What Do You Start With?

[baloo]

When writing your songs what exactly do you (the readers) start with? do you get that crazy riff idea and work off that til it becomes something. do you make a beat and go from there? do you groove on your bass til you find somethin funky? or do you sing the lyrics first and take that path?

personally, i either sing or take my bass. considering i have a hard time with guitar malfunctions i use my bass to create chords and riffs.

[neoism]

well, apparently either of the way you mentioned works !

[TheBrewer]

On my side, it always starts with a phrase that goes with a melody in my head... Then, from there, i begin to build up a chorus by starting with the chords first, decide the subject i'll talk about and then i go with the rest of the phrases that complete the rest of the chorus.

Now from there, i build up the entire musical structure of the song, and after all that, i write the rest of the song...

I would say it's like that 90% of the time...

Salut!

[baloo]

nice answers

[Jim622]

Depends - sometimes its a phrase. Sometimes a riff or progression puts something to mind.

Jim

[PaulErik]

Hi,

I try not to get hung up on any specific style. I need to listen to the mood of the riff/idea and, vocal melody before I start writing lyrics. I also try to break things down to bass notes to get an idea of how I want the rhythm to flow. When I can I try to work with ideas without playing guitar. It opens up for writing without physical boundaries. Parts can be rehearsed later when you know what you are looking for. imho. 8^)

Cheers

paul

[MikeRobinson]

It bears considering that often whatever you start with, is not what you finish with. Professional (prose...) writers emphasize that "writing is rewriting," and I think that's true. Whatever it is that you "start with," it's pretty unlikely that you'll stare at it in wonder and say, "there it is ..."

So, be easy on yourself, and pragmatic: don't harbor that expectation.

It's much more likely that you'll have a pile of rock with a glint of color here and there. Grab a bucket, 'cuz the work is just now beginning. ("10% inspiration and 90% perspiration...")

If you now sort-through and polish what you have, while keeping your ears open for other musical thoughts to add to the mix, discarding nothing permanently, a finished product just might pop up that ... you think is very good and that you do not entirely recognize.

(In the process, you might have come up with other ideas that, even though they don't seem to fit here, now, might well find a place in something else someday.)

I'm not nearly good enough at this crazy thing to really know what I'm doing, but I can say that after whacking on a musical mechanism for way too long, and getting my face soaked with too much oil, and really getting rather pissed at the song (frankly...) because nothing seems to be panning out ... ... suddenly ... ... "there it is." Oh, it might not turn heads downtown (I do live in Nashville, and around here hope does spring eternal ...), but, by gawd, it's good to me.

Edited September 26, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[carlrich]

As I can't write actual music yet I'll give you some input on how I write lyrics (or at least attempt to!). I normally start off with a title, then I look at this title and come up with a concept. After which I write down words that could be associated with said concept. Then I look at the the song structure and looking at the words I wrote down work on the chorus and then the verses. Then I'll look out to see if a bridge and/or pre-chorus is needed and finally review the whole lyrics.

I'm sure we all have different ways, but that's what I do.

[MisterMyGo]

I never sit down and say, "Right, today I'm going to write a song". I've always found it important to wait for inspiration to find me, rather than chasing after something that isn't there.

I might be washing the dishes, walking round a supermarket, mowing the lawn or lifting weights, at some point an idea will start to form. Most often it's a combination of lyric and melody, maybe a rhyming couplet with a tune that naturally gels with it. It's only at this point that I will pick up my guitar and start to to flesh the song out. I will then generally write the song in one sitting, if I'm struggling to generate enough ideas to finish it then it usually gets ditched and I move on to the next idea.

The next step, for me, is quality control. I write the lyrics in my notebook (I never notate the melody) and leave the song for a week or two. If, when I return to it, the melody bursts back into my mind and I can remember exactly how the song is supposed to sound then it's a good song and worth keeping. If I look at the lyrics with a furrowed brow and can't recall the tune then it must have been a load of rubbish and it gets thrown on the scrapheap.

I think one of the most important aspects of writing is to have the courage to dispose of ideas that aren't working, they clog up your mind and can prevent you from exploring new avenues.

[MisterMyGo]

for aspiring songwriters, there is a absolutely no downside to keeping a record of your ideas....good & bad. Hopefully I haven't offended you, but every time I hear someone suggest this type of thing, I absolutely cringe.

Tom

Don't worry Tom I'm pretty thick-skinned, so absolutely no offence taken. I just find it much easier to make progress when I focus on the positives and work on the songs that I truly love rather than spending too much time struggling with things that aren't really going anywhere.

After all, I mostly make music for my own enjoyment so if I'm going to dedicate time to recording tracks it's much more pleasurable for me to play the tunes that move me the most.

Stuart.

[baloo]

ahhh nice yall its great to see where/how people go thru their songwriting process! pretty intersting answers

[RodChandler]

For myself, I have no one set way. I used to get a lyric idea first, but now as I am getting better on my guitar, I'm finding that I write off of progressions or riffs more often now. I recently picked up my first bass and have even managed to start a song on it. But sometimes I get a melody come to me while humming and go from there.

It can start from anything, but the one constant is that no matter how the idea begins, it usually gets worked on from all different angles before it becomes a finished song.

[thatguy431]

I always wonder how other people go about creating things. For me, I have no regular method. Some days while staring out the windows in my all too important college classes, I'll have some rhythmic idea, then I get home, record the rhythm and play random stuff on top of it, then write some, more or less, meaningless words that mesh. Other days I'll be bored and pick up my guitar, bass, or ukulele and play whatever my fingers decide, and sometimes there's an interesting idea that could be turned into a song. Other days I'll just be thinking to myself and some words (that are more or less meaningless) will pop into my mind and ill say "how funny, that should be a song" then I put some chords to it find a rhythm and so on. I can't say which method produces better songs, because, I think everything I make is pretty trash, but it's all fun. The one common theme here, though, is that I don't force anything. I let something appear before me and nab it before it goes away again. I've tried to sit down and say "I want to write a song" and that method has never worked for me...though I could see it working if you do it a lot.

[MikeRobinson]

I guess it could be said that I collect books on writing. But still, to me, one of the very best of these is Stephen King's "On Writing." Because in that book he presents both the original and a final version of a short story ... and the original draft is "nothing much."

... here's a fellow who's made a fortune from one best-selling novel after another and ... he ... writes ... "nothing much."

That was very enlightening to me.

In other words: it wasn't all about "what Stephen King wrote the first time." Instead, it was all about what Stephen King finally delivered to his publisher.

Big difference!!!

The only perfectly-polished vixen who ever appeared fully-formed (and, let the record show, "utterly starkers ... ") from a clam-shell was Venus.

The rest of us creative types are, I suppose, "on our own."

Every time we listen to a song on the radio (say...), we're always listening to the finished version of the song, and if the songwriter (and the producer and the musicians and the recording engineer ...) did their job, it's bloody-well perfect. But it's absolutely impossible to tell (if they did their job well ...) just how much "blood, sweat, and tears" actually went into it.

So, what's "the bottom line" for the songwriter? Heh... "You're off the hook!!" You don't have to "get it right the first time," because nobody (... other than Venus, of course ...) ever actually does. Or, ever actually did.

Or... ever actually expected to.

Creativity is a process. When you get to the end of the road, you get to admire the destination while blissfully forgetting the journey itself. Meanwhile, persevere.

We all start at the same place: an utterly blank page. Perhaps an instrument in an utterly silent room. Where can we go from there? Absolutely anywhere. Take me there.

Edited November 18, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[heartofglasses]

I start with droning chords or notes on organ or piano, so for me it is definitely a mood thing. Sometimes I have no idea what scale I'm even using. It is all very freestyle. See my topic here on this tricky subject:

I build the melody by singing nonsense over the droning, and then I turn that into lyrics. Then I add percussion. Then I go back and re-record everything in the proper tempo. Then my keyboard player makes my droning into actual notes and melody, luckily for me (I am a terrible piano player, I just get songs stuck in my head that I need to get out, and the band appreciates that I take the initial steps in the process).

[farouk2music]

What I have done for most of my songs is I mess around on my guitar for that particular melody, riff, or chord progression that draws me in, and them I write lyrics on it. Usually the mood of my playing (tempo, etc) dictates what I write about and how I write it. This isn't set in stone, but ive been doing this most of the time.

[LilOrange]

Mostly I get a melody in my head and then I try to find lyrics to it, but sometimes I also give myself a theme, like " I want to make a song about...idk....homesickness" etc.

[vivies]

Hi baloo,

To me, the most important things are melody and lyrics. Then comes the harmonization, modulations, the structure of the wole song, and lastly the orchestration.