Category: Academy Paris

Lyrics don’t necessarily have to rhyme, but in most cases, rhyme is used. We’re going to look at a few different options.

Full rhyme

In a full rhyme, the sounds of both the vowels and the consonants match. There is no more ‘complete’ rhyme than full rhyme.

For example: hope � rope, think � blink, cows � browse

As you can see, the sounds of the words completely match.

Half rhyme

Half rhyme is a kind of slimmed down version of full rhyme. Where with full rhyme both the vowels and consonants correspond in sound, with half rhyme this is the case with only one of the two.

For example: bug � bun (only the vowels), bug � bag (only the consonants)

Alliteration is also a form of half rhyme, in which the same initial letters are used for each word. Such as: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

Placemet of the rhyme

You can rhyme in different places in a sentence. Often the rhyming words are at the end of the sentence, a so-called ‘final rhyme’. But there are also alternatives, such as an ‘initial rhyme’. The words at the beginning of the sentence rhyme with each other. With an ‘inner rhyme’, words are somewhere in the middle of the sentence that rhyme with each other.

Rhyme schemes

You now know a few types of rhyme, but how do you process them in a text and where do you place the rhyming words in relation to each other? There are different types of rhyme schemes, a few examples:

Striking rhyme: ����������������� A � A � A � A

Crossed rhyme: ����������������� A � B � A � B

Embracing rhyme: A � B � B � A

Staggered rhyme: ������������� A � B � C � A � B � C

See the letters as words that rhyme with each other; A rhymes with A, B with B, etc.

It is good if you get to know all kinds of rhymes, so you can continue to vary in your songwriting. This creates surprising twists and turns and keeps the listener interested.

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

The first thing that gets stuck in your head is often the melody. A real earworm can haunt your mind for days. But coming up with a new melody that is also catchy can be difficult. Many songwriters return after a few songs to a melody that they have used before. Here are some tips!

Put your instrument away

If you almost always play your instrument while writing, you may get stuck in certain patterns or chord progressions. As a result, you will also stay in the same range more often with your vocal melodies. So, leave your instrument alone and try to write a cappella melodies. In that case you are freer to sing and try what you want, after all you are no longer tied to your instrument.

Repetition

The power of repetition should not be underestimated. Once you’ve found a catchy melody, you must put it to good use. But be careful not to irritate with all these the repetitions. For example, use the AABA principle, in which A is your catchy main melody that you briefly alternate with an alternative B melody. This way you step away from the repetition for a while, you keep the melody fresh and as soon as your main melody returns, the listener immediately recognizes it again.

Intervals

A melody consists of two components. One of these is ‘intervals’. An interval is the musical distance between two notes. For a melody with a small range, the intervals are logically small, with a large range they are larger. You can alternate nicely with this throughout a song. To really make the chorus stand out, for example, you can choose to keep the intervals in the verses small and make them larger in the chorus. This way you create a nice contrast and it ‘opens up’ the chorus, as it were.

Rhythm

The second component of a melody is the rhythm. You can essentially play around with this the same way you do with the intervals. For example, choose a fast rhythm in the verses and a somewhat lower rhythm in the chorus. You can combine and vary endlessly. Short notes, long notes. If you vary enough you keep it interesting.

Listen to your idols

If you have read the above carefully, I advise you to listen to the music of your idols. Pick a song you like and analyze the melody of the vocals. Pay attention to repetitions, intervals and rhythm and write them down. Do this with several songs and possibly different styles. This gives you a very nice idea of ??how these melodies vary with all components. Take this in and take advantage of it!

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

Whether a song is good depends a lot on the lyrics. Songs with a good and catchy story often stick with the listener the longest. It is because of this that someone can start to attach an emotional value to such a song. But how do you write lyrics that really tell a story and remain interesting throughout the song?

Basically, you can roughly divide a lyric into two parts: the verses and the chorus. Of course, we also have the pre-chorus and a bridge, but we’ll leave those out for now.
To give a lyric depth and to keep it interesting, it is necessary to create contrast between the texts of the verses themselves, but also between the verses and the chorus. If you constantly say the same thing in all parts of the song, there is no surprise anymore and it quickly becomes boring. So, make sure that you think carefully about the contrast and how you are going to apply it. This can be done in several ways.
For example, you could see the chorus as ‘effect’ and the verses as ’cause’. Of course, this can also be done the other way around. Let�s say our song is about ending a relationship. In the verses you could explain what you think is going wrong or has gone wrong during your relationship, with the result that in the chorus you say that you are ending this relationship.
But there are even more ways, for example: ‘answer’ and ‘question’.

Once you have devised such a structure, the next step is to create contrast between the verses. You don’t want to continue in the second verse on what has already been said in the first verse. The best thing is if you can sketch a new situation in the second verse or look at the situation from a new point of view.
For example, you can use �past� in the first verse and �present� in the second. If you apply that to our break-up song, you get the story in the first verse about what went wrong in the past. Then you tell in the chorus that you break up and in the second verse you tell how you are feeling after you broke up. In this way the lyrics continue to develop throughout the song and the listener remains fascinated because you keep coming up with new situations.

In addition, this gives the chorus a new emotional charge after each verse. After the first verse, in which everything is still doom and gloom, the message that you are ending the relationship is still quite emotional because of the situation described earlier.

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

It can sometimes be extremely difficult to come up with a new concept for a song from scratch. Of course, you want a good story and preferably something you have not heard before. Often songwriters already get stuck there. Fortunately, there are several ways to awaken your creative mind. You will do many of these exercises at the Wisseloord Academy. Probably not every exercise will help you equally, songwriting is of course very personal. That is why it is important to try out all the exercises and tips; you will eventually find the way that suits you perfectly to come up with new ideas, even if you are stuck in a writer’s block. Here are a few tips to practice with:

Object writing

If you’re not quite sure what you want to write about, this exercise is perfect. Choose a random object, for example your shoe and set a timer for ten minutes. In these ten minutes you will write down as many things as possible that have to do with your shoe. Describe what it looks like, where you bought it, where you’ve been with it and what you experienced with it. It doesn’t matter as long as your pen doesn’t leave the paper. You must keep writing constantly. If you can’t think of a nice sentence, just literally write down the individual words that come to mind.

When the ten minutes are over, you can read the result. You are most likely not going to write a song about your shoe, but chances are that there is a certain phrase or word in your text that suddenly appeals to you. For example, replace the word ‘shoe’ with a word that you do like and continue writing from that point. Eventually you’ll probably come up with a new song or idea that has nothing to do with your shoe, but those ten minutes of writing will give you new inspiration!

Unusual combinations

Songwriting is all about telling a story. Unusual combinations of words can be helpful in telling or portraying a story or feeling. For example, think of combinations such as ‘the dry water’ or ‘the silent sound’. A good exercise to come up with these kinds of combinations is to make two columns on paper. In the left column you put 20 adjectives and in the right column 20 nouns. Do this with the paper folded in the middle so that you can only see the column you are writing in. When you have completed both columns, unfold the paper again and you will see the random word combinations you just created. There is almost always something that works very well and that you can use in your songwriting!

Extra tips

If you’re multilingual, you might want to consider starting writing in a different language than what you’re used to. When you have finally written a nice draft, you translate it back into your preferred language. In this way you often end up with new word choices.

The last tip is to use your notepad! Many people use this in their phone, but a real physical notepad is of course also useful. In everyday life you will come across many words, phrases and quotes that are beautiful to use in your songwriting. Think of texts in films or series, but also conversations that you overhear in everyday life. Write them down! If you get stuck writing later, you’ll have a nice reference book full of ideas that you can use.

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

Most songwriters have written their first song just by themselves. But nowadays almost all the songs you listen to are written by at least two or three writers. For some people it is hard to make that transition to do co-writes. But doing so can result in huge improvements in your songwriting. At the Wisseloord Academy you will do a lot of co-writing sessions. But why should you try co-writing and what are the tips and tricks to keep in mind?

If you give co-writing a try, you will work with a lot of people. Some of them you already know and some you meet for the first time right there and then in the writing room. If you just met, don�t rush into it, and don�t start writing right away. Take your time, grab a cup of coffee together, talk about life and maybe listen to some of each other�s songs. Songwriting is a very delicate thing, getting to know the writers in the room a little bit won�t hurt. You will have to be able to open up to each other to get to the best result. When you feel comfortable with someone, it will be easier.

What makes co-writing so interesting is that you will encounter new ways of writing every single time. Every songwriter has his own way to approach a lyric or a way to come up with melodies. It gives you new insights and ideas. Next to that it is a way to mix-up genres and styles that you would normally never come up with on your own. Your songwriting skills can benefit from this enormously. You can use the different techniques and styles to implement them into your own songwriting and built your own unique selling point.

Writing on your own can be peaceful and gives you the freedom to write whatever you want. But what if you suddenly suffer from a so-called writer�s block or get stuck on that one sentence you still don�t like? In co-writing sessions there�s always at least one more person in the room which may help in such a situation. During a session with a couple of writers chances are bigger that ideas, concepts, lyrics, melodies etc. keep on coming. So, the writer�s block is less likely to appear.

These sessions are not only good for your songwriting, but also makes you meet new people and grow your network. Which can be quite useful in the future. If a session goes well, chances are the artist or songwriter will ask you to do more sessions together. In this way you can work on your �brand� and make a name for yourself. If people like to work with you, other people will start to notice resulting in more sessions and briefings. So, have you scheduled your first co-write session already?

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

At the Wisseloord Academy you will be prepared for the real thing. You will regularly work on assignments and briefings out of the work field. It gives you a double chance: you can gain experience while making the assignment and if you carry out the briefing well, it may just be that your work makes the ‘cut’. But how do such briefings work and what should you pay attention to when you start working on them?

Briefings can come from all corners of the work field. You’re going to get them from artists, ad agencies, labels, movie producers, and much more. It is important to know what kind of party you are working with to achieve the right result.

Several things are stated in a briefing. Take, for example, a briefing for film music.

This often involves a search for the title song or for music for a specific scene. The client often provides a short summary of the content of the film and states what he is looking for. That question is sometimes supported, sometimes not by ‘reference tracks’. These are pre-existing songs that they give as an example for the type of track they are looking for. Note that you do not copy these tracks 1 on 1, but simply take them as an example. For example, you can get inspiration from the rhythm, the production style, or the way of using instrument or vocals.

Many briefings, also called pitches, are also issued by artists and labels. These artists are looking for their new hit and you can work on it! In the briefing they indicate what they are looking for and what kind of music they have already made and released recently. Keep in mind that such an artist needs something new, so don’t copy past their previous songs.

A deadline is almost always indicated in the briefing, so stick to it. Please submit your work as soon as possible. Briefings are often sent to multiple parties, so competition is fierce. The sooner you submit your work, the better. It would be a shame that you don�t get the assignment because they have already chosen another work.

It will happen more often that your work will eventually not be used than that it will. Be prepared for this. The competition is high, so the chance that you ‘win’ is smaller. Don’t give up but move on to the next briefing.

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

�If you’ve been writing for a while and have delivered a lot of songs, you might develop a writer�s block. Haven’t I used this chord progression before? Isn’t this guitar rhythm from my previous song? I wrote this melody last week, didn’t I?�

These are questions that regularly pop into the mind of even the most successful and seasoned songwriters and that’s not surprising. If you write songs five days a week, you will eventually come across things that you already know. That is not a problem, as long as you know the tricks to get out of it. If you study music at the Wisseloord Academy, you will certainly come across this in the long run. The teachers have plenty of ways for you to solve this, such as the following examples.�

Leave your guitar�

If you always write songs using your guitar, you will eventually fall back into certain patterns. Every guitarist has beats, chord progressions and melodies that he or she likes to play. It is therefore not surprising that they quickly fall back on this, after all, it is ‘your sound’. But you will eventually hear the same sounds again and again. Try it without the guitar or play another instrument like the piano. For the pianists among us, of course, the opposite is adviced.�

Change the song structure�

Most songs all have the same standard structure: verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus. Possibly with a bridge and extra chorus at the end. But what if we do it completely differently? Mix up the elements, leave one out, add one. Who knows, you may come up with whole new ideas.�

Write on a boat�

Songwriters often have a fixed place where they write their songs. It may sound crazy, but that too can cause writer’s block in the long run. It can be very inspiring to take a trip and organize a session in a place that is unusual for you. That is also one of the reasons that you often see artists hold writing camps in special places, often also abroad. So, go and write on a boat in the middle of�

the lake, or rent a house somewhere in Norway. Who knows, you might write the next Norwegian hit!�

Try a different genre�

If you always write in the same genre, it’s a good idea to take a trip to something completely different. Find an artist or songwriter who makes completely different songs than you and see what comes out of the session! New influences can never hurt your songwriting and you always pick up something from them. For the song itself it can also be very interesting to bring two genres together, for example.�

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting Education.

To become a better songwriter and/or producer you simply must practice a lot. But to find out where you need to improve your skills, you need feedback. Therefore, regularly ask for the opinion of someone you respect in the music field about the songs you are making. You don’t have to take everything lightly but take a critical look at yourself and your own work. But it can also be very educational the other way around; listen to some of your favorite artists and analyze their songs. Why are they so good? If you analyze them well, you can extract a lot of information that you can use to get better at songwriting yourself. That is why we regularly analyze songs at the Wisseloord Academy. So, what can you pay attention to?

Song structure

First the structure. What does the song look like (in general)? How long are the verses relative to the chorus? Is a pre-chorus used? And if so, in what way? Is there a bridge in the song? Is there an instrumental bridging or a post-chorus? Put this on paper in as much detail as possible in a chronological order.

Lyrics

Once you have determined the structure, you can start analyzing the lyrics. What is the story and how is it told? What is the function of the verses; is there a situation that is described or a question asked? And is the chorus to this perhaps the answer or consequence? Try to determine the function of the lyrics per part of the structure. Also look at what language is used. For example, is it straightforward or very cryptically written?

Melody

Again, distinguish between the different parts of the song and determine what the differences are per part. The melody roughly consists of three parts; intervals (the musical distance between two notes), the rhythm and note lengths. These will probably vary per part of the structure, just take a look.

Package

Last but not least; the arrangement, or the music. Often there are noticeable differences between, for example, the verses and the chorus. For example, the arrangement is ‘smaller’ and ‘calmer’ in the verses and ‘fuller’ and ‘more exuberant’ in the chorus. At least, in most cases, there are always exceptions. Also analyze this for the selected song.

In the end, this is how you analyzed a song. Do this with several more and see if there are any similarities. Draw your conclusions from this and see what you can possibly apply in your own music.

To read more about Songwriting and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Songwriting.

Few things seem to sound so good at first but can turn your track into a bathtub or mud pool in the blink of an eye.

Reverb (short for reverberation) is different from delay. Where separate echoes are always audible with a delay, a reverb consists of a huge number of small echoes that follow each other so quickly that they can no longer be heard separately.

A track without reverb sounds very unnatural and strange. This is because there is always reef around you. We are just usually not aware of it. The walls of your room, or the reflections on cars that drive past you always give a picture of space around you. And that’s exactly what you use reverb for.
With reverb you can specify the size of the space in which elements of your track are located. In addition to depth, reverb can also determine an atmosphere, just think of ambient music, where long reverbs are very common.

With reverb you can give sounds their own place in your track. By adding reverb to elements you can place them more in the background. By giving less reverb to other elements, you bring them out more.

There are many different types of reverb, but the most commonly used are: chamber, room, hall, plate and spring reverbs. The first three refer to physical spaces and speak for themselves. A chamber reverb has a lot of early reflections and a short reverb tail. A hall reverb is often long and big. A room reverb is often in between.

Where the first three are modeled after physical spaces, plate and spring reverbs are modeled after electro-mechanical devices.
A plate reverb is a plate that vibrates with the music. It sounds close in sound and is often used on vocals because of its character.

A spring reverb is an iron spring that you often find in guitar amplifiers. You often recognize the sound in 60s tracks.

Most reverbs have a number of parameters:

Pre-delay: the time it takes before you hear the first reflections of the sound. The bigger the pre-delay, the bigger the room.
Early reflections of size: Early reflections are the first reflections of a sound. A small room will reflect sound almost instantly. In a church, for example, it takes much longer.
Density: Determines how dense the reverb is. In other words: how much space there is between the early reflections. The less dense, the more natural the reverb sounds.
Decay of reverb time: determines how long the duration for the reverb tail to disappear.

In addition, many reverbs will also have an EQ section. Note that a natural reverb tail never actually has low frequencies. You will therefore have to remove it manually or not.

With reverb often counts: less is more. Turn it around until you just hear it and then back off a bit. Reverb can bring your track together and really put people into your music. Use that!

To read more about Music Production and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page Music Production Education.

�Where drum samples are often already fully processed and ready to use, a live recorded drum kit is not.�

A good drum sound almost always stands or falls with the recording. Are the microphones in phase, how does the room sound, are the drums tuned and so on and so on.�

A typical drum multitrack recording will look like this:�

� Kick (possibly divided into a kick in (microphone on the inside of the skin), a kick out (a microphone on the outside of the skin))�

� Snare (possibly divided into a snare top (microphone aimed at the top) and a snare bottom (microphone aimed at the bottom)�

� Hi hat�

� Two overhead microphones�

� Two room microphones�

Optional:�

� Individual microphones for each tom�

� Trash microphone (a single microphone to capture the entire kit)�

Phase:�

Because a live drum recording consists of many instruments all reaching the microphones at different times, there is a chance that some tracks will be out of phase with each other. This means that (part of) the sound will be lost if everything is summed to mono.�

Go back and forth, switching between mono and stereo. If part of the sound drops out, the microphones are out of phase. Move one of the tracks just a little bit at a time until the recording sounds ‘fatter’ instead of thinner.�

Do this with the snare top and snare bottom, the kick in and the kick out, the overheads, the room mics and then the overheads and room mics with the snare.�

Gate:�

Drum mics almost always suffer from bleed, where sound from other drums �bleeds� into the microphone. You can remedy this by using a gate. This helps enormously with kick and snare tracks. Adjust the gate until you hear only the drums you want to hear. Adjust the attack so you can hear the drum �pop’ nicely and adjust the release so that the drums have time to ring out.�

Since toms are often used sporadically you will usually cut out anything except for the tom hits. In order to eradicate bleed entirely.�

EQ:�

Remove or reduce the unwanted frequencies. With the kick, snare and toms, it is often the low mids that make it a bit ‘boxy’. With the overheads and the room mics, these are usually the low frequencies.�

Boost frequencies to bring out the character of the drums:�

Kick: Usually lows and low mids for extra power and high mids for the beater’s snap.�

Snare: low mids for a fat sound, high mids for the ‘crack’ of the snare.�

Toms: lows for the floor toms, low mids for the rack toms, high mids for the snap.�

Overheads: low mids to add some ‘meat’ to the cymbals, high mids for extra presence, highs for ‘air’.�

Compression:�

Drum compression is a separate topic in itself, but broadly speaking you use the compressor not only to adjust the dynamics, but also to shape the transient of a drum sound.�

In general, you use a fast attack to control the transient for a cleaner sound. But if you set it too fast, you’ll squeeze all the life out of your drum kit and push it further back in the mix. Use a slower attack to emphasize the transient of, for example, a kick or a snare drum.�

Set the release so that the drums have time to “breathe” before the next hit.�

Reverb:�

Drums are often sent to a reverb on an aux track. The type of reverb depends on the track, of course. The length of the reverb however depends on the tempo. Try setting the decay time of the reverb tail on your snare so that it is gone before the next snare hit.�

Bus compression:�

To make your drum kit sound like one instrument, send the entire drum kit through a glue compressor with a low 2:1 ratio, a slow attack, and set the release to match the tempo of your track. Make sure that your compressor does not react too strongly to the low end of the kick drum. If your compressor has a sidechain function, use it so that the compressor reacts less violently to low frequencies.�

Saturation and distortion:�

At this point your drum kit should sound clean and even. You can always take them a little more over the edge by adding some (parallel) distortion or overdrive.�

Automation:�

The icing on the cake. Bring your drum kit to life by looking at where and when in the track specific elements of your drum kit need more or less attention.�

Always listen in context of the mix and remember that these are only guidelines. Listen carefully to the arrangement and drums and don’t be afraid to get creative.�

To learn more about music production and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music, visit our knowledge base page Music Production Education.