# Advice for doing music with spoken word project



## Giant_Shadow (Jul 21, 2013)

I am starting a project soon which will be spoken word with a music under-bed. I was wondering if I could please get some advice on how to go about this. Would you get all the spoken word down first (being done by another artist) then write the music, do the music first, try and do both at the same time, or other ?? Thank you. James


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## wst3 (Jul 21, 2013)

I did a couple music and sfx for spoken word projects, neither has been released yet so I'll see if I can post snippets.

In the meantime, I asked the voice actors to read their script, then I added sound effects and music, and then we let them take a second shot at the script. In theory it's a pretty cool idea, and if we had more time it might work, but in this case it did not.

I can certainly understand the dilemma... you will write as a reaction to the recorded script, and if you work the other way around they will act as a reaction to the music. 

It's the timing that gets in the way! It is much easier to cut to the recorded script than vica-versa. MUCH easier!

I guess my original thought process was that it was just an underscore, and wouldn't have much impact on the voice actors... but in fact it can, hence the chicken/egg thing<G>!


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## Giant_Shadow (Jul 21, 2013)

Thank you Bill for taking the time to reply. Would you have the voice actor read to a click tempo track or free form ?



wst3 @ Sun Jul 21 said:


> I did a couple music and sfx for spoken word projects, neither has been released yet so I'll see if I can post snippets.
> 
> In the meantime, I asked the voice actors to read their script, then I added sound effects and music, and then we let them take a second shot at the script. In theory it's a pretty cool idea, and if we had more time it might work, but in this case it did not.
> 
> ...


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## Giant_Shadow (Jul 22, 2013)

anyone else ? cheers.


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## mathis (Jul 23, 2013)

If you have specific ideas for the music, let the voice talent speak to it, to get him in the right mood. 
Later do the editing of the recorded voice onto your final music.


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## reneS (Jul 23, 2013)

Giving a click track to a voice talent is a very bad idea.
Maybe you should look at it like a movie without pictures (unless the spoken word is about the music). What would you do first?


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