Indie Music Works News

Cover-Undercover II

Back, by popular demand - the IMW Cover-Undercover contest. We've had numerous requests to have another cover contest, and so it shall be! As many of you know, this is a cover contest with a twist - you'll be covering tunes by other members of Indie Music Works.

Cover-Undercover II will begin July first, and run until the end of August. So now is the time to start reviewing you favorite tunes on the site for that one song that you'd love to cover.

All the details are posted on the IMW home page. Be sure to read them carefully. As before, the first step is to contact the original artist, and get their permission to create a cover of the song. We cannot accept covers without permission from the original artist.

Go forth and create... and good luck!

Internet collaboration has become a popular activity for musicians. The ability to collaborate with other artists all over the world has opened creative avenues only dreamed of a few years ago. Here at Indie Music Works, we provide easy to use tools to facilitate collaboration amongst our members. For those who have not yet taken advantage of this function, here’s a quick intro.

On your control panel, click ‘Collaborations’ at the top of the page. The first thing you might want to do is click ‘My Skills’, and list your talents. This allows others who are creating collabs to find members with the skills they are seeking.

Click ‘Create Collaboration Session’ to start your own collab. You can enter a title and a description of the project. You can decide if you want this to be a private or public session, keep track of its status, and indicate what contributions you are looking for. After creating the session you can upload basic tracks that you are starting with, and other relevant files. You’re off and running! You can contact members, and invite them to participate, or wait for members to contact you, after listening to your tracks.

Looking to join a collab? If you click on ‘Collaborations’ from the site home page, you can view existing collaborations that are in progress. If you see something that looks interesting, click on it to review all the activity, and contact the originator or upload contributions.

Starting your own collab? By clicking ‘Collaborator Skills’ you can view the available artists, listed by the skills that they are offering, with links to their artist pages.

If you’d like to hear some examples of completed collaborations, visit the IMW Collaborations artist page.

So dive in! Get to know and work with some of your fellow artists on the site. There are endless possibilities to create unique recordings with Indie Music Works collaborations.

Songwriting for the Novice

Part 2 - What I did on my summer vacation

You sit at your desk, pull out paper and pen, or fire up the word processor. Then it strikes you – “What do I write about?” Sometimes finding that seed from which to grow a song is the hardest hurdle to overcome. Well, let’s look at the subtitle of this article. From that one phase you can start listing song topics based on that brief period of time - the walk on the beach at sunset, that party with friends, an unexpected conversation with a stranger, the food, the wildlife, the water, the mountains, the great weather, the lousy weather, the eventful trip home, the boring trip home. The list can be lengthy. And that only covers a week or two of your life!

Start by making a random list of possible subjects for a song. These subjects can be general or specific - love, paranoia, nature, loneliness, apathy, friendship, work, current events, overcoming obstacles, accomplishments and failures, and on and on. The most important rule at this point is – don’t censor yourself in any way. Keep a running list for future reference. Make a separate list of events that have occurred in your life. These can lead to very personal songs, or be transformed into fictional stories, based upon real life experiences.

“OK, I have a subject in mind. How do I start?” Songwriting is a fickle beast. There are times when the ideas flow unimpeded. Sometimes, it’s only a couple lines at a time. My song “Montana Sky” was written this way. I had the idea, and managed to write a verse or two, and part of the chorus. At that point, I ran into a brick wall, and put it aside for months before completing it. Once completed, a song may end up in “rewrite” several times before you are completely satisfied with it.

Sometimes you won’t even be able to think of two lines to put together (maybe that’s just me). In that case, try a stream of consciousness exercise. Just write down random thoughts related to the subject of you’ve chosen. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or the fact that nothing rhymes. As before, don’t censor anything. You are the only one seeing this. Keep writing until you run out of ideas. Then put it aside. When you come back to it, in a day, a week, or a month, look for certain lines and phrases to jump out at you. Take these pieces and begin to mold them into verses; altering a word or phrase here and there to simplify, add emotion, be more expressive, or improve rhyme or meter. A particular phrase may be perfect building block for a repeated chorus. Visualize the story you are telling during this process, to make sure things like chronology, tense, and point of view remain intact.

You’re well on your way to creating a song. You chose an idea. You put that idea into words. You’ve molded those words into lines, and those lines into verses, choruses and bridges that give it the structure you are looking for. You may already have a title, or you may have left that until last; after reflection on the lyric. The next installment of this series will discuss merging lyrics and music.

IMW continues to grow! We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest members.

New artists - Isabeau, TommieBrewster, TeamNonaHendryx, The Administrators, KirstenOg, Jean-Philippe ROGER, Jakenorris, melissamarquais, GameBr8ker.

New listeners - Chris 2012, Wolfie, j.elizabeth.hardges, sorserez.yaouank, felson75, theofficialcuz, JS Way.

Stop by, say hi, and welcome them aboard!