Artist Bryant Underwood takes us behind-the-scenes in a recent TikTok
Ever wonder how the Songlorious artists create such amazingly unique personalized songs for so many customers? Watch this video from Bryant Underwood, as he creates a new song for someone called "Mud Turtle," or read his tips & highlights below.
Steps for Creating A Songlorious Song
First, I Look At The Order Details "This is going to be a 2-minute, Acoustic Pop song, which tells me how many verses to write, & what instruments to use." Every Songlorious song is made-to-order based on your stories, and the selections you choose. For a 2-minute song, the artists write at least two verses. Acoustic Pop songs have a stripped-back level of instrumentation, typically including acoustic guitar or piano (sometimes both), and another layer or two of instruments just to give the song some interesting dynamics and texture. "I copy/paste my template [of settings] into Logic." It saves artists a lot of time on the back-end if they load their favorite settings into their preferred DAW (Digital Audio Workstation--the software for producing music). It's all these different settings for each instrument, like volume, reverb, echos, delays, and more, that make a song sound professional when it's finished.
Then I Start Writing the Lyrics and Melody "Everybody’s process is different, but my process is to usually write the first verse (or maybe first verse and chorus) then put a melody to it, so I don’t do something completely wrong for the second verse" Artists on our team read each customer's story carefully when they're working on a song, to figure out what is important to their story, and decide what they should include in the lyrics. It helps to quickly commit to a melody for the first verse, so that the second verse will match to make a beautiful song. BRYANT'S TIP: "I, for so long, would not create music, because I could not start. This job has taught me: ‘just start!’ If the beginning sucks, change it later, but you need to have somewhere to go from."
Find Instrumentation to Match "Now I’m going to play on my guitar, until I get something that I like." Every Artist on their team works at their own pace. For some, this part comes quickly, and others need to spend longer finding the right instrumentation for a song. For Bryant, he says it takes "about an hour" playing on his guitar to find a something he feels is well-suited to the melody. While doing this, he records snippets of ideas on his phone so he doesn't forget them. BRYANT'S TIP: "I record everything in my voice notes” he says, “that way if I do something cool and forget it, I can go back.”
Record, Mix, & Submit The Song "After another hour and a half, I’ve recorded it, edited everything, and submitted it to the people who review it for the customer... It’s all done!" Again, this step can take a different amount of time for each artist on the team. The more experienced ones are usually able to do it pretty quickly. And having those settings already loaded-in from step one helps to speed things up too--although they always end up making adjustments for each song.
And there you have it! Every artist's process is a bit different, but they all read each customer's unique story, decide on instrumentation based on what genre & mood were chosen, craft lyrics, compose music, & get started recording your one-of-a-kind song.
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About the Artist: Bryant Underwood
A top five competitor in the National Flatpick Championship in 2016, Bryant Underwood is an acoustic artist from Charleston, West Virginia. The songs he writes are story-driven, lending itself to the folk/soft pop genres. He jokes, "I've written a song (okay, multiple songs) about every girl I have ever dated." Bryant's sound is inspired by and often compared to Ed Sheeran, Jason Mraz, and John Mayer.
As a Songlorious artist, Bryant says, "I think the best part of music is connecting with others. Songlorious's whole model is made to maximize a song's connection to its commissioner, that's what I like."