Song topics

[Idiot]

I need some topics to write about as I'm on a creative block. Please help 

[Mac Wilkey]

On 5/29/2020 at 6:14 PM, Idiot said:

I need some topics to write about as I'm on a creative block. Please help 

Sitting here thinking with my left blinker blinking. GO FOR IT

[MikeRobinson]

How about writing a song about creative block? 

 

You could have great fun with a song called, say, "I Just Can't Think Of A Song [About You]."  😄

 

(When it's a hit, please remember to cite me as a co-writer ...)

[Idiot]

On 6/1/2020 at 5:46 PM, MikeRobinson said:

How about writing a song about creative block? 

 

You could have great fun with a song called, say, "I Just Can't Think Of A Song [About You]."  😄

 

(When it's a hit, please remember to cite me as a co-writer ...)

Got it man. Lol

[john]

My guess is it isn’t so much the topics so much as message and perspective.

 

Are you completely stuck and can’t get started, or are you able to write a verse or chorus and then dry up?

[Roland Vega]

Sometimes I write a song and the lyrics come easy. But I just started a song and I can’t get past the first verse.

[john]

1 hour ago, Roland Vega said:

Sometimes I write a song and the lyrics come easy. But I just started a song and I can’t get past the first verse.

look at your verse, perhaps you have said all you had to in that first verse. That’s a really common reason for what I think of as “verse block”. Ie you reached the natural end of the story or issue etc.
 

The trick is to take that verse, split up the lines across new verses. So, say you have a 4 line verse, lines: A, B, C, & D. If you plan 4 verses, then distribute them as A goes to verse 1 line 1, B goes to verse 2 line 2, C goes to verse 3 line 3 and D goes to verse 4 line 4. Now gow back and write the in-between lines. If you only want 3 verses perhaps A&B go in verse 1. Or B&C go in verse 2 or C&D go in verse 3.

 

Make sense?

[snabbu]

On 6/13/2020 at 10:52 AM, Roland Vega said:

Sometimes I write a song and the lyrics come easy. But I just started a song and I can’t get past the first verse.

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

 

 

 

[MikeRobinson]

Great thoughts, Gary.

 

Another key thing, I think, is: "don't throw anything away!"  When you're working out a song that – one day – will be enjoyed in its entirety as though it "just happened that way," you need to realize that the actual process consists of decision-making.  Venus might have popped up out of a giant clamshell on the beach – fully-formed and fully starkers(!) – but creativity never works that way.  You start with an idea and then you choose how to develop it.

 

Remember:  when you pick up a book, it's a finished book.  When you listen to a song, remember it has been spit-shined.  When you admire Michelangelo's David, you won't find a single chisel-mark anywhere.  All signs of the process have been removed.  But that doesn't mean the process wasn't there.  (There was a point in time when David was a boulder, and we'll never know if there were defects in the rock that required a creative change-of-plans.)  That book/song/statue is the way that it now is because of endless choices, each one of which could have been made many different ways.  (And, probably was!)

 

Key Point: "There are forks in the road ... and all of them are good."  As you work to develop [this version of ...] "your song," ultimately you're going to finally select one path.  But you might well have set aside many alternatives ... "not this song, not this time."  The process of creativity is not deterministic:  there is no "inevitable conclusion."  There is no "one right" answer.  Something that "absolutely did not pan out this time" might be the perfect thing next time.  At any time in the future you might to go back to that "collection of parts" and stitch them together in some new and different way ... as long as you kept them!

 

Another tidbit:  "When you're just relaxing, just fooling around, turn on the Voice Recorder on your phone!"  Record the session, then carefully file-away the file.  Just make this a habit – no, make it a religion.  Every now and again, pick one of those recordings and listen again to it.  (You might be amazed.)  "If your creativity produced anything, it deserves to be saved!"

 

(Likewise:  "a tune wanders through your head ... "reach right now for your phone, punch that record-button and start humming!"  Five minutes from now it will be gone forever unless you do.)