rock oprea writting tips?

[psycho Phlegm]

hey there! first post whoo!
well me and the bassest to our band are very interested in consept albums and rock opreas. i recently made a huge what i belive to be "overture"(on a guitar) and im planing to cut it into 11 songs or so.i have a brife idea what its about , and a little nbit of a story line, but im not much of a writer.

so do you guys have any tips on how to make a nice flowing consept album?

[MidnightHysteria]

Write the story first. You must thoroughly define your plot and your characters.

Once you have that, you may choose to do either lyrics first, music first, or both at once (whichever is most normal to your style of composition).

The lyrics should pick out individual moments from the story and tell them through the point of view of at least one character (NOTE: if you are using more than one character as the narrator, make sure it's clear which one is speaking/singing). You may want to use some of these moments to sneak in some "biographical" information about the characters to make them seem a bit more real. Regardless of whether or not you do this, you should always include at least a few subtle (actually, preferably a subtle rather than blatant) references to the plot at that point in the story, and explore that character's emotional reaction to the given plot point. Feel free to do some of this instrumentally as well.

Musically, each song should be able to function on its own, but there should also be certain themes that subtlely reappear throughout the course of the album. For example, in Symphony X's concept album V: The New Mythology Suite, they took one main theme and included variations of it in nearly every song. These variations included changing keys, changing time signatures, changing orchestrations, and even playing it backwards (you might also want to try playing it by writing your "hook" melody as sheet music and playing it once with the page upside-down).
Similarly, other concept albums just take a simple chord progression rather than a melody, and mess around again with the key, the meter, and exactly how it's being played. If you can get, say, two or three of these common parts and spread variations of at least one of them throughout each song on the album, it will be much more musically cohesive.

There you have the very basics. Now good luck to ye!

[deathscreamingsheep]

I'm writing a rock-opera/concept at the moment. I wrote a short story a while ago about a girl with a speech impediment called Harmony who is locked away in a mental institution ran by Doctor Hunter. It's an old Victorian institution and his control over the kids makes Hunter believe he's some sort of God. He begins experimenting on them, which worsen Harmony's condition etc etc...

Now anyway, what I have done for the music is write a few hooks and riffs that represent the main characters (aside from Harmony as the story shows her character changing). These appear in the music for all the songs with the characters present.

Another point is that the music should back up the lyrics. Often concept lyrics are not exactly easy to understand on their own and are far better interpreted with the music. My main character is called Harmony, and so as she gets steadily madder the actualy harmonies in the song get more dischordant. Also, at one point she believes someone else is speaking to her so we add a dual guitar fill... and so and and so forth.

[Seafroggys]

i have written several rock operas in the past....

the first thing you should do is to listen to other rock operas to see how the stories are told and developed, as well as how the song structures work. The perfect classic examples are Tommy and Quadrophenia, both by The Who. The biggest difference between the two (other than the fact they both have different stories and a different sound and mood) is that Tommy has several 'filler' tracks less than a minute long whose sole purpose is to advance the story in ways that a traditional song cannot. Quadrophenia doesn't have that.

An aspect that both these rock operas have is the unifying themes or repeating sequences. For example, Tommy has "See me, feel me" repeated in three different songs on the album (as well as the instrumental version on the overture), and Quadrophenia has "Love Reign O'er Me" repeated several times as well, as well as an instrumental version on songs like the title track.

Really, there's a lot of ways to do this, and I applaud you for undertaking such a cool task. Good luck!

[psycho Phlegm]

thanks everybody! yeah i have tommy! great album, also the wall inspired me alot to start this. and like you said the whole "see me, feel me". i do that simalary, but with the music (See its kinda like the main is seizering or convulsing( i think i was gunna link this to a memory (sevral other riffs,nice and happy almost child like). and i bring back that riff, when he snaps alittle.)

haha hope that made sence :P

[MidnightHysteria]

It didn't, but don't worry about it. This thread's for your benefit, not ours.

[Seafroggys]

rock operas aren't supposed to make sense :lol:

if someone who had no clue what Tommy was, or The Who was, and never heard anything about it until they listened to Tommy for the first time, I highly doubt they'd figure anything out.

Especially The Wall, man even I can't figure that piece of **** out.

[Gone2Far]

rock operas aren't supposed to make sense :lol:

You're right. Just listen to Green Day's American Idiot. Who the **** is St. Jimmy, what is Jesus of Suburbia, who's Whatsername? Oh yeah, she's a rebel, that's it...

:rolleyes:

[irishbasketcase]

You're right. Just listen to Green Day's American Idiot. Who the **** is St. Jimmy, what is Jesus of Suburbia, who's Whatsername? Oh yeah, she's a rebel, that's it...

:rolleyes:

american idiot does ake sense if you read the story to it, rock operas can be hard to right if you want it to be good, as a good one will make sense, note that you shouldnt have more than 4/5 five characters, i can be fun to do one of the characters in first person too

[deathscreamingsheep]

What kind of rock opera are you planning to do?

Is it one of those long 11 minuters that are sliced up into several songs or is it a the full whack (lots of songs all following a story recently demonstrated by bands like Coheed and Cambria).

[psycho Phlegm]

ummm, it started as a big big song (overture prettymuch), then i took out riffs from it. made versus bridges ect. we are only haveing 4 caricters and everytone in the band is gunna wirte theres :P. and i got tommy and the wall, really eazly, but i overthink/overananlize

[MidnightHysteria]

rock operas aren't supposed to make sense :lol:

if someone who had no clue what Tommy was, or The Who was, and never heard anything about it until they listened to Tommy for the first time, I highly doubt they'd figure anything out.

Especially The Wall, man even I can't figure that piece of **** out.
Hey... Tommy's not that tough.... The Wall's a little trickier.... Operation: Mindcrime. Now there's a confusing rock opera. Still, it does make sense eventually.

[Seafroggys]

american idiot does ake sense if you read the story to it

no ****, really?

.......:rolleyes:

any rock opera makes sense if you read the story to it,

[irishbasketcase]

i meant if you listen to the words carefully

[iluvkirkhammett]

Make it incredibly epic. And try and make it make sense.

[deathscreamingsheep]

Hey... Tommy's not that tough.... The Wall's a little trickier.... Operation: Mindcrime. Now there's a confusing rock opera. Still, it does make sense eventually.

Truth. Hey, did you know a followup to Operation: Mindcrime is coming out sometime over the next few years?

[MidnightHysteria]

I did. I'm rather worried.