How many songs do you write a year?

[pyromaniak2k]

i know thats well off the current topic but the thread says "how many songs..."

[Alistair]

i only started playing guitar and writing in october 04 and since then have written 8 but have only recorded 5(6?) coz the otherones are either crap or in a key that i cant sing in...maybe should revise them ones n see if i can slavage anything

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Use a capo to change the key so you can sing it.

[tgrover]

Use a capo to change the key so you can sing it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

or trying tuning half step down to e flat

[Alistair]

Very stevie ray!

[oleaw]

Finished one song completely,

Finsihed one which may need som revising,

continued on one which I started on last year,

...and have started on two new songs

For me that is quite productive :-P

[Alistair]

I'm up to 9 finished songs for the year and am working on two more at the moment. I reckon to average about 1 a month.

[phantomengineer]

I'm around 30 for '05. Up from 25 for '04

[hariossa]

unbelievable... 30 songs!!!

I envy you guys

[tgrover]

20 so far this year. all recorded and finished as well. Been a productive year for me

[Steve]

Well I hate you all.....

[Alistair]

Well I hate you all.....

Since my 'Renaissance' in October 2003, when I started writing songs again after more or less 15 years off, I have averaged one a month. The longest gap in all that time has been 4 months. Some of them seem to find me without me looking for them. Strange.

[Alistair]

unbelievable... 30 songs!!!

I envy you guys

I think that when you start out you are experimenting more, and it is all new to you. The longer you do it, the harder it is to be innovative. And.you.just.don't.have. as. much.time!

[tgrover]

Took me a while to find my feet, but this year i have just found my style and just increased my ability on the guitar enough to open up a new world of songs. I think thats why this year has gone so well for me.

[hariossa]

I think that when you start out you are experimenting more, and it is all new to you. The longer you do it, the harder it is to be innovative. And.you.just.don't.have. as. much.time!

yeah, time is not on my side right now.

I'm not prolific, but slowly steady...

I just can't quit

[phantomengineer]

I definitely agree with the statement that you write more when you first start writing. In 2002-2003, during my first period songwriting, i wrote dozens about dozens of dreadful ditties. Now i'm down to 2-3 dozen a year. Still quite a bit, but I have decreased my output. And I also feel that it gets harder and harder to think of interesting things to say, and interesting ways to say it.

[Donna]

First: to Atom, are you still blocked? One time that I was, I wrote about it. I wrote about what being blocked felt like...and that was the end of that block, anyway. I wrote it as a love song, to music itself, how bereft I was without making songs. I love that tune still, even play it quite often.

I've written about 3 this year, I think. Contrary to me blank-ing about not having written anything new, just too wary to let 'em out til I get the library of congress thing.

Allistair, good to know about your years-long break - maybe I need goats to completely turn my tide! I have found tho with the lower output that can come w/ time, they are more keepers than not.

[rittman]

I'm not a musician but I've had around 150 collabs since 1999, none of them bad, about 100 are very very good, and 17 of them are among the bests songs I've ever heard anywhere!!! I written over 3500 lyrics, now some of them are trash, but in the last three years or so I'd say most of them work pretty well, a couple of dozen or so are classics!!! Obviously I have a large backload of lonely lyrics, to wit I've been branching out more with my collabs, most run smoothly; my basic criteria is overtly anal musicians need not apply...

Edited December 21, 2005 by rittman

[Alistair]

First: to Atom, are you still blocked? One time that I was, I wrote about it. I wrote about what being blocked felt like...and that was the end of that block, anyway. I wrote it as a love song, to music itself, how bereft I was without making songs. I love that tune still, even play it quite often.

I've written about 3 this year, I think. Contrary to me blank-ing about not having written anything new, just too wary to let 'em out til I get the library of congress thing.

Allistair, good to know about your years-long break - maybe I need goats to completely turn my tide! I have found tho with the lower output that can come w/ time, they are more keepers than not.

Donna

The goats came later and are the vehicle for my musings. But I agree, I write fewer, better songs now. This year I have written 11 finished songs and am just so close to finishing another to make it one a month on average but I don't think I am quite going to make it. It doesn't matter, I'll finish it when I finish it. I'm happy with that level of output. I wrote 15 last year but with hindsight maybe two thirds are good and 3 or 4 are better than that.

Funnily enough, I looked through my songbooks the other day and between the years 1988 and 2001 there were only three years where I wrote nothing at all. But some years I only wrote one song and my mind was elsewhere so I consider that time a wilderness period. I wrote some good songs before that, but my great ones have been written since.

[Alistair]

In January, we shall have to have a final reckoning and see how many songs we all wrote. Not a competition, just out of interest.

[Malcious123]

Normally, I'd write about 33 a year, and compose music for 2 of them. This year its different because I've written 27 songs and composed 35.