Blog
Ed’s Challenge & Imogen’s Response
Written by Imogen
I’ve been thinking about Ed’s challenge and inspired by Jimmy’s response I thought I’d try and make sense of my personal favourites.
I’m not technical at the best of times so forgive me if this doesn’t make sense.
Turin Brakes – Mind over Money
Turin Brakes – Mind Over Money
Changes from minor to major (thats as technical as I get). It’s got high notes, a soft start and builds to a loud emotional chorus. Also I love the random noises at the end of the recording. I always imagined them leaving the studio one by one and the last one out turning the lights off.
Rolling Stones – Little Red Rooster
The opening line – ‘I am the little red rooster’ is simple, direct and immediately I’m hooked on this song. Chris, long suffering boyfriend, plays harmonica and this was written by one of his Blues heros – Howlin’ Wolf – so I’ve learnt to love the Blues and anything with that slow bluesy feel to it. This ones got an odd Hawaii Loa lilt to it on the guitars and it lifts out of being a Blues song I’d normally recognise. I’m never expecting that sound either and it kind of reacts to the dog lyrics so mirrors what the lyrics are saying – pounds when the dogs barking, goes up in a questionable style when hes asking if anyones seen his rooster etc.
I also saw this ballet by the English National when I was 10 on a hot sticky English summer evening on the TV with the patio doors open and friends in sleeping bags around me all glued to the screen at grown men dancing as roosters. Awesome
Counting Crows – Round Here
This for me is all about the lyrics. I think it’s also to do with the memories.
‘She has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous’ – probably the most obvious lyric but it struck a chord with me – someone who loses the power of speech quite regularly when nervous, worried (90% of the time) or tired. It comes out as ‘kookiness’ which is okay but I was always called crazy imp and I think it’s because people didn’t realise I was nervous.
The last phrase being repeated ‘you catch me if im falling…’ is something Counting Crows do quite often. I saw them live in 2003 and they managed to mash most of their songs into each other so they were all unique and sounded brand new but with the same lyrics, different melodies and different paces generally. I like the repetition and the forcing the point home especially at the end of this song.
This has been hard to write but if you’re here at the end then thanks for sticking with me!
Turin Brakes tune is awesome – never heard before but love it. The melody is great – really swoopy and movy in the verse, then lower down and more static in the chorus. Really helps to differentiate it all.
Good orchestration tips to be gleaned too. The first verse is kept interesting by introducing diffferent instruments as it goes along (full list below), and then the chorus is made to lift up even more (not just by hitting the big major chord as Imp pointed out), but also due to the bass and drums kicking in, doubling the lead vocals, introducing some distorted electric guitar, the piano playing in combination with the acoustic and some organ. They also double the chordal pulse (number of chords per bar) in the chorus, which makes it feel like its moving along a bit more in the chorus (it’s not perfect listen to the piano and organ moving to crunchier chords on beats 3-4 of each bar)
Like a good recipe, it needs all of the above to work well, but nothing is too overpowering to detract from other parts.
Full first verse instrumentation order:
Piano (awesome way it grows into the guitar too!)
Guitar + lead vox (twice around)
Guitar + high picked guitar + harmony vox
Guitar + high picked guitar + lead vox (twice around)
Guitar + harmony + low guitar picked + piano bass notes
Comment by Ed Stone on June 17, 2010 at 4:33 pm