One of the goals of this blog is for me to interview musicians that I love. My heroes. One of them is Nate Reinauer, song writer and singer for the band Sweet Diss and the Comebacks. This is the second time I've written about Nate and his band.
He recently told me about a new song writing technique that we have deemed "Micro Song Construction". You can read a transcript of Nate talking about it below.
[Nathan Reinauer]
For the past 3 or so years I have been recording song ideas into my voice recorder on my phone, whenever I get one. So by now I have like thousands and thousands of little song ideas. Well, about two months ago I dumped ALL of them onto my computer and listened to every single one, deleting the stupid ones, and renamed them with their tempo at the beginning of the name. It took like two weeks to finish.
So now whenever I am recording, I just pick a tempo, and there are usually like 40 song ideas around that same tempo, and it makes it way easier to combine song ideas into one full song; like three years worth of different ideas all coming together. so for the last few songs I've been recording, I've been using my favorite song ideas and just using ones that have the same tempo and it makes it way easier to get lots of great melodies in one song, but it's a lot of work to go through and catalog them all like that..
[Me]
What do you call this technique?
[Nathan Reinauer]
Um... I don't know! I never thought about naming it.
[Me]
Micro song construction?
[Nathan Reinauer]
that works!
[Me]
Give me some more details. What was the first song you wrote using the micro song construction technique?
[Nathan Reinauer]
Mia Moore! that opening ukulele riff was one song idea I've had for like a year and the verses were something I'd written in Seattle, while the chorus was from like 2 years ago. They were all sitting next to each other in the folder because they had the same tempo so I just stuck 'em together!
Obviously it takes a little more thought than that... I have to sort of audition lots of different ideas that have the same tempo, and change keys and stuff, but it's not too hard!
[Me]
what about the other 3 song you just released? Were they all written in one batch, or were they multiple ideas put together?
[Nathan Reinauer]
All four of the songs were made up of different song ideas I've had for the last 3 or 4 years. I tend to use ones that are more recent more often, because for some reason I like those better, but there's always a big selection
[Me]
Do you think you are going to keep writing songs this way for a while?
[Nathan Reinauer]
I think so! Before, it used to pain me to record my song ideas in my phone because I knew they'd just sit there forever and be forgotten, lost in the shuffle, but if you name them and order them by tempo it gives them all an equal shot to be used
and you rediscover them.
that's a sampling of what I'm talking about
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweet Diss and the Comebacks just recently released 4 new fantastic songs on their facebook page.
Maybe Someday by Sweet Diss
Cherry Park by Sweet Diss
Never Stop Wooing You by Sweet Diss
Mia Moore by Sweet Diss
He recently told me about a new song writing technique that we have deemed "Micro Song Construction". You can read a transcript of Nate talking about it below.
[Nathan Reinauer]
For the past 3 or so years I have been recording song ideas into my voice recorder on my phone, whenever I get one. So by now I have like thousands and thousands of little song ideas. Well, about two months ago I dumped ALL of them onto my computer and listened to every single one, deleting the stupid ones, and renamed them with their tempo at the beginning of the name. It took like two weeks to finish.
So now whenever I am recording, I just pick a tempo, and there are usually like 40 song ideas around that same tempo, and it makes it way easier to combine song ideas into one full song; like three years worth of different ideas all coming together. so for the last few songs I've been recording, I've been using my favorite song ideas and just using ones that have the same tempo and it makes it way easier to get lots of great melodies in one song, but it's a lot of work to go through and catalog them all like that..
[Me]
What do you call this technique?
[Nathan Reinauer]
Um... I don't know! I never thought about naming it.
[Me]
Micro song construction?
[Nathan Reinauer]
that works!
[Me]
Give me some more details. What was the first song you wrote using the micro song construction technique?
[Nathan Reinauer]
Mia Moore! that opening ukulele riff was one song idea I've had for like a year and the verses were something I'd written in Seattle, while the chorus was from like 2 years ago. They were all sitting next to each other in the folder because they had the same tempo so I just stuck 'em together!
Obviously it takes a little more thought than that... I have to sort of audition lots of different ideas that have the same tempo, and change keys and stuff, but it's not too hard!
[Me]
what about the other 3 song you just released? Were they all written in one batch, or were they multiple ideas put together?
[Nathan Reinauer]
All four of the songs were made up of different song ideas I've had for the last 3 or 4 years. I tend to use ones that are more recent more often, because for some reason I like those better, but there's always a big selection
[Me]
Do you think you are going to keep writing songs this way for a while?
[Nathan Reinauer]
I think so! Before, it used to pain me to record my song ideas in my phone because I knew they'd just sit there forever and be forgotten, lost in the shuffle, but if you name them and order them by tempo it gives them all an equal shot to be used
and you rediscover them.
that's a sampling of what I'm talking about
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweet Diss and the Comebacks just recently released 4 new fantastic songs on their facebook page.
Maybe Someday by Sweet Diss
Cherry Park by Sweet Diss
Never Stop Wooing You by Sweet Diss
Mia Moore by Sweet Diss
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