>> I try not to do that.
If I get past six or seven,
I start getting confused.
[MUSIC].
>> Rodney Alejandro, producer,
writer, performer, musical director for The Script,
top liner for the Temptations,
Narada Michael Walden, Roger Daltrey,
Sting, Lauryn Hill, so many people.
Author of the Berklee online course,
Toplining and Vocal Production.
Welcome to 4/4.
>> Hey, there. Thanks for having me.
>> Tell me and the viewers exactly what toplining is.
>> Toplining is a niche form of songwriting.
You typically start with a melody and a lyric and then you build the song around it.
You decide the song form,
[but] you're able to change things to really support the emotion of the song.
Toplining is different.
It's more of a ground-up build where there's already a beat, harmonic progressions,
it might be formed out already and so then someone comes in and
writes a melody and lyric, and includes some of the performance on top of that.
Now the one extra caveat to that is
that track or that beat has been approved by somebody.
Some stakeholder in this collaboration had said, "You know what?
I really need this song completed.
I need something on top of it."
They go find the top liner to get that melody and lyric on top
and a lot of times you don't really change much of the beat anymore.
You’ve got to work with that and that specialist comes in and toplines.
>> I remember when Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” album came out
and people were looking over the songwriting credits,
certain songwriters were providing anecdotes, like
“I wrote this section and not the other sections.”
So they were just given little pieces of the song.
How often does that happen in toplining?
>> Part of toplining is that multiple people have
an input and a lot of times it's not that they were given a certain section,
it was that EVERYONE made an attempt at writing perhaps the whole song.
As a producer got the song with the artists,
they may have picked sections that they really like
or the song was already laid out and then they sent it
out to other people and these other people
added things, according to the concept that's already there.
They could have gotten back three different prechoruses and then decided,
"We're going to like those two writers' prechoruses,"
or that writer's prechorus and put it all together.
You might end up with 6,
7, 8, 10 writers.
>> You have worked with The Temptations,
Ray Charles, Sting,
Lauryn Hill, Roger Daltrey,
Stevie Wonder … who has the freshest breath?
>> [LAUGHTER] Yeah. I'm usually the keyword player.
So I'm going to say I'm usually at the back, so
I don't know. [LAUGHTER]
>> Who has the best handshake?
>> Roger had a very firm handshake.
When you suspect everyone in rock ’n’ roller,
you know what I mean? RARRGGH! Get in there!!!!
>> Describe the moment where you said to yourself,
“I need to do this for a living.”
>> I was 13 years old and
my junior high school jazz ensemble
and we had to compete against high schools because we were a fine art school.
Because we had a great year,
somehow the district found money to put
us into a recording studio and record a full length album.
We had four days in the studio in Houston, Texas.
During one of the breaks,
I stepped out of what I learned was the Live Room where everyone's
set up and I went into what was called the Control Room, where everyone was pushing,
the knobs and everything, and I'm like, "What is this?!
What is it called?!
How does it work?!”
They push me out and like, "Get out."
I kept going back in.
It was one of those things and I'm like,
"I want to know what this is!!!!
It sounds amazing!!!!”
Later to find out this was an engineer and this is what
that person does and this is a producer and this is that person's job.
That week I was on such a high, I figured out like,
“Whatever that is, I’m going to do that," and that's where it started and then I got into writing songs,
producing, writing, and learning how to engineer.
Anything music-related I was off the deep end after 13.
>> Tell me about being the musical director for The Script.
>> When I left Berklee and it was late '90s,
we're producing loads of artists.
The singer and guitar player of The Script were in
another configuration of a band called Mytown, like a boy band.
I produced on that record when they were on Universal.
We wrote a bunch of songs and one of them made that album and then it was released.
Well, that band ran its course.
The two fellows had ended up in LA at some point and we reconnected.
This was maybe five years later.
We started writing songs as a writing team in LA.
During that process,
we created a showcase for Sony and that idea of The Script was born.
I actually moved to Dublin at some point and
I helped write and produce and do some songs on there.
I never wanted to be an artist anymore because I felt
those days were past me and so I just worked on that first record.
At some point, it came time for them to take off on that and I came back to the States.
Fast-forward from that moment,
a few years and then the third record came around
and it was just a chance text and it was like,
"Hey, would you like to come check some things out, work on some music with us?"
The next day, I flew to London and didn’t go back for, I don't know, 6, 7 years.
We wanted do songs that sound as close to the record as possible and BIGGER!
When you're playing a stadium with 80,000 people or a festival with 100,000,
it's not just “put the CD on and let's see what happens.” You’ve got to have the energy.
You’ve got to have the arrangements,
so that that energy is projected.
There's definitely an objective of getting the songs right, according to the record,
—because that's how the audience knows them—
keeping the integrity of the songs together and then BUILDING on them,
making the sounds,
the production elements of it sonically bigger,
so that we fill that stadium with a full sound,
full energy, keep the integrity of the song together,
and now let's just build on that.
>> This is a 1979 quiz 500 music trivia quiz.
>> Oh no! [LAUGHTER]
>> As many as you can answer.
>> Okay.
>> Keep going. Who stars in the musical movie “The Wiz”?
>> Michael Jackson.
>> The Beatles performed at Woodstock. True or false?
>> False.
>> Smokey Robinson and the?
>> Miracles.
>> Whose album is “News of the World”?
>> Can't tell you that one. Sorry.
>> Queen.
>> Queen. I played Queen!
At the Rock in Rio Festival. I should've known.
Our band were on the same bill at The Rock in Rio Festival.
It was The Script,
One Republic, and Queen.
>> What's your go-to recipe if you're having people over?
>> I make a fresh salsa.
I like to think I make the best chicken tacos in the world.
Thanks for having me for this.
I hope we got it right.
>> I think we did
[MUSIC].