In a band how do you write your own songs, i think i have an idea

There isn't any 'right way' or 'book on writing songs.'

The way my band writes songs is just spontaneously -- they randomly come out. Two or three of the members will be together (be that guitar/bass, guitar/vocals, vocals/bass, drums/bass etc..) and they'll get in a groove and it flows from there. Once you have two parts, it makes it a little easier.

One thing that doesn't work is sitting at your bass and telling yourself (or having someone else tell you) "Write a song NOW." That only puts stress on you and blocks the creativity. There's no point in having a rehearsel if you have no songs to rehearse.

Another thing you can do is get all the members together, get a tape recorder, a blank tape, and just jam. For hours on end. Make the police come. Interrupt the neighboring couple having fun.

If this is your first band, then playing covers will probably help you out in the long run. It will get your band members used to playing full songs with each other, and will help you to 'click' with one another when you're writing original songs.

Good luck

 

A word or 2 of advice....


1) When playing covers, stick to the proper key and chord structure, but write your own basslines to the songs. When my band covers songs, I don't bother learning basslines. I play what I feel inside.

The exception- When bass is the lead instrument in a cover or plays the main riff. You won't want to go re-create Another Bites The Dust or Money. No one will know what the hell you're playing.

How my group writes songs.

The guitarist has written a song on guitar and we all add our parts.

I come in with a groove to a song and everyone adds their parts.

The keyboard player. Same thing.

Rythm player. Ditto.

We are a democratic like band. Many writers. Many ideas are given freely to one another when a song is introduced and the group helps mold and shape it.

 

Basically We just jam together. In our band it sorta works like this....the guitar/bass player will make something up. Then the guitar/bass player will add onto it . Then the drummer will add in some beats and last the singer will write lyrics for the song. Today we were just fooling around and I made up a pretty cool bass riff so then we worked around it. We now have a pretty good opening for a song. Then next practice we'll bring it to the next level and start working on building around the opening riff. ciao

 

hmm. yeah no right or wrong way. sometimes you can sit there and a song will just come to you. other times you could be jammin with your band and out pops a songs.. and others you'll sit and work on writting a song.. any way you do it is right.. there may be a faster way to do it.. but it is your song and you get the accomplished feeling

 

if you go to my web site you can hear 3 songs that we wrote we basically write songs from either past experiances or present feelings usually the guitar player has an idea for a chord structure or some kinda lick he will put it down on tape give it to me and i will add the bass part we are going to record our next cd this month.we do covers also,if this helps at all or you need more help i am here

 

My band does it pretty much the same way everyone else does. The guitarist or bassist will come in with a riff and play it to everyone. If we all like it the remaining band members add there instrument to it. And then a couple of the songs the band just jams together and something comes out that we like and build on it. And some things just get thrown away so don't worry if that happens. That's my advice.

 

Well, I'm not in any bands of any type, but is it possible to write lyrics first? Like, can you write a poem and then add the music to it?

 

We just start jammin'

 

hey
from a fellow aussie here i can give the best advice on this as the present time, anyway...its easy as to write poems and stuff (dont call em poems to people other than the TB'ers cause other people think you are a real freak for writing poems) and then put music to it.

thats what most of the greatest songwriters of all time did. thats why we call them songwriters, they write the songs, and the musicians put the music.

later
Lukas