Pop session

[Phil W]

Got to go into the recording studio yesterday. The plan was to take a quality scripture rooted pop song written by a couple of our church musicians and record it - but in a way to appeal to the younger members of our church and beyond. 11-18 year olds. Not to underestimate them - not the least but so much church music is hardly current.

So I spent a surprisingly enjoyable week listening to Kate Perry, Nikki Minaj, various dubstep and hip-hop, Maroon 5,Justin Bieber etc trying to get my pop head back together.

It seemed to go very well. I definitely had tons of arrangement ideas based on my listening and I tried to get into a 'service' mode with my bass playing.

Mostly this meant root notes in precise places but I had a dubstep/reggae inspired idea for a melodic bassline for the pre-chorus that became a major sub-hook.

I left and they carried on synthing and looping, cutting and pasting and if the result is good I don't really mind if little of mine or the drummer's parts remain - though they grooved hard. It was fun.

When the single comes out I'll let you know.

 

I took my Wal fretless and Davo's Squier jazz and they chose the fretless which was cool.

[EddiePlaysBass]

Sounds like a good time! The gym that I (try to) go to usually has current pop songs playing as we work out and I find that sometimes there are surprisingly tasteful arrangements and bass lines to be discovered, as well as supercatchy choruses :-)

 

Looking forward to hearing the result!

[Phil W]

Yes, I found some hidden treasures in unlikely places. I learned a lot about the 'shape' or pop songs, currently they seem to follow certain patterns of dynamics and dramatic alternations of light and shade. I love the outrageous bass sounds of dubstep etc and interesting how many pop tunes barely have bass at all - except as a kind of huge tuned kick drum type effect.

[EddiePlaysBass]

Pop is often unjustfully looked down upon. Avril Lavigne's debut album was mediocre, and based on the singles I did not even bother with her 3rd release but her second album had such strong songwriting that I was compelled to buy it twice (once in a limited edition with extra's). Similarly I bought Kelly Clarkson's album because I liked "Behind These Hazel Eyes" (or something).

 

I do not know much about dubstep but it seems (and I could be wrong) that in hiphop the focus is shifting towards live musicians rather than programmed beats. I have had several talks with one of my friends regarding a potential hip hop band or project. He used to MC and would love to do a similar thing, and I would love to find a handful of like-minded musicians to lay down phat grooves. Not that I am good at it

 

As a big fan of your jazz playing, I have to say Phil, I look forward to hearing the end result! And I know, I'm a big fan :grin:

[Bottom End]

Good luck. Too much contemporary worship/church music takes all the worst aspects of it's secular counterparts, ie, bland sound-alike studio trickery, so that the otherwise good lyrics/message are lost in a morass of bland, heard-it-all-before music.

 

Pop music is so broad a term now, that it's almost meaningless. Pop is defined by the people you hang out with and what they listen to. In this day of having your own personal soundtrack, and so many niche genres to choose from, there are few artists who have the popular appeal across the spectrum of listeners.