What's Your Songwriting Starter Kit?

[john]

 

Hey everyone!

 

We all have our unique ways of kicking off the songwriting process, and I'm really interested to know more about yours. Whether it's a trusty guitar, a blank piece of paper under a shady tree, or a specific software that gets those creative juices flowing, each has its own magic.

 

So, what's your go-to instrument or tool when you start working on a new song? Is it the warmth of an acoustic guitar, the versatility of a digital audio workstation (DAW), or something totally unexpected?

 

Share your songwriting starters and let's get to know the diverse ways we all create music. Who knows, you might just inspire someone to try a new approach!

 

Looking forward to your stories and tips!

 

Cheers

 

John

 

[MisterB]

I don't consider myself to be a performing musician these days so I'm coming more from a theory side. I usually start out with Toontrack's EZ Keys 2 to get my chord progression flowing and to start a stylistic path. I usually start out with my own basic chord progression rather than taking one of the built in progressions.  I feel it's more my song rather than Toontracks this way. The ones that come with EZ keys are great, and i think if i start with one of theirs, i'm likely to end up using it exactly as presented and that kind of diminishes the feeling of writing my own song. Then I'll add Synthesizer V to start noodling around a lyric and melodyline to get the basic tune for the various sections. I'll add other instruments as I feel the need and build my song in a pretty random and haphazard fashion. I sometimes work on lyrics inside Google Docs so I have them no matter which machine I'm on. I have in the past used Chorus for lyric writing too. It's pretty good really, but I'm not a fan of the subscription model so I don't keep my account paid up every month.

I add effects as I write as I find that a kind of produced sound is inspiring.

Edited April 3 by MisterB