Lee

As much as I don't like what the major labels get away with, they do it because a massive market exists for this type of music. I find it so disheartening when I hear friends and family talk about the latest contestant on the X factor or Britains got talent. Lee

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My favourite lyricists are Fish and Lloyd Cole. I'm not sure why these two stand out for me, I just like their unique style of writing althought they are both very different. Lee

Hi Rudi I bought this bass a few weeks ago for exactly the same reason you want one. http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/fl...roduct_id/19396 It's very basic one pick up, one volume control, one tone control and the finish isn't brilliant but it sounds great and plays great. I looked up some reviews on the internet and they are all very positive. It's out of stock at the moment but I'm sure you can buy it elsewhere. Lee

John I have done this a number of times and its produced 1 song and 1 idea that I used in a song; so no, it hasn’t created a lot of diversity. I actually did it looking for inspiration by trying to introduce some random factor into my writing. I used to tune my guitar to some strange tunings and then play around to see if I could find any new riffs. Again this was to introduce some randomness that may not have happened with the standard tuning. I have only written a handful of songs so I don’t have a lot of material with which I can make comparisons. Most songs start with verse-chorus (6), verse-bridge-chorus (1) and one song has no chorus at all. At this point I usually think about what the song might need, middle 8, an instrumental, or something different. 3 of my songs have middle 8’s with vocals, 3 songs have instrumentals and 2 have different end parts after the second chorus. The rhyming schemes I have used are ABAB (2), AABB (3), AABCCB (2), and ABBC ADDC (1). I spent a lot of time trying to find words to fit the last scheme, and I have never been particularly happy with the results. My songs appear (to me) to have quite a bit of diversity although none of this was intentional. As I am relatively new to this, my priority has been to write the best song I could and I haven’t really focused on being diverse. Which do you think has more value, being more original or writing better songs?

I sometimes record myself improvising. I might have a few chord sequences and I just sing along using random words or even sounds. Then I listen to them and see if anything grabs my attention; you can usually find a few ideas that you can then try to develop into songs. I enjoy trying to find lyrics that will fit with what I've improvised. Using this I came up with the rhyming scheme (ABBAA) which didn't work that when read out but worked with the melody I had. Lee