How to write songs like this?

Bucket

I wouldn't normally ask for advice on this but I really do need/want it.

Basically, those who pay attention to the drivel I post will know that I have become a huge fan of 90s power pop band Jellyfish in the last seven or eight months, and while I normally get a bit bored of albums after having them on heavy rotation for a few weeks, I keep coming back to Jellyfish all the time - particularly their second album, Spilt Milk, which is a lot more complex arrangements-wise but also has better songs - sounds like a perfect halfway point between Cheap Trick and the Beach Boys.

The advice I need is this - how the hell would I go about writing something along these lines? I can't put my finger on what it is that eludes me about this style of songwriting. I'd love to write a track or two in this style but I just don't know where to start.

Here is some Jellyfish:

You'll note - lots and lots of parts (layered vocals, piano, keyboards, guitars etc etc) which may be difficult - I'm not a very good keyboard player. I can do some basic stuff here and there but not really enough to be able to write a song with it. So I'd be looking to write on guitar and add what keyboard parts I can later on. It's also full of hooks and catchy chord progressions, and I'm not totally sure of how to go about that either... I'm just totally unused to writing like this. If I had to sum up the style, I'd call it "complex pop rock".

This is probably a totally ridiculous question but any help would be appreciated.

thisisguitar

Anything like this seems impenetrable due to it's complexity. I'd define it as prog rock with a pop sensibility, it's all over the place yet still chock full of hooks. This is the kind of stuff I tried to do with my old band, but we were only together for a year and a half so couldn't get to this level!

Maybe working purely on writing hooks would be a good way of starting? Having the chops is helpful. Do you know a good keyboard player you could bring on board? I used to work with a guy who is a brilliant keys player, and guitarist, and he had a great foundation in progressive rock… made writing a lot more fun to bounce ideas off someone with that level of skill. 

Seeking out bands that are good at crossing the boundary of prog-pop and listening to how they do it can be helpful. It Bites. Some Nik Kershaw. Genesis. The Beatles. Queen. I'm sure the guys on here could suggest more. (I'm assuming you haven't already listened to some of this stuff). I can suggest some tracks if you like.

And rip of some of the chord progressions, even if it's just a couple of unexpected chords that fit together well.  

 

octatonic

I am betting those songs were written on acoustic guitar first.

You could sketch them out with a vocal melody in hours.

The production and realisation of those albums though is something else entirely.

spark240

This has got "10cc  all over it to me...then Supertramp....The Feeling... they are all in there.

How do they do it?..well  I guess songs like these come from hundreds of ideas slowly moulded together, Springsteen does the same with lyrics, you may have seen his documentry, hes has a book with hundreds of lines in , he just strings them together as & when required.

All in all , a bit of a joint effort maybe? I know a guy who has great lyrics but an awful singer !

I have tons of guitar riffs...but cant make a single complete song..'-(  

   

octatonic

Also meant to say that as you study harmony you will become more informed as to what approach to take with chord progressions.

Compared to your usual style it is less about doing stuff, but rather allowing the song to form around relatively simple harmony.

How is ICMP going, btw?

thisisguitar

spark240 said:

This has got "10cc  all over it to me...then Supertramp....The Feeling... they are all in there.

How do they do it?..well  I guess songs like these come from hundreds of ideas slowly moulded together, Springsteen does the same with lyrics, you may have seen his documentry, hes has a book with hundreds of lines in , he just strings them together as & when required.

All in all , a bit of a joint effort maybe? I know a guy who has great lyrics but an awful singer !

I have tons of guitar riffs...but cant make a single complete song..'-(  

   

Art for Arts Sake sprang to mind for some reason. 10cc have done some great stuff.

Bucket

@octatonic ICMP is going well thanks, I'm enjoying it. I'm meeting lots of great musicians but also feeling less socially inept than I did back at school, which is all good. The work itself seems alright, I'm pretty much on top of it. I've applied for the degree now, so I need to really work on my sight reading before my audition in about six weeks' time.

Thanks for the advice so far chaps. 

thisisguitar

There's a very cool bit of theory I learned for switching chords under a given note that I can share with you too:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa183/lyndos/Picture5.png

The centre note is the melody note, and the surrounding triads contain that melody note in their make-up:

C    = C   E   G

Cm = C   Eb  G

Ab  = Ab  C   Eb

Am = A    C   E

F    = F    A   C

Fm = F    Ab  C

Try singing a 'C' and playing those chords in succession. It made me realise I can modulate to so many options underneath a note in my melody (especially the last note of a phrase), and can lead to nice key changes.

EricTheWeary

International College of Muffin Producers? Mmmm ~O)

Oblique Strategies came to mind. Although according to Wiki Coldplay have used them, so clearly no guarantee that it will produce good music.

randomhandclaps

With any other element of music we learn to accept than there is a learning process involved.  We start by looking an instrument as a foreign entity and work at getting better by doing the same exercises over and over.  Song writing (regardless of style) still more often than not gets looked at as having some secret formula or a case that you can either do it or not.  It really requires practice like any other skill.  So some people will pick it up more naturally but that happens with anything.

Write a song, don't worry if it sounds crap.  Just get your brain used to the discipline of writing.  Then write another and so on focusing on eradicating those things you don't like about what you write and strengthening those things you do.  Exactly as with playing, the creative or emotional part that is you and your individuality can't be taught, but you are arming yourself with techniques to allow your creation to flow.  Just as learning scales aids your ability to express yourself in a solo, for example.

DulcetJones

octatonic said:

I am betting those songs were written on acoustic guitar first.

You could sketch them out with a vocal melody in hours.

The production and realisation of those albums though is something else entirely.

+1  -  Once you have a basic song you can sing and play on acoustic guitar, and feel that it works, you are more than half way there.  Fleshing it out with a bass line, giving over some of the acoustic guitar to keys/synth, eliminating the acoustic guitar to make room for other instruments etc..... 

monquixote

As others have said the core of it doesn't seem that complex. 

I would imagine they probably wrote the skeleton of the song on piano / gutar then back through it adding the accents and punctuation on various interesting bits in the vocal melody and then layered up lots of complexity and harmonies on the top. 

What I get from those is a lot of instances where they've made a little riff or melody more dramatic by having the bass and drums punctuate it rather than sticking to the straight rhythm. 

randomhandclaps

Also remember this is off Jellyfish's second album so no matter how long it took the to write it, undoubtedly 97% of that time was spent fighting.

meltedbuzzbox

monquixote has summed it up well. 

Are you doing music theory at all? On my degree course we would listen to a piece of music (usually Prince or the Beatles) and we would rip it apart, start working out the progression of the chords, points of modulation etc. Its good practice and it starts to give you an idea of how things are pieced together. 

Cirrus

Others have said lots of good stuff so I'll make my contribution brief; I've always thought of songwriting as something that snowballs; usually you start with a simple and sudden idea/ burst of inspiration, then you just keep adding ideas until it either sounds good or you've ruined it. My most common mistake is that I start with nothing and try to hang ideas off that.