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I do both because to do one only is limiting. Cheers Gary

You have a planning issue. You are writing with no plan. Traveling with no map you might get there but it may take some time. There are techniques to avoid this. In fact you do not start writing a lyric unless you know it can completed successfully. These are basically a series of decisions. With a dash of inspiration. song writing is complex so it is better broken down into steps if there are difficulties. The answer to your issue is very simple. write a paragraph describing your song idea. Develop at least one hook. If you can not come up with a hook that encapsulates your song idea. Then move on to something else writing songs with no hooks is talking to the wall. You then decide what is your development engine. Some development engines are proscribed by the genre of the song. If it is a story song for example “time line is the most common” one. Whatever you choose this will determine how your story unfolds. The point being it needs to unfold as John said. If it is a story we need a beginning a middle and an end. So let’s say your development engine idea was “depth of questioning “ that is each time you ask the question say “why did you leave me” it gets more intense. So it might be where did you meet him verse 1 why did you feel the need to be with him when you had me. Verse 2 Hiw long have you been sleeping with him before you told me we were over Verse 3 In all of this each of these statements in each of the verses must support and add weight to the hook. So without a hook and probably the chorus written you can’t write the verses. i will see if I can find a free link to a Pat Patterson lecture on this. And post It because there is a little more to it. But once you get your head around how it works you wont have this issue again. And you won’t have to consciously go through the process. You will just do it. The idea is this this happens that happens then it ends up like this, with this surprise in the bridge. Cheers Gary

Language contains melody naturally. if you take a small section of say someone reading the news, and loop it. Then do something else like make a cup of coffee, you will hear the melody in the spoken word. inter verse lyric writers very often write this wrong it is very rarely picked up even when tuned and not sounding quite right. They have a section in one verse that naturally rises the same place in another that naturally falls. This creates a prosody issue, and the lyric never reaches its potential. it is possible that someone who has studied nothing can write melody. It would be the same as someone not taught mathematics discovering multiplication for themselves. Rare, unlikely, a hell of a lot of effort, but possible. Note a well written lyric determines 80% of the melody content. matters determined by the lyric. Genre BPM Rhythm pace Some of the pitch. the melody fir most part starts on the tonic so the listener can know the key it’s in. In the middle of the phrase there needs to be a pause, a musical comma, this is normally the 3rd of the scale and will be a longer duration. At the end of the phrase there needs to be a cadence. The last note of which will be the tonic. The genre you are writing will determine the other note. the natural form of the language will determine some of the intervening notes. And of course there is pattern variation and repeat. So when you have two bars of notes you have the whole section. Because it’s repetitive with variations. I would see maybe once a month a lyric posted in a forum where I go oh yea that goes like this. Cheers Gary

Well hello Ms Monk long time no see. Cheers Gary

With mastering. Look I'm making something now I am just waiting for the final vocals and I'm going to try something. I will send it out for mastering, but I am going to try something myself. (1) check it with a spectrum analyser for frequency balance (2) EQ to smooth out the frequency response (3) EQ to match the tone of my reference tracks. (4) Check result with matching EQ (5) Using a limiter with input and output volume linked so that when you push up the limiting the volume stays the same. Limit level -0.5 db. I will push up the input volume. I am going to listen until something obvious deteriorates. Like say the hit on a snare etc depending on the song. Then back the limiting off until that deterioration is not heard. Then I will unlink the input and out put volumes and that will be my mastering. No multi pressers no exciters no imagers just EQ and limiting. I will then compare what I can achieve with the professionally mastered version in the most common format Mp3 and see what the difference is. Cheers Gary

That is the way to do it otherwise you'd be forever doing subtractive EQ you'l be loosing tone quality to get rid of the untreated room reflections. And the result will never sound professional. And think about this it forces you to rehearse the thing so when you do go into a studio with your guide vocal down in the mix your performance is going to be better that it would be in the bedroom because there's an urgency there to get it down and done. Cheers Gary

If you prepare your tracks with the focusrite, like the bass and electrics can go DI and its no a big deal once you treat them. Acoustic guitar, I would take my mac and my focusrite to the studio plug it in and record the guitar microphone and DI on two tracks. So you can emulate these to stereo and have four unaffected tracks of guitar. Then sing the vocals. In the studio. Then take it all home and work with it. It is extremely difficult to get a pro vocal sound or any acoustic instrument sound in an untreated room. Those reflection shields are a waste of money as well. So find somewhere that will do that for you at an hourly rate. If you use off peak times, $35 to $50 an hour sounds about right for here. Im not sure about there. If you have rehearsed your stuff well you should be able to do three tracks in two hours. All you are after is the treated room if you like the ribbon you have use that as well. You really don't even need the engineer. Just take your laptop into the sound booth. Cheers Gary

I got hold of a track last week the logic X project file so I went poking around to look at the process chain etc. the lead vocal had the main track and five doubles. Cheers Gary

What I mostly noticed was the lack of doubles rather than the tuning. cheers Gary

In that instance the person at pronoun is stressed rather than the noun to make a point. ie your asking too much and I'm not the one for you. " it ain't ME babe" and that is a normal exception. And you can do whatever you like as long as there is a good and valid reason for doing it. Cheers Gary

In a word prosody. When the melody, the harmony, the lyric, the groove,the arrangement, the performance the, production, are all saying the same thing. Then we have communication on all levels, that to me is a great song. cheers Gary

It used to be simultaneously for me, but now it's lyrics first.

Music is the most important, which is hardest depends on your natural talents. Having said that a properly crafted lyric combined with basic music theory determines 80 percent of the music content. The groove the speed the chord pattern are pretty much proscribed by the lyric. Melodic tension and release also, theory has its cadences to be dealt with, types of pattern repetition so there are only a few notes to actually put in out of choice. Cheers Gary

I read a theory somewhere that the number of chords used can affect the perceived speed of a song. Being that fewer chord changes were slower more were faster. So in that case you could have a chord go for four bars unchanged Then two bars of the next chord Then one bar of the third chord Etc to accelerate you into the chorus In addition it's an issue of prosody that is the overarching consideration. If there is tension in the lyric line maybe there needs to be tension in the chord to support it. On the other hand " the ballad of Hollis Brown" has a lot of tension and the whole thing is Em, and it sings convincingly. I do know if you combine tension in the chord with tension in the lyric, and back heavy or weak bar phrasing it all seems to work to get her to convey emotion. So I would say it's a prosody/ genre issue. Cheers Gary