Writing a song

[musicthom]

Let's resurrect this topic and bring it back to john's first list:

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

3.At what point do you start recording?

1. myself i start with a guitar riff and develop from there ususaly singing some lyrics along most time s the lyrics change as the riff progresses i only picked up a guitar a few months ago as all i ever did in the past was sing but i had a few idas running around my head

2. again i start to develop the idea by changing things adding small chord changes looking to better the melody sometimes it works other times it don't

3. and when i think i can do no more of the basics (and or the first time next tue i go to a studio ) and work on the production and i really cant say much more as its not been worked on

[TheSmilingGoat]

well i only write lyrics, my most successful lyrics are allways written in one sitting and from start to finish and the idea allways comes without warning (makes it hard when i think of something and cant write it down)

[Prometheus]

well i only write lyrics, my most successful lyrics are allways written in one sitting and from start to finish and the idea allways comes without warning (makes it hard when i think of something and cant write it down)

One thing I've never been able to do is write lyrics. If my life depended on it I couldn't write a line of lyrics... Gwen, my songwriting partner can scribble down lyrics on demand, but she can't write music, so between the two of us we work pretty efficiently...

[spunkymunkey]

I used to do things the traditional way, pad of paper, guitar and idea, however now I will take the basic idea, chord progression, get happy with it and record it complete.

I will then listen to it and quite often some words will come to mind or stand out as I listen to it, and from that a title will develop. Then with the title I will create the lyrics.

[FinnArild]

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

I usually have a melody or chord progression in my head, then I usually start Cubase and record it with Piano - sometimes pads. Other times I can sit and droodle on the piano and guitar and something interesting will pop up. I can play around a bit with effects or multitrack and get some cool themes going.

Then when the initial idea is in, I often put some bass, drums and other stuff on right away. Sometimes that brings me to other themes - which I then record again. Sometimes I have a song right away, other times I store it as an idea in my - now rather huge - archive of ideas.

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

Then it's the matter of connecting ideas - every now and then I go through them all. I have found it important to make some sort of system for them, so they will be in "prog", "rock", "ballad", "classical" catalogs. Recently I also found out that it was prudent to make mp3 of them all, since opening each one in Cubase to listen to them just took so much time.

When the ideas become songs I move them over to the "finished songs" folder (no lyrics yet, necessarily). When I start a new project I then move them over to a project folder which has categories after the level of how finished the song is: "concept", "lyrics", "arrangement", "recording", "mixing", "mastering"

3.At what point do you start recording?

I work on the recording all the time, but at some point I say I am finished with the melody structure, lyrics and arrangement (which I of course never quite am) - then I start on the actual recordings. I will do these much more thoroughly than the demo recordings, which are often full of bum notes. Sometimes I can use much of the demo part, though.

I imagine this time around I will have a bigger challenge here, since I want to record live drums and will have to adjust the recording to them.

[TimmyMayes]

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

I just started with the lyrcial & melodic portions of songwriting so for the longest time I would just write music. I also strayed away from writing simple chord progressions because if all you are writing is music and not singing its pretty boring to do a simple chord progression. So my old format of writing was to make random chord shapes or create random patterns on the fretboard until i got something I liked. Then I would play it over and over trying different endings to add on the end. I rarely had an idea in my head. I think a big part of this was because I never had a good sense of pitch. Now that I have been working on pitch, vocals and lyric writing I have had alot of ideas that just came to me and were from my head.

My goal is to generally mostly write starting from a melody. That to me is the center of the song. People remember a catchy melody not the bitching guitar solo. Though I'm open to all avenues of creativity. Another facet of focusing more on vocal/lyrical is that I have written more songs that are just simple chord progressions. Which gives me some diversity in the style of my songs.

My biggest frustration right now is writing lyrics for older pieces of guitar music I have. I find I tend to write the melody in such a way that it pretty much just mimics the melody of the guitar line. I really want to create compositions with more of a harmonic diversity. Where the melody is distinctly different from the riff but complementary. If any of you have any tips on how to do this or perhaps areas of music I should study to gain this ability please please please let me know.

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

This is an area I have worked alot on. I have several tools I've developed for lyric writing, I will flesh these out into big long posts with lots of details and maybe some examples. I plan to create some for music writing as I gain a better understanding of theory and a sense of pitch.

3.At what point do you start recording?

I have a very very bad recording setup. However I still record a lot. I have a friend who lives several hours away I will often send him riffs and progressions for him to toy with. I also record blank progressions and put it on my phone/mp3 player so i can listen to it when I have free time and try to be inspired with a melody or some lyrics. I also use my phone's built in voice recorder to capture any melodic Ideas I have randomly throught a day. Even though this technically isn't recording it falls under the same idea. I carry a set of notebooks with me everywhere I go. I write down every lyrical idea i have wether it be a specific lyric or a topic for a song or even just a stylistic idea i'd like to try in a song.

Cheers,

Timothy

[roxhythe]

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

It almost always starts with the music. I don't write the music--I *hear* the music. It will get stuck in my head and eventually will grow words. The lyrics can start from anywhere. Sometimes it'll be an idea someone fed me a while back, sometimes just a question I have to answer; on a couple of occasions, somebody gave me a title that just had to have a song to go with it. Sometimes the snippet I'll have first will be a chorus, sometimes a verse; once, it was a bridge, that morphed eventually into a chorus. I'll usually be able to pick out the hook early on.

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

In a word, no. Some songs are way more organized than others; sometimes I'll spot a pattern developing, and see if I can follow it all the way through the song. Sometimes it just happens. I have only two hard-and-fast rules I set for myself: the song has to be a complete thought--whoever's listening to it has got to be able to say, "Yup, that's about all that needed to be said about *that*." And that complete thought has to be able to be expressed in 3-1/2 to 5 minutes, without any wasted words.

And I will *not* write anything down. I want to be able to remember the whole thing, from beginning to end, because when I do it on stage, there will be no props. I also figure if I can't remember it (when I wake up in the morning, for instance), then it probably was not worth remembering. When I have the lyrics "down," as perfect as they can be, then I'll write it down, and vet it around to some other writers whose opinions I trust, and see what they think.

3.At what point do you start recording?

The very, very end. I will usually have played the song for a live audience first. If they like it, I'll consider recording it (in draft form, on home equipment) so I can expose it to more professional folks and get their opinion. If the song gets requested a lot, it's a candidate for the next album, which will end up being recorded in a professional studio.

Joe

[Trundicho]

@first: I´m not a pro, but I recorded some songs so far... so here´s my gain in experience and my actual recipe of songwriting:

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

nothing of it - I don´t start with: hey, I wanna write a song....

for me, the first step of writing a song is: beeing in a special mood, have a feeling - something you undergo...

then, when I´m sure I wan´t to share this mood with people, then I pick up intruments. after rehearsal, the next step is recording - wich in my eyes is a part of songwriting too. so I record diffrent parts, then compose them. finally mixing and mastering.

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

perhaps experience, but I´m sure and glad: for me, writing a new song is always a new learning process

3.At what point do you start recording?

like said in 1.

greetings!

Edited January 5, 2008 by Trundicho

[ramadhaniyanto]

1. What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

1/ lyrics

2/ rhythm

3/ melody

4/ chords

same applies to me

2. Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

1/ brain dump,

2/ edit

3/ research (google) this means checking dates, facts, details of subject matter. it can take hours

4/ go back to 1 & 2 then finish

still the same applies to me

3. At what point do you start recording?

initial recording is done to save the lyrics and music that i've made, without regard to structure

then after the song is complete (basic lyrics plus chords), i record the piano part and build other instruments around that

My theory is that my brain, which until this point has not been paying any attention to the music, does not know what beat the song is on and therefore automatically assumes that this is the first beat of a measure. Thus it cannot recognize what its hearing. This combined with the fact that I'm hearing one or two notes, hardly enough enough to identify what key the song is in gives my brain a lot of musical freedom. It then extrapolates so that the song emphasizes that beat.

Regardless, could be an interesting songwriting approach. Playing a brief clip of a song that isn't the first beat while you're watching tv so that you only hear one or two notes and then writing as if what you heard was beat one.

so that's what happens well, explains a lot then, as i suffer from this symptom also [smiley=thumb.gif] (which will be dubbed further on as "the mark effect")

[Nigel]

What way do you find most productive to start writing a song? Do you start with a song concept? Do you start with lyrics? Melody? Rhythm?

For me this varies, sometimes it can be from just messing about on the guitar and hitting upon a chord sequence that sounds nice and a lyric will jump into my head. Other times I get a phrase or line for a lyric and build it up from there. The other night just before going off to sleep I had an idea leap into my head for the medody and first two lines of the lyric. I´m working on this song at the moment.

Do you have a common way of developing your original idea?

For me this can vary from song to song. Sometimes I get an idea in my head the way I want a song to go but then as I´m writing the lyrics it takes a different direction. Each time can be different. Hey ho!

At what point do you start recording?

With the song I mentioned above I have only written the first 2 or 3 verses and have not even worked on the chorus yet but I have the chord structure worked out on guitar for the verses and even at this point I have layed down the chords in Band in a Box and begun to work the arrangement of the song. But I must admit this is a first, normally I would have completely written the song out and played it over and over before even attempting to record it.

Well that´s how I do things anyway.