A Quote by Michael W. Smith
Doing the instrumental thing, you're really looking for the power of the melody to carry the record.
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After all my years of doing instrumental music I still like just a simple instrumental song with a nice catchy melody and an opportunity to play a solo over a harmonic structure.
I did record a bunch of stuff, but the thing that usually stops me from doing that is that I'm a terrible singer. I made a bunch of instrumental music, and it feels really good, but just as a singer, I'm not good.
Sometime when I'm on the road, if I hear an idea, a melody in my head on the iPhone we got the voice memos. So I just record the melody or sound or the whole idea for a record.
The melody seems to have gone to the country. The country music seems to still have melody and interesting lyrics. But pop music, you've got to really listen hard to somebody who's doing a good melody and a good lyric.
It's hard to get a start as an instrumental guitar player. It's a much quicker route to be in a band, so I was always in a band and writing songs with singers, but I always had the dream in the back of my mind to make an instrumental record.
I've been very lucky in that the studios really respect me and they give me all my creative freedom. But nevertheless, they are inputs, they have opinions. It's the same thing for me as if you're in a shower and you're coming up with a tune, with a melody, but there are 70 people trying to sing their own melody at the same time. So you have to focus and concentrate, and not lose the track of your melody.
The first record was basically a quick, fast record. The second record, we were going for more of a poppier sound - like a heavy pop sound. For 'Rocket to Russia,' we'd sort of reached our pinnacle. We'd gotten really good at what we were doing, so that's like my favorite record - that's a really good record. It's just great from beginning to end.
Character is not only doing the right thing when no one is looking, it's doing the right thing when everyone is looking. It's being willing to do the right thing even when it costs more than you want to pay.
A strong concept is the most important thing in creating a record. When you can listen to it and see a whole movie in your head, that's what separates an instrumental album from a beat tape.
The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.
The thing that got me started on Twitter was just basically pressure from management and the record company saying, 'Hey, this is what all the other artists are doing. You need to be doing it also.' I didn't really have a clue what is was.
Melodies can be good depending on the context. You can have a simple melody, and if the harmony behind it is interesting, it can make a very simple melody really different. You can also have a complex melody. The more complex it is, the harder it is to sing, and then sometimes it can sound contrived. You could write a melody that would be fine on a saxophone but if you give it to a singer, it can sound raunchy.
What else is the power of melody but the power of feeling? Music is the language of feeling; melody is audible feeling - feeling communicating itself.
I'm super happy to see the record doing its thing and for people to like it, but for me, I had a great victory just as a person. I overstepped countless obstacles by creating that record. And the record's a metaphor for the personal steps I [took] throughout the past year.
Usually it's lyric first, but sometimes it's melody. And I carry a hand-held recorder everywhere I go so I can just hum or whistle a melody if one hits me. Sometimes it's both simultaneously - lyric and melody at the same time - those are a little confusing to me, but sometimes it comes in that form. I just feel like I have my own little radio station and sometimes the static clears and something beams in from out there.
Today we are going to talk about words. You know, words are containers for power. They carry creative or destructive power. They carry positive or negative power. We can choose our words and we should do it carefully.
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