Lucky you. I always needed to spend some time in order to adjust and refine the lyrics, written by somebody else, for my song.
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The Songwriting Mega Thread
- Thread starter ImNotJoel
- Start date
Thanks, it all depends on the musicians and listening. Quite frankly it is very difficult with some to work that way. Especially since many rock and metal guitarists are not used to hearing song/riff ideas coming from bass.
With that song "Failure" above, I remember that most of the jam was B Minor which is the overall key of the song. But I remember distinctly that during the part where we listened back to turn the jam into real parts I ran to the piano and wrote the chord sequence that happens at the 6:00 mark. The right hand starts as an F# diad (which became the guitar part) while the left hand played power chords such as D-E-F#-B-C# (which became the bass part) and the parts superimpose and then resolve together. That is prob the climax/chorus of the song so my bass parts in the 'eye of the hurricane' section beforehand hint at the sequence and in turn it leads into the final vocal parts.
If you are interested enough to pardon the indulgence, I actually had posted an example of a full-on instrumental jam with 2 guitars, keys and a friend playing bass. It's unedited so the entire creative process is captured, starting with 3 minutes of noodling while I play around with keyboard sounds. There are some good guitar and bass ideas, but it's basically a mood without direction. Then at 3:25 I enter with a melody and it turns into a tune, and eventually chords start emerging. And around 7 minutes in the bassist changes it up with a power-chord riff that the rest of us latch onto and that triggers everything else that happens.
All it might be so far is a 15 minute fusion jam, but there's plenty of material there that if we wanted to record or perform it for real we could create a succinct form. To me the most interesting thing about listening to it is that my guitarist pals are so great at chords that we were often able to superimpose sequences over the key center without creating dissonant clashes.
The lyrics always require rewriting to fit better into the rhythm of the songs I write (which are very non-standard, prog-metal stuff with lots of odd meter). I also find myself sometimes consolidating verses, rewriting phrases, writing new parts, etc...
Kind of like the "bag of riffs" I mentioned earlier; it's raw material to pull from, to refine.
It can start with any aspect of music; could be a beat, a lyric, a bassline, or a feel. I use an application called mapping tonal harmony pro to arrange if I don't have it already worked out. Once the song is written and arranged I put it into finally if I know the phrasing of the arrangement. If I don't know the phrasing I use band in a box and work the phrases to fit around the rest of my ideas. It also depends on the goal of the writing. If I'm writing for a band or group that has defined the instrumentation, I tend to go with finale it sebelius, depending on what computer in using. Sometimes I hum an idea on my phone and make a song out of it. Usually I get all my best ideas right before bed so I end up putting a lot on my phone.
This makes perfect sense to me, although I have trouble sometimes treating my vocal stuff like that. What I mean is, once I write a lyric and melody piece it gets stuck in my head to the point that I have trouble changing it. The instrumental parts are more often changeable. I feel this is something to work on...
Lyric lesson one: do not rhyme "cry" and "die" in a song.
Lyric lesson two: do not rhyme "pain" and "rain" in a song.
Congrats...You have just written lyrics more original than 90% of what's out there.
Lyric lesson two: do not rhyme "pain" and "rain" in a song.
Congrats...You have just written lyrics more original than 90% of what's out there.
Oh man, I knew a guy once, his claim to fame was that he had a gold record for being in the studio at the same time as Stevie Wonder. He showed me his original material and the lyrics were painfully bad. By that I mean, he rhymed pain and rain but in trying to add a couple of unique words he conjured the image of a stalker standing out in the rain. This was supposed to be a love song. Oh, and instead of using the hackneyed "I want to wrap my arms around you tight" line to rhyme with 'night' he changed it to "I want to wrap my arms and legs around you tight" which just elevated the creep vibe 1,000%!
Usually just starts with me practising and coming up with a riff on the bass. Everything escalates from there.
Getting a DAW and learning to read music has helped me immensely in songwriting, I use Ableton because it's very handy for making electronic music, but even my solo bass stuff is improving because of the fact that I record it now. My songwriting process mostly revolves mostly around samples and loops at the moment, I'm still a terrible lyricist though.
I'm no expert. I dabble in it. I also usually start with lyrics, but I kind of write as a rap, then try to work on song structure and harmony/melody.
Since I have a 3yo drummer in the house, we sometimes sit at our drum kits and make up verses to his favorite songs. Nothing I'd ever publish, but I can't help but feel like it's good mental exercise to try to write on the fly, and also (a major reason I wanted to try that in the first place) try to integrate the drums into the song structure, instead of playing over a 4/4 drum machine loop. Iccck. It's kinda of humbling to get stumped making up verses to Old McDonald, but the hand/feet/mouth/mind exercise is quite challenging.
Also - I HATE loops. Basically for loops to sell, they have to be popular. Which means in effect you're assembling a mad-lib of drum cliches. I hated searching loops to find stuff to fit what I was working on, and programming drums via mouse so much that I decided to pick up a new instrument I'd never played and start sucking badly for a while at it.
Since I have a 3yo drummer in the house, we sometimes sit at our drum kits and make up verses to his favorite songs. Nothing I'd ever publish, but I can't help but feel like it's good mental exercise to try to write on the fly, and also (a major reason I wanted to try that in the first place) try to integrate the drums into the song structure, instead of playing over a 4/4 drum machine loop. Iccck. It's kinda of humbling to get stumped making up verses to Old McDonald, but the hand/feet/mouth/mind exercise is quite challenging.
Also - I HATE loops. Basically for loops to sell, they have to be popular. Which means in effect you're assembling a mad-lib of drum cliches. I hated searching loops to find stuff to fit what I was working on, and programming drums via mouse so much that I decided to pick up a new instrument I'd never played and start sucking badly for a while at it.
My process is not fixed in stone. There are times I wake up, still with a dream of a particular sound and vibe. When that happens, I sit down and create it. I've written a couple things like that recently (it may start with a feeling and then it flows... One progression to the next). I often hum an idea and record it into my iPhone so I don't forget it if I'm driving and don't have access to an instrument.
At my home studio, I sometimes write by jamming and experimenting with different tones, patches (on my keys) etc, and when things begin to flow and eventually tie together, I record them. I write on keys, bass and guitar, but primarily on keys.
The original band I play in is a three piece. We recently just reunited after a 24 year layoff. It's so nice to be cromposing again and it's absolutely the most inspiring thing I'm doing these days. All three of us compose on many different instruments. The style? A mix of rock, prog, pop, classical, psychedelic, etc. As a group, we often compose together. Sometimes one of us or all of us will bring in a just one simple part. With the help of the other two, that turns into a fairly well composed song after experimenting and jamming through different varieties of progressions.
I love that process of creating a composition with my dear friends.
Other times, one of us will bring in an entire song and the other two add their individual instrumental parts to it sometimes as directed but always with an air of openness to the other's musical strengths.
The guitarist and I both use Logic X to compose on and we also use it live with Mainstage to control keys and prerecorded backing tracks.
As far as lyrics go, it's very seldom that a lyric gets written first. Tone and phrasing of chords has a lot to do with the choice of vowels sometimes. That's primarily why I finish lyrics last.
As far as lyric style... I hope at some point that at least a few of my lyrics will be as powerful as Peter Gabriel's.
At my home studio, I sometimes write by jamming and experimenting with different tones, patches (on my keys) etc, and when things begin to flow and eventually tie together, I record them. I write on keys, bass and guitar, but primarily on keys.
The original band I play in is a three piece. We recently just reunited after a 24 year layoff. It's so nice to be cromposing again and it's absolutely the most inspiring thing I'm doing these days. All three of us compose on many different instruments. The style? A mix of rock, prog, pop, classical, psychedelic, etc. As a group, we often compose together. Sometimes one of us or all of us will bring in a just one simple part. With the help of the other two, that turns into a fairly well composed song after experimenting and jamming through different varieties of progressions.
I love that process of creating a composition with my dear friends.
Other times, one of us will bring in an entire song and the other two add their individual instrumental parts to it sometimes as directed but always with an air of openness to the other's musical strengths.
The guitarist and I both use Logic X to compose on and we also use it live with Mainstage to control keys and prerecorded backing tracks.
As far as lyrics go, it's very seldom that a lyric gets written first. Tone and phrasing of chords has a lot to do with the choice of vowels sometimes. That's primarily why I finish lyrics last.
As far as lyric style... I hope at some point that at least a few of my lyrics will be as powerful as Peter Gabriel's.
- Plan a theme ("I love butterflies") and/or musical style (1920s jazz) I want to rip off.
- Follow with weeks of procrastinating and reiterating themes and styles ideas.
- Finally grab an instrument and mindlessly play chords/notes with total disregard of musical theory (start on fifth fret, then second, then 8th, 1st fret, and then open chord).
- Spend more time figuring out which effects and amp simulators sound the best in awesome because I'm too lazy to figure out the bestest ways to mic my amps using a $20 mic... $10 (it was on sale).
- End up recording the usual dissonant funk/metal which means pentatonic-scale slap bass and palm-muting chords on an over-distorted guitar.
- Mix all the instruments, while using earbuds, with every free VST effect I don't understand simultaneously burying everything.
- Plan on writing lyrics and recording the greatest vocals including 7-part harmonies, never do it, and realize that the last time I thought about the recording was 5 years ago.
- Remember I still love butterflies and 1920s jazz.
- Buy more equipment in preparation of my next recording session.
- Go on Talkbass instead.
I also forgot: Put everything on Soundcloud for posterity, and rarely promote it. Join a Cover Band instead (and rarely promote that either).
Honestly, I do like composing, I just don't finish anything.
Get in the shower. While cleaning myself suddenly get an idea for a cool riff. Hurry up to finish shower, turn off water, towel off and run to music room. Curse the sky because I have forgotten what I had in my head 5 minutes ago.
I think of something, then I try to think of something else, then if I do I keep going till it's done, and if I don't, I skip it.
My process sucks, I'll admit it
My process sucks, I'll admit it
