Your SongWriting Process

[Petruliark]

How do you go about writing songs?
Do you write during the day or late at night?
Do you write what you hear in your head or do you write it and discover the song as you go along?
Do you write lyrics? What inspires your lyric writing?

I tend to write late at night, sometimes depriving yourself of sleep will turn off certain editing sensors in your brain and a more 'anything goes' type of approach results. I usually write with a drum machine so that my parts have some cohesiveness to them, then i try to assemble all the part sinto a song.
My lyrics come from anywhere but I am usually inspired lyricalls by the problems in society, crime and nightmarish things from mankinds past.

Even though Im sure we all fluctuate between various writing procedures hardly sticking to any strict method, whats your main apporach consist of?

 

[ThousandBeingPlague]

How I write shit for my death metal band goes something like this:

(1)listen excessively to whatever inspires me at the time
(2)carry out daily functions, at completly spontaneous times I'll compose a bunch of riffs in my head
(3)imediately sit down until I translate each riff note for note onto my guitar

I'm not sure how I get my riffs when I compose them in my head, but it is usually much more effective than any other method for me.

 

[Helghast]

i generally take my inspiration from music that i've heard and mix in some feelings (usually hate) with how i'd like to deal with it (usually with more hate).

 

[Neurotic]

i write classical music , i just write a motif or chord progression and then go from there, the song then "writes itself" (cliche i know lol).

if i was doing metal songs i would just do riffs eheh

 

[Babykabob]

It depends with me...sometimes a part will just come to me while i'm doing my day to day stuff, and sometimes I'll sit down and just noodle until I stumble upon a note/chord/progression/whatever it may be, that I like, and go from there... I do write most of my stuff on a nylon-string acoustic tho...or I at least get the "backbone" of it, then I'll sit w/ my 7-string until it's something I can really work with.

 

[King Chaos]

Wiht me I usually hear an Idea in my head and then it just evolves. My good material, I have little Idea how it came together, I remember suddenly having good Ideas, then getting drenched in making them work, and when they do I've usually had another good flash Idea. Writing my own music is really easy, but music for my band is very very difficult... because i can't make t complex as hell. still I do, then the songs just sit on the shelf and no one touches it because my band are fucktards.

 

[Vital Remains]

I sit around playing electric guitar hours on end, untill a brilliant musical idea pops into my head and then i transcribe it from brain to guitar, untill it sounds good. I get so many damn good ones but they are too fucking hard to play. Im always thinking necrophagist but it comes out as cryptopsy

 

[Wayne Inzane]

Well, I've had a few occasions of what you describe here, just hearing a song in my head and then trying to translate it onto my guitar. But my most normal approach is to just pick away on my guitar until I discover something that I like. Then I'll go from there, exploiting that little piece's opportunities.

I always write lyrics at night, I agree to threadstarter that it is much easier when your brain isn't filtering all of the words appearing in your head. Before I used to write at day, but then I discovered that my lyrics were much better when writing at night, and started using that approach.

My band the get's the rough pieces, and they work with their own instrument to try and make it more advanced. The results are usually surprisingly good, my bandmates sure know how to handle an instrument.

Great thread btw.

 

[ex-nihilo]

Hey,
I take the guitar melody, or even just make one up in my head, and write the lyrics underneath it, and write the guitar work later on. What I like to do, is write out the melody on staff paper, and write lyrics with it, so I know where I am at all times.
As if I write in the day or night, it makes no difference to me, it's whenever I get, like a surge of creativity, or if I'm in the mood to write. Although, writing at night is a little easier, with the silence and whatnot.
I write what I hear in my head when I listen to the song... write it out, bust out the ol' thesaurus, switch a few words, and make it fit with the melody.
The only inspirations I can think of for me, is maybe Dark Tranquility, but even then, I don't like using inspirations, as my music tends to reflect it.

 

[YenomTheDark]

I've read through this thread but say someone brand-spanking-new to this thing comes into this (me) any tips (i've read the thread so don't mention the ones you've said already)

Cheers if you can help.

 

[Bryant]

I write by making chord progressions on acoustic or expanding on my brother's acoustic progressions (though I write much more electric songs as opposed to acoustic.) I start with just a melody consisting of chord progressions, then I record it, playing electric on top of it and expanding it's complexity and even adding parts and recording it. Before it gets into much more than still chord progressions, I let my brother put words to it. He is a better lyricist than I. Once that is completed, I take over 100%. I arrange the songs, add what I think is needed as far as breaks, time/chord changes etc. and add get my brother to add lyrics etc. I am much more of a technician/producer type if you will as opposed to an artist. I handle the dicsipline and form and let others handle the inspiration.


Bryant

 

[Thidrek]

I often sit down with my keyboard and invent some melodies. It's easier for me to do this part on a keyboard although I cannot really play it Then I write down my ideas and extend my song by adding guitar riffs and licks. I usually work with guitar pro, because it is kinda hard for me to remember melodies and besides that it is way easier to find harmonical mistakes because you hear them.

 

[Travisty]

I pick up my guitar and end up just farting around for a while and somtimes the chorus or just a line in a song comes to me and i'll build from that.

 

[Servio_Abbas_Bellum]

1: riffs and solo's. View tabs and sheet music. Play them. Try rewriting them with differnt timing tempo, and some changes in notes. Change the bends, add some slap licks... Take something that inspires you, and build off it.

2: lyrics. Listen to songs with good lyrcis, good rhyme schemes, and rewrite the lyrics and keep the scheme but change the rhyming syllable sing them to a timing you THINK it should have been sung.
Better yet, listen to songs that sound good with good rhythm, but the content sucks. Use the rhythem, slow it down, write good lyrics.

Be educated. Read Lovecraft, Crane, Beaudelaire, Sartre, fuck Dean Koontz for all I care. Chuck Billy made a career off Koontz and. But find something to write about.

 

[IntoTheVoid]

In my band we write new songs together.
Somebody has an idea (usually a guitar player has a cool riff, but not always) and then we all add our ideas..
for example when one of our guitar players thought up a new riff often we change it a little (e.g. another rhythm...).


when we have a cool part we deliberate what kind of part it could be - e.g. if the part is a good intro part. and then we just think up more parts trying to make a hole song with this parts.

At the beginning our vocalist mostly sings or growls rubbish over the parts. At home he writes his lyrics for the song and sometimes we record the song with just 1 mic in the room so our vocalist can not forget any part of the song.

When the song is "finished" (the first draft) we deliberate e.g. which parts do not fit together or whatever we could improve...

 

[Zivilyn]

Iiiiinnnnnteresting. I have a few methods, I'll go in order of frequency.

1. I pick up my guitar, start playing for a while, like what I hear, but instead of going through the tedious process of transcribing every note and completely losing the rhythm and phrasing (I have no recorder), I just watch TV or do something similar to what I'm doing now, and forget until the next time.
2. I get a new album, put it in and say "wow, that's great, but I can do better," then I watch TV or do something similar to what I'm doing now, and forget until the next time.
3. I'm walking down the street with a kickass part running through my head, but my house is like a half hour away so I just start thinking about some other crap, like how I'm gonna get high instead of remembering.
4. I'm at my buddy Maiden's house, where he has a bunch of recording equipment, guitars, keyboard, synth, the works. We jam for a while, WE MIGHT EVEN RECORD SOMETHING.... No obvious vocalist yet, so lyrics are a non-issue. Just parts and stuff. No details nessecary really... Everything we record is kind of a lucky accident. We're about as equally motivated, so I'd give it about an hour. Then we start watching TV or doing something similar to what I'm doing now, or walking down the street, or getting high. See the trend?
5. See part one, only this time I go through the painstaking soul sucking process of writing the transcription. I get maybe 20-30 seconds of music transcribed on some tab paper, feel accomplished and like a MUSIC GOD. But then I look at it, I dunno, 6 months later, play it again. The dream crumbles. It sounds like.... Well, not bad, but not good either. Simplistic. After all, I was able to write it down in 5 minutes, and completely forgot what it actually SOUNDS like. I was in band reading sheet music for 4 miserable (but musically gratifying) years, and I just don't feel like figuring out eighth/quarter/half notes in my head. Then I think "hey, there are millions of people doing exactly what I'm doign, with more skill than I have, and they're actually ACCOMPLISHING something. What am I trying to do with this piece of shit 22 seconds of music, that's barely passable for even a bassline?" then I watch TV or do something similar to what I'm doing now, and remember it the whole time.

 

[Son of Odin]

To write a song, I simply listen over and over to all my albums, as I'm sure you all do too. Then I think "man, that Amon Amarth style riff would sound great over these CoB style rhythms" and shit happens.. check out my stuff at www.myspace.com/nifelhelmetal. It usually just happens. NEVER force a song to be written, let it happen..

 

[lycanthropyhowl]

i sit at school and instead of trying to do the assignment i write lyrics for my bands songs, we usaully come up witht the music first