What instrument for songwriting?

[Sneckumhaw]

I write mostly on the bass (maybe why my songs are all kind of odd).

I'm a little curious what other writers or aspiring writers in the bass playing community like to use for writing.

[markjazzbassist]

bass, guitar, voice, and sax for me.

[Sneckumhaw]

Cool, I wish I was that versatile.

[Ray Holt]

Guitar, piano, voice, and sometimes on staff paper (took a few years of music theory).

[Sneckumhaw]

Originally Posted by Ray Holt

Guitar, piano, voice, and sometimes on staff paper (took a few years of music theory).

Very cool, that's the one skill I want more than anything, including being a great bassist.

[Jared Lash]

My current band approaches songwriting as more of a group process, so when somebody comes in with an idea, we all work on developing it. Consequently, I do most of my writing these days on bass or (to a lesser extent) acoustic guitar.

In my favorite (and most sucessful) band we would generally bring much more defined ideas to the table, so I wrote on several instruments depending on what I thought the song needed: bass, guitar, piano, mandolin, cello, or even accordian.

That was the most versatile band I was ever in as I can play a number of instruments and yet I often times felt outclassed by every other member of the group, either due to their virtuosity on a given instrument, or their ability to play a number of instruments far better than I ever could.

[Hoover Johnson]

I chose other: brain

Basic idea of vocals, bass, guitars and drums in my head, try to get as much of the concept out to my band members before they add their own enterpretation. Unfortunately, this isn't working very well at the moment as my band is being very slack

[All_¥our_Bass]

In order of preference.

Bass (Cause it easy to use [Easy because I am farmiliar with it, not because it's easier than guitar or in general] )

Piano/Keys (Good for experimenting with wierd chords not easily playable on bass or guitar)

Guitar (Good for making cool arppegiated stuff)

[keb]

Mostly guitar, but once in a while bass or keyboards. I've also just sat down and written out things before.

[lemur821]

I don't generally write "on" so much as "for". It all starts in my head, right?

[Sneckumhaw]

Great responses, I'd love to hear more.

[Depth_Charge]

I mainly compose on the bass and once I get one or two good riffs or melodies that match the theme of a song I will try and put it into GuitarPro best I can and build possibilities from there. I will often use GuitarPro to put a drum beat down for the song too...

[Peter Squire]

I usually compose on a guitar or piano for chord structure and melody, then compose the bass line afterward. Sometimes the melody can come from bass also. I find it hard to construct chord progressions and patterns on a bass.

Obviously, lyrics are composed in the brain.

[Sneckumhaw]

Originally Posted by Peter Squire

Obviously, lyrics are composed in the brain.

Maybe for you! I write mine on a drumkit.

[Hoover Johnson]

Originally Posted by Sneckumhaw

Maybe for you! I write mine on a drumkit.

Don't you run outta room??? Or do you replace your skins alot?

[Peter Squire]

Originally Posted by Sneckumhaw

Maybe for you! I write mine on a drumkit.

....which is why all your songs suck, Mr Timberlake.

[Bard2dbone]

Mostly I write with my 12-string guitar. Sometimes I write on keyboards, even though my skills are really pretty minimal on keys. Very rarely I write on bass. But only if I happened to already be playing bass when inspiration hits. Basically, any instrument I'm holdingis fair game when inspiration hits. I wrote a couple of songs on madolin.I wrote a few on Stick, and I'm terrible on Stick. Seeing the practice where I would play a line and say "Do this on the guitar." John would say "What chord is that?" and I'd say "No idea. Eric, play this on keys while he plays that on guitar."

Ans a lot of my lyrics get composed in traffic lately.

[Sneckumhaw]

Originally Posted by Peter Squire

....which is why all your songs suck, Mr Timberlake.

Like you could write something better than "get your sexy on" repeated over and over!

[Peter Squire]

heheh

[Don W]

For the most part I write songs on the guitar.

Sometimes I'll think up something I like and scribble it down so I can figure out the notes later.

But unless I'm writing some solo bass piece or something like that I pretty much never write songs using the bass.