I appreciate the time that you take out of your day to write these posts dvyce.
no prob
In regards to what makes a verse a "verse" and a chorus a "chorus" what do you think it is then if not the increase energy in the chorus instead of being in the verse? I've always been somewhat indecisive about whether its the "lyrics" that make the chorus or the "music" that makes the chorus.
You say that it's the writing that makes the verse or the chorus but for people with overly analytical minds that doesn't tell me anything... writing can refer to the composition (notes) instrumentation, sound design, arrangement... Etc... Could you at least be a bit more specific?
If the opposite can just as easily be true then it would be helpful if you could show me some songs in which the chorus had less highs than the verse. I would be 100% willing to convert my stance on the subject to your own because I feel like were on to something here and like you said I can see how this could be severely limiting my song making.
It's really "songwriting 101"… verses and choruses are pretty basic stuff… there are plenty of books out there on songwriting that may be helpful to you (though i am more of the belief that you can't learn songwriting from a book and you just need to "understand" songs. But a book can surely help you with understanding song structure)
Or search online for "song structure", "verse and chorus writing", etc.
There are literally millions of songs that do what I describe, but here is the first one that popped into my head as a great example of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL72Tyxe1rc
Nine Inch Nails "March Of The Pigs"
A perfect example… the verse is all crazy drums, guitar, synth, bass, distortion and extreme energy… and in the chorus, everything mellows out as it goes to just light piano.
I'll try to listen to more string arrangements and do midi mockups of those arrangements in order to "fine tune" the tone of the string section and really nail it and find similarities in the voicings.
I understand what you're saying in regards to there not really being a letter grade in the music business. It's either commercial quality or not yes.
In regards to the samples I'm using... Even the piano and the bell you find to be of a poor quality? Great. Now I have even more to figure out. I mean... It's a bell sound... with one note.
yeah, not a very good piano sound… not a good bell sound...
barely sounds like a bell. I could tell what you are going for with that sound, so I figured out it is supposed to be a bell. There are many different quality and types of bell sounds…. bicycle bell, school bell, church bell, boxing bell, telephone ringer bell, xmas bell, etc.
absolutely a single sound, one note, can sound like shit.
The string parts were made using 4 notes actually. Not that it will actually make a difference...
I said 4 notes: 3 for the chord, one for the bass.