This is a video interview at the 2010 TAXI Road Rally with hit songwriter and songwriting coach Jai Josefs, author of Transforming The Tune – Secrets of Musical Rewriting.
Jai is also the author of Writing Music for Hit Songs, the definitive text on modern music writing endorsed by hit writers including Diane Warren. He is a nationally renowned songwriting coach who has taught songwriting at UCLA as well as for dozens of songwriting organizations and conferences nationwide. Many of Jai’s students have gone on to successful careers in the industry, and several have been signed to major label deals.

Jai is also a successful songwriter/producer whose credits include more than 30 recordings with such companies as MCA, RCA, Motown, and Disney and hit artists like Jose Feliciano. His songs have been used in TV shows on every major network (CSI, Brothers and Sisters, What About Brian, Monk, Cold Case etc.) as well as over a dozen major motion pictures with such stars as Harrison Ford, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Billy Bob Thornton. In his latest work, Jai teaches the songwriting techniques used by hit writers like Pink, Jason Mraz, Taylor Swift, Rob Thomas and John Lennon. Learn more about Jai Josefs at www.jaijomusic.com.

Video Transcript

Hi there, this is Mary Shaw from servethesong.net, and today I want to talk a little bit about how important it is to have the proper mindset as a songwriter. There’s three specific things I’d like to talk to you about.

The first is you need to expect the muse. The second is you need to make room for it. And the third is you gotta work it.

So, what does expect the muse mean? Well, you want to be in a relaxed state of mind if you’re going to start a songwriting session. If you had a really tough day at work, or your kids are making a lot of noise, or you’re experiencing any kind of stress, you want to try to get away from that if possible before you start your songwriting session. You want to just kind of clear the space. You need to approach your songwriting sessions in a relaxed state of mind. And you need to expect that muse to come.

Once you’re in a good space, you’ve cleared your mind of all distractions, of the workday, of anything that may have happened that gets in the way of that wonderful, artistic muse, you’re ready to go. You just clear that space. And that means being relaxed and also in a state of positive expectation. So expect the muse and you’ll write better songs.

Now secondly, once you’re in that relaxed state of mind, you need to make room for it. And what that means is you want to have a creative space. I’ve written about this in my newsletter, but you either want to have your own home studio, and if you’re lucky enough to have that, that’s great. But whether or not you have a studio doesn’t really matter. You need a place that you go to write songs.

So that could be your kitchen table, it could be your living room, it could be a spare bedroom, it could be just in the back yard. We’ll be doing some videos outside later on in this series and… just wherever it is where you feel comfortable and you can relax into your songwriting session. You make that space and then you make time to be there.

So expect the muse, make room for it, and once you’ve done those two things it’s time to work it. No matter where you are in your songwriting efforts, if you’re just doing it for self-expression, if you want to come up with something fun for a friend’s wedding, or for your best friend, or your husband or wife or significant other… or even if you want to get something published in film and television or you want that record deal, you have to put the time in. You have to work your craft.

So get into that relaxed great state of mind, expect the muse, make a place for it, and get to work. Whether that’s with a notebook and your instrument, or however it is you approach your songwriting. Whether or not you’re singing into a tape recorder, get to work.

The more time you put into your studio, the more time you put into your creative place, the more time you get to know how you approach your songwriting and how you do your process, it will get easier and easier and easier. You will write more songs, and you will write great songs.

To sum up, you want to expect the muse, you want to make room for it, and then you want to work it. So that’s all I wanted to talk about today. I hope you found that helpful.

We’ve got more things on the way at Serve The Song. We’re going to be doing a Back To Basics series of songwriting tips videos. We’ll talk about chord progressions, we’ll talk about lyrics, and things that will help you get in the groove.

So I hope you found that helpful. For more tips, videos like this and articles please go to servethesong.net. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you soon.

Sometimes we need to quickly lay down our acoustic guitar recording, without spending hours or days experimenting with mic placement.  In these situations, we need a “go-to” set up to quickly get things up and rolling.  I described my preferred method in the previous post, how to record an acoustic guitar.

Today I’m providing a video demonstration of this technique.  In this video/screencast, I’ll show you how to mic an acoustic guitar for a clear and full-bodied recording and set up your tracks in Pro Tools 8.  Check it out:

Acoustic Guitar Mic Placement

As I demonstrate in the video, I used a XY configuration for the microphones.  The XY configuration is achieved with a matched pair of microphones, placed at a 90 degree angle from each other.  The diaphragms are set as close together as possible, without touching.  This provides a very wide stereo image for your recording.

I then place the mics roughly 6 inches away from the 12th fret of the acoustic guitar, and level with the mid and high strings.

Stereo Recording in Pro Tools 8

I recorded the same guitar part twice, otherwise known as “doubling” the guitar part.  That means playing and strumming exactly the same pattern twice.

The doubled guitar part is recorded on two stereo audio tracks in Pro Tools 8.  The tracks are panned hard left and hard right, which makes for a very “big” sound, surrounding the listener in the wide range of tones that the acoustic guitar brings.

Placement in Your Song

Of course, there are many ways to go about recording and mixing the acoustic guitar.  It all depends on how you are using the acoustic guitar in your song.  Perhaps it holds it’s own place somewhere in the background arrangement, or it might be right up front engulfing the listener.

This video should provide a good starting point for you to develop your own “go-to” technique for micing and recording acoustic guitar.

Instruments and Tracks

In this tutorial demonstration, I create a simple tune using three instruments from Reason: A grand piano with the NN-XT, a spacey pad sound using the Thor synthesizer, and a drum track from Dr. Rex. I then route these three instruments to their own tracks within Pro Tools 8.

The first two instruments, the piano and the pad are mapped to Pro Tools instrument tracks. This means they record as MIDI information and I can use the Pro Tools MIDI editor to arrange, correct, or add to the track all within Pro Tools. For more information on using MIDI, check out this two article series:

• MIDI and Songwriting: How it Works, What You Need To Know
• MIDI and Songwriting: Enhance – Don’t Hinder Your Creative Flow

The third instrument, the drum track from Dr. Rex was routed into a Pro Tools audio track.  This was done using a bus from the Rewire track into a new audio track.  Then the output audio from the Dr. Rex module is recorded as a waveform in the Pro Tools audio track.

Over to You

How do you use Reason with your DAW of choice?  What’s your method to maximise your creative flow, without getting too tied up in the technical aspects?

Also be sure to check out this article – Online Video Tools to Maximize Your Audience – to find all the resources you need for embracing online video to promote your band or songwriting career.

What I mean by “High Quality MP3″ is one with a bit rate of 320 kbps. This is significantly higher quality audio than most mp3s out there, including the ones you can buy from iTunes. For more info on the topic, scroll down below the video…

MP3 File Sizes

The audio track I am converting in the above screencast is 2 minutes and 22 seconds long.  Here’s a breakdown of the file size for various bit rates including the name of the setting in iTunes (in quotes):

128 kbps – “Good Quality” – 2.2 MB
160 kbps – “High Quality” – 2.8 MB
192 kbps – “Higher Quality” – 3.3 MB
320 kbps – “Custom Quality” – 5.5 MB
2116 kbps – Lossless AIFF – 36 MB

As you can see, the higher the bit rate, the higher the file size. The original loss-less AIFF audio file is 36 MB. Way too large for any practical use on the web. You won’t be able to email this file or post it at any popular streaming music website.

The quality level I go for is 320 kbps. It’s a bit higher in file size from your every day MP3, but still very manageable. Many users are on broadband connections these days, so an extra Megabyte or two of file size is really not a huge deal.

What’s the difference?

It’s important to pay attention to the quality of your mp3′s because it does affect the sound of your song. An mp3 file is a compressed audio file. Compression limits the dynamic range of your audio. This means the loud and soft points in your music are closer together, dulling down the sound. It also has an effect on the frequency response – the bass, mids, and treble. The lower the quality of the mp3, the more compressed the audio is.

What is kbps and mp3 Compression?

kbps stands for kilobits per second.  That’s referring to the data transfer rate.  For more info on this and how mp3 compression works, check out this article from Sound on Sound.  It’s an in-depth piece which covers everything you need to know including conventional audio file sizes, mp3 sampling frequency, bit depth, and perceptual coding.

Where To Upload Videos

YouTube is now a household name. If you want to reach the largest audience, you must post your videos to YouTube. But don’t stop there! There are many other online video services out there that also draw large video-craving audiences. Here’s a list of other popular video websites:

• Blip.tv
• Break.com
• video.yahoo.com
• viddler.com
• webcastr.com
• buzznet.com
• vimeo.com
• metacafe.com
• myspace.com
• veoh.com

You might be somewhat surprised to learn that some video websites offer ways to make money through publishing videos on their website.  The payment models usually involve some form of advertisements on your videos where you get a percentage of the ad revenue.  Some services even offer cash if your video makes it to their front page.

Maximize Your Exposure

Obviously, the more exposure for your band, the better.  That means you want to get your videos posted to as many popular websites as possible.  But taking the time to upload and encode your video to a list of different websites can eat up an entire day (if not more).  Fear not.  There is a great FREE website that will do all of the legwork for you.

Enter Tubemogul.com.  Tube Mogul allows you to upload your video ONCE, along with the title and description, and they will push it up on all the video sites you belong to. This can save you a ton of time. They even offer analytics tools to see your video traffic stats across all the different websites. Pretty cool. Now you can focus your time on producing awesome and traffic-worthy video content, and leave the mass-publishing work to Tube Mogul.

Videos From Serve The Song

And now for a quick programming note… As Serve The Song is growing out of it’s infancy, I will be adding a new series of video posts in the coming weeks. The videos will cover music production tutorials, screencasts for music popular software, music lessons, songwriting tips, composition techniques, and anything else related to… Serving The Song. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and email updates to stay tuned into all of the exciting changes coming soon to Serve The Song.