Love Your Selfie, an original song by Shira Katz & Gordon Gow, copyright February 23, 2015
“This coming week’s challenge is issued by multi-platinum
award-winning producer/songwriter Rob Wells who has worked with Selena Gomez,
Justin Bieber, Matt Dusk, Divine Brown, Cyndi Lauper and many more top artists.
Here is his challenge:”
“I'm looking for strong female based Pop/Top 40 songs.
Think Selena Gomez. Think Demi Lovato. Think big. Think
hits. Think target audience of 13-18 years old. If you're writing a
global, universal, and (a little bit) quirky smash song with an interesting
title, I'm interested. If you can sing your explosive chorus a thousand
times and not be sick of it, I'm interested. Trim the fat. No
unnecessary sections or long intros. Take me on a journey. Make
every lyric count and funnel towards a great chorus payoff. Maximum 3:30
in length. Good luck!”
This week’s plan of action consisted of the following
approach:
- Research the artists, especially ones that I am less familiar with:
Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato.
Listen to their song hits, look at their song structures.
- Research on teens, what are the issues for them today? Why do these songs appeal to them? Do the songs have anything in common?
- Brainstorm song titles, themes, ideas, song lines.
- Start writing and singing. Think of a hook & a title.
- Compose music, write some more, rewrite & get feedback.
- Rewrite, making sure it follows a song structure
- Get more feedback
- Rewrite using METER: drum loops are very important to keep the words going with the beat
- Trim the fat: the less words, the better
- Get more feedback
- Repeat the process, rewrite
- Discover that SYNCing a backtrack with voice is not easy!
- Continue to learn!
- Laugh & enjoy!
]
And here is the evolution of the song “Love Your Selfie” (Shira Katz & Gordon Gow, and
gratitude to Martin Clarke, Mark Alexander and James Linderman for tips on
improving the song structure and the meter).
When I first got this challenge, I started to research the
music of artists such as Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. I started to familiarize
myself with their music. I also researched teenage themes such as bullying,
pregnancy, suicide, etc. I could not find popular hits on those subjects that
are not in some way uplifting for the 13-to-18-year old female crowd. It’s as
if this genre of music was there to validate feelings without getting into
details. I love “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper.
After several discussions about the challenge with my
friend, Martin Clarke, I remembered that self-esteem issues were very big for
me in high school.
Martin had a song title idea about someone that loves
themselves too much. I immediately
wrote a song called “mirror, mirror, mirror,” but then I thought about how the
main mirror people use nowadays are selfies.
I was thinking about
the prevalent use of technology and cell phones and texting and cyberbullying.
With the Grammy Awards coming up on the weekend, I remembered how the “selfie”
was a big part of last year’s awards show. Then it hit me, “Love Your Selfie”
as a song title! I wrote some lyrics, came up with a melody for the chorus,
modulating between major and minor keys on a keyboard.
Martin Clarke took a listen, and suggested that the meter
was all over the place. How quickly I forgot some details from last year’s
songwriting class with Pat Pattison!
Using James Linderman’s great advice, to use a song as a
reference in the DAW, I tried to use a song structure as a blueprint or
reference for just for writing the song. I chose “Let It Go” (Demi Levato) as a
guideline to rewrite the song.
I also realized I would need some drum loops to keep a good
meter going. Mark Alexander stepped in with advice on where to find them
online. I finally figured out how to make my own very basic loop in Audacity,
and used 4/4 time to cut out many of the words to make it fit the beat! Martin
Clarke had a listen, and said it was a big improvement, and he was working on
another song, so he left me to work it out for the challenge.
In comes the supremely talented Gordon Gow! He listened to
my song (sang a capella with a few keyboard notes thrown in), and used his
genius to make a backtrack for it. He kept the tonal centre in the backtrack,
which was great! He also sent info on the measures and where they change, very
helpful for a vocalist!
Still, I had to rewrite the song again to fit the new backtrack,
because words were not fitting in. I kept “trimming the fat”, cutting out so
many words, rearranging some parts of the song. I also realized that my second
verse had to sound more like the first verse, putting emphasis on vowels that
sounded similar. It brought back to memory everything I learned about in
songwriting class!
Trying to mix the song was nearly impossible, I am not a
production person. I tried to separate the audio track and the vocals, put
reverb on the vocals, but was unable to achieve a mix that I could save as an
.mp3 given this deadline and my lack of skills with Audacity.
I really enjoyed singing the song, I was dancing to it and
getting into the groove, never feeling tired of it, I could sing it a million
times. I started whistling it, and decided to include whistling in the song,
just as they do in the Rock Mafia song, “The Big Bang”.
I am definitely not a DAW production person, but I am
learning very quickly that you are only as good as your DAW!
Gordon Gow mentioned that the song would have been way
better had my vocals were properly mixed with the soundtrack in a good DAW. He
wanted me to mention that the music bed is a combination of Apple loops and
original keyboard parts.
I really hope you enjoy the song, and that if it gets a good
response, I will find a way to remix it and make it even better!
