marietueje.com
I... produce audio content compose and produce music play guitar and sing tweet occasionally sound design
Currently working on...
A research proposal for my Masters thesis.
Just finished...
Mad Deadline Day (it's not a book... more a tormented state of mind one achieves.)
Have a mooch around here, and let me know if you see anything that grabs you.
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11 posts tagged moment in the sun
Moment In The Sun
What is it?
(2010) Adult-contemporary ballad written by Jonathan Kilbane and Marie Tueje.
Elevator pitch
Triumphing over adversity and keeping your dignity no matter what slings and bombshells life lays at your door. Moment In The Sun is a bombastic, life-affirming anthem which would not be out of place in the cannon of Diane Warren.
Who’s involved?
Lyrics - Jonathan Kilbane
Melody - Jonathan Kilbane and Marie Tueje
Music - Composed by Marie Tueje
Produced by Marie Tueje and Jonathan Kilbane
Vocals - Sean Rumsey
Backing vocals - Sean Rumsey and Zoie Wainwright
Mixed by Oscar Lo Brutto
Vocal arrangement - Jonathan Kilbane
Not to be confused with?
Moment In The Sun by indie rock band Clem Snide.
Further details
Jonny Kilbane: www.soundcloud.com/kilbanesongwriting
Marie Tueje: www.soundcloud.com/marietueje
Series: Anatomy of a Song
Moment In The Sun (7/7)
Lessons learned
The whole Moment In The Sun experience provided both myself and Jonny with some valuable lessons; particularly with regards to knowing when a song is finished (and when it’s not), working with for-hire engineers, and the importance of setting minimum expectation levels all-round before any recording begins.
Taking each of those points on one by one:
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Series: Anatomy of a Song
Moment In The Sun (6/7)
Recording the demo (pt 2)
My first impression of the demo was that it was awfully saccharine, with no bite to counter balance it. Ryan’s pitching was most excellent, but he didn’t seem to be really taking command of his vocal.
And most importantly, the song was clearly unfinished.
2009 turned to 2010 with little movement, and then we got word that Ryan, our singer was going bailing on us out due to other work commitments. So the process of finding a new singer started all over again - in addition to finishing the song. Jonny, however, came to the rescue wonderfully, finding replacement singer Sean Rumsey really quickly.
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Series: Anatomy of a Song
Moment In The Sun (5/7)
Recording the demo (pt. 1)
With me in Barcelona and Jonny overseeing the recording of the demo in London, it’s fair to say I felt a little helpless, not to mention anxious, about how things would progress. The basic elements of the song were there, and we’d discussed and were clear about the type of song we wanted. However there were still a couple of (I felt) important elements that worried me;
i) The Middle Eight;
ii) The key the song was written in.
I had written music for a middle eight and sent it to Jonny for approval, but I came up with this based on the very first middle eight idea that he’d sent me. The song had changed considerably since the and my concern was, ‘would that middle eight fit in with how the song was now?’
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SERIES: ANATOMY OF A SONG [Moment In The Sun - extra]
This is what Ryan added a few days later, on 11 November, 2009.
As you can hear, there are a number of silent parts, illustrating that the song was not yet finished to either my own, or Jonny’s satisfaction:
1. Jonny was unhappy with the first line of the chorus, feeling that it needed to lift a lot more melodically.
2. Not suprisingly, given how much the song had changed since then, the original middle eight didn’t work
There was also a slightly ploddy, disinterested feel coming from both the backing track and the vocal. Clearly, there was still a lot more work to do!
0 Plays
Series: Anatomy of a Song
Moment In The Sun (4/7)
Recording the demo (part 1)
The “phase 1” songwriting process came together quite easily; Jonny and I had a couple of sessions together at studio in London, where we managed to lock down the melody and chords of the verses and bridges in principle, as well as the chorus.
However, my relocation from London to Barcelona made the recording of the demo more problematic than it probably should have been. Where Jonny and I were previously able to meet in person to iron out any problems, the remainder of our communication regarding the track was done almost exclusively by email. This included writing the middle eight – which did lead to (expensive) misunderstandings!
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Series: Anatomy of a Song
Moment In The Sun (3/7)
The hook
My couple of sessions were spent on my own listening to Jonny’s melody, and trying, to envision the whole song through this tiny snippet. To me it seemed obvious that this would be a “singer’s song”; one that a singer would want to sing, want to get hold of and wrap their vocal chords around and basically show off a bit. So the melody had to serve two purposes; be challenging enough for a virtuoso singer, yet have a core simplicity that would make it relatable and memorable to the general public.
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SERIES: ANATOMY OF A SONG
Moment In The Sun (2/7)
Finding the song
Jonny emailed me the lyrics he had, plus a dictaphone recording of a first verse and chorus. (Which you can listen to above.) What excited me about this collaboration was the chance to do something I’d never done before; write a commercial pop hit, that was unashamedly catchy and, hopefully, memorable for the right reasons.
Jonny predominantly writes lyrics, although is a topline writer too. And although he lots of great ideas and input on how he wants the music to sound, what he’s mostly looking for is a writer who can take on the musical aspects of the song, and so my first job was to “find the song”. This, I broke down into four elements:
1) Get inside the story of what Jonny wanted to say with his lyrics;
2) Take in Jonny’s thoughts on what he wanted the overall track to sound like;
3) Assimilate my own references of what I felt the song should be;
4) Give the song life, shape, permanence and cohesion.
Finding the song is a bit like subjecting it to a job interview; the objective is to find out why the song should exist, what function it should perform, how it will sound and how it will make you feel. Now that might sound quite technical, and not what songwriting should be about at all, but, each song is different. And, these are the same (unconscious) tests that the listener will perform on a song , and which will go a long way to helping them decide whether they like it or not.
During this process, I often find it useful to swap ideas for reference songs. Jonny’s were:
Moment Like This by Leona Lewis
Flying Without Wings by Westlife
Mine were: Erik Hassle’s Hurtful and One Moment In Time by Whitney Houston.
We both knew and understood that this was going to be a massive ballad, our only reservations were to try not to tip over the edge into completely melodramatic cheese.
3 Plays
Series: Anatomy of a Song
Moment In The Sun (1/7)
The setup
I thought it would be a good idea to present, in case study form, write-ups of the process involved in songs I’ve written that have proved fruitful or particularly interesting to my songwriting processes, under the banner; Anatomy of a Song.
