Finishing Songs

[Dee Dubya]

Well, my band, if you could call it that, has something of a problem. We come up with these great pieces of music and ideas for where they will go, but we can never finish a song.

This may be in part that it's just me (the bassist) and two guitarists at the moment, no vocals or drums.

Me and one of the guitarists both take on lyric responsibilities, but the only times we've ever gotten that far, we've both had lyrics that we were really attached to, and the song kind of disintegrated.

Another problem seems to be the fact we move too quickly. We get bored with a piece of music after a week or two because we've come up with something new and want to give that a try.

I just wanna know if anyone can offer some advice for us. At the moment, it's really just recreational, just me and two of my best mates playing music, but I would love to perform an orginal or two for our friends at a party sometime, just for the fun of it.

[Dkerwood]

This seems to be a curse of this type of band. You like it because it's free and flowing, yet you hate it because it's free and flowing... lol...

There's a short way and a long way to arrange, write, and rehearse. The short way is to make a pointed effort to work on specific things within the confines of a rehearsal. The long way is simply to play and play and play for a long period of time and music just tends to solidify. I've been in both types of bands, and I tend to believe that the long way is best for COHESIVENESS - the elusive "tight" band - but the short way is what you need to dabble with if you want to write. Both are necessary for the best group.

I'd suggest that you keep introducing the musical themes that you're working on into every jam. There's nothing to say that you can't play other things as well... just don't let good songs get lost along the wayside.

Honestly, when I write, I can't do it via a jam. I just can't. I can develop hooks and grooves, but I can't write an entire song that way - it just gets repetitive. I'll usually come to the band with a loose outline of how I think the song might go, and we'll jam on that for a while. We'll develop intros and outros and bridges and breaks and all that jazz, and then more will evolve over the following weeks and months of playing the song.

Anyway, to neatly summarize - a specific result (a song) often requires specific intent. Good luck!

[Spoiled Grape]

We have an idea of what we want to achieve in a song/album, and than we write accordingly. Riffs, chords, verses are all introduced together or alone, and sometimes we smash them together into a song if they fit together. If they don't, than we develop them seperate and introduce new elements. Everybody and every band writes differently. After we have an idea of the seperate parts of the song, we record it on an 8-track so we don't forget it. Nothing is worse than forgetting a crucial part to a song or awesome riff and writing something subpar later.

All this is done by me and the singer/rhythm guitar player. We continue working on the song throughout the week until we get together with the rest of our band, in which we than introduce it to everyone else. By leaving the song alone for a few days and thinking seperate, we each have an idea of what we want the song to sound like, and we have a few different ways to take the song. Drums follow me and emphasize the future vocal melodies/parts, and than our lead guitarist starts working on ideas to help support the vocals.

After we have gotten drums and lead guitar worked into the song, we put vocals over it. After vocals, I rewrite the bassline to further emphasize the lyrics. Rhthym guitar adjusts, drummer adjusts, lead guitar adjusts. By the time we are done with the song, it has often taken on a life of it's own and usually does not sound too similar to the original riff, but rather, sounds more like the idea we wanted.

[Phantasm]

You've got to make some decisions and get the songs done and finished.

Set the structure first, meaning the parts you'll play and the order you'll play them in.

If it feels a part or a song might be too long, it probably is. Leave your audience wanting more.

If it feels like a part is just so awesome but you are having problems transitioning in and out of it, then it probably needs to be cut from the song and saved for later.

Try to record your arrangements and listen to them before the next practice.

Writing lyrics... well that's a tough one. Some people like to have the lyrics first and write music but it sounds like you're coming from the other direction. Try to see while you're writing the song if you can hear lyrics or a melody over what you're doing. A lot of times the lyrics/vocals take easily at least three times as long as the other parts of the song do to come together.

Write as many songs as you can and choose the best ones to play live and record "for real." Don't discard songs because you like your new songs better, you might listen later and decide that in the whole body of work one of the songs you discarded is actually a really good song.