Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Posts: 84 Location: Oklahoma, U.S.
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:17 am Post subject: What makes a great guitar song?
Just re-listended to g3 denver and really paid attention to song structure. On Joes set, he plays "starry night", a really well trodden chord progression that allows both major and minor pentatonic riffing. It really pulled me in even though I could anticipate the licks.
This got me thinking about what makes a song stick. I have composed tons of material over the years and find that people react best to the simplistic chord voicings with somewhat predictable melodies. Its that flash of the unexpected in the midst of hummable progressions that seem to resonate with most. What makes Lenny, Cliffs of Dover, Waves . . . pick a tune, great?
Just curious about everyones thoughts. Lots of great players but few great tunes. _________________ It goes to eleven!
yes you got it pretty much. KISS, or keep it simple stupid. melody has to be memorable. i know a lot of people who can hum the entire hotel california solo cuz thats how simple and memorable it is. predictable is not always the way to go though some catchy melodies lie outside the realm of "save", so it really is a fine art
I don't think you can quantify what makes a great song, personally
Melody may be awesome indeed, but then again you may love another song which has no melody, and is all groove and riffs, but you could then be picky and say that melody is there in everything, so it's swings and roundabouts really
Like stephenE said, i don't think you can really quantify anything about music. Everytime I say something like "I like it when it's this and that", I always realize 5 seconds later that "well... it doesn't always have to be like that" and then I start thinking of tunes that I like that are the complete opposite of what I just said.
But anyway. One thing that sometimes makes a tune really great for me is when there are contrasts, while maintaining a feeling of connection from the beginning to the end.
Like the things that were mentioned. Tunes that have both the very simple and the more complex. Tunes that go from soft to loud and vice versa. Maybe different parts with different sound (e.g. the bass stops playing for a small part, etc). Going from slow to fast. Having a solo that combines simple sounds like pentatonic in some parts with other sounds in other parts.
I like to hear people play fast and shred, but not when it's streams of 16th-notes for 3 minutes straight. It has to have other elements too, of longer notes and slower parts etc.
I like complex chords, but when all the chords in a tune are complex jazz chords it sometimes loses its effect Like you said, keep it simple and then suddenly the unexpected.
(but again... some tunes are meant to have weird chords all the way and it's ok. Some of those tunes I find that they are actually using those complex chords as one element of the song, combined with other elements that sound different. And that often makes the complete soundscape sound richer and more colorful to me)
Steve Vai's tender surrender (look for it on youtube if you haven't seen it) is to me one of the best examples of combining contrasting stuff to create a very dynamic, very dramatic tune. That tune proves to me that he is definately one a shredder that has a great sense of composition in his solos,. It has everything from soft to loud, slow to blistering fast,
low to high. At the same time as it has a melody that's coherent from point A to point B, it doesn't sound like he's just pulling 10 completely different licks that have nothing to do with eachother. It's a gradual buildup of the entire thing.
Then again, all tunes are not supposed to be dramatic. Some are supposed to be very simple and tender all the way. Some are supposed to be aggressive all the way. It doesn't need to have everything in the world at once, often the simpler things are the things that are really magical.
So I guess it just depends on what you want
Just as long as the music is inspired, and comes from the heart, that's the only thing that really matters in the end
what's a "guitar song"? any song with guitar? if so, then a the same stuff that makes any song good makes a "guitar song" good.
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+1 he's right you know... personally I think it's only Guitarists who'd call something a Guitar song. _________________ Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"
"He ain't heavy, he's my brother" is a harmonica song,
DefCon One by PWEI is a turn-table song
and
Through the Wire by Kanye West is a Kanye talking over Chaka Kahn played sped up song. (possibly the only example)
Moonlight Sonata is Piano Sonata (sound) no 14. No song in there. A song would need to contain words. Music without word is instrumental. If you want to blur the edges and get metaphysical about voices, I would say this: "Where Were You" is not a song; and if it isn't, precious little else can claim to be. _________________ Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"
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