The Stimulus and how to apply it?

[f'nar f'nar]

Ok, so I want to write a new song, but i dont want it to be shallow, empty and meaningless like my others. Sure, they where ok, but I wanna feel what I'm playing about.

So, my question to you my friends is: A stimulus can be anything yes? So once I find one, how do I apply it? I mean, I can say yeh, "this song is about 'such-a-thing' ", but I want to be able to say "This RIFF means this, and this is how I feel about it."

[chardin]

<humor>
What's wrong with shallow and empty? Isn't that the basis of most rock and roll songs?
</humor>

James Jamerson said (paraphrase) "I see a flower move and I want to play a certain way." Flea said (paraphrase again) "Imagine that someone gave you a glass of orange juice but it was really piss. How would that affect your playing?"

So you found a riff you like. What made you play that riff? What is going on in your life at that moment? Is it built up aggression? A peaceful, easy feeling? (apologies to the Eagles) Put those feelings into words. Use your anger Luke. Or for more fun, run your lyrics through a vocoder using your bass line as a carrier. Also, you don't need a lot of lyrics, especially for prog-rock.

Have fun.

[powerslave]

Try to write the music first; then the words, to match what you we're feeling at the time.

That’s where a soulful singer can really make a difference

[Blackbird]

They say there's two kinds of music: good music and music that's performed poorly.

Instead of worrying about the result, just do it and let whatever it is you're feeling come out. Enjoy the process. Write the song without being judgemental. After a few days, months or years, you'll have more experience and might take the sadder songs and make them better.

[Aaron Saunders]

Play what you feel. The more you stress about the song itself, the harder it's going to be to write!

[Correlli]

you'll find that some of the best songs ever written in modern music, where written to a formula.

Once you get the formula or pattern right, then apply the feeling to it.

The next thing to do is get a hook.

For example, the beatles would use 2 or 3 words and brake them down into the syllabals, then apply a bunch of notes to it. How you apply the notes to each syllabal is very important. And the funny thing is, that the words could mean absolutely nothing to the writer. The words could have even been used from there favorate novel. It all just patterns.

Pa-per-Back-Wri-ter

Yel-low-sub-ma-rine

Look into more about how the beatles wrote songs. It was all just clever patterns.

[powerslave]

Originally Posted by Kiwi Kid

you'll find that some of the best songs ever written in modern music, where written to a formula.

Once you get the formula or pattern right, then apply the feeling to it.

The next thing to do is get a hook.

For example, the beatles would use 2 or 3 words and brake them down into the syllabals, then apply a bunch of notes to it. How you apply the notes to each syllabal is very important. And the funny thing is, that the words could mean absolutely nothing to the writer. The words could have even been used from there favorate novel. It all just patterns.

Pa-per-Back-Wri-ter

Yel-low-sub-ma-rine

Look into more about how the beatles wrote songs. It was all just clever patterns.

I like that, there is a lot of truth to your example and it does work very well when you are writing everything. I’ve used a similar approach but what you have noted is really a cool way to do that, I’d like to try that approach, as long as I don’t sound like the beatles..

[Correlli]

All you have to do is apply a different Feel to the structure. This could Light or Dark, or shades in between.

I also forgot to mention Rhythm.

So you have the:

Pattern - Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7 etc

Rhythm - 1, 2, 3, 4 _ 1, 2, 3, 4 etc

Feel - Light (maj) <-> Dark (min), Shading (7th, 6th, dim5, +5, 11th, 9th, sus4, sus7 etc...)

Word - Do, La, ba, fa, ra, su...

[  C - D - E - F - G  ]  + Rhythm
[ Yel-low-sub-ma-rine ]  + Feel

The possibilites are ENDLESS. It could go forever if you want it to.

Sorry if it looks confusing. I'm still trying to get my head around it too.