What are your bands practice structure and song writing process like?

[Modest_Moose]

This goes to really anyone but also more specifically people who are in bands where the song writing process is pretty collective with all members.

What is all your guys and gals processes for writing music and putting together songs?

Also how does everyone structure practices to help make sure they are efficient and that song writing is productive?

I know some times you just can’t come up with anything which sort of prompted this question. My bands working on newer stuff where we have a song with pieces we like but no clue how to really get them to mesh together yet if they can at all.

 

[two fingers]

Somebody's gotta be in charge. I don't mean they get to boss everyone around (if your band is a democracy). I mean they are musical director for rehearsals. For us, it's our keys player. He starts/stops us when we're working on a particular section of a song. And he plays vocal parts on piano and assigns harmonies to optimize everyone's vocal range.... that sort of thing. But somebody has to run the rehearsal or it will get nowhere fast. So even if the whole band gets the final decision, somebody should be arranging things on a trial basis. "So let's put this section after the second chorus and see how it sounds. Here we go." (For example.)

 

[4SG]

Two different things, writing songs and practicing:

1a. Songwriting (Band 1): Lead guitarist writes and records demo with rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drum loop and scratch vocal. Then sends to rest of band to see if we like it. I usually edit or completely rewrite lyrics. Then we figure out our own respective parts. At rehearsal we all play our parts, then everyone comments collectively on what they like, don't like or would suggest. Then we agree on the arrangement and rehearse it.
1b. Songwriting (Band 2): Band leader writes a song and presents it to us at a rehearsal. It's his band and he knows what he wants, and we play what he wants. The end.

2. Practice. Practicing is what you do on your own time. When the band is together we rehearse, with the understanding that everyone's supposed to know their parts already. If we're working on a new song we play it over and over and work out the kinks, maybe change the pace or arrangement. If we're getting ready for a gig we make a set list and play straight through.

 

[SimonSays32]

As far as songwriting goes in our band - 90% of the songs have started as riffs the guitar player has and we combine them and work on them in a loose jam setting where we define and change the song as a band until we feel ready to record it.

Over the last few years - I have worked on in-the-box songs that I build up, and then re-record the drums with our drummer, and add real amplified guitars with our guitar player. Then we figure out the lyrics and vocals afterwards.

We are currently in the preproduction phase of our next two albums - I have an album worth of DAW songs that I am currently cleaning up and getting ready to move from my bedroom demo studio to the main studio. We also have close to 40 or 50 riffs between the guitar player, the drummer (who also plays guitar) and myself - so right now we are recording all of the riffs down in voice memos on our phones, with the intent of listening through and determining which ones fit together at the same time we have about 7 or 8 old songs we have never recorded that we are looking at and a few new songs that we have already worked out the parts.

As far as practicing / rehearsal goes - normally I practice music a little bit everyday, whether it is learning a tricky part in a song we are working on or learning something that interests me that likely will not go any further than myself playing it. We rehearse a couple hours together a few days every week - sometimes more, sometimes less depending on what real life work commitments look like.

As far as the band leader - the guitar player and drummer usually lead the song choice when we are building sets, where I am usually the guy who at the end of a song relays what parts are working or not. The guitar player is our lead vocalist as well and is the front man for the band when we are onstage. Outside of our live act - I am the lead as far as art direction goes (website, album covers, etc.). We work democratically and everyone gets a say in what we work on - it has worked fairly well for 20 years now.

 

[Shalto]

In my originals group our BL typically writes the melody and lyrics/brings it to us. He takes feedback and most of the time changes are made to both melody and structure (our guitarist is a good writer of melody but has another band he writes the music for so he typically limits himself to suggestions in this group,, but his suggestions are frequently accepted as they are usually good). Everyone contributes to their structure/writes their own instruments part.

At the end of this typically the song has more than one "version" and the BL chooses the one they like most.

rehersal is typically 60% actually rehearsing, 25% writing and 15% band meeting.

P.S. typically in my experience who ever writes the tune has final say on how it's done. This is usually but not always the BL

 

[bearfoot]

 

[crguti]

Gluing parts together that sounds good takes time. In our case, certain combinations can be played for weeks but if at the end we feel like it isn’t interesting, we change it.
Just don’t get stuck. If it is not happening, move to another song. Some songs need more time to mature.

 

[lfmn16]

Somebody's gotta be in charge. I don't mean they get to boss everyone around (if your band is a democracy). I mean they are musical director for rehearsals. For us, it's our keys player. He starts/stops us when we're working on a particular section of a song. And he plays vocal parts on piano and assigns harmonies to optimize everyone's vocal range.... that sort of thing. But somebody has to run the rehearsal or it will get nowhere fast. So even if the whole band gets the final decision, somebody should be arranging things on a trial basis. "So let's put this section after the second chorus and see how it sounds. Here we go." (For example.)

Nailed it.

I’m the “music director “ in my bands. I don’t make all the decisions, but I make sure all the decisions get made.

For rehearsals, I usually decide what needs work and call the tunes and what we need to work on, but anyone can bring up a tune to work on.

For songwriting, most of the time someone comes in with a tape of a completed song and we go from there. Lots of interaction and suggestions. By the time a tune is “done” it’s significantly different than it started. Occasionally we’ll just start on a riff and go from there. Some still needs to guide the process.

 

[Joe Nerve]

The best song writing process I had was with The Nerve. It was a 3 piece band, which made things fairly easy. There were 2 song writers, the guitarist and me.

Either he or I would come up with the skeleton of a song. We usually worked it out as much as we could. For me that would mean a bass line, general structure, and a melody and or even lyrics. For him, it was usually a full song... sometimes played just acoustically, other times with riffs involved.

Then we'd work it out with just the 2 of us at either of our houses. Often times we gave each other recordings first so we could work on ideas alone.

When we had 2 or 3 songs together that we liked and felt pretty confident about, we booked studio time and brought the drummer in.

It usually fell into place quickly. The more we did it, the more efficient we became, and we never hung onto songs that weren't working for too long. If we were struggling with a song for more than 2 full band rehearsals, that usually meant it wasn't meant to be.

 

[crucislancer]

When I was in bands doing originals, with all but one exception, we would write tunes as a band. Typically someone would have a riff, or perhaps the skeleton of a song, and we would work on it together. These would be songwriting sessions and usually had nothing to do with rehearsing the other songs, we would have a rehearsal just for that when we needed it.

If the person who came up with the riff has a certain direction for it, we would let that person direct how the song progresses. The rest would give input, ideas, see what sticks and what that person likes. If there's no real direction from the originator of the riff, then one of us would step up and play the role of music director, just to keep the wheels on the buggy.

The one exception was a band I was in during the 2000's, the singer/guitarist was the songwriter, so everything came from him, with input from me and the drummer to help flesh it out. The songs were pretty much done before he presented them to us, but he left it up to us to come up with our own parts, making suggestions as needed to keep us honest.

Part of me misses those days, you get a great group of musicians together to brainstorm and it can be an awesome experience.

 

[Modest_Moose]

Man you guys are all awesome! Thank you everyone so far for your insights and everything. Definitely some things I'm hearing from you all that makes me think some of my groups need to work a little more on our practice structures

 

[jeffbrown]

Pretty much ditto for most of the above - -

We all will bring in ideas from time to time, either a riff or a progression or lyrics or a combination of all of that, and suggest a mood or style, i.e., blues, etc. For my part, I will flesh out a line, and if the originator has suggestions, I will try to implement what he's thinking. If we get stuck (this happened this week!), we'll put it aside to think about it individually and come back next time with fresh ideas.

All of that said, we play almost all original stuff, so a lot of it can be in flux for a while as we try out different approaches (tempo, feel, and so on).

Try to put all egos aside and work on what plays/feels best for your mission.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

When I was leading an originals band, I wrote most of the songs. I'd make a quick-and-dirty demo and play it for them. We'd run through it once or twice, then I'd ask them what they wanted to do with it. There were no wrong suggestions--we'd try out everyone's (two guitarists, a drummer) ideas. Often this would take a song to a whole different place, which was fine by me. More often than not, we got something we all liked; sometimes it became clear that it wasn't going to work at all, and I'd say something like "Yeah, well, back to the drawing board." Nobody ever asked for a co-writing credit, probably because we all knew the odds of producing something that would actually sell were slim and none. We did eventually release a six-song EP, and sure enough, sales started slow and then kinda tapered off.

PS: And that was the end of my "creative" career. As my tag says, "I'm not an artist, I'm in the service business."

 

[brianrost]

I've never been in a band that writes collectively. It's always someone brings in a song, to be honest most of them suck out of the gate. I've spent a lot of time rearranging songs for bandmates who lack a perspective on their own writing.

 

[PauFerro]

I've not had much success with collective writing. You have to have strong elements from all parts of the band to make it a truly strong experience. Strong from both a creative perspective and a collaborative perspective. I find I usually end up writing the songs myself. Then when it gets to the band, there is a collective thumbs up or thumbs down. Often there are suggestions like "you need a bridge", "make the last four bars the intro" but the suggestions are usually minor. Based on the feedback I either modify slightly or go back and do a full rewrite. Generally, the band feedback is valuable. It's like quality control, but they don't suggest a lot in terms of ideas.