God, turns out, was Micheal Jackson, as he hasnt been here since MJ passed...
Apparently he was living vicariously through this site.
God, turns out, was Micheal Jackson, as he hasnt been here since MJ passed...
Apparently he was living vicariously through this site.
hanayalator
ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 11
I'm sure all the stuff that guy mentioned and the way he mentioned them were used to make you buy his book. However, there are some musical elements that make up a hit song.
Memorable Melody....if you have one you have a hit, if you don't you have 95% of the shit out there. Think about it, what do you think of when you're remembering a song you like....the melody! This works with all styles, pop, classical, jazz, whatever.
Chord Structure....Everyone knows the majority of songs are based around 3 or 4 chords. Some nowadays just have one or two chords. If you check out some songwriting books they break it down to song specific chords, but for here, just know that most songs are built on the 1, 4, 5, progression, with the occasional 2 or 6 thrown in.
Groove....The majority of hit songs have a specical groove or feeling. Timbo comes to mind cause most of his songs have a cool groove, but even older songs and classical songs can be described as having that unique groove element.
Song Structure....the majority of hits out there have the exact same structure...check it out....count of the bars of certain sections of your favourite songs, you'll find out that they're a lot closer than you'd think. Now that doesn't mean that you can't be creative when coming up with a song, or you can't change around the sections, but history has shown that there are a few song structures that really hit home with listeners..
I can come up with some more, but those are some of the key elements I look for and have noticed through my own listening experiences.
H
Memorable Melody....if you have one you have a hit, if you don't you have 95% of the shit out there. Think about it, what do you think of when you're remembering a song you like....the melody! This works with all styles, pop, classical, jazz, whatever.
Chord Structure....Everyone knows the majority of songs are based around 3 or 4 chords. Some nowadays just have one or two chords. If you check out some songwriting books they break it down to song specific chords, but for here, just know that most songs are built on the 1, 4, 5, progression, with the occasional 2 or 6 thrown in.
Groove....The majority of hit songs have a specical groove or feeling. Timbo comes to mind cause most of his songs have a cool groove, but even older songs and classical songs can be described as having that unique groove element.
Song Structure....the majority of hits out there have the exact same structure...check it out....count of the bars of certain sections of your favourite songs, you'll find out that they're a lot closer than you'd think. Now that doesn't mean that you can't be creative when coming up with a song, or you can't change around the sections, but history has shown that there are a few song structures that really hit home with listeners..
I can come up with some more, but those are some of the key elements I look for and have noticed through my own listening experiences.
H
Doc Vigilanti
ILLIEN
ill o.g.
If you listen to the Top 10 songs, the top 5 things are, these are just my guesses at least,
1) Emotion - This is the way the song is played or produced that moves you.
2) Dynamics - This is what helps convey the emotion of the song
3) Dissonance - which builds tension
4) Consonance - which releases tension
5) Harmonics - specifically odd harmonics
That's my guess, the main this is that even though they have to be written into a song, a song can be written without them and it will still be a song.
1) Emotion - This is the way the song is played or produced that moves you.
2) Dynamics - This is what helps convey the emotion of the song
3) Dissonance - which builds tension
4) Consonance - which releases tension
5) Harmonics - specifically odd harmonics
That's my guess, the main this is that even though they have to be written into a song, a song can be written without them and it will still be a song.
subvertbeats
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
My only problem with this theory is that it assumes a majority demographic with the same emotional triggers.
Then again this may be bang on the money. I certainly dont have a 'top ten' taste in music....but if it does come down to this, are we saying then that the majority of punters are emotional clones in that respect?
subvertbeats
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
I think this comes closest to it for me, but.....the emotion thing....what are the properties of the songs that trigger this emotional response from the majority record buying public?
Im also not sure about the harmonics thing.
I guess you suggested odd order harmonics because they're typically associated with 'warmth', but I think there's been planty of hits that are pretty 'cold' in terms of acoustic presentation...
Doc Vigilanti
ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Well, things that trigger emotion are things like a certain groove, and chord progressions played in such a way that really gets you to bob your head and more importantly the manner in which they are played, all though I think that fits into groove.
I have to say though emotion is one of those things that the rest of the factors add into help conveying, such as dissonance, consonance, dynamics, and harmonics, but Emotion is a psycho-acoustical term. I've heard many songs that were just bland and dry, in fact when I first started in this whole music thing I made songs that were all the same velocity and lacked "movement", but as I got better I was able to get the piece to move and groove.
As far as the harmonics go, not so much colored sound that you can get by running a sound through a piece of gear that is described as warm, but harmonics associated with sounds below 20hz and above 20khz. Even though that is out of the range of human hearing those frequencies still have an effect on the sounds that we are able to hear.
For example, the sound of a room like a concert hall or amphitheater or even reverbs. Those things add a presence to the sound that isn't necessarily warm or cold per say but bring out certain characteristics in the sound. I don't really want to say it makes instruments sound "better" because that is all subjective and not everybody likes top 10 hits or a top ten hit in a certain genre.
I could be wrong though, but there are several books that go into depth about psycho-acoustics and I'd be almost willing to bet the answers are in those books.
subvertbeats
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
Right, what Im saying though, is that emotion is subjective....different people have different emotions triggered by different things.
I agree with you by the way, I just think that using emotion as a concept is too abstract.
Remember Im a mastering engineer by trade, so I completely understand and appreciate what you're describing hear. I dont have an EQ with a 32KHz band for nothing
However, I'm not sure that this is one of those 'magic' qualities.....
This is definitely one of the most interesting threads Ive seen on the tinterweb in a good while
Doc Vigilanti
ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Believe it or not, I'm going to agree with you; the term "emotion" being too abstract, because it does mean a lot of different things. On the other hand though, it is something that all top 10 songs do have, now whether or not this is one of things that the OP is looking for I don't know, also I doubt all "flops" lack emotion.
So I will agree that "emotion" is not correct.
Remember Im a mastering engineer by trade, so I completely understand and appreciate what you're describing hear. I dont have an EQ with a 32KHz band for nothing
However, I'm not sure that this is one of those 'magic' qualities.....
This is definitely one of the most interesting threads Ive seen on the tinterweb in a good while
I didn't know you were a practicing member in the black arts!
All joking aside, of course I'm going to stand by my statement on this one, I'm just having a hard time trying to describe it, but at the same time is this one that could fit under dissonance and consonance, because both of them could cause crazy harmonics to happen. Also I don't think Beethoven had an EQ with a 32KHz band back when he wrote his music.
And I definitely agree this is one of the more interesting topics I've read in a while. The question is though even when we do find out what these 5 things are, can they actually be consciously written, mixed, or mastered into a song?
I think I might pick up a book on psycho-acoustics, I'm sure if search around for the right book all 5 of these things will be in there plus tons more stuff.
.....WHERE IS GOD DAMMIT!!! We need his input on this..like I said before, I have pondered this question for many years...left it alone (for reasons of mind state and sanity) and now this thread has brought it back to my frontal....maybe we're not suppose to know the answer....aww shit im babbling now
T
timnosho
Guest
Hey, you and subvertbeats are money on the replies. Could you name some books speicifically I've been looking for some.
Anyway, as far as the emotion thing goes I agree with you guys that the concept is too abstract and there are too many factors to be able to quantify or pinpoint what causes a certain emotion, whether its music or movie or girlfriend. Having said that, I will still be analyzing every single piece of music I find emotionally appealing.
Simplicity and salience are also very important. A lot of the greatest pieces of art are all simple. The brain just enjoys things with many factors that are consolidated into a simple precise idea. So far the structure of good music to me seems.
Groove -- drums percussion base
Main Sound -- the carrier of the main 'feel' of the sound
Contrasting sound -- A sound to contrast the feel, emotion, of the main sound.
Those are always present.
It might be possible that main sound is always between certain freq and the contrasting sound is in another pocket of freq because the brain always looks into those freq for information due to evolutionary reasons. Subvertbeats since you are the engineer please tell me what you think.
Finally, in the real world emotion is hard to pinpoint and strong emotions are usually layers of many different emotions. Loving the replies btw.
T
timnosho
Guest
<-- This has all the answers.
UNORTHODOX
Father Timeless
Simplicity/singalongability, relevance of progression (as it relates to the times),but most importantly Mix (as it relates to the ears natural curve specifically) also look up ( hz, and what states of the brain represent each(I forget the name)
"music is just what feelin sounds like"
"music is just what feelin sounds like"
DaWorldFamous
ILLIEN
ill o.g.
I have read this nd i will have to say that, to me, I don't think this can be quantified. This is something that we are thinking to hard about, and the asshole who wrote the book knew people would overthink this. It is probly VERY BASIC in theory. Psychoacoustic mumbo jumbo is not it. think about all the fuckers who stumbled over hit songs. I betcha they didn't know all that technical shit. they made a track, wrote some lyrics, got somebody to sing it, got it mixed, mastered, and marketed, and Bingo...it blew up. Trying to analyze this, is not benefiting you at all. just continue to make music, that's all....
Those that know, they do
Those that don't know, are stupid...LOL
Part of it though in my opinion, having an excellent engineer.....maybe?
Those that know, they do
Those that don't know, are stupid...LOL
Part of it though in my opinion, having an excellent engineer.....maybe?
I can't say that I'm all too informed on psychoacoustic stuff.. but it's worth it for you guys to look into the concept of binaural beats and perceived sound placement in the brain... If you haven't already. Can't say it's the secret, but it's definitely common to a lot of sounds we hear and then experience emotion from.
There's a lot of people who say that "Top 10" style music has common qualities and tons of people have tried to qualify and quantify this through analyzing chord progressions and analyzing shit spectrally and whatever else you could think of... But they can't and neither can some ass who writes a book... otherwise he'd have a top ten song and not some book...
There's a lot of people who say that "Top 10" style music has common qualities and tons of people have tried to qualify and quantify this through analyzing chord progressions and analyzing shit spectrally and whatever else you could think of... But they can't and neither can some ass who writes a book... otherwise he'd have a top ten song and not some book...
UNORTHODOX
Father Timeless
The other side of this is most of the "Smash-Hits" of today are marketed not created. Meaning the marketing makes it a smash not the quality of the song. Its impossible to really, clearly judge this these days.