A mysterious, webaholic music lover known only as “Spin” once took it upon himself to start a songwriting challenge, free and open to anyone in the world. The SpinTunes challenge usually has around 35 participants, who are pitted against each other in four rounds of songwriting. The judges include YouTube celebrities, past SpinTunes champions, and (for some unknown reason) me.
Since Spin asked me to judge this fifth installment of the SpinTunes contest, I’ve been a little nervous about how to rank these songs from the very best down to the very non-best. How do you judge completely different artists in a fair and methodical way?
As a past participant, I know how much it sucks to be in the lower 1/2 of the entries, especially when you personally believe in your song. But I feel like I did learn quite a bit about songwriting and production, and the harsh reviews I got in SpinTunes 1 helped me see my songs from an objective viewpoint. So as a judge, I am going to do my best to provide constructive criticism and honest feedback to everyone.
As far as being methodical, I thought the best SpinTunes judges broke down their reviews into different categories: lyrics, music, structure, etc. So I’ve decided to give everyone a report-card-like review, with a letter grade for each quality I think adds up to a good song. It’ll look something like this:
Composition: A (then an explanation for this grade)
Production/Arrangement: A+
Lyrics/Narrative: B-
Performance: C
Originality/Memorability: B+
Composition
My composition grade will be based mostly on the melodies, chords, rhythms, and phrasing. Does the melody have nicely constructed hills and valleys? Or does the singer simply hit the root note over and over again? Are the chord progressions creative? Are there interesting rhythmic hooks in the melody or accompaniment? Obviously you can have a good song with simple chords, melodies, and rhythms, so I won’t be looking for over-the-top symphonies. Good composition doesn’t mean filling up a song with as much complex material as possible. One thing people often overlook (myself included) is resting and space. Sometimes what isn’t played can be more important than what is played.
Production/Arrangement
I’m really passionate about producing and arranging, so I’m going to nerd out a bit here. Some of the best advice I’ve read comes from The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook by Bobby Owsinski. His golden rules of creating a good mix are:
Figure out the direction of the song. Develop the groove and build it like a house. Find the most important element and emphasize it.
Owsinski also provides a good checklist for your mix. Does your song make good use of these six production elements?
Balance – The volume level relationship between musical elements
Frequency Range – having all frequencies properly represented [i.e. arranging instruments well and EQing]
Panorama – placing a musical element in the sound field [i.e. panning]
Dimension – adding ambience to a musical element [i.e. reverb, delay]
Dynamics – controlling the volume envelopes of a track or instrument [i.e. compression]
Interest – making the mix special [What are the hooks?]
When you’re arranging instruments, Owsinski has another checklist for you. Although this list is geared towards straightforward pop arrangements, it’s a good test for any song. Does your song make good use of these 5 arrangement elements (not necessarily all at once)?
Foundation – The rhythm section. The foundation is usually the bass and drums, but it can also include a rhythm guitar and/or keys if they’re playing the same rhythmic figure as the rhythm section
Pad – A pad is a long sustaining note or chord. [I think of this as musical glue]
Rhythm – Rhythm is any instrument that plays counter to the foundation element. This can be a double-time shaker or tambourine, a rhythm guitar stumming on the back-beat or congas playing a Latin feel. The rhythm element is used to add motion and excitement to the track.
Lead – A lead vocal, lead instrument or solo
Fills – Fills generally occur in the spaces between lead lines, or they can be a signature line. You can think of a fill element as an answer to the lead
I realize not everyone has access to great recording equipment, so recording quality is a little less important in this grade. But if you can practice the above guidelines, you should be in good shape production-wise.
Lyrics/Narrative
I’m not a big lyrics listener, so this will be a challenge for me to judge. My lyrics scoring will mostly be based on how well they draw me into the song as a listener. Are they distracting from the music, or do they genuinely move me? Is it an interesting story? Does it make me laugh (in a good way)?
Performance
There are two main questions I’ll ask to decide on this grade:
- Is the performance technically accurate?
- Is the performance expressive?
Sometimes the expressiveness of a performance will trump the technical accuracy of a performance. In fact, a raw performance can be much more interesting. But just to warn you, as a producer, I have a critical ear for sloppy rhythms and out-of-tune notes, so I can’t help but be distracted by these things.
Originality/Memorability
This is kind of the X-factor in my grading. A song will really need to stand out if it’s going to make it to the top of the (hopefully) 39 songs in the first round of SpinTunes. If you present something I’ve never heard before, or your song gets stuck in my head (in a good way), you’ll get a good grade here. Making a song catchy is kind of a dark art. I wish I knew the secret. A small, strange piece of advice I came across: use half steps in your melody, if they fit. They serve as anchors in a melody and make it easier to remember. I haven’t tested this scientifically, but I think there’s something to it.
In conclusion…
I’m glad Spin asked me to be a judge, and I hope I can provide some helpful feedback. I’m sure you’ll teach me a thing or two with your music. If you’re curious about my own songwriting, here are a few of my past SpinTunes entries that I’m pretty proud of:
Some good tips here!