And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - And The Demo Is...Episode 2, Part 2

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

And The Demo Is… “Every Season” by Philip Bowen, “Never Have I”by Ahlei, and “Sundress” by Devin Kennedy!In Part 2 of Episode 1 of Ross and Joe’s new live web series, “And The Demo Is…”, the guys critique the songs “Every Season” by Philip Bowen (Twitter: @Philbow55, IG: @philipbowenmusic, TikTok: @philipbowenmusic), “Never Have I” written by Ahlei (Twitter: @itsjoeyc_, IG: @itsjoeyc_, TikTok: @itsjoeyc_) and M Basa, and “Sundress” by Devin Kennedy (Twitter: @DevKennedyMusic, IG: @DevKennedyMusic, TikTok: @DevKennedyMusic).Big thanks to YouTube for their support!To submit your demo for Ross and Joe to critique visit: https://linktr.ee/andthewriteris Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs.

I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing, and mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear, go to our website www. And the writer is.com. Awesome.

Okay, cool. Let's move on to the next one called Curious by Taylor Parsons. Let's see here. Hold this up here. Is that the real last name? Because that's that's kind of amazing. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm sure you, it's the, it's the, I just wonder, is that a stage last name?

Are you just like? Oh, okay. So we actually, we have an artist, we have artist change. So artist Taylor Parker, songwheres, Taylor Parsley, Caleb Tarras. I'm fucking that name up too, sorry. But we'll throw your guys socials in the chat. and give them a shout out. Here we go, Curious.

Cool. Check it out. Sick parts in that song. Yeah, I think the bridge is the pre-chorus. I agree. 100%. You get a little lost in that verse in pre. just like attention-wise.

Like is it, you know, every section that you have that uses the same kind of tempo and same rhythm of like, you know, it's a lot of eighth notes. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. So it helps to have something. It's like some of the 16th notes in there. Or a triple-lit, triple-let.

It would be nice. or like a or hold notes. Yeah. Yeah, because it gets a little tired. You got to give same conversation

we just had with the last song. Got to let the listener breathe because these are so many good ideas in these songs, you know, but you're making the listener work to figure out what the chorus is because we're not,

we're not giving, we're not setting it up for them because the, the section before was also big. Yeah, it's like, you could maybe attack that a little bit with production by like having all the drums come back out for that second verse or that,

but I do think the better thing would be to change the melody, but, um, I mean, also a chord change or something, you know, go to the, yeah, you can go to the, even just going to the, just do it, just some relative minor or something. sort. Yeah. I love

I love the cool, the way the drums drop in in the beginning for that first chorus. Like you don't get them for the first bar and then they drop in. It's very cool. Or maybe hit them, maybe don't do the halftime drums the entire song. Maybe back half, like hit them with

the, you know, the full beat. Yeah. And it's nice to have a song in a major key. Like everyone is, everyone's writing really sad songs right now. And I will see this. We had a meeting with a licensing department this week, and they were so happy that every song we played was not sad.

Like, just because we're in bedrooms doesn't mean that the people listening to it in six months from now are going to be in bedrooms. You know, it's like there's bedroom music for bedroom listeners is cool, but there's going to be a time where it's going to feel weird to be back in a backyard with a bunch of people if that ever happens and everyone's listening to like a sad song with you know that's not what it's going to be like always it might be good to start planning for for a vaccinated time taylor that song is sick though and your voice is unbelievable yeah amazing voice i was blown away that first like 30 seconds wow so sick yeah um okay cool i think we have we have one left

Cool, let's do it. Do we have one left or two left? Yeah, I think we have one left. Okay. Let's do one. The Good Place. Here we go. This is Darren Anthony.

The Good Place. Here we go. I think we can stop there, Ross. I know you're going to have some thoughts on that. Yeah, I do like, it is nice to hear a band. We listen to a lot of band music in our household, along with other kinds. But it is always like this thing where, you know, alternative rock music as a whole is a number one song at alternative radio right now, I think has something like 20,100 spins or something like that. And the number one song at pop radio is 20,000 spins.

Yeah. Like, there used to be a point where rock music would have a place in the popular, you know, the popular zeit guys. But I think that this song's cool. I think it's like there's this obviously similarities between the verse and the chorus. It's just sort of an inverted melody. Yeah, it's like a parallel melody. Which is it. Yeah.

You know, it's like, it's interesting, but it gets tired really fast. Yeah, like you need to have, this is that same thing. And I'll keep saying it like, it's a good theme for today. Give the listener a break. Yeah, give like the, this isn't about any of us. It isn't about any song, any songwriter who's watching this or any artist who's watching it. Like needs to take a step back and like check their writing ego. because it's just that about us.

We're not, nobody listens to music from one songwriter to the next or one musician to the next. Like you, you're writing a song for people out there who aren't you and don't know anything about you or your music. Like, you have to give them a chance to digest what you're saying.

This is, I don't know what the song was called. And part of it was because I was lulled into a place where I didn't hear, I didn't hear what the song was called. It was like, it was, it's really easy to like this song. It's hard to love this song in a sense that it doesn't, it doesn't do anything wrong. Like, do something outlandish and weird and let, let the listener, let somebody hate this song.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I guess all of our writers that we work with have heard me say these things that I probably said this on the last one. It's the lines like like a child misses a blanket, which I fucking hated that line. But I still reference that line because it was so stupid that I never have forgotten it. Like musically do the same thing. Yeah. There are some, let people hear it and say, this is really bad because you can't, you can't do that. You can't do swing.

and it's like no swing it because no one else is swinging do something that's weird and and wrong somewhere in there give us and give us space just everybody needs to add rest in their songs I think it you know when it's our fifth song of the day already and and there's a similarity in that arrangement issue like the more you add space takes more confidence but I promise you it'll help all of you out there

who are writing so many melodies. It's a safe song. Yeah, and fight to make the melodies, you know, different. And, like, have them go somewhere, you know? It can be, like, sometimes doing parallel melodies is really cool, and it works sometimes, but, you know, but, like, really push yourself to, like, get unique and get different, and, you know, different melodies.

But good job. I mean, like, it's always impressive that anybody can actually write and record any song. And it's, it's like, it's easy to, it's, if that song's in the background, it's cool, you know, it's nice to have a guitar solo. It's the same melody. So it's like, again, it didn't give you a break. But I'll probably end up singing that melody all day because I just heard it for two minutes. All right, let's do the next one. I think that's it.

I think that's all we got for today. Oh, I think Check the Check your text messages. I think page Oh, Do we get a little bonus? Yeah, I think we should do a bonus.

Okay, yeah, let's do one more. We got some time. We got some time. Yeah. Okay, give me one second. I got to load it up here. This one is about Harrison Young. No, not about.

This guy's name is Harrison Young. It'd be weird if it was about Harrison Young. It's like, this is the tale of Harrison Young. It's like an old ship song. Yeah, exactly. I'm waiting for that genre to come back I mean there is there was that guy who got the deal with Atlantic

for doing the Was that you who played that for me? Somebody played that for me It's just dope The guy got an international deal And the song actually charted in Germany For I think a couple weeks That song

Dude yeah It's a vibe It's a vibe This one's called lie to me I mean, all that talk about write a song that someone can hate. I'm sure there's some people out there who aren't fucking with shit music.

But that's the thing, right? So here, a guy does a ship song which a lot of us laughed at but when you hear it, you're like, it's kind of funny, but it's actually really good and it's different. And it spread so fast because like you said,

a lot of people didn't like it and spread it the same way as the people who did like it. And it blew up so fast. that this guy who's actually a really good musician if you go and look at his Instagram and whatnot ends up with a worldwide record deal because he wrote a ship song

and no one else is writing a ship song so you know so what does that tell you? Go write a ship song well now everyone else is doing it so now write something else you know like what was that one song the Edmund Fitzgerald or something

yeah exactly you know it's so weird it's so weird I'm on a text chain with a bunch of dudes from college and somebody referenced that song yesterday and i said uh yeah i said uh eddie redman fitzgerald is what we should call like that song from 2021 uh that's the second time that song got a shout out this week redman fits uh or edmund fitzger uh yeah okay sorry this next song lie to me play to me here we go oh maybe not here we go promise me you're done loving anybody

I love anybody, and say something softly in my ear the things I want to you am I loving anybody but me anybody, yeah, and say something

softly the things I want to you and I'm not loving anybody but me I love that little trumpet thing. Yeah, that got exciting. Yeah. I like the guitar part. Yeah, to me that almost sounds like it was written over like a track.

Like I wonder if that was written before the track was made. Yeah, also, you know, it's a thing that sounds called Lie to Me. And I'm sure maybe that was a lyric in there somewhere. But if like the chorus, if the pre-chorus is like, you know, the blame me part or, you know, don't love anybody. like me, then the chorus still should be probably something that's based around, you know, lie to me. And, you know, it's at, this is the same thing as the song before, where it's like the repetitious part doesn't mean the song. There are people who do repetition really well. But it's usually in the confines of a bigger melody. You know, the only way it really works, and this is a play on

on suspension is when and daft punk was really good at this you know the I feel it coming I feel it coming where you start the melody before the one rhythmically so then you never really get the resolution and then the first note doesn't resolve and the second one resolves and then you start the next one

before it can resolve it's a brilliant play on how to be repetitious but still but not but it keeps you hooked because melodically it's playing with your brain

as a listener and this one even one any of me it resolves every time so again it's that same thing is the first song we listen to where like yeah it just sits there and here's the tonic and and here

this is the magnet like the part of songwriting that I like is like writing all the way up above it but never hitting down. Yeah, because I don't want to hit down. When you get the resolve every time, it feels like you've ended and then you're just waiting for it and then it ends again.

Yeah. Or if you do like the, you know, if it's, uh, this is the tonic and it goes, uh, and you go, ah, so you don't start. You go, I feel it coming. I feel it coming, babe.

Tonic, but you hear, ah. So you get off it real quick. So you just tap the tonic and then you leave it again. And so just when you think you're going to resolve it, you don't, it's playing with that suspension that makes, you know, the great composers in history great. And whenever, and it's so easy to, you know, I can tell when somebody is more of like a craftsman kind of songwriter

than somebody who's like an instinctual writer. And the craft person almost always knows when to, like, you know, move around this. Yeah, the tension and resolve. And the tension and resolve. And I feel like this is one of those where we just sit in the, in the comfy spot. So there's no reason to keep hearing it because I know where it's going. And I feel no tension.

Like, don't give the listener everything they want all the time. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's a good answer to Marks in the comment said, you know, he said, this seems like the same space between what you were talking about before like giving more space but you got to give the space you got to give the space with a little bit of um tension as well because if it's doing the same thing over and over again with a lot of space then it almost becomes you know too repetitious sort yeah i'll leave the last note um the the the last compositional note that's

useful is like you don't have to start everything almost every song we had almost every section we had all the melodies started at the beginning of of the measures like you have if we're and every song we listen to is in four four four I don't think we listen to any six eight certainly didn't listen to five four eight seven eight but if you have if you have a four four measure where it's one two, three, four, not everything

has to start in every section on, if it's one, two, three,

four, start. It can also go one, two, three, four, one,

two, start on the end of two. It can start anywhere you want. It can start on the, and,

you know, uh, see you again, the verse melodies start on the end of three. Like you can start as late

in the measure as you want. You can start, start a whole measure before the one if you want and it sets up a chorus not everything has to start in the beginning of every measure and so it's that same thing of like keep keep all the sections unique from each other and that that might really help make sure that the song that each section of the song moves the story along melodically yeah so thank you guys that is our Second, and the demo is, sorry for the technical difficulties yesterday, such as COVID life. But thank you everyone for sending us again.

Keep sending them in. We're going to do it again. Hopefully you guys find this helpful. And if you guys do find a helpful, let us know. We'll keep doing it. And if you don't find a helpful, then don't submit. I'm just kidding. No, it was really appreciated.

No, it's really appreciated. Everybody who is a part of this. And obviously, thanks to our team, Paige Kelly, the interns, all the people who are helping us go through all these songs and submissions and narrowing it down because these are great. And you guys are fantastic people. And we'll see you at the next one. Sweet. Okay, thanks everybody. So we, bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Anne the Writer, If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist, or visit our website at and the writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London and published by Big Deal music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White.

Until next time, this is Ross Golan.