan Trojan You really get on And it was pretty good, you know And we had like 20 people play jingles And a lot of them were I mean, I mean, I'll wrote them in a hat in an hour And they were all a lot of them stuck with me And they were really good I reckon it'd be one of those things I've never written a jingle But it'd be like say pop music People assume pop music's really easy to write But it's probably one of the hardest things you could ever do And I suspect jingles might be a bit the same Where people think, ah, they're just cheap and cheesy And you rattle them off But to write a good jingle A bit of an art form, probably They usually have really catchy melodies The ones that are big are really catchy melodies And melodies are not the easiest thing to write You know, it's a pretty unique combination of And it's, yeah, so yeah Especially melodies that haven't already been written Have you ever done that? Have you ever written a song? I've done it on one or two occasions Maybe more Where I've written, I'm happy with this song And then people say, yeah, it sounds exactly like So-and-so and you go, oh yeah, it does, doesn't it? Oh no, heartbreaking Yeah, all right, I see that a lot when I play it open, Mike Someone would be playing a song And the whole song just sounds exactly I mean, the song sounds similar But it's the exact chords, the same melody I hear that once in a while And I don't want to break their hearts and tell them But a friend of mine wrote a song called I Want to Get Sued by Metallica Because Metallica used to sue everybody For ripping them off So the airpins pong sounded just like Metallica I Want to Get Sued by Metallica It would be good, it would be good advertising, you know It would be So our final, I'll pop his name up on the screen I'll let you read it out Ted Vanya, Puppy Love All right, I'm going to give the song a scooter My dog Okay, cool Just a little short introduction for this From the email from Ted here He says, please look at this Supposedly for a boy's choir and a harp No lyrics But I love you, love you, repeat at the end I know it's out of your line But who knows, maybe you can fix it I'll tell you what, when someone says to me I know it's out of your line Then I'm deterred Then it's a sort of a reverse psychology for me I'm like, okay, it's out of my line, is it? Let's have a listen There we go, so is this the question? Hey scooter Hey scooter, I heard Puppy Love So I had to get him involved The first time we've ever had a pet on the show So nice What do you reckon for a last final song on the show today? Something a bit different there, Ron? Yeah, I really liked it It was very, very relaxing and dreamy It just felt really nice There was one part towards the middle where it went Oh, it had like a five to one A descending line or something like that And that part seemed a little, I don't know, a little forced Boom, boom, boom, boom, it felt like it wasn't I'm not sure if it was the production or whatever But somehow that part kind of stuck out of me as not being I didn't enjoy that that much But the rest of the song I think was very nice And I could see this in film and TV And in some sort of inspirational video That thing that I would do Except for I don't do stuff without lyrics So yeah, I liked it It was very, I'm actually, you know I gotta say just for the sake of the community I mean, I literally probably have the world record For going to the most physical open mics Of anyone in the world I've been to 2,500 of them I'm not exaggerating There's a couple hundred online open mics And I've always been amazed at how crappy Some of the people are, including me Including me You know, the first year you see people And my first thousand open mics were pretty horrendous And my second thousand were not so bad But anyways, my point is I'm always amazed at these shows How many people that are out there Are actually doing stuff that's good It's very good It could be one step away from great And all the comments I'm giving everyone today It's because I think these are all good things And maybe if you tweak them a little bit more It could just have that texture Because a lot of times it is that last 5% That takes something that's really good To something like, oh yeah, I'm going to remember that tomorrow I'm going to hear that again So that's the spirit at which I'm sure we both Give our comments here Absolutely, absolutely, yeah I mean, you know, I'm a little sort of humbled When people are here in this community Which I started about three years ago From zero kind of thing And they're at all interested in my opinion Because I'm hearing them and I'm thinking Well, you're better than me Why are you asking me your opinion for goodness sake You know, there is It's amazing how much good music there is out there I love it You know, I did allude earlier to the idea That there's somehow some once in a while A little bit of rhyme and reason To why I included things on the show And the reason why I sort of included This particular piece of music is With everything we said earlier We talked about the idea of repetition And we talked about Hey, Jude and why it was great Because of the repetition And why Bohemian Rhapsody was great Because of the lack of repetition And we talked about all of these things Lyrics and song structure and what have you But the reason I thought that this little piece of music Could be a good lesson to us all Because I felt it was a good piece of music I can see it in a scene in a movie I definitely, you know Is definitely something that would be a company film But objectively we could say Well, look, there was only two instruments in it That sort of choir sound and the harp And there was no real hook in there And so on and so forth And yet for me it worked It worked in its simplicity And I thought that there was only two elements in there And it was a good example of knowing Kind of when to stop Yeah, maybe you could put one or something else in there But I thought it worked It worked with its couple of elements in there Pretty well for me I don't know Oh, so on film and TV sometimes It was really disappointing for me I don't go to a lot of the taxi.com music conferences And they will say a lot of times with film and TV They don't want something that's Too stands out too much Because it distracts from the film and TV So they want something that's good Backing music As astonishing if you think about how many Times film and music is used How rarely we think about the songs And that's really kind of intentional Because we don't want You have a song in the background You don't want to take it away from what's going on in the foreground Unless the song becomes the featured part of the Like the last scene in Breaking Bad When they did Baby Blue Which the song became the last scene of Breaking Bad But for the most part it's a kind of a backing thing That you don't want people to be too distracted by Especially if there's something going on Well, there's always something going on in the scene That you want people to pay attention to So Yeah, yeah, absolutely It's a good work there from Ted I want to thank people who've been here today For all this live show I just, I probably don't say it often enough It's so much appreciated that you are there In the chat and talking about this stuff with us And you know, getting your opinions in there as well I love to see that You know, these I learned from this as well Very, very much myself, I have to say And from the guests who are on the show as well Who bring their opinions and perspectives to things So thanks for being here for that And thank you to the people who sent music in As we said earlier What an incredibly brave thing to do To have your music critiqued by people I hope that what myself and Ron have said for you today is helpful And I hope it's helpful to the people who are watching the show as well Just different ways of exercising your brain And thinking about music and your songwriting We've talked about that today a lot But you know, your production as well And just ways to think about music I hope it's helpful to you If you want to send some of your music in Then please do We want to hear your music The show would not exist without your music So we need your music So do follow the instructions in the description down below Get it into us and myself And one of my wonderful guests Will tell you how we're feeling about it And I think it's so nice to have a guest on today Who's got a guitar in his hand And this is kind of This could be like another little open mic for you Ron, you can finish the open mic For us today With any message that you want to give To this community and the world today I want to thank you so much You've been one of my favorite guests to have on the show What a lovely soul you are It shows in your music It shows in everything you say And I've really enjoyed having you on here very, very much So Ron, I'm going to leave the final part of the show to you And I'll say goodbye to everyone now Thank you Well, we were talking about phrasing and using the proper words And I was honored to spend some time with Freebo The bass player for Bonnie Rait Had a song called The Big Picture And what did you see in the big picture He's like, why would you write a song called Big Picture What could possibly be harder to sing And I'm like, well, I don't know I'm just, I don't know So anyways, he and I worked on the song And we, I gave him core credit And we changed it to the wider view And it's about what you would say to people you love If you only had a little time left And we'll only hear a little while So he might as well say it now My life is ticking down It's not what I would choose I hear your saddened sound Of all you think you'll lose But before I leave this life I have this wish for you I hope that you will see the wider view Only see the wider view And paint the way with me Your canvas won't be quite so blue You don't want it to be The colors that we've known When you won't paint alone It could choose to see the wider view It's just a part of life You'll only hear a while We made the best of everything The most of every mile And all the joyous times You painted on my face For you made me better with Only see the wider view And paint the way with me Your canvas won't be quite so blue If you don't want it to be The colors that we've known When you won't paint alone It could choose to see the wider view Soon I will be gone One last song to sing Maybe that's the way To give back everything And I pray that you'll remember That what I say is true And you will see me in your wider view Only see the wider view And paint the way with me Your canvas won't be quite so blue If you don't want it to be The colors that we've known When you won't paint alone It could choose to see the wider view Yes, the colors that we've known I mean we don't paint alone If we choose to see the wider view