Hi all,

Looking for potential song writer.
We just started our song writing publishing company last year and manage to sell mandarin pop songs to Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ Singapore and local artist. Our targeting market is country with mandarin pop songs. Demo in mandarin is preferable.
The demand is high as we all can see in this market, therefore a good demo needed in order to present our songs.

Kindly drop your demo in mp3 format and email to songwriter.malaysia@gmail.com
We will revert to you soonest we can.

Good Day!

hey, bro, can give details of your company?
examples of songs that successfully sold to hong kong/taiwan?
your company include song composing?

Saturn, how is song writting different form song composing?

i.e Jolin (Taiwan), Eason (Hong Kong), Astro new talent singing contest star (Local) ...
Send in songs to songwriter.malaysia@gmail.com
We will definately contact with u guys.

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Added on August 4, 2010, 9:47 amSame meaning, different words.

Just like same chorus, different verse ...

This post has been edited by alexgohh: Aug 4 2010, 09:47 AM

EDIT: duh...

This post has been edited by little ice: Aug 4 2010, 05:26 PM

oops, sorry, i mean song arrangement, 编曲.

This post has been edited by saturn85: Aug 4 2010, 01:44 PM

Saturn, I am a banana. 编曲 as two separate words I know. As a combine word I have no idea. It is not listed in my dictionary. Please give more explaination.

oops, sorry.
hmm, i think it is refering to song arrangement,
but not sure is it the correct word or not.

It may be the correct word, Saturn. Tell me what is the task involve in song arrangement?

hmm, maybe you can google about it,
because i m not that good in describe this.

song arrangement = structure, intro, outro, riff, piano play like this, guitar play like that, drum play like this etc.

song composing = melody, chords, lyrics.

Guys, I've always wondered about this. Mandarin is a language that relies on tonality to impart meaning to its spoken words right? How do u accurately get this across if your tones have to follow the melodies of a song, like in the usual western-style music?

Thanks Little Ice, but I still dont get it. I will do some research on structure, intro ... If I still have problems, I will look for you.

Pleasuresaurus,
There are four tones in mandrin. They are the the normal tone, high tone, desending pitch follow by assending pitch, and low tone. From high tone to low tone it will not bring you to the next note. Let's say wanted to use the note f. Lowering your tone is not going to change it from note f to e.

This post has been edited by faceless: Aug 5 2010, 12:48 PM

For mandarin song, we cannot accurately know the meaning of it without looking at the lyric, we just guess the meaning only. Sometime we got it right, sometime we got it wrong. Because when we sing mandarin in melody, mandarin words will lose its original tonality (the 4 tonalities as Faceless mentioned).

structure means, for example:

intro - v1 - v2 - chorus - interlude - v2 - chorus - bridge - chorus - outro

then the intro and outro are created as arrangement, so as the interlude and how all instruments are played. composing or song writting is just the melody and lyrics and maybe chords (but arranger can change the chord).

to make it even more simple to understand, "remix" is also a kind of arrangement.

Thank Little Ice,
I get it now. I read chinese music scores. Now I understand why the author of a book can claim herself as 编曲 arranger for a known/popular song. She changed some chords here and there to make it easier for the level she is trying to teach in the chapter.

This post has been edited by faceless: Aug 5 2010, 12:45 PM

hey, bro little ice, i have 1 question here:
usually song arrangement is done by 1 people or a group of people?

in chinese, we call

-song arrangement as 编曲.
-song composing as 作曲。

that's right, in short, we call it "arranged into solo piano version", it can be "guitar version" or "string quartet version" etc etc, it's all arrangement.


usually, 80%~100% are done by specialist "arranger", at least in the chinese market. there're also co-arranger like main arranger arranged everything and a special arrange just the strings part.

in western country, or even japan, they're done by the composer himself. producers also will do quite a lot as he/she'll involve lots of recording sessions and they'll put in lots of ideas there. heck, some producers are also the composer and also the arranger, which is quite common in japan.

then, sessionist and even mixing engineers can also input some ideas too, like guitarist replacing the midi guitar mockup, he can input some ideas too. sound engineers can copy some of the parts and paste it else where (maybe some special effects too).

how you give credits, it's entirely up to the whole team. but it's usually the one who did 80%~100%, or 50%/50% you'll see 2 names, or specifically like "arranged by xxx, strings by xxx".

Thanks for the insight given, Little Ice.

Now I know what Bernie Taupin did for Elton John or John Farr did for Olivia Newton John.

wow, that means the specialist arranger must know very well for each instrument?
i mean he knows how to play each instrument?
because he have to think back up vocal melody,
piano/guitar solo notes,
intro, outro and interlude how to play,
piano how to play,
guitar how to play,
string how to play,
bass how to play,
drum how to play...?

local arranger usually don't deal with backing vocals, producers will hire backing vocal specialist, at least commonly done in the chinese market. but it's not uncommon for singers to DIY, or producers taking over the job.

and yes, arranger must know how all instruments are played, and more importantly, how to let them shine - you don't use classical guitar to play power chords, or piano to play like bass, etc etc. nowadays arranger all use MIDI to do arrangement, and most of the time, all of the tracks are MIDI because sampling technology nowadays are so good and computers are powerful enough to handle detailed and huge amount of samples. but it's up to the arranger (MIDI programmer) to make the midi track sound like real thing. still, nothing beats the real deal, but you know, it's about budget.

back then, almost everything are recorded with live players, and obviously sound so much more lively...

woo, really not easy to be a song arranger,
need to know everything about music.

During the era of classical music, the arranger is the conductor, correct?

What type of skills must an arranger have? Knowledge of all instruments had alread been mentioned. Music theory is guess is a must. Anything else?

uh, the arranger is the composer. beethoven, mozart, etc etc wrote all the large and small works. there might be some ideas input, or help seeked from others, but in general the composer will write everything.

music theory is top priority, with at least a decent piano playing skill (grade 5 at the very least). but due to midi technology, arrangers of today will need to have very good piano playing skill, and improvising is a must. nobody will hire old school arranger who just put down ideas on papers, unless the arranger is very well known.

Ahh, modern times must know midi technology.

Continuing on a previous issue. Lets say I can play by ear. I arrange a song for beginer play. It has only melody (eg love me tender). I then write on it Composer : Elvis, Arranger : Faceless. Would I not have infringe copyrights? It is just a simple one note arrangement. I can go one note higher (all c =d, d=e ...) and it will still sound like love me tender.

arrangement has nothing to do with copyrights. that's why arranger only receive one time service fee.

changing keys, chords, even some of the melody lines will not infringe copyrights as long as you give the proper credits.

I suppose the same thing works for chord progression. It is stuff that is being taught in music school or books. Something like C, F, G7 for guitar chords which I learnt a long time ago.

Company website?

it'll be great if more info about the company is released...