Hello there

[CalEliteCoach]

My name is Kelly and I am a 47 year old musician. I primarily play the bass guitar. I stopped playing music for awhile and I picked it back up about 6 years ago. I like to play rock, grunge and metal style music, but I find myself listening to broader genres. Before this pandemic, I was playing live music about once a month. I am here to improve my songwriting and composition. I feel I know 100's of songs, but I struggle with developing riffs into full song ideas. 

[john]

Hey vKelly,

 

Welcome to Songstuff! I look forward to hearing your songs. Do you record at home, commercial studio, mix?

 

What sort of elite coach are you?

[CalEliteCoach]

I do record at home. My setup is basic. My bass or guitar signal into a Line 6 Helix audio interface, USB to PC. I use Cakewalk (DAW) and EZ Drummer to lay down drum tracks. I coach gymnastics in Southern California. 

Edited July 18, 2020 by CalEliteCoach

[CalEliteCoach]

It is my goal to write original music in the rock genre and share it with friends. I have only ever contributed bass lines to music projects I have worked with over the years. I am self taught musician. My experience with formal lessons lasted about 1 year. I received some music theory in highschool and picked up things here and there from the net or youtube. 

 

Recently, I have been collaborating online with friends. We are beginning to write an album piece by piece through dropbox or email. Usually a basic scratch track is provided and we record our ideas and someone else then assembles it to a demo version. This is very different than guys sitting in a room and writing together and jamming something out.

 

The reason I am here is that I have written about 10 riffs or ideas for MY original songs usually with a bass line, guitar, and drums. I would like some guidance to help me complete these ideas. Mostly, I would like to know what guides the process of songwriting. For example, if I write a riff and I believe it's good for a chorus or a verse how do I connect them? Do you just keep noodling until something fits? Are there basic guidelines that help you fill in the gaps?

 

I will share some of my ideas here and welcome critique. 

[Peggy]

Hi Kelly,

 

Welcome to Songstuff!

 

22 hours ago, CalEliteCoach said:

For example, if I write a riff and I believe it's good for a chorus or a verse how do I connect them? Do you just keep noodling until something fits? Are there basic guidelines that help you fill in the gaps?

 

That's a broad question and can be alot of ground to cover.  I've said the same thing to myself when working on a new song.. of course it has to do with what type of song your creating...  so

 

Noted a couple of ideas not knowing more about your music and for sure there are others to help..

 

A basic exercise.. If you're trying to connect the parts v to c, try playing the last 2 chords of your verse and the first chord of the chorus and make sure that sounds the way you want it.  If it doesn't, back up a couple more chords in the verse make adjustments until you get the sound that works for you. 

 

You can use cadence, like..end the verse on a V chord  that's building energy into the chorus follow by an I chord... have a key change between the song parts, or add a pre-chorus to make the transition. Rhythm, tempo, dynamics, lyrics..

 

Lots of fun just noodling, too

Peggy

 

[Cody]

On 7/18/2020 at 6:06 AM, CalEliteCoach said:

I feel I know 100's of songs, but I struggle with developing riffs into full song ideas. 

me too  

 

Some of my favorite tunes I've written stem just from that issue......just jam one thing with another thing  sometimes it works sometimes not so much  

 

may all the above posts of great information leave you good and thoroughly confused  and welcome!

 

and bass is tough to do well.....I could pretty well plunk along on a piano/guitar ignoring everything, much harder to do with a bass, they're less forgiving if you're playing more than one note/rest