Without voice...

[Funky_c]

So i'm curious to as what you guys actually think about lyrics and whether or not they're nessessary. Currently i'm in a little two man band in my basement and we've written a little ditty that's all instrumental, 15ish minutes long and goes from everywhere from metal, that slow rhythm love-song feel, and even a jazz beat-down at the end. Anyways, we're sort of in debate here. We listen to the song and it almost have a joe satriani feeling. There aren't lyrics...but the guitar sounds like where the vocalist should be.

In my opinion, the vocals are just another instrument that are there to convay the emotion behind the song. But since so many people have gotten so caught up in lyrics...thier guitarists have become dependant on powerchords and the like...and aren't really ever able to try and hit that subconsious area in the back of the head. To que the emotion without lyrics telling you what to think.

So yeah, i just wanted to know what you guys thought about the whole concept of it. I wasen't quite sure what thread to post this under so i hope this is an apropriate one.

[Kayetan]

I like instrumentals.

[Samuel]

I prefer instrumental music in most cases. I really like swathes of choral work used for colour, like you see in a lot of film scores. But I'm not a fan of them as the centerpiece, which they usually end up becoming in any sort of band situation.

[gaslight]

Vocals are no more important or essential than any other instrument. The only reason they are so prevalent in music is because the average listener doesn't know enough about music to be able to identify with it if it doesn't have the human element to bridge the gap for them.

[circlesandsquares]

I think really good instrumental bands create better emotion than bands with vocals.

[sketchyjoe]

It depends on the band and the lyricist. Generally songs with lyrics are the ones that get the greatest emotional response from me but not always. If the track feels emotional and you like it then leave it as is.

[Funky_c]

Ok so the general response that i'm getting here is that lyrics help to bridge the human gap in music. I kind of agree with that one. But do you guys have any suggestions on how that gap could be bridged musically without lyrics? In my opinion, i agree with circlesandsquares when he says that instrumentals have the biggest potential to access an emotional response. The problem is creating that feeling on an instrument without making it sound like its lacking something. Alot of times all that comes out is the standard background 4/4 chord progression, a little solo overtop, and that's all she wrote.

[just_a_girl]

You might want to try conveying the emotion through vocals but sans actual words, i.e. - scatting, wailing, whining, etc. Then once you understand the kind of sounds that convey the emotion you're attempting to present, replicate the sounds on your instruments and elaborate on them. It's hard to get an instrument to speak for you but jazz & classical music proves that it can be done.

Vocals shouldn't be snubbed though. They can tell stories you can't tell with a guitar. They are necessary when they "work" if you get my meaning.

[Funky_c]

That's actually a pretty good response there girl. I've actually looked into scatting and i think it has some pretty good potential. The one problem that i have with that though is again the layout of a song. If you scat, its basically just another solo. You can't nessessaraly have someone scatting while the guitarist is wailing and the bassist is playing his own little thing.

I guess the thing that's on my mind now is how to put it all together so it isn't just 1 person soloing (be it scat, guitar, keyboard, etc...) with a simple chord progression in the background. I almost wanna say that i want to bring out a sense of neo-romanticism/classicalism in my music, but i'm not sure if that would be right. That sort of era had mainly alot of everyone playing the same thing while other people played the equivalent of a walking bassline with whole notes.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to create a sort of background that is independant? The joke me and my buddies always have when i ask them about this is that i'm trying to write a rhythm solo made entirely of chords.

[just_a_girl]

It all depends on how you apply the vocals. People are so used to vocals being in the foreground that they go into auto-solo. There are a lot of examples in soul and hip hop where certain vocals are used as a kind of background noise while others solo. It's all about thinking outside the box, you're going to have to let go of a few musical constraints you probaly didn't even know you had.

[Funky_c]

hmph, constraints eh? alright well i guess i'll hafta figure those bad boys out. Thanks alot for the help.

[hafez]

i'm in an instrumental band and i'd have to say i agree. vocals are optional if the music can get the listener's attention

[Dave de Sylvia]

I think really good instrumental bands create better emotion than bands with vocals.
I'm not sure why you'd think that.

If we're to approach music as the expression of pure emotion, then lyrics are just an additional layer of expression. I'm a guitarist, but I'm pretty much only a functional guitarist; my main love is language, words. That's mainly how I connect with other people; if a song has lyrics I can relate to or empathise with, that's it for me. Obviously, I love music too; I love melody, I love rhythm, I love loud sounds, I love lots of things about music. I see vocals and words as part of the whole package of emotional dialogue, if you want to put it like that. If you can connect more easily to a guitarist, or to another instrumentalist, that's your area.

[Funky_c]

I agree with spat that lyrics can help create that verbal link to people, but i think what the point of instrumentals is to go almost beyond that link to language and describe it in a different way. In my opinion, the point isn't to describe the feeling, but to imerse(sp?) the audience into what it was you were feeling when you wrote the song. And as much as i've tried there's only so much that can be done with lyrics to do that.

To me, you need to access something beyond the lyrics by almost setting up a stage and acting out the events through the music. Recreate it all, but 3 times as vivid than as it actually happened. You COULD describe that in lyrics, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a note worth?

[Pale-Folklore]

I agree with spat that lyrics can help create that verbal link to people, but i think what the point of instrumentals is to go almost beyond that link to language and describe it in a different way. In my opinion, the point isn't to describe the feeling, but to imerse(sp?) the audience into what it was you were feeling when you wrote the song. And as much as i've tried there's only so much that can be done with lyrics to do that.

To me, you need to access something beyond the lyrics by almost setting up a stage and acting out the events through the music. Recreate it all, but 3 times as vivid than as it actually happened. You COULD describe that in lyrics, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a note worth?

hah, i agree with that. that's basically what i was going to say