 The hardest part about making great music is when you get stuck and you don't know what else to do to finish a song. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about how you figure that out and how you have a touchstone that guides you every single time so that you always know you're making good decisions for your song every time. Hi everybody, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation and today we're going to talk about what we do to make songs actually work better. We've all had that experience of listening to a song and being like, why the f*** did they add that to it? You know like there's this like funny thing I hear all the time these days which is like these like video game sounds added to some like really emotional pop song and I'm like why the f*** did you do that? And I do get like to back up further a little bit. Everybody has a different emotional palette and what songs are supposed to be is us adding from our emotional palette over and over again. Like the way we feel is always unique to us like one of the hardest things about dealing with other humans is emotionally we're all different. We get mad at each other, we're like why are you mad about that? Why are you mad about this? I don't feel that way. That doesn't hurt me. But that's also what makes song special because we all feel a different way when different things happen to us. So that's also what comes out in songs. When I hear a banjo I go oh well that doesn't feel good but somebody feels like uplifted by that. And those emotional responses are what makes great songs. So what does that have to do with what you do when you get stuck working on a song? The big thing that I see when people are really stuck with the songs, they don't know what the song's emotion is. They're like ah I don't know I wrote some gibberish, da da da da. I, you know I listened to a lot of at the drive-in records or whatever and J. Electrodica and I couldn't figure out what they were saying so I just wrote some gibberish maybe I seem smart. What people are always missing that don't do this well is that even the most abstract weird songs that are like an adult swim show when you haven't smoked weed and you're just like what the hell is happening here? Those songs that work for even the weirdest acts work because they're making an emotion that they can see that other people respond to. It's often just beyond the comprehension of the listener on how that emotion is being portrayed with all the different words being used in the lyrics and all the different sounds how they combine into a emotion that is distinct and makes you feel a certain way. We've all heard weird music that just makes you feel no way but then we've also heard weird music that makes you feel emotionally intense. We go oh my god like we're forward by that. Like I think a lot about Billie Eilish who's arguably in 2020 the most out-there pop artist that's really really affecting the mainstream. Yes there's ones that bubble under the mainstream that are doing weirder stuff but in the mainstream she's it. She's doing different things that are actually making people feel something that you didn't hear every day and that over and over and over again I think is what a lot of us are striving for is how we find the unique things that make us feel a certain way that bring out a new emotion since that's what really affects us in music but how do you do that yourself? The first thing we have to do is identify what emotion you're trying to create in a song. There's a reason that whenever you read about the process of how people write big pop hits is they talk about a kernel of truth and that kernel of truth is something that happened in their life because they're able to go back and feel something and yes there's tons of great songs that have been written about somebody else emotionally whether it's Robert Smith or Elvis Castello they've talked often times about writing about other people's emotions because they feel a great empathy and are still able to feel something about what that person told them was emotionally happening to them. So the point is though is you have something to draw from you feel this emotion you think about how a story made you feel and then you think about what sounds make you feel that way you hear that chord does that chord feel more like that song does that synth patch make it feel more like the emotion you felt them on and that is what you paint with. When considering options for a song it can often be helpful to think about those emotions you're trying to convey. Think about this way if you're trying to portray intense loneliness there's a reason that oftentimes that will just be a single instrument with a single voice you're not going to double the voice you're definitely not going to do a gang vocal because that's a bunch of people in a room with you why are you lonely if all these other people around you especially your friends having fun that doesn't sound that lonely but a great example is oftentimes with a gang vocal at the end whether it's trying to be uplifting and say you're not alone will have a choir or a gang vocal come in to make it feel like the resolution of the song has brought people around you and you're not alone anymore. I often think about in dance music how often when they're trying to have a party feel that you actually put the sounds of a party in the breakdown or some other part or you hear the crowd noise come because that makes you feel more emotionally like the place that the song is going to be played. Producer Justin Meldell Johnson who's made amazing records with Jimmy Eatworld, Paramore, MA3, Wolf Alice and tons of other artists has a really good quote I like to draw from about working with the group MA3. We were always looking for an emotional reason for doing something so the production was always informed by an emotional choice. At one point in the record an example of doing it from an emotional standpoint and having that be a generator of ideas. When we were overwhelmed by what we had to do we went down to the craft store got these huge pieces of paper and on the paper we lay out some of these inspirational touchstones that relate to the song such as a piece of prose or a picture the names of movies or records would get added gradually as time went on to these collages. It's this collage of childlike guidance and reference of source material that led us to making strong emotional images. This is a perfect example of emotional elaboration and how it leads to an intense intense emotion and there's a reason that that record was one of the biggest indie records to break out over the past decade because it has such strong emotional content. Accumulating subtleties and little emotional details end up being like pieces of hay in a hay stack that lead up to a greater emotional feeling and the more things you can find to compliment how this feeling is and sometimes less by taking it away and figuring out exactly what that emotion should be is how you get to have the emotionally resonant music that really affects other people. So the actionable ways I go about actually figuring out how this touchstone should sound and how we should have the song guided is I ask myself numerous questions about the emotion of a song. I talk to the artist about how they feel even if it's really intense about somebody's like loved one dying we get to the bottom of it. We talk about the colors, we talk about all the feelings and then we draw from there as we figure out what to paint around the song with. These questions can be so obvious but so many people don't ask themselves any of these at all when they're thinking of a song. You know if the song is emotionally chaotic maybe it should go up and down in dynamics. If a song is emotionally flat maybe you're almost mumbling the lyrics. I mean that's become a very big trope in like the mumblecore emo movement these days is to feel lethargic and barely say the words. Every little detail about how you approach a song can be referred back to the exact emotion you're trying to convey. So ask yourself as many questions as possible about how you express yourself in a song and you will always have guidance on what to do next. There's so many different questions you can ask yourself and then write down and make one of these collage boards or a google doc or whatever it is going to be that suits your artistic needs and then you'll always be able to refer back to this and then ask yourself when you hear that new guitar part you added through some flanger pedal does that actually feel like the emotion you were feeling when you're talking about these lyrics and writing this song or even it doesn't have to be lyrics so much of the time. If you wrote some chords that really felt good you might write the lyrics to those chords. Use these touchstones and one singular emotion that you're feeling from part to part to always draw back to and ask yourself a question of are you reiterating upon that emotion to make it feel as strong as possible. That's it thanks so much for watching and if you like this please like subscribe and get notified for my future videos. There's a playlist of this video that has tons more ideas like this so if you're enjoying this feel free to click on my channel and go deeper. I also need to know your questions for future videos on what I can talk about and go deeper on in the future so please leave those in the comments and I'll be answering those questions in a future video. I have a facebook group that's linked below that's only helpful information for artists. No playlist con artists no one trying to sell you anything I keep it super clean so if you want to be a part of that community click that link. If you want to learn more about me make a record with me or just learn more about my books or podcasts go to jessecanon.com to learn more or at jessecanon on any of the socials. See you in the next video.