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Hi y'all,I was thinking of doing instrumental versions of my songs to increase pitching opportunities, but how do you approach this these days?As an example track no. 1. Get Better on my MySpace pageI was thinking of submitting a cut down version of the backing track but then I thought that might not cut it and neither might one instrument simply playing the melody. Then I thought it might need some good thrashing lead guitar or something but I don't really have the chops for that.Any ideas?Some listings say 'They want material that sounds like it could be on the radio' but I don't hear a lot of pure instrumentals on the radio these days.Thanks for any help or pointers to stuff I should go listen to!M

Hey Mus,If the listing party says that they want instrumentals that sound like it could be on the radio, they don't literally mean instrumental music that would be played on the radio. For example: take Pink's new song on the radio, take out the vocals, and there you go...an instrumental that sounds like it could be on the radio. If its going to be for a music library, what I would do is a 2 minute track structured like this:Very short introHookVerse1Pre-chorus (build or whatever you want to call it)HookVerse2 - this time make it a little different, maybe add an instrument or where in the 1st verse you did guitar stabs, this time do arpeggios. But make sure it keeps the momentum from the hook and builds into the final hookPre ChorusDouble hook - add a little lead line or something for the repeat hook, building tension up to the stinger at the end.Stinger (button ending...no fades!)Thats more or less what I do. Some libraries seem to require that cues have more movement than others, but all library instrumental cues need a little more movement going on than in a song because the lead vocal is absent.HTH-Steve

Thanks very much for the reply Steve. I'll do some editing along those lines and submit something today!

Dec 29, 2008, 8:22pm, slideboardouts wrote:Hey Mus,If the listing party says that they want instrumentals that sound like it could be on the radio, they don't literally mean instrumental music that would be played on the radio. For example: take Pink's new song on the radio, take out the vocals, and there you go...an instrumental that sounds like it could be on the radio. If its going to be for a music library, what I would do is a 2 minute track structured like this:Very short introHookVerse1Pre-chorus (build or whatever you want to call it)HookVerse2 - this time make it a little different, maybe add an instrument or where in the 1st verse you did guitar stabs, this time do arpeggios. But make sure it keeps the momentum from the hook and builds into the final hookPre ChorusDouble hook - add a little lead line or something for the repeat hook, building tension up to the stinger at the end.Stinger (button ending...no fades!)Thats more or less what I do. Some libraries seem to require that cues have more movement than others, but all library instrumental cues need a little more movement going on than in a song because the lead vocal is absent.HTH-Steve Great post!

Dec 29, 2008, 4:56am, mus wrote:Hi y'all,I was thinking of doing instrumental versions of my songs to increase pitching opportunities, but how do you approach this these days?As an example track no. 1. Get Better on my MySpace pageI was thinking of submitting a cut down version of the backing track but then I thought that might not cut it and neither might one instrument simply playing the melody. Then I thought it might need some good thrashing lead guitar or something but I don't really have the chops for that.Any ideas?Some listings say 'They want material that sounds like it could be on the radio' but I don't hear a lot of pure instrumentals on the radio these days.Thanks for any help or pointers to stuff I should go listen to!MI am in the same boat. Not sure what instrument they prefer to carry the melody. Gtr, piano, organ, shakuchi flute?I am thinking about carrying mine with chordy guitar phrasing, some piano to carry the "melody. Kind of indirectly.D

It would seem that your melodic line should be carried using whatever instrument you excel best on. It seems to me that the melodic portion will be an important part of making your tune come alive. You are replacing vocals. Whatever you do, it will need to rock. I just think you have a better chance of pulling this off on the instrument you relate best to...