Writing Songs

[Morothe]

Damn, I cant do anything anymore. I cant write songs, think of names, or do tabs by myself! lol. Anyways Im in a writers block and I cant come up with anything good with my guitar. Anyone got any tips for me? I have 2 bands. Doom Metal, and Brutal Death Metal like Nile and Deeds of Flesh

 

[From the Miasma]

Try something different. Try playing with the tuning a little lower, or try playing with a capo. Try a different distortion setting on your amp, try writing on your acoustic. Just try something different. Once you've written your riffs/songs, you can tune back to your usual tuning and keep the riff there.

 

[Norman]

Theory 24/7.

 

[CaGeD iN]

shit man i dont play any instruments except i do a lot of vocals (by myself ) but just look for a pattern in the bands you want to be influenced by

 

[Mike Sickle]

I find myself when writers block hits, as far as guitar is concerned, I just start playing other bands' songs and eventually it comes back to me. I try not to stress it too much because I find it has a negative effect, ya know, yer stumped for riffs, then ya stress about not being able to write, just doesnt help things flow, thats what I try anyway

 

[Morothe]

thanks mike!

 

[chrisdoig24k]

Yeah, question for Dave: Whats the process of songwriting for Woods?

 

[Mike Sickle]

thanks mike!

np

 

[bloodeagle]

as sad as this may be to say... writing on a piano is helpful to, especially if you pay any attention to music theory. and with no distortion you can actually hear what your riff sounds like. i was doing this earlier today (my guitars in the shop getting hot rails)

 

[Mike Sickle]

as sad as this may be to say... writing on a piano is helpful to, especially if you pay any attention to music theory. and with no distortion you can actually hear what your riff sounds like. i was doing this earlier today (my guitars in the shop getting hot rails)

I agree. I find writing riffs also on acoustic guitar has the same effect, you focus more on the melody and then you can jack it up when you play on electric. Playing electric on clean can give a similar effect, but its just far too easy to step on the distortion and go into shred mode hehe

 

[sdmf2]

just listen to your favourite albums that have good use of the instrument youre writing with.

 

[Thidrek]

some shredding while listening to my favorite songs always helps me alot.

 

[Dauden]

Yeah man, work on theory, its the best way to get ideas. Generally when I come up with a random idea I like, I build on it tillI have a full song. I'll just go "ok, I want something that sounds like this" after, then come up with something. Lots of theory knowledge helps there.

 

[Wenchmaster]

It helps if you have a varied range of techniques under your belt, that way if you ever think of something, you can get an idea of ways you can play it and where. But, for me, it helps to lay down some basic chords/rhythm progressions, and once I am content with the rhythm guitar, I'll add on riffs that are about an octave or two apart from the rhythm including sweeps and other lead parts. Other times, I'll just focus on 1 guitar which is more useful if you're the only guitarists in your band. You do a rhythm section that your vocalist can sing over, and you can throw little lead chunks in (over a chord progression of course), then once you get to the chorus, you can basically blow out all your lead ideas into there and see what works best. Once you reach the solo, I actually have no idea since I suck at writing solos.

 

[chrisdoig24k]

Cheers! I usually write music on the computer using Guitar Pro, but when I was in India for a few weeks, I had all these good ideas and nowhere to write them...

I ended up writing about 40mins of music in a NOTEBOOK!!! Including one song that was about 17.30. And it was almost exactly accurate to what I wanted to hear. Guitars (distorted and acoustic), drums, vocals, pianos...
That was some of the best music I've ever written though... Entirely progressive, almost no repeating of any riff.

However I was more interested in song structure. Cause songs get boring when theyre intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-interlude-chorus-outtro...

How do people figure out their structure?

 

[Demilich]

Sometimes listening to just one really inspiring album can do wonders to get rid of writers block!

 

[bloodeagle]

my band and i are just starting to put together a few songs, we have 1 song complete (guitar only) and 2 partial (guitar only). the structure thing, i have a tedency to want to make large crescendos over the course of the song, but while it sounds cool it isn't suited to playing live. i figure that verse chorus veruse sort of thing is based around a live performance, and it certainly works well. but yeah, as long as your 17 minutes is constantly pushing forward, and pulls the listener in, it should be fine that you don't repeat riffs and such. just my thoughts

 

[chrisdoig24k]

I'm fairly convinced that it's poignant and not just schizophrenic... hope so anyway!