Instrumental music benefits…
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@dukongp100 Mar 2022
I’m finding myself leaning towards instrumental music to take inspiration from.
I want to rest my voice from adding vocals to all my songs, and let the music be the conveyor of the meaning for a bit.
I feel it will benefit me, resting my voice, learning more about how to make musically sounding music (lol), the mystique of the voiceless , etc
What are some other benefits I’m overseeing here? Have any of you gone from vocals out front, to simple instrumental music? How is that working out for you? -
@jamkar Mar 2022
Yes, I hear what you are saying. It’s sometimes helpful to take a break and focus on instruments other than voice. Although my piano never sounds as nuanced as my voice.
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@candle Mar 2022
I'm someone who spent years writing lyrics + music = songs. But then I started down this wild path of musical exploration & experimentation that more often then not, ends up instrumental. Or, if vocals do end up in one of those songs, they're more there for texture or context then as the raison-d'être of the song. My approach has become one of trying to paint with sound. I want to elicit an emotional reaction from anyone who chooses to listen to my odd soundscapes. And from the comments I receive here at FAWM as well as at 50/90, I seem to be able to achieve that goal. That alone keeps my Muse happy (& she can be quite fickle sometimes LOL). The other thing I do is record "live-to-tape", usually improvised. This allows me to capture a moment in time, capture a feeling or emotion, or even simply capture just an image in my mind. Simply pressing Record & letting the music flow is very freeing. I don't worry about mistakes. In fact, I live by the mantra of Brian Eno: your mistakes are just happy accidents. After all, I'm the only one who really knows they're a mistake (most of the time LOL).
Hope this helps :D
See You In The Shadows… -
@billwhite51 Mar 2022
i did an album of piano music for 50 90 . ,maybe it's lame, i dont know,,,but it expresses things that i cant express in words.
https://billwhite.bandcamp.com/album/mental-trails -
@musicsongwriter Mar 2022
I'm not a singer. Instrumental music is where I've started from and I tend to regularly compose piano/instrumental pieces. I think it's good to create both, instrumentals and songs but instrumental music is probably more open to suggestions and intererpretations. I'm saying probably because words can also be read/sang differently. I too feel that instrumental music helps me express things I can't express in words...
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@jamkar Mar 2022
@billwhite51 I am hearing hints of Cecil Taylor in your music.
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@fuzzy Mar 2022
I think one of the benefits of instrumental music is that you can name your tunes anything you want.
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@gubna Mar 2022
I made a lot of instrumentals this year, but I also had more songs with words in them then in the past 5 years. I'm still working on that. I came to Fawm initially to become a better songwriter as I imagine many do. Instrumental ambient space music is more what I do naturally. I find it peaceful, most of the time.
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@tuneslayer Mar 2022
I've been having fun with instrumentals this year. For instance, during a skirmish on the theme "Ireland" I wrote a slip jig, which is very Irish and a musical form many people don't know about (basically a jig in 9/8 time rather than 6/8). I've also written a few ambient pieces in the "slothcore" genre that was created last year here on FAWM (I believe @candle was involved), a chiptune piece, and I've used a feature of Band-In-A-Box to create foundations that I've built songs on. And @fuzzy's right, you can call them anything you like.
I like writing songs with lyrics, but there's just something satisfying about doing an instrumental. -
@dukongp100 Mar 2022
I concur, naming the instrumental songs whatever you like is cool. Opens up an interesting idea for me regarding concept albums..
I like the songs I heard on your album @billwhite51 with the piano stuff. A decent selection of piano meanderings that kept me listening. Definitely not boring, which is one reason why instrumentals appeal to me. It’s a focus on the music for both the maker and listener. Not fixated on lyrics.
Something I saw Mike Patton say on an interview: he likes to use his voice as support to the other instruments in his band Fantomas, so he’s not always at the front. Opens up possibilities to think differently, that it’s not just a lyrical or melodical approach, but also an accompaniment and musical device.
I had a mess around exploring my guitar sounds and found it peaceful to do. I would use more energy up singing along, whereas last night I was letting the guitar take me where it needed to.
So there’s another benefit I’ve found. Takes energy away from one outlet and allows a more full output to the instrument. -
@timfatchen Mar 2022
Instrumental or vocal? not at all a simple dichotomy for me, just depends on where I am or what I'm thinking or what image or feeling is passing. I read a lyric that waves at me and voila, there's music which it demands and which I duly do! Ditto if I write a lyric. Or, I sit idly at a keyboard and play a few notes and suddenly there's an instrumental demanding it be done.
Put flippantly: instrumentals are best for me because they prevent my singing from being inflicted on the innocent. Vocal songs are best for my alter egos because they inflict revenge on the self same innocents. And if you're thinking that's a bit schizoid, well....yes...
Like @musicsongwriter, I'm a seriously and intensively trained classical pianist, and the emphasis all through that training is instrumental. If not piano, orchestral and other.
But I loved vocal music too (my local village church organist from age 11 to 23, when I moved, and later church and for a while cathedral organist) and that is at bedrock too. And the lethal love of opera, which I still see as the ultimate and most difficult Western music art form. Well, it is for me.
And comic opera, esp. Gilbert & Sullivan and their descendants including Rodgers & Hammerstein etc.
But very little exposure to jazz. And not even knowing about, let alone discovering rock music until about 14yo, just in time for the Beatles, Beach Boys and, be it said, Peter Paul and Mary. Followed by the magic of the late 60s-70s popular music.
So there are all these conflicting desires, but I don't have a good singer's voice in any direction (other than Noel Coward). Which is why my first FAWM venture was very tentative and all instrumental. And which is why the support in FAWM (and 5090) was so vital because by 2009 I was actually singing my vocal songs. I no longer fear my voice--though my family still does--but I do know its limitations. But it allows me to go vocal or instrumental as the muse moves.
