carlgrace

Typically I'll write the vocal melody first on piano. However, sometimes it doesn't work. In that case, once I have backing music and lyrics I like but I'm groping for a lead line what I'll often to is play the music over and over again and sing the lyric over and over again, finding something I like eventually. It's worked really well for me.

This happened to me a few times at gigs. Very embarrassing! What I do wasn't a poll option. What I do is just sing another verse over again. For example if I forgot the third verse I'll just continue on singing the first verse again! No one has ever noticed when I have done this (at least no one has said anything). The worst thing you can do is stop the music or swear! (I was at a show once and the guy started swearing when he forgot! If he had just shut up about it no one would notice!)