Post
by shanegrla » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:49 pm
i can write topline to someone else's stuff, but I have a real hard time doing it with my own. In general, I like to write both together. It's just what comes natural to me. When I come up with a musical idea, I naturally wanna come up with a proposed vocal part to go with it (unless I'm specifically writing an instrumental that's not supposed to have any vocal part to it). Most of the time the vocal melody changes and evolves as I get a better idea of how the song as a whole is gonna go, but generally that's how it works, they both evolve together.
Of course, sometimes the problem can arise that after I've written most of the music then I decide I don't like the melody I came up with after all. And then I'm kinda screwed, because now I'm faced with toplining my own track, but I'm so used to the other melody I came up with -- even though I don't like it -- that it's hard to break free of the melody that's been stuck in my head for some time now. Kind of a sucky cycle.
That said, I've had some experience writing topline for other people and I found it quite enjoyable. It kinda takes a bit of the pressure off letting someone else do half the work. These were dance producers in Europe who pretty much knew exactly what they wanted track-wise and were able to produce a whole track without the vocal part, and when they got that part filled in by me they would make all their remixes etc. and get them out into the clubs and dance stations. (And I'm still getting royalties for that -- yay!) It was real fun hearing what they would do to my original melodies, messing around with clever editing, etc.
Anyway, yeah both ways can be great. Just thought I'd chime in for this one since I finally had something relevant to say.
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