Basically, tell how your band operates in song development. What instrument comes first? last? Do you like the way your band creates songs? Etc. etc.

I'm thinking this might be some help to people just starting out. (Who knows if this will actually be helpful.)

all that happens at my bands jam sessions, is if someone has a riff made up, they play it. then, if it is good, all is added in, structure devoloped, then some lyrics are wrote. thats how most our songs are made...

My band was making too much money ;) ,so we commissioned writers to write and arrange songs for the band - as there are 13 -14 people in the band, arrangments are the big thing and hardest to get right.

So we paid Alex Wilson, who won the BBC best Jazz newcomer award and who leads his own Latin band as well as playing with big bands in the UK, to write us a couple of songs and come to Brighton to explain them and lead some workshops.

So - a lot of Latin American music is based on the percussion and Alex featured things like the "caballero" rhythm for congas - he also wrote us a Merengue song which he titled "La Playa " as we are based on the Sussex Coast! ;)

We also comissioned a Brazilian songwriter Iffe Tolueno, to write us a big-band Samba with vocals.
Parts of this are again built on percussion - so it starts with the Brazilian Pandeiro and has a batucada break where everybody play percussion - although Iffe suggested I play a Surdo "impression" on bass!!

We also have three or four writers/arrangers in the band, who bring written parts along - usually they have parts printed out from software like Sibelius, for each member of the band.

Im in a ska band with four horns (trumpet trombone 2sax)
songs normally come in from one persons idea and at different levels
our guitarist likes to write almost the whole song, horn lines and hrmonies, chord progressions etc.
the rest of us mainly bring in a couple of riffs for the horns and a chord progression
these then get worked on, added to, twisted in various different ways with input from everybody until the song is done
we then all sit around and write the lyrics as a group

im a big fan of everything being done as a group
there may be nore arguments but the songs turn out better and more fun for everyone cos everyone has sumthing of there own in there

we've done the "rif thing", where the song is built from a basic progression and we've also had songs brought in from each member (with words/chords already written). This has worked well too because none of us has issue with changes being made to our stuff---besides that's what gives the whole group ownership of it. We've even got a drummer who writes stuff!;)

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
My band was making too much money ;) ,so we commissioned writers to write and arrange songs for the band - as there are 13 -14 people in the band, arrangments are the big thing and hardest to get right.

Damnit, Bruce, that's cheating!! :D

BTW, Mr Lindfield, this is exactly the sort of thread that would be suitable for you-know-what... :D

You mean the Music Theory that Alex Wilson and Iffe Tolueno explained to us in their workshops? ;)

Actually, the way the question is worded, fits perfectly under band management!

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
You mean the Music Theory that Alex Wilson and Iffe Tolueno explained to us in their workshops? ;)

No! The question was:

Basically, tell how your band operates in song development. What instrument comes first? last? Do you like the way your band creates songs? Etc. etc.

This isn't theory! But I'm not getting into another ****ing argument, so there the matter ends. This is not a theory thread.

You will now be returned to your scheduled thread on approaches to songwriting, folks...

Well if you know the theory behind arranging songs the you can get it right first time - otherwise you can do it by trial and error as this suggests, but take longer, make mistakes etc.

Theory - just helps you explain how it's done and is a way of documenting what works and what doesn't - so you don't have to start from scratch every time!

usually, i come up with a bunch of riffs and chord progressions and play them for our drummer to find a beat for each section, then i explain the song to the guitarist and give him chords, then we play through as a band and decide on structure of the songs.

my guitarist or myself comes up with a part, we see what the other guy is doing, and jam on it. our singer goes into his notebook to find something that fits, and we just let our drummer do his thing and figure it out for himself (we don't really talk to him:D ). usually if my guitarist writes the verses, and we need a chorus part, i'll make it. we just take what the other person has and try to complement it; that's what it's all about.

recently i have been stting in front of my computer and making up my compositions in midi

Im trying to be succesful with a recently-created band. We are three "musicians": two guitars and me, the bass player. Two of us write all lyrics...now about 3...lolz, and after reading all this topic maybe we have to change our minds.
we are spanish and write lyrics before music. Now we are trapped in the way we could introduce music to our lyrics...its not an easy thing for us, novicers, but we´ll do it someday i hope.
Any comments or advices plz...here

I am playing with a new band for the past few months. The music we play is hard to describe, kind of like reggae-acid jazz-hiphop fusion. About ten pieces more or less, depending on who shows up. Players range in age from 19 to 60.

We get together and just jam and improvise and tape everything. The singer has a bunch of lyrics he has written and he will match our grooves with his lyrics. We listen to the tapes after the session and pick out the good parts and build songs around them, adding intros and bridges.

This method is working really well for us. I like to call it organic music.

It has been interesting gigging with this band. The first few gigs we had absolutely no material. We just got up and jammed and made up songs live. Scary but fun. The last gig we did we had a couple of songs kind of tight but still a lot of improvised material. People seem to like what we do so we must be doing something right.

Our singer writes all our songs (chord progressions and lyrics)...but we still play our own riffs, or change the rhythm/tempo, etc., plus sometimes we'll change the way a chorus/verse/bridge is played entirely (incl. chords if necessary) if we have a better idea. We also suggest ideas to each other too...our lead guitarist will tell me to try playing certain things at times and vice versa.

We've tried writing songs without our singer, and we can jam on instrumental stuff sometimes, but we've pretty much accepted that our singer is the songwriter in the group, and that's cool with us...his songs are really good...except for the "I love spaghetti" song he played yesterday. :rolleyes:

I have so far only been in three bands that played original material in its set lists, out of the many bands that I have been in.

First band, an amateur high school outfit I played lead guitar in, both myself and the singer/rhythm guitar player wrote songs. We'd bring in songs already written, with the lyrics and chord sequences written out on notebook paper not unlike how some cats post chord tabs on the internet now, and play them in front of the rest of the band to give an idea of how they should go.

Second band, my first pro outfit, the lead guitarist brought in a song of his own to try out, and he did the same thing.

Third band that used original material, a lot of it came out of jamming, sometimes a couple of us would write a song on the spot and the whole band would arrange it. One song of ours came out of jamming a parody of a riff similar to "Love Removal Machine", only with a different feel in the rest of the head arrangement. Then all four of us wrote the lyrics on the spot, stuck a blank tape in a boom box, and recorded a couple of rehearsals and a couple of straight complete takes of the song for the "demo".

Any future project of mine will probably come out of some rather anal-retentive demos done at home using hard-disk recording (Acid Pro 4.0).

Moral of the story: Whatever works!

Originally posted by szvonek
We've tried writing songs without our singer, and we can jam on instrumental stuff sometimes, but we've pretty much accepted that our singer is the songwriter in the group, and that's cool with us...his songs are really good...except for the "I love spaghetti" song he played yesterday. :rolleyes:

Don't knock it just yet... one band I was in once jammed out a ska song called "Little Rice Krispies" during a practice... thank god the tape was running at the time. It came out pretty good and funny. We even did it live a couple of times!

my band, sometimes its a riff someone brings to practice. occassionally somone will write all the parts, but usually that ends up with people getting mad 'cause they don't like their part.
hopefully we have the old reel-to-reel recorder running to pick up stuff that we play so we dont forget it. Most likely one of us will bring one riff, then we will make the rest of the riffs for the song on the spot, using the original riff as the style guide. I don't even try to do drums, the drummer can figure that out on his own.

Ok, thx you all for your advices...now the guitar player is writing some riffs that sound well so we´ll put it on lyris soon. I have one last qestion...Is it using the root note to support the guitar chord with the bass the most effective way to make a simple bass line? ciao

Originally posted by bassplayer#dan
Ok, thx you all for your advices...now the guitar player is writing some riffs that sound well so we´ll put it on lyris soon. I have one last qestion...Is it using the root note to support the guitar chord with the bass the most effective way to make a simple bass line? ciao

This question would be better answered in General Instruction, and it has been covered many times - try a search.

It really depends on what style of music you're playing. In rock, for example, there are a lot of bass lines that stick with the root, whereas a jazz bass line that stuck with pedal points the whole song would probably not go over too well.

On the whole, I think that it is, in most cases, possible to come up with a line that doesn't stick to root notes, yet flows, serves the song and doesn't step on any toes.

Okz...we play alternative rock or something like that, we are three guitars and me, the bass player. Im the newiest of all members so I let the others write their riffs and then I try to put a very simple rythm with bass. the drummer doesnt make anything more than going trought with the basic 4/4 so the bass has to put the rest on the rythm line. I think ill trya basic line with roots and some variations...ill tell how it was tomorrow
Sorry for my english...im SPanish ;)

Most of our songs are written by one member and distributed to the rest of the guys via powertab. At this point changes are made, rewrites of parts of the song, criticism is given and received.

If it's one of the guitarist's writing, they usually leave the bass line to me unless it's a huge part of the song. If I'm writing I'll do the bass and rhythm guitar but leave most of the lead parts to the lead guitarist. When the drummer writes he does all the parts and is incredibly anal about keeping it that way.

We play alt-rock and with two distorted guitars I stick to the root notes a lot in most songs, throwing in fills where appropriate.

Our songs are put together piece by piece, and laboured over almost over analized.Until the drummer and guitar player are happy with it.

I'm just the hired help. (jokes)
I'd prefer to just do the jam thing, and piece from there.

Our songs are put together piece by piece, and laboured over almost over analized.Until the drummer and guitar player are happy with it.

I'm just the hired help. (jokes)
I'm just the hired help. (jokes)

The guitar player writes a riff and we make sumthin up,
The guitar player writes a riff and we make sumthin up,
oooohhh he writes a riff

Our songs are put together piece by piece, and laboured over almost over analized.Until the drummer and guitar player are happy with it.

I'd prefer to just do the jam thing, and piece from there.

I'm just the hired help. (jokes)
I'm just the hired help. (jokes)


;)
R

Our guitarist does all the writing, I kind of feed off him when coming up with bass lines, I also try to make it different everytime, normalcy sucks.

The guitarist or myself comes up with a riff, or the drummer gets something cool, and we build onto that, and I write the words.

Thank you all, but I still have a question, and it has not been really ansewered by any of you.
You have explained me some ways to mix lyrics and riffs, and that helped me and my group a lot, we have our first song written now...thx. But my next question is: How could a bass player write riffs or licks? I just cant. I play my bass for hours but Im still unable to write anything right. I just play stupid things and even it sounds ok I dont take note of them because I think they could not fix in music or lyrics. Playing bass alone and trying to invent something its a little boring I think.
Another problem: I read my lyrics and try to make a bass line for any of them, but I only follow the words and its stresses so I only sing with my bass...and thats not the thing a bass has to do I think...
Ok, Im confused, plz help again¡¡¡ help me¡¡¡ plz...

i wrote most of the instruments, including of course all of the bass, to the instrumental in my sig, as well as a few other of our songs, and i also wrote many of the instrumental passages to all of our other songs. i also write all of our lyrics except for a song and parts of 2 others.

a bassist can write the riffs just like any other musician would - come up with something. Make Up Something Interesting and Complimentary to other sections of the song ;). here's where knowing music theory really comes in handy - by knowing what kinds of chords and scales work together to suggest certain musical moods, you can build a song like building anything else.

OK, I write almost all of the songs of our group, and know the basics of music theory for bass, scales and chords. I dont find it difficult to write riffs or licks but I cant write things more complicated than the basic, and it sounds really better a simple rithm that supports the guitar chords with root notes on bass. This is what i´ve done in our first sing and its sounds Ok. Maybe it could be simple, very easy playabe but...

I'm confused... are you talking about writing basslines to a song that already has the chord structure figured out or about writing all the instruments from scratch?

I too find bass can be an awfully tough instrument to write a song from, I know how to get creative and construct lines playing with other musicians but when it comes to composing from scratch I almost always write without the instrument in my hands, or with a different instrument.

I have a guitar that I play maybe once every couple months but every time I pick it up I come up with a number of great song ideas within the first few minutes. It's just a different way of thinking. My other most productive area for writing music is while sitting through a lecture at school, strange but true. Look to things other than just your bass for inspiration.

I agree. I also think that bass its awfull to build from cero but its great to build over guitar or something else.
I have some good ideas and I have turned them into bass lines to our songs. I usually write over guitar chords but my partners are a little lazy and I do the most of the work, lyrics and music, but I cant play guitar well so...
Thx you all for all your advices, they have helped me a lot and now im goings in the right way...thx¡

In our band me or the guitar player comes up with a riff. Then we work it out. We play it for the drummer and he makes up parts. Then we suggest, add, subtract, get everything together and practice it alot.

Ok, so you say that knowing music theory is the best way to write songs...
I agree but I think that if you start making noise with your bass finally you could randomly find something fine. One of my last bass lines comes this way, I was playing stupid and nonsense things on my bass and then some good sounds appeared. I take note of them, put it toghether, organized them and wrote a bass line withem.
Anyway, If i take my bass with the idea of making up something, then the ideas dont come so I still prefer the caotic style I use.
In the case we have the guitar chords I think its an easy task writing a bass lines with roots or power chords.

Here's how my terrible nu-metal band typically writes a song:

Guitar player or myself play a riff. Guitarist's riffs tend to be jazzy or classical guitar like. Mine are funky or blues like.

Drummer comes up with basic drums to our riff, making sure we have a solid time foundation to build off.

We jam for a few minutes until both the guitarist and I have parts we like to play, and the drummer has pretty decent drums going.

Singer vetoes guitarist's riff, tells me I'm playing too many notes/in too high of a key/not aggressive sounding enough and dumbs down song to me playing roots and guitar player power-chording them.

Singer insists in song being in the key of C since he can't sing in any other, insists in the song being in 4/4 time, and proceeds to scream lyrics that don't fit with the music well at all.

Singer happy. Rest of band indifferent. Generic song is recorded.

Or, if the singer isn't there:

Guitar player or myself play a riff. Guitarist's riffs tend to be jazzy or classical guitar like. Mine are funky or blues like.

Guitarist suggests a way to make it a little harder to play, so we keep getting better as musicians.

Drummer comes up with basic drums to the new, more difficult part.

Instrumental develops, giving everyone the chance to write in a part they like, and not sounding nu-metal at all.

Next practice, singer declares he hates the song more than anything, and refuses to even try to do anything to it.

Song is scrapped.

...Sorry, I think that turned into more venting than helping...But it felt good to post! :D

Your post made me laugh a lot hehehe...maybe its not helpin but it was funny anyway.
we have the same problem with our singer, when we finally get the bass and guitars music and of course lyrics he comes and says...I dont like it. Its something strange because he always says that but he nevers advices anything so...we get really angry with him. He is also the one who makes less work but criticizes the most.
I think we´ll say goodbye to him someday...soon

Originally posted by Only
Here's how my terrible nu-metal band typically writes a song:

Guitar player or myself play a riff. Guitarist's riffs tend to be jazzy or classical guitar like. Mine are funky or blues like.

Drummer comes up with basic drums to our riff, making sure we have a solid time foundation to build off.

We jam for a few minutes until both the guitarist and I have parts we like to play, and the drummer has pretty decent drums going.

Singer vetoes guitarist's riff, tells me I'm playing too many notes/in too high of a key/not aggressive sounding enough and dumbs down song to me playing roots and guitar player power-chording them.

Singer insists in song being in the key of C since he can't sing in any other, insists in the song being in 4/4 time, and proceeds to scream lyrics that don't fit with the music well at all.

Singer happy. Rest of band indifferent. Generic song is recorded.

Or, if the singer isn't there:

Guitar player or myself play a riff. Guitarist's riffs tend to be jazzy or classical guitar like. Mine are funky or blues like.

Guitarist suggests a way to make it a little harder to play, so we keep getting better as musicians.

Drummer comes up with basic drums to the new, more difficult part.

Instrumental develops, giving everyone the chance to write in a part they like, and not sounding nu-metal at all.

Next practice, singer declares he hates the song more than anything, and refuses to even try to do anything to it.

I believe that is Limp Bizkit's approach too.

then...if limp bizkit has been so succesfull our band could be that succesfull...isnt it? lolz

I am in two bands. In one band, our singer-guitarist writes all the lyrics, guitars, and for the most part determines what feel the bass and drums should create.

In my other band, the singer-bass player (me) writes all the lyrics, bass, and guitar rythms. I don't write the drum tracks, but I hold veto power. ;)

The way that I write songs is that I have a moment when something effects me in some way... I feed off of it, trying to develop my feeling's intensity, then I try to explain my feelings in poetry, and the song develops from there.

As an example... I wrote this a few minutes ago (I hearby copyright it and all that happy-stuff!) :

Oh, we love money
Yeah, we love money
we worship only money
money is our god

yeah sure your son died at school, but you'll feel
so much better when you sue
It's your entitlement
it's your entitlement
think of your retirement
it's your entitlement

Oh, we love money
Yeah, we love money
we worship only money
money is our god

It's great to be so civilized
that we know the price for human life
so our lawyers rewrite every law
money talks and we take the call
and feeding frenzy consumes our souls
but in our greed, we won't even notice... ...or care

It's your entitlement
it's your entitlement
think of your retirement
it's your entitlement

Oh, we love money
Yeah, we love money
we worship only money
money is our god

money is our god
money is our god
money is our god
money is our god

Of course it will be in D Minor, the sadest of all keys. *sniff*

Yeah...we all love money I know...except me ;)
I wrote songs easily and I also write poetry and novels so thats not the problem I think. You helped me a lot, I forgotten the keys and scales so the next time ill wrote bass ill think about feelings and scales...It will be easyer dont you think? Thx

Originally posted by Gabu

Of course it will be in D Minor, the sadest of all keys. *sniff*

:D I love Spinal Tap

I'm two original bands at the moment. One I've been with for about 5yrs. We're all best friends and love to jam together. The drummer is useless, so it's me and guitarist that bounce ideas off of each other. I'll come up with a riff and tell him where I hear it headed and he'll try and come up with something in that direction. (or vice versa) Sometimes he'll go in a different direction. If I like it, I'll go with it. If not I, beat him until he agrees with me. J/k, I just tell him I don't like where it's headed and he respects that. The guitarist also sings, so he writes the lyrics and melody. We also end up writing a good portion of the drum parts.

The other band I'm in is more serious with a kick ass drummer and guitarist/vocalist. Since we've only been together 3mos, we haven't been able to collectively write songs. We've jammed, but no luck with actually writing sons. The guitarist writes all the tunes and we add our parts. Check us out at www.chrislongmusic.com.

I've noticed that the when it comes to writing songs in a collective fashion, there almost always needs to be a leader of sorts. One person needs to have the direction of the song and maybe a riff or two. If I can come up with a part that follows his direction and makes him happy then I've done my job and wrote something that I may have never written without his direction. I've done this many times and the next day thought to myself, "Wow, I wrote that!!" And, the next time I'm a leader for a song in progress, the other guys will respect my direction and try to write something that fits with what I'm hearing in my head. It's all based on respect and listening. I've also been in situations where no one assumes a leadership role and nothing gets written and I feel like I'm wasting my time.

I have been playing bass for about a year now, until this i have never picked up a instrument before, but what i found and enjoy doing and the fact that we dont get together with our guitarist that much considering distance, is the drummer and me will just hang out and start jamming and feed off each other and come up with riffs, then expand on them and decide on what to do for the chorus, verse, solo's, ect. I think it works for us alright and it seems that the guitarist has a lot of options that he can do or go from what i am playing.

Then I have a note book where i write down ideas for songs, alot of time a cool title will pop into my head for a song and i will write it down and come back latter and write words for it, usually only spending maybe 15 minutes on writing it (there pretty ruff sometimes)

Then when we have some riffs that kind of sound like a song, i go to the trusty note book and see if anything fits.

It works alright for us, its fun doing even if a lot of the songs are pretty stuppid, but it gives us experience and hopefully it will become easier as we do more of it and learn from our mistakes.

All of us are new at picking up any kind of instrument , so for all of us, this is a new experience and having a blast.