Brad Sucks » songwriting

Polishing a turd

Brad — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 03:42:21 +0000

I try to stay away from idioms and other bits of faux-wisdom but one that actually stuck with me from recording/songwriting circles is â€œyou can’t polish a turdâ€.

Which I always took to mean â€œif your song isn’t any good, no amount of production or recording wizardy will make it goodâ€.

So episode 19 of season 6 of the Mythbusters is awesome: they polished some animal shit. Which may forever alter my songwriting process. Kudos.

The Shape of Song

Brad — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:15:49 +0000

Songs are pretty:

What does music look like? The Shape of Song is an attempt to answer this seemingly paradoxical question. The custom software in this work draws musical patterns in the form of translucent arches, allowing viewers to see–literally–the shape of any composition available on the Web.

Neat looking, but since it’s limited to MIDI files it’s not as much fun as it could be. (Though obviously getting musical information out of audio is super duper hard.)

LyricWiki

Brad — Wed, 24 May 2006 13:37:04 +0000

LyricWiki – a wiki of song lyrics. Wondering how long until they get hassled by the feds, but it’s a nice resource for now.

Behind the Song: Eye of the Tiger

Brad — Sun, 14 May 2006 20:15:22 +0000

Behind the Song: Eye of the Tiger – Jim Peterik’s description of writing and recording Eye of the Tiger. A good example of why I hate talking about songwriting: because it’s boring and lame.

Hit song sonograms

Brad — Mon, 30 May 2005 14:36:39 +0000

Hit song sonograms – in-depth analysis of what hit songs look like. [via]

#1 Songs – 1930-1989

Brad — Thu, 26 May 2005 13:02:03 +0000

#1 Songs – 1930-1989 – just the lyrics, no audio, but still interesting.

Please Don’t Go Topless, Mother songwriter

Brad — Wed, 04 May 2005 17:20:44 +0000

“Please Don’t Go Topless, Mother” songwriter tells all – interesting letter from the Nashville songwriter of a cute net famous song.

Discount Whiteboards and Chalkboards

Brad — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 04:10:42 +0000

Kevin Kelly points out that you can get 4 by 8 feet of whiteboard for $13 at Home Depot. Pretty awesome if you want a big wall of whiteboard to mess around with. Writing things huge and on walls make ideas feel more important.

And JB points me to this Krylon Chalk Board stuff. It’s $4.95 a pint and claims to turn any surface into a ready-to-us chalkboard with a few coats. And there’s also this page showing How to make chalkboard paint.

Beaterator

Brad — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 03:55:34 +0000

Beaterator – a Flash based beat creator by Rockstar Games. [via]

Versionist Riddim Community

Brad — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 00:55:22 +0000

Versionist Riddim Community – a huge resource for reggae music and samples. And with RSS feeds!