Another music-writing thread, but this time about incorporating others

[Eddy]

Before the break up, our vocalist left the band and we felt a great relief because he was too much of a dominator in the band. We felt like we could relax and just write music that fit everyone in the band, so we decided to do it very democratic and on equal terms. The result is this: (that's right, nothing)

Going a bit OT here: In my last band we had the same "democratic" situation with everything else but writing the music. During the five years that I was part of it we had a total of 4 (FOUR) gigs. One of those was an acoustic thing as a trio with me (bassist) and the drummer playing guitars because our guitar "hero" decided to tell us about week before the gig that he couldn't make it as he couldn't get day off from work (he hadn't even asked) and our other guitarist had final exams to attend to. Everyone knew about the gig more than 6 months before the date. But I digress.

Two of the gigs we were asked to play by the drummers workmates and two was arranged by me. Everyone talked all the time about how it would be cool to play live but no one got off their arse to do anything about it (including me). Everyone was equally responsible and no one did anything. It was like everyone was waiting for something to appear from thin air. And that is just one example.
That's demoracy I guess, nobody gets what everybody wants because they all expect someone else to do something about it.

In short, the result was pretty much the same as in Gojira's case.

I have to go with that democracy is bullshit when it comes to songwriting. Most bands need one or two who writes the majority of the stuff. This is what my experience tells me so far, and I don't see it changing so.... be the tyrant you gotta be. The others might think it sucks but hey, then it's their responsibility to turn the tide and make it not suck and if they won't do that, they'll end up dropping out.

Slightly back on topic: Our drummer wrote pretty much all the songs as it was (is) his band to begin with. He said in the beginning that it would be desirable that others wrote songs and presented ideas etc. too, as he wanted it to be a real band and not his solo project.

Out of about 25 songs we had there was two that had any outside input on them, one had chorus (music and lyrics) that was not written by him and one had lyrics that we wrote together. Others had songs and ideas but unless anyone had a complete song with music, lyrics and everything ready (and in my personal experience, not even then) it was disregarded by the drummer. He said he wanted our input on the music and when someone did just that, it had no effect on anything whatsoever. After a while nobody bothered to say anything at all anymore.

Once he brought a half ready (although he saw it fully complete) song expecting us to rehearse it to our setlist. 3 out of 5 didn't like the song in the form it was brought to us and didn't want to rehearse a half-ready, half assed song (as that's what it really was). And we told him that. Yet we couldn't change anything in the song as he didn't want the song to be changed as it was so personal to him. We played the song few times in rehearsals (before voicing our opinion) and it wasn't dropped from the so called setlist until I just refused to play it. And that is just one example.

The band is still together (At least I haven't heard they wouldn't be), I left some time ago.

The point of this long ass rambling? Fuck if I know, but at least I got some of it off my chest.

 

[MetallyGuitarded]

Howard Johnson is RIGHT!!!

I agree totally with these 2 perspectives.

Well the way it could work without any big compromises from both parts looks like this:

Keep in mind, I'm a drummer myself so...whenever someone writes a song and has some drums in mind I try to play those but when I feel like my own understanding to play drums surpasses the ability of the guitarist (or insert some other player here) I'll suggest those ideas to the writer. After all I'm only suggesting things where I think they could improve the song one way or the other. If anyone doesn't feel comfy playing a certain part it should be addressed. But IMHO someone has to be the driving force, too much democracy doesn't work. Remember that Akerfeldt interview a while back? I think he was being honest and elegant with his statement and I feel like it is true (about him being the mainwriter but appreciating the ideas others bring in IF they go along with the flow of the song bladida...).

Guitar pro is the best thing ever for song writing... All our songs we play live bar 1 have come from me or eddie (the other guitarist) writing perhaps 2 to 3 ideas for a song. After we have come up with a couple of little things we send the song to each other, and we'll add parts and send it back and forth until we have something to learn to jam. Then we'll jam it out until we have a song worthy and ready enough to play live.

I think the reason why this works is...

1) We are both good at writing drums and our drummer follows the feel of the drums and adds his own fills and fancy bits. He likes this because he has something to follow, yet isn't restricted to whatever we tell him. Occasionly if we just play something randomly he will come up with everything on his own and we'll write it into guitar pro but this doesn't happen often.

2) We are willing to compromise and send idea's back and forth a lot.

3) We both dictate the music direction of the songs, so you get 2 different styles to make everything more interesting.

I wouldn't want to work with a guitarist who is a pushover and will play whatever I give him, nor would I want to play everything someone gives me. For a band to be close I think everyone has to have their bit. Same goes for drums, the drummer has got to have his own spin on things otherwise he'll have nothing to be proud of, same with bassist.

But most importantly, make sure all the songwriters have guitar pro and go back and forth between you.

Joe

 

[Dom Ostarig]

Oh yeah.... depends a lot of he people involved too.... and the goals..... the most part of time i don't want to sound honest and sincere....hehehe

In the most cases is somthing like: WHEN I DID A PALM MUTTING YOU WILL DO A KICK THERE MR. DRUMMER!!! But this things happened to me because the people that i played don't thought on his own instruments as a part of something. They thought just about his own parts, fast or slow....they don't thouth about how put things together since the base.

But there's some drummers that i trust until the end.... the sad thing is that i thing that's hard to have a opportunity to do some music with them. hahaha

 

[J.DavisNJ]

I think it depends on a song to song basis...at least for me. Sometimes I can hear drum parts perfectly in my head and will tell my drummer to play just that. Sometimes they, as drummers, just have a better handle on where it should go rhythmically and I will give him free reign in that case to impress me.

-Joe

 

[K Odell]

I write everything except vocals, but I do put input on melodies and such. With drums I generally have a pretty good understanding of how things should work and will write all the drums. Our drummer learns all of it, then he comes in to the studio and helps me figure out what fills should be added and what not. But most of the time I write all the drums....fills and all. I am with you Marcus on jamming. It just doesnt work for me. Its like it will sound cool in the space and then when I track it, it sounds stupid.

 

[The Unavoidable]

So I have no trouble writing music myself; I've been recording scratch guitar tracks and programming drums (and occasionally penciling in synths) for years now, and consistently creating stuff I personally am really proud of. However, the problem is that I inevitably kinda become the band tyrant in practices, especially with the drummer. So far I've had the pleasure of playing with drummers who pretty much learn what I program as if it's a cover song (though I'm open to variations on the beats, I'm usually pretty adamant about the basic feel of the beat, e.g. half-time/full-time, cymbal choice, etc.), but I don't expect this to always be the case, and I would feel like too much of a dick putting something like "must be willing to yield to my musical vision" on future wanted ads

Basically, the only way I feel comfortable writing music is sitting at a computer with a guitar in hand and Reaper up on screen, and since it's no trouble for the other guitarist to drop by and help out, that takes care of satisfying his (or her, haha right ) creative input (or he/she can write stuff on his/her own time and bring it over and we can build on it). But having the drummer there for those sessions I'd imagine would get really boring for him/her, since he (fuck it, I'm dropping the pretense ) couldn't really contribute much to the RIFFZ, and of course the drums inevitably follow them the way I write.

Also, I DESPISE "jamming" to write music; I feel like that always leads to very dull and traditional sounding stuff, cuz creativity is sacrificed for the sake of everyone being able to pick it up pretty quickly. So yeah, basically, how do you guys write music and get everyone involved? Or should I just stop caring and continue to be lord of the band? (and I always let the bassist and vocalist write their own parts, so it's really just a matter of the drummer)

Dear god, I could have written that exact same post word for word. My band, that are now playing songs I wrote by myself in front of the computer, are pushing me to "jam" to write songs which I absolutely HATE! I love the guys, but jamming to me is nothing but a way to kill time and maybe have some fun. Writing music is serious fucking buissness.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

. Writing music is serious fucking buissness.

 

[Metaltastic]

I write everything except vocals, but I do put input on melodies and such. With drums I generally have a pretty good understanding of how things should work and will write all the drums. Our drummer learns all of it, then he comes in to the studio and helps me figure out what fills should be added and what not. But most of the time I write all the drums....fills and all. I am with you Marcus on jamming. It just doesnt work for me. Its like it will sound cool in the space and then when I track it, it sounds stupid.

Hey, I'm glad you too have a drummer that doesn't mind working this way, it gives me hope that there are more out there than I thought!

 

[ze kink]

I guess I'm a part of the minority then . I like jamming and writing songs with the whole band present and giving their opinions and ideas.

In Aberrant, the keyboardist does all the keys, drum programming, backing synths and effects etc. and I write my parts to that. Sometimes he has some things he'd like me to play, so I either play them or make my own version of them. The bassist does his own thing too, and then we often see if we can make our parts match better. The vocalist does all the vocals and lyrics (and he actually uses so many languages that we don't really have a clue what our songs are about ) himself.

In one band that's currently in a semi-hiatus I'm the main songwriter. What I usually do is just write up or memorize ideas I get when I just noodle around, and then show them at practice and ask the other members' opinions. Then we just jam them until I get new ideas, which we then work on. I write these up and we continue until we've got a complete song.

In the (other) post-rock band I play in, both of us guitarists write songs, and the bassist also contributes a lot. The drummer also gets ideas, but he mainly focuses on the drum parts, which are all written by him. The keyboardist just joined, so he hasn't contributed that much yet, but in our newest songs, he has shared all of his opinions and written most (if not all, I'm not quite sure) of his parts himself. In this band we use Guitar Pro a lot, but I'd actually prefer if we started doing it the "old fashioned way" more often, as I wrote one song with the bassist just by jamming, and it came so naturally that I thought it was pretty cool. It was pretty much "Hey, I've got this idea" "What if I play like this?" "Yeah, that sounds cool, what about if we made it continue like this?" etc. and the whole song was completed in a bit over an hour.

I don't really like using Guitar Pro for some reason, even though it honestly works well when we've used it. I just enjoy doing stuff by ear and teaching the other guys my ideas "in the flesh". That sounds creepy actually...

 

[JonWormwood]

Hey, I'm glad you too have a drummer that doesn't mind working this way, it gives me hope that there are more out there than I thought!

My drummer wants too much input, and breakdowns.

He can go join a metalcore band now

 

[Metaltastic]

My drummer wants too much input, and breakdowns.

He can go join a metalcore band now

ACK, as far as I'm concerned he might as well be the antichrist at that rate

 

[K Odell]

My drummer wants too much input, and breakdowns.

He can go join a metalcore band now

Bleh....if they are Pantera-esk breakdowns then cool, but if its just metalcore bullshit then yeah I feel your pain man.

 

[KeithRT99]

I find it comical that a bunch of you think jamming is a waste of time, I think the real problem is that metal is very hard to jam out songs, unless you have the song structures already created. It's not like blues, jazz or rock, where the structure of a song is universally known.

 

[Metaltastic]

I think the real problem is that metal is very hard to jam out songs, unless you have the song structures already created. It's not like blues, jazz or rock, where the structure of a song is universally known.

How is this a bad thing...?

 

[JonWormwood]

Bleh....if they are Pantera-esk breakdowns then cool, but if its just metalcore bullshit then yeah I feel your pain man.

I am down with Pantera till the end.

But yeah, it's like typical metalcore bullshit.

I need to find a dude who just blairs 16ths on the dbl bass and does awesome fills.

 

[KeithRT99]

How is this a bad thing...?

it's not, i just think someone should stick up for jamming.

I find that if i jam on a song with a drummer or others, interesting new things can be revealed about the song that could be added or changed.