I was watching a short clip from an interview with Sting and just thought I’d share this. Good stuff.
Sting: “There are some great musicians and great songwriters, and great music out there. What I have noticed though is, structure is slightly simpler now. It’s minimalist. The bridges disappeared.”
Interviewer: “there is no bridge”
Sting: “For me, the bridge is therapy. You know, you set up a situation in a song: ‘My girlfriend left me’. ‘I’m lonely’. (chorus), ‘I’m lonely’. You reiterate that again. And then you get to the bridge… there’s a different chord comes in, and I think, ‘maybe she’s not the only girl on the block, and maybe I should look elsewhere’. And then that leads to, that viewpoint leads to a key change and the chord to a ‘things aren’t so bad!’. so, it’s a kind of therapy for me and the structure is therapy.”
(continued)
“In modern music, most of it, you’re in a circular, you know, trap that really just goes round and round and round. It goes, it fits nicely into the next song, and the next song, and the next song, but you’re not getting that release. That sense that there is a way out of a crisis.”
Smart guy. Too many songs are out there that are basically a beat and one hook repeated for 3 minutes. No real story, just a start and a stop.
Sting did great job of telling a story quickly and the structure supported the momentum of the song, as opposed to a jingle approach.
Eventually, popular music will come back to containing more substance, and people will absorb it as opposed to it being the background to whatever has won your attention momentarily.
Great musical lesson, here, @holster !!!
Like most in life, trends come and go, and musical hips are moving (in a circular motion), and I am hoping that we will see what Sting describes again, very soon.
I am sold on the idea of hope and “a way out of a crisis” hooks, especially on the blues and sad songs.
I will keep Sting’s messaging in my compositions, and plug in these wonderful musical rays of hope!!!
We all need hope, and love is all we need!
Peace to all!!!
Rene
I totally agree @ReneAsologuitar. I think that’s why so many people will turn to music when they are feeling down, or beat up. It’s all those reminders of hope, love, and tomorrow is a new day. Sometimes just hearing that out loud, and especially in a song that resonates with us will make all the difference.
Of everyone on here I would say your music is the least formulaic of all. You’re willing to experiment and see where things go, where pop music is like thousands of cars on a roundabout that never exit.
I know it’s easy to complain about current pop music. I guess it would be a whole different thing if I was involved in trying to be part of it.
I guess I’m a hopeless romantic that thinks that good playing and composition, and a story that gets you involved can somehow break through.
It’s hard trying to get your heart involved in a business that seeks the product of the day.
Funny timing. Over the last few weeks, a country song idea has been brewing in my head. (Having been in a modern country band the last couple of years has definitely influenced this.) I don’t mind the 4 chord circle (although I’d like to shift the 4 chords around during the chorus) but I most definitely want to make sure there’s a bridge in there. Sting’s got a great point.
Sting performed a Paul Simon song on a tribute show to Paul I just watched. I just watched Yesterday again recently, and it all makes me more critical of modern music, or more appreciative of much of, not all, older rock. I watch a lot of old MTV to wind down before bed, and I have to agree that even the poppiest songs have bridges, middle eights, intricate intros and outros, time changes, even slowing down or speeding up in the structure, which I personally think I strove for when I first started making songs, but I think I, too, have been sucked into a simpler structure, perhaps partly due to the loopy nature of midi and DAWs. Example is Walk Like an Egyptian, chock full of cool changes.
It isn’t because the DAW prevents fancy time/tempo changes, it is just that many things like that aren’t so automatic. For the longest time I was stuck on 120 bpm 4/4, as if I were just getting comfortable with that. It did happen to be the default in Reaper and Cubase. I just think it is easy to simplify, and simple is hard in its own way. Complex is hard musically, but harder still to make likable and accessible.
I saw that too. He did outstanding.
And yes, I really like your point about tempo changes. That’s a rare art nowadays. Gradually slowing down the tempo, especially at the end of a song, can add so much weight. But it’s hard to fit into that “perfect grid”
Even a simple key change can do so much dynamically. And again, rarely done.
Check your blood pressure. If your heart beats at 120 you’re going to get tired quickly. I notice that when I start to write a song I have to consciously change the cadence of the lyrics so I don’t phrase everything similarly.
Reminds me of Martin Short on SNL playing the old songwriter: “Give me a C, a bouncy C”.
HA! if my heart was beating at 120, I think it would explode. I’ve been on BP meds for quite some time now. (I never thought I’d be that guy but here we are. LOL)
