TimmyMayes

Good idea Steve. I was going to suggest a temporary sub forum or something. Cheers, Timothy

Does that mean you are coming along for the ride too nightwolf? Or was that just a proverbial starting shot?

I will start on the 1st of the month. And I will try to put the songs to some basic chord progressions if I can. And yes its a personal best thing. I also think it will be a good way to sort of force your brain to find new ways to be creative. I already have a couple ideas for generating topics.

The parts that are applicable I take into consideration. Other things I tend to agree with. For example the songs that have just come to me are in my opinion the best. Cheers, Timothy

Thats a good point because alot of sites try to get you to buy a song but only supply you with a 30 sec clip of the song. Which is a big reason I rarely buy music online. I usually won't buy a cd based off of one cd because it can misrepresent same as a carefully selected 30 second clip of a song. Cheers, Timothy

Under where you imagine yourself in the future you left out one very important option, i settled for the next closest. International Superstar Legend Extraordinare. Cheers, Timothy

Not sure if this is the right place but I thought it might be if not just move it. This is a pretty good interview from a really good songwriter, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service and All Time Quarterback. There are 9 videos of about a minute each. If you can find similar interviews; video, text, audio. Post under this thread so we can get some insights from them. Interview with Singer Songwriter - Ben Gibbard Cheers, Timothy

Do you just mean from a lyrical standpoint or music too? If we are talking only lyrics you are on. (with work I can write at work some but don't have much access to a guitar for the musical composition. Cheers, Timothy

A few metal guitars B.C. Rich - The Warlock B.C. Rich - The Bitch B.C. Rich - The Two Faced Bitch Ibanez - Iceman Cheers, Timothy

When searching for an ear training program I came across a guy who has around 50 books on many aspects of music. Many of his books are used as official text books for the Berkley School of music in New York, I think its THE school for Jazz guitar. He focuses on jazz it seems but he has books on ear training and general thoery too. I picked up his book on ear training and the New York Guitar Method Book one. Its a comprehensive book. I have jsut gotten into it. He goes into lots of chords, scales etc. And its not just hey here is the scale. Its a workbook so you have to fill out tons of pages with scales on both fretboard diagrams and musical staffs. Whats really cool is that he isn't one of those people that tries to teach you by patterns. He is very against it and focuses instead on you learning all of the notes. Whats really cool is I had some questions on the content on his books and where I should start so I sent him an email. And I got a response within an hour, and this was at like 6pm Pacific time. He recommended me 4 books to start and didn't just say buy these and start here. He explained why I should use each and told me after I got them to email him and he would give me a training schedule. Which he did. Its been busy around the holidays so i havne't really thrown myself fully into it but I am quite excited. Haha that probably sounds like an infomercial but its really just an extremely satisfied customer. The full on text won't be super cheap but I think it will be quite comprehensive. I am really sold on his ear training method and ideology. And his level of customer service really is unparrallelled. Any who here is a link if you are interested. Muse-eek Cheers, Timothy

I think good old B minor is my favorite. Other than that I really like chords formed with the root and the 3rd and an open 5th, root or 3rd. I have far too many songs that utilize that chord pattern. Cheers Timothy

I don't really like my voice much buuuut. I have just started singing and have ZERO idea when it comes to pitch. I'm so all over the place its not even funny. So I like to think of my voice as underconstruction. The more i've listened to it the more i've accepted it. One day I'll get a recording up so you can all hear my mediocrity. Cheers, Timothy

I found this set of warmup videos for singing that have helped me alot. You may know all this I am a complete beginner and didn't know any of this. Part 2 Part 4 Cheers, Timothy

Agreed if the current system collapsed music wouldn't die it would just force a padagrim shift in the distribution methodology. Cheers, Timothy

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm? I just started with the lyrcial & melodic portions of songwriting so for the longest time I would just write music. I also strayed away from writing simple chord progressions because if all you are writing is music and not singing its pretty boring to do a simple chord progression. So my old format of writing was to make random chord shapes or create random patterns on the fretboard until i got something I liked. Then I would play it over and over trying different endings to add on the end. I rarely had an idea in my head. I think a big part of this was because I never had a good sense of pitch. Now that I have been working on pitch, vocals and lyric writing I have had alot of ideas that just came to me and were from my head. My goal is to generally mostly write starting from a melody. That to me is the center of the song. People remember a catchy melody not the bitching guitar solo. Though I'm open to all avenues of creativity. Another facet of focusing more on vocal/lyrical is that I have written more songs that are just simple chord progressions. Which gives me some diversity in the style of my songs. My biggest frustration right now is writing lyrics for older pieces of guitar music I have. I find I tend to write the melody in such a way that it pretty much just mimics the melody of the guitar line. I really want to create compositions with more of a harmonic diversity. Where the melody is distinctly different from the riff but complementary. If any of you have any tips on how to do this or perhaps areas of music I should study to gain this ability please please please let me know. 2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea? This is an area I have worked alot on. I have several tools I've developed for lyric writing, I will flesh these out into big long posts with lots of details and maybe some examples. I plan to create some for music writing as I gain a better understanding of theory and a sense of pitch. 3.At what point do you start recording? I have a very very bad recording setup. However I still record a lot. I have a friend who lives several hours away I will often send him riffs and progressions for him to toy with. I also record blank progressions and put it on my phone/mp3 player so i can listen to it when I have free time and try to be inspired with a melody or some lyrics. I also use my phone's built in voice recorder to capture any melodic Ideas I have randomly throught a day. Even though this technically isn't recording it falls under the same idea. I carry a set of notebooks with me everywhere I go. I write down every lyrical idea i have wether it be a specific lyric or a topic for a song or even just a stylistic idea i'd like to try in a song. Cheers, Timothy

I was reading an article on songwriting about the Beatles. Alot of people consider their lyrics to be....abstract at best. But McCartney was king of melodies. The point of the article was the recent propensity for songwriters to write their songs more by starting with a riff or chord progression than to start with a melody and flesh the song outwards from that. It was his opinion that it is far superior to start with a good melody and who can really argue with the success of the Beatles eh? Cheers, Timothy

I'm all about micro payments. There was a really long and good article on the pirate website oink written recently. Let me see if i can find it. http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when...k-birth-of.html Its an awsome read because it really captures my opinoins on the whole market. Business is all about generating value. Record execs used to provide a service, aka generate a value; Screening new artists for potential. They also provided business services to artists who were not themselves business savy. But with all of the changes in technology and the availability of information on topics in the business spectrum they really do not provide any value and as such really need to be surgically removed from the market. Myspace and youtube has helped alot with that. Bands are able to get themselves directly to the fans with so much ease these days as a result of these outlets its amazing. Cheers, Timothy