How to start writing/composing

[Shenron]

(Mods - if this is the wrong place, feel free to move it.)

So....I am 45, an investment advisor and CPA, and have very little real musical education. I know the Circle of 5ths and some basic chord theory. I also know my way around a keyboard, although I can't really "play" it very well. (But I use it when I'm trying to understand some concepts.) By no means am I a modern-day Mozart.

I grew up singing four-part harmony in my church. (Lots of southern gospel) So I'm familiar with the four vocal parts, and how they interconnect. I can also understand sheet music, but I'm not really adept at reading and playing.

For some strange reason, I'm really getting into wanting to write my own music. I have a band name picked out (tell you later--once I get it copyrighted), and since my my main profession centers around money and death, I'd like to write about....well... money and death. The band would be some type of blend between Type O Negative (by far my fave), Rush, Alice In Chains, and A Perfect Circle.

It's not very clear, but since you mention you're planning a band, I presume you want to compose your own music and perform it as well, together with others? Just asking because it is also possible to be a songwriter without being a performer, in which case you could separate the composition from the arrangement, and maybe focus on the first, but if you are looking forward to also play your own music then you want your songwriting to be truly start-to-finish, including the arrangements of the instruments.

Problem is--I have no idea how the music writing process actually goes. Do you write lyrics, then set it to music? Do you write the "harmony" first, then add the bass, then add the other layers, then find lyrics that fit? Is this more of an art? Or a science? Do you really need to understand music theory? Or just grab a guitar and start strumming and changing chords, and see what happens?

There is no established process for everybody.

I think most songwriters start either:

(a) from a seed, which is a single music element (a guitar riff, a vocal phrase, a cool sound discovered on a keyboard, a chord progression...) that caught their attention and feels attractive enough to build a whole song around it
(b) with a purpose, basically something they want to say: this is for example how professional composers of soundtracks usually start, as they are actually told to create a music for a certain movie scene or videogame scenario, but it is also the case for any songwriter who feels like writing a song about an event, a person, a story or anything they have in mind

Either way, I don't think the process is ever linear, as in following a sequence between designing harmony, melody, rhythm, lyrics, arrangements and sounds. Not only there isn't a rule on how to order these things, but I am pretty sure the most normal case is going back and forth across all of them, and have rather an "organic" songwriting process unfold.

For example, if you songwriting starts like (b) with a purpose, let's say you feel inspired to write a song about your memories of a long-gone great-aunt you have fond memories of. Depending on your own personal attitudes, you may find it easiest to put down some of those memories in words, so you essentially starts with the lyrics. The metric of those lyrics, the sounds and placements of the syllables, may imply or pull you towards a certain rhythm of the vocals, while the meaning of the words and the feelings attached may imply or pull you towards a certain melody. The songwriting process could then either take you towards figuring out an underlying harmony in the form of chords that sound good on top of the melody. Then you may feel it's time to decide who plays those chords, the guitar or the keyboard (so you're working on the arrangements already), and then you may linger on trying different sounds on the chosen instrument. But at any given stage, you're very likely to go back and review your previous choices... maybe you need to adjust the melody because you've decided to use more cool-sounding chords, or you change some of the lyrics to better fit with the overall rhythm.

Composing like (a) from a seed can be particularly useful when you actually don't have a strong purpose coming to mind at this time. Perhaps there's a guitar riff you found, or an unusual chord on the piano that sounded cool the other day, from which to grow an entire song. You can build from a seed just by experimenting freely and counting on your own musical instincts, but you can also draw from objective knowledge of music composition. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that "it's all about talent", this is what people say when they failed at something and don't want to admit they never tried to study. Composition and songwriting can be studied just like everything else. Usually what escapes all attempts at becoming knowledge is only the very first part of the creative process: coming up with the seed of an idea, or with something meaningful to tell with your music (or any other art): there are suggestions on how to encourage this first step to happen more often, but nothing more than that... however, the rest of the process can definitely benefit from studying books on composition and songwriting.

Would it be totally inappropriate to "borrow" some of your favorite tunes and slightly re-write them so they're a "derivative" of the original? (A la "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Four Horsemen") Or just straight-up rip it off? ("Under Pressure" > "Ice Ice Baby") Granted, most of these songs (Amazing Grace, Sweet Hour of Prayer, Old Rugged Cross) are in the public domain, so there's nothing ILLEGAL about it...just probably highly frowned upon.

For your own studies and exercises, there is nothing wrong about that. However, for music you intend to publish or perform publicly, I would certainly not recommend to borrow anything recognizable from someone else's works, even if in the public domain.

Another question - is it possible/advisable to only write in one key (such as C or A-minor, for obvious reasons), then use some kind of "auto-transpose" software? Or do you "have to" compose in the right key?

If you were interested in composing only, but not performing, I think you'd compose music in whatever key you want, and then it would be a problem of whoever wanted to perform it, whether to transpose it or not.

If you are planning to actually play your music with a band, you will find it more convenient to compose in a key that helps your players, most importantly something that suits the vocal ranges of the singers, but there are other good secondary considerations such as whether guitars and bass can take advantage of open strings without changing tunings, or whether the keyboardist struggles with too many black keys. Once again, this would be part of the back-and-forth nature of the process, so your first draft in a certain key because maybe you wrote it off a piano, will need to change to a different key if you notice it's too low or too high for your vocalists.

 

[Polfuste]

Great topic with a lot of great information !
Nothing to really add. No-rules team here. And i'm in instrumental music so only tryring to compose. Well, struggling to compose
So just two experiences:

- it's often a melody that starts all for me. My first real composition for our jazz band comes from a songbird i recorded in my garden: i've catched a 4 notes sequence that was staying in my head all day. So i recorded my bird friend during a 15 minutes set, and listened his live concert: i catched another 4 notes sequence that didn't have stuck me first; but seemed to be like a reply to the first sequence. Then i cut, glued it in my DAW and suddenly appeared a tune theme.
Then all tune grew up from that melody by nooodling. (I always played by ear since 35 years, and only learned to read and write music two years ago; but no theory here). Then I've recorded a draft little by little of the entire tune with all instruments (thanks VST technology and jamorigin software to transform my electric guitar in piano, sax.. ). Then i shared it with my bandmates and ask them to propose ideas for arrange it. And the tune got better with their ideas.

- second experience is a little different and based on emotion: it happened 3 times in my life and i can't explain how and why. Just before 3 of my grand parents gone (the 4th was gone when i was 7 years old), i had to take my acoustic guitar (ex guitarist) and plug it in my DAW. And then it was like someone showed me what to do: i've created and recorded one piece from A to Z in 2/3 hours (multitracks with several guitar tracks, harmonised melodies,.. .) with one specific thing for each of them that was making me think to them. My first grand Ma to go was loving birds, and especially chickadee. i included Chickadee sounds in the piece. My grand Pa was a train geek. I took some train sounds which carried me this special rythmic pattern. My second grand Ma reminds me a nice memory when she came to see us in South America where i lived with my parents during 6 years. I included some forest sounds with a very specific bird sound from this planet area... And all came down as if i was following a map i would have precisely written.. At this time i was not transcribing a lot and didn't written anything. I only have record. I plan to transcribe it one day when i'll have time. My pieces are in my playlist and pop up from time to time, letting me think to them and all great moment we had together.

All has been already said by interesting and rich replies. I'll just insist on one technical point: If you are not familliar with DAW, my first move would be to work on it first. a single scarlett 2i2 soundboard would be perfect to plug in it (two inputs allowing you recording guitar and vocals together if you need). You don't need to be an expert, just knowing the basics to record tracks, cut, glue, rough mix it, and some functions like loop, transpose, punch-in / punch out record. Reaper is a great one, free test version entirely functionnal without duration limit; with a nice forum on which a lot of people can help you. Basics are quick to learn in it; and certainly the same way in others DAWs
it will help you to build your tune easier, and modify it in a wink to test things; and save you a lot of time to concentrate more on your tune.

 

[brianrost]

Would it be totally inappropriate to "borrow" some of your favorite tunes and slightly re-write them so they're a "derivative" of the original?

In jazz, it has been common for a long time to take the chord progession of a tune and write a new melody for it. That is called a contrafact. It worked for jazz because the players were just going to improvise over the chord changes anyway. There’s already plenty of songs out there that share chord progressions.

So if you write a new melody and new lyrics, you're good to go. Otherwise, you get sued.

 

[hrodbert696]

(Mods - if this is the wrong place, feel free to move it.)

So....I am 45, an investment advisor and CPA, and have very little real musical education. I know the Circle of 5ths and some basic chord theory. I also know my way around a keyboard, although I can't really "play" it very well. (But I use it when I'm trying to understand some concepts.) By no means am I a modern-day Mozart.

I grew up singing four-part harmony in my church. (Lots of southern gospel) So I'm familiar with the four vocal parts, and how they interconnect. I can also understand sheet music, but I'm not really adept at reading and playing.

For some strange reason, I'm really getting into wanting to write my own music. I have a band name picked out (tell you later--once I get it copyrighted), and since my my main profession centers around money and death, I'd like to write about....well... money and death. The band would be some type of blend between Type O Negative (by far my fave), Rush, Alice In Chains, and A Perfect Circle.

Problem is--I have no idea how the music writing process actually goes. Do you write lyrics, then set it to music? Do you write the "harmony" first, then add the bass, then add the other layers, then find lyrics that fit? Is this more of an art? Or a science? Do you really need to understand music theory? Or just grab a guitar and start strumming and changing chords, and see what happens?

Would it be totally inappropriate to "borrow" some of your favorite tunes and slightly re-write them so they're a "derivative" of the original? (A la "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Four Horsemen") Or just straight-up rip it off? ("Under Pressure" > "Ice Ice Baby") Granted, most of these songs (Amazing Grace, Sweet Hour of Prayer, Old Rugged Cross) are in the public domain, so there's nothing ILLEGAL about it...just probably highly frowned upon.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Just found this thread. Hope you're keeping at it!

Lots of good things said so far. I'll add:

1) A band, and band name. So, one time I had drummer and keyboardist friends and we hooked up with this guitarist and a singer who had written some originals and wanted to form a full band rather than just be a duo. The guitarist was REALLY pumped about a name he had picked out and it was SUPER IMPORTANT that we agree on the name so he could put a website together and all this. As a group, we had not written one note yet. So I asked him, does he intend us to be a GROUP where everyone played a role collaborating in songwriting? Or were us three hired guns that he wanted to execute music he and his partner had already written? He insisted that he wanted a group collaboration. I suggested that if that was the case, let's not worry about a name or marketing until we had done some writing together and figured out what our sound was, and then pick a name based on that.

I got overruled, and we learned and performed some of their existing for a streaming fundraiser on youtube (this was during COVID). This was supposed to be our big grand launch that would propel us into the stratosphere to conquer the world (FYI, we're all middle-aged guys with jobs and families). A few dozen people watched it. A couple weeks later the singer got a promotion and decided he wouldn't have enough time for the band. So that was that.

The lesson being, don't put the cart before the horse, and if you want to form a band, think through band management issues, like what the other members' roles are supposed to be. If you want to write songs and get some hired guns (or volunteer friends) to perform/record them, that's one thing; if you want to have a group where everyone's an equal collaborator, that's different.

2) As many have said, there's no one right way to write a song. You might start with lyrics and put a melody to them, you might start with a riff or a chord progression and write some lyrics to fit, whatever. I've just started working through Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison. A lot of the exercises are group work so I can't do all of it in my current situation, but there are some really good principles.

Right at the beginning, one key idea is to write with your senses. In other words, give the listener a tangible sense of taste, smell, vision, etc., rather than vague generalities. In drama, they say "show, don't tell." Don't say, "I feel sad and bitter," say "Acid tears roll down my cheek." Don't say, "Baby you broke my heart," say, "Jimmie Ray came in the garage last night, with black coffee and blood on his jeans, and what he told me broke my heart." A follow-up key idea to that is to think of your most vivid images as dye that's going to drip down through the whole work; you want them at the top so they color the whole thing, not buried in the middle where they leave most of the song bland. I always hated "Summer of 69," but everyone knows the old six-string you bought at the Five and Dime that made your fingers bleed. It's the one vivid image in an otherwise bland song, and because it's right at the top, it rescues the whole thing from being forgettable.

3) Don't fall in love with your own work too much. I was watching a Youtube video of a couple of professional Nashville songwriters, and they were talking about some guy who would come around with this one song he wrote, trying and failing to sell it. He was just so sure that THIS was THE SONG and had his whole aspiration pegged to it. Their advice; it's not all that good. Go write a dozen more. Write a song every day. One of my wife's old writing teachers used to say, "Let the brown water flow." He meant in the springtime, when you turn on the outdoor water faucet and the water has been sitting in the pipes all winter, what you get at first is dirty brown water. If you turn it off then, all you'll ever get is brown water. You have to open it up and keep it flowing until the clean, beautiful water starts to come out. Writing is the same way. Don't get one thing written and say, "This is it!" Keep cranking out more. Even if it's crap, eventually good material will start to surface, and you may not even realize it. I look back at stuff I wrote ten years ago that I was so proud of, and cringe.

I was looking at an interview with the band Harvey Danger. They had no idea "Flagpole Sitta" was going to be a big hit, it was just one song they cranked out among many, and a producer grabbed it and promoted it. If they had known, they would have given it a more memorable title ("I'm not sick, but I'm not well" is the lyric everyone remembers). By the way, that song has a string of GREAT vivid images. "Fingertips have memories, mine can't forget the curves of your body," "Been around the world and seen that only stupid people are breeding," "They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, goddamn you," "Hear the voices in my head, I swear to god, it sounds like they're snoring." "I wanna publish 'zines, and rage against machines, I wanna pierce my tongue it doesn't hurt it feels fine..."