writing psychedelic music

hey guys i have a songwriting question.

k so, in the last 6 months or so i've been really into psychedelic rock. I love it so much. i want to make my music psychedelic rock, but i've always been a metal player recently and don't know how to write a normal rock song.

i have a few questions,
1. what exactly defines psychedelic rock as psychedelic rock? listen to Pink Floyd's "Breathe." Next, listen to Lucifer Sam by Pink Floyd. Then, listen to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Then, Burning of a Midnight lamp by hendrix, then lucidity by tame impala, desire be desire go by tame impala, watch her ride by jefferson airplane, dark star by grateful dead. the point is, all are considered psychedelic rock, but they all sound much different? so what the hell makes psych rock psych rock?
2. How do i write in this style? i play guitar, and am lost with writing psych rock even though I desperatly wanna play it. I know the drugs are a given, but are they a must (I have only smoked weed)? How will i learn to write in this style?

Thanks

 

Listen to some King Crimsom, and early Floyd... Relics should do it.

Just might give you the hook you're lookin for.

 

I have been listening to nothing but psych rock for the last 6 months but listening for some reason does nothing for my ability to write music. The only thing i know is to use mixolydian a lot, but even when i do this, it does not sound psychedelic or 60's at all to me.

 

Don't listen to anything. When I wrote music for a band the more I listened to music the more it would just pop into my head while trying to come up with original stuff.

Best thing to do is come up with some kinda structure like.
verse 1,2,3 something cool that kinda rhymes but not really
verse 4,5 something loud and proud you can repeat again later.
verse 6 chanting druids (I like those)
verse 7,8,9 make these rhyme totally to throw people off
verse 4,5
verse 10 chanting munchkins

just a suggestion. it's been a while, and If I'd have made it big I wouldn't still be posting here. I'd be gettin my nob sucked by a groupie or something.

 

Please do not get caught up in genres. Keep listening and playing music and you'll find out what you really like, and you'll be able to compose with what you have learned jamming. And if what you create sounds something like Pink Floyd or the Dead, let other people categorize the music. I recommend you start playing along with a lot of music you would consider performing and try to understand the structure and harmonies and such. You said you play in Mixolydian, so, look for some songs that use Dorian, or Lydian modes. Eventually you'll be able to listen to a piece and tell what mode is being used, or even the specific key. It will help.

 

I like to think psychedelic music writes itself. Think of it as a branch of surrealist art. You start one place, then let your subconscious take over and write the rest. There's a reason psych is closely tied with garage and jam music; it's all improvisation brother! Same goes for lyrics. The less structure you bound yourself with, the more your free to explore and create something truly amazing.

 

The first time I heard a new song I was writing, it was coming out of my speakers..... It's like channeling. The music is already out there......

 

Just listen to the ABSOLUTE MASTERS of psych like Syd Barrett, Jimi Hendrix, Roky Erickson, The Doors, Count V, The Sonics, The Seeds, etc. and be sublimely INSPIRED.....ONE important thing though....STAY AWAY FROM UTTER CRAP LIKE PORCUPINE TREE AND RADIOHEAD if you don't wanna go bad and sterile in psych music

 

listening to music is not gunna make you a musician, trust me. also, radiohead is dope. calling an entire band's work crap is so god damn offensive. where is your body of musical works? id like to generalize it and mock it. tell me the name of your band, i'd like to call you total crap.

 

also,
i think people play psychedelic music after playing standard genres for an absurd amount of time. once you get tired of basically ALL the progressions that have EVER existed in EVERY genre, you'll start mashing shit together, playing music upside down and backwards to remake what you already have. psychedelics (both the music and the substances) are about building extravagance out of simplicity; you just have to be confident enough to be (consistently) innovative and comfortable enough with your instrument that you can play to your confidence level.

I think tripping would help enormously when it comes to thinking of psychedelic concepts.. thats just my opinion though, frank zappa made some of the trippiest music around without ever using drugs. If youre going to follow frank's example, i suggest you really start contemplating layers of music and what would sound good together but totally odd.

 

I honestly think what defines psychedelic rock as psychedelic is simply if you hear it and know from experience that it either sounds like acid or sounds like something that would sound awesome on acid. This can only really be figured out by doing acid and listening to music. First time you do, you realize all these little nuances and something that might have sounded kind of boring before suddenly sounds freaking brilliant because listening on acid was obviously the point.

A great example of this for me was in 1992 back when we just bought albums unheard because they were associated somehow with a scene or mentioned in some review. There wasn't internet like there is today. A couple of these were Mercury Rev's "Yerself Is Steam" and Flaming Lips "Hit To Death In the Future Head." They were both mentioned in reviews as being kind of Sonic Youth-ish and psychedelic. Having tripped several times listening to stuff similar (Sonic Youth, Eleventh Dream Day, Pere Ubu, etc.), I sort of knew what this meant before ever hearing it and was pretty damn excited to buy them because there just wasn't enough music like this back then. When I listened, I instantly liked, but it wasn't until I listened later on acid that these albums really opened up and blew my friggin' mind. I remember listening to that Flaming Lips album over and over and over again for almost an entire 8-hour trip with a few friends and we just couldn't believe how awesome it sounded. There were all these little bits of noise recorded here and there that you could just barely pick out but sounded so obvious and intentional while on acid. The next day, I remember saying, "let's hear what it sounds like now that we're not tripping!" and I pushed play and we kind of looked at each other laughed. It sounded the same, it just sounded completely different. It was no less a masterpiece, it was just missing the essential ingredient that made it sound the way it was really intended.

And when I hear music like that, music which is clearly made for people to listen to on drugs, and it is not just a bunch of cool noises that may or may not sound cool, I am really impressed. Because that takes some effort and plenty of hours of mental-aural exploration. When I stumbled upon Spacemen 3's album "Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To," I bought it without a second thought just based on the title.

 

The ONLY TOTAL MORONIC CRAP I see here is YOU!!!!
PEACE:daisy::devil:

 

Some people take others' opinions too personally.

Te be fair though, Radiohead is very far from being crap, IMO at least.

 

If you study some music it might help you out writing psych. When I was doing mostly rock my music was kind of boring, average rock. I've studied music theory for 2 1/2 years now, and I'm a huge jazz head (and a bit of classical) as well as psych. A lot of jazz theory can be applied to psychedelic music, for example the intro Pretty Song From Psych-Out by Strawberry Alarm Clock uses a chord idea that was first seen in Giant Steps by John Coltrane 9 years earlier, involving chord motion by major thirds, etc. (I know few people know music theory so I won't go into detail about it) Yeah I'm rambling but anyway the point is try to find influences in things other than psychedelic/rock music. A lot of psychedelic is heavily influenced by jazz (especially the Clock) and progressive (a close relative of psychedelic IMO) takes a huge influence from classical. Oh and I can't go through a music thread without mentioning the Beach Boys! Check out Friends and Smiley Smile, and Pet Sounds, and all of them! You could teach at least 2 years of college music theory based just on the stuff Brian Wilson has made.

 

you can't write it if you ain't lived it...lol kidding

as you have pointed out, psychedelic music is not a particular 'style' but does consist mostly of music from certain bands of the so called 'psychedelic era'
ok here's what I think,

since you said you're primarily a metal guy I'm gonna advise you to think about tempo...

...generally metal has much more aggressive tempos and stricter time signatures than psychedelic music...

lay back and groove brutha, it aint about how fast you get there!

groove steady, stay heavy

 

The term psychedelic is derived from the Ancient Greek words psuchē (ψυχή - psyche, "mind") and dēlōsē (δήλωση - "manifest"), translating to "mind-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly ordinary fetters.

This said, I don't think pschedelic songs have to be associated with mind altering drugs. Though, through the use if them, these non traditional states can be acheived more easily for some. For me (not a commercial song writer), open mindness, awareness and the desire to create something never heard before are my friends for creating.

My latest creation started with bass and guitar, then I added a poem I wrote earlier. Next, I'll be adding some drums to keep groove going.

http://m.soundcloud.com/karma-supply/taste-the-air

 

RH are not even slightly psychedelic!!!:afro::devil:

 

Psychedelic music is open to all styles and genres, it's just that many people do not like it because it's too "hard" on the brain cells...ya know, it makes people think and THINKING esp nowadays is a no-no....ponder people ponder before it's 2 late !!!

 

Don't worry about genres, if it sounds good, then it is good.

First thing I would do, would be checking for psychedelic scales.

 

If psychedelic music sounds good, it IS good......