Matthew Mark Miller – Music

Becky, in planning our wedding, offered me the rare and risky opportunity to write our processional.  After some debate, we decided to pre-record it and buck the whole “stately step-pause, step-pause” tradition by having the bridesmaids strut in to a peppy, upbeat processional.

This necessitated some songwriting, and I wrote the following piece…few of you have heard it, and fewer of you still have heard it more than once.

In the end, it’s an okay bit of songwriting, I suppose, but I’m most happy with the guitar tone on the upbeat portion…and from my pawn-shop Alvarez, no less!   Then again, if I had that Neumann microphone and a $50,000 ProTools 24/192 rig in my home, I suppose I could replicate the tone fairly easily…

Dave Franklin really came through on this one…he came in on a Saturday to the on-campus studio and recorded and mixed the track for free…and overnighted it up to us in St. Joseph just in time for the wedding.  Huge save there.

I can hear it…syncopation, fret-muting, colorful chords…the genesis of a coherent, integrated, distinctive sound.

Song

Complete Songs

One of the criticisms of my first album, The Blue and the Grey, was that it was too eclectic, incoherent, and inconsistent.  That hit home with me; I’ve never quite known what genre or sound should define my “style.”  Some singer-songwriters are so distinctive that you hear a few chords and go, “Oh, that’s Jack Johnson!  Oh, that’s Dave Matthews!  Oh, that’s Jeff Buckley!”  Not me…

The problem is that I’m sort of an artistic chameleon.  If I listen to a bunch of something, I get a bunch of something in my head, and next thing you know I’m being creative in that vein.  An aside: I do the exact same thing with my writing.

So yeah.  What’s the “Matthew Mark Miller” sound?

My brother says I have a distinctive sound, though he means that in a somewhat derogatory way…”All your songs sound the same…blah blah jazz chord jazz chord.”

Recently, I’ve embraced what may become my “sound,” if only at least for my next album.  That sound is defined by the following:

• Color chords (sixth chords, suspensions, 9th chords, maj7 primarily)
• Groove-driven rhythms
• Melodies emphasized through chord progressions

This takes me at least one step away from songs like Inclined, Bohica, and Luci Loves Me, which feature syncopated, fret-muted progressions with complex breaks.  Below are two examples (again, rough recordings made with a palm recorder in my living room) of progressions which will more likely exemplify my style in the next few.

Prodigal Son

Recorded ‎Tuesday, ‎September ‎05, ‎2006, ‏‎6:50:52 PM.

On Its Head (working title)

Recorded ‎Sunday, ‎January ‎18, ‎2009, ‏‎1:18:28 AM.

Thoughts

I’m struck by the similarity between these two ideas.  Recorded more than two years apart, they represent the same sort of musical thinking…establishing a catchy, harmonizable melody through a chord progression while leveraging colorful, open chords.  Obviously, both of these would need considerable cleaning up before recording, but I like where it’s all going.  Thoughts?

Progressions

[Ed. note: Thank you very much for your feedback on the lyrics in the previous post.  I hope to present you soon with an updated version, inserting a new verse between verses one and two and otherwise fleshing it out.  Again, thanks!  Also, sorry it's so late...]

In college, for a period, I was a Music Composition major.  What this means for my career, I can’t say, but it does mean that, for a time, I approached music and songwriting all too seriously.  This piece, entitled Volonté, began as a personal part-writing / arranging exercise and developed into a full-blown art song (for course credit!).  After wrapping the composition of the piece, I tried perpetually to find words for it.  I finally found them…in a French Bible.  I paraphrased a bunch to fit the rhythm of the song, and I probably screwed up the translation a bunch, but it’s a work in progress.

It’s intended to be played on a classical or steel-string acoustic guitar and performed by two female vocalists.  I’ve included the sheet music and the corresponding MIDI so you can hear how it sounds.  I still need a third verse…

The Piece

Volonté

The Score (click me!)

Lyrics, Song Fragments

Someone once asked me how I write songs.  Do they just pop into my head as finished pieces?  Do I always start with a melody?  A chord progression?  A lyric?

The answer, for me, is all of the above.  The song fragments I’m going through and sharing with you on a weekly basis consist of snippets of poetry, fragments of melodies, and beginnings of chord progressions.  As a song begins to come together, I will draw on other pieces if I think they fit or write new material to flesh it out.  This may mean borrowing or quoting an idea from another song or even cannibalizing another work-in-progress for a bridge &c.

The song Inclined on The Blue and the Grey developed in this fashion.  The first verse existed as a poem fragment for a while before I wrote the other two verses (I wrote it while I running late to class).  I then set the verses to music, using a chord progression I’d been toying with in the blues guitar lessons I was taking.  Months later, I was jamming through those verses, over and over, when the chorus came to me.  In about twenty minutes, the song went from half-done to completed.

The lyrics below are another example.  I began with the lyrics to the first verse roughly a year ago, with maybe a faint idea for a melody.  The chorus came shortly after.  On several occasions since, I’ve reread these lyrics in the hopes that I’ll get inspired to complete them.  All that I’ve done instead is generate worthless, uninspired tripe.  Finally I got an idea for the second verse, and that was added a couple of weeks ago.  Now…to finish it!  First, I need to refine the lyrics, tighten them up.  Then I need to arrange the song…pick a key, work out a chord progression, solidify the rhythm and flow.  I probably need to add a third verse and a bridge.

This is where you come in, dear friend.  Please review these lyrics and offer A) your constructive criticism and B) if you like, your additions/changes/deletions.  I greatly appreciate it!

[verse 1]

Funny thing, this coalescence
Rain upon a thirsty ground
Fills the nose with spring-time nectar
Leaves the air with falling sound

Warm and friendly in its manner
Soothing to the tempest’s soul
Filtered through the sieve of heaven
Slung upon the thunder roll

[pre-chorus]

Rain in the Texas sky ( x3)
You move me on

[chorus]

‘Cause/For I know where I belong
Where weakness finds Him strong
I know where I belong
You move me on

[verse 2]

Listen to the pitter-patter
Every surface roiling
Rainfall runs in rivulets
Coronates the heir of spring

Rushing to become a river
Tributaries ocean-bound
Rain upon these thirsty acres
Circulates the world around

[chorus]

‘Cause I know where I belong
Where weakness finds Him strong
And all these waking enemies
Wash away, fade away
You move me on

Lyrics

A guitarist whom I greatly respect has a policy: he won’t play one of his songs publicly — even if just for a couple of friends in his living room — until he’s practiced it in private at least twenty-five times.  While I respect this policy, I don’t think it will ever work for me.  My songs grow (and I grow in performing them) through sharing them with others.  For example:

• It was while playing Forgive Me live and watching an audience member bob his head that I realized the song could work with a groove…thanks, Adam!
• It was while practicing Flower of Our Youth that I realized the second verse needed a double-time flavor…thanks, Topher!
• It was Chris’ unfortunate, premature, and explosive drum hit (and the subsequent “buh-BAH-bump!” ribbing) during a live show that led us to make that the attention-grabbing opening to Darkness.

In other words, I don’t create polished classical masterpieces.  I don’t descend from the mountaintop with the perfected piece etched on stone tablets.  I don’t create finished songs, for the most part.  I just create frameworks for myself and others to be continuously creative.  I credit this mindset to the jazz education and influence I received in college.  And also to my inability to pay attention to anything for long periods of time…ooh, shiny!

You can be a part of this process by commenting on what you read and hear.  Your feedback helps me become a better songwriter and musician.  And thank you!

A prime example of this sort of raw and potential-filled jam is the following progression.

Click to play:

Comments

I love the way that this feels.  I love the color of these chords.  I love the part motion on the second section.

I have no idea what sort of words or images go with this, however.  Any ideas?

Recorded

September 15, 2006.

Progressions