Monday, January 25, 2010

Music Formula Broken Down

One of my favorite bands of the past 8 or so years is a group called Falling Up out of Oregon. I met the guys a couple times thanks to my boy Dave. The sad news is the band is breaking up later this month, but I found a quote by Jessy the lead singer that I thought was so true, but I didn't realize it until I read it.

This is Jessy explaining the basic format of every song on most Christian Radio:

"The Christian radio structure is as follows: Heavy hitting intro, toned down into the first verse, short pre chorus, chorus. Then verse two, no second pre chorus ( that’s supposed to be tricky ), more intense second chorus. Then this is always my favorite- The bridge that’s “supposed to take you to a different place for a brief moment.” ( which really is just a slight key change and, for most of the listeners, their least favorite part of the song ) and then a musical pause with just the singer beginning the last chorus and into…the pay off chorus at the end, usually played twice, in which the climax then concludes with a ring out of feedback or a small drum loop." Jessy Ribordy - Falling Up

If you are not into music, this doesn't mean much to you, but if you do listen you are having an "Ahhh-haa moment". The reason he said this is because they were criticized for not having a radio friendly single on their last album...he also said, "I really don't want my creativity to be put in a box that makes executives happy." I wish I could say that sometimes...

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