Qty of songs you are working on ?

witm8

Member
I was sitting in front of my computer last night, guitar in hand and pen at the ready - and not really much was happening. So I hovered my mouse over, and opened up another recent song that I was working on.

I then realised that I have about 5 songs that are all very much a work in progress, say about, 80% complete. I was wondering what other people do - do you work on one all the way through, or maybe have 2 or more on the go.
 
That happens to me sometimes too. Usually if I don't pick up a piece the next time I sit down to work, it means it's not going anywhere. But if I come back to something the next day or a week later and keep going with it, I know I'll be able to focus on it until it's done.
 
You kidding, I always have a zillion songs in various states of development.......anywhere from "nearly done" to just bits n pieces.
 
Man...I haven't done one song from start to finish, in linear fashion, before starting on a new one....in like over 30 years, back when I fist started writing and doing the home recording thing.
Back then, I would write a song, and then immediately jump to recording it, and go non-stop until it was done...and then start a new one.
Now I've got songs that I wrote 10 years ago...did most of the tracking for the song...and then just put it aside because I simply wasn't hearing the rest of the production, or I was still trying to decide what direction to take it on , or missing some lyrics to it or some other aspect of the production...
...and then in the mean time, I got 10 more song ideas that I started working on, finished some, put some more on the shelf...and got 10 more song ideas during that...etc...etc. :D

Right now I'm actively working on at least 8 songs...and I have at least another 8 that I plan on getting back to...and at least another 8 that I have yet to start. :facepalm: :p
 
Usually: one in the noggin, one recorded as an idea on the cell phone, one just starting with the instruments in the DAW, one all recorded and needing to be mixed, and 5 that are mixed but I infinitely tweak them. :)
 
I'm working actively on five or six songs at any given time, usually. There are many more hanging around in various states of incompleteness, that may come back on the active list or may not. The problem is, I'm creating new song ideas faster than I can finish them, so the backlog just grows. The bottleneck is always lyrics.
 
I wrote 12 that I kept last year. Took weeks to get all the ideas. Some days on piano, some on acoustic, some on electric. Took months to get all the tracks recorded. Took more months to get to decent mix and add the "extras". Been tweaking on them since January and I'm getting help elsewhere as well. Andruskiwt and JimiStone actually did a guitar solo each for one of them (thank you very much). Jimmy69 has helped immeasurably, and talked one of his recording talents into doing the drums for that same track...

I've been working on these since March of last year when the first song idea hit. I did some extensive song writing days and wrote about 80-90 songs of which I kept these 12. Some of those 80-90 (about 50-60) were just trashed without fleshing. There are 18 other song ideas from those sessions sitting on my computer waiting to see if there's more to them.

I normally can't do that (turn on the song writing like a switch). Usually it's a torture to get music and words to line up for me. It was a good year. I haven't had a single idea yet this year (that I kept).
 
I put stuff away 80% done too and then when I come across a line or a chorus or a bridge that doesn't fit in I look and see if it works out with stuff I put aside. It gets me excited to go back a long time later as well as I may have a totally different frame of mind, heard new stuff or have better ideas now. Forcing it for me just leads me to take great ideas and put crap with them just to get it done. Walk away... if I sit down to write purposefully I get stuck fast. If I just start singing in the shower half the time I got a chorus and a verse before I rinse the soap off...... LET IT FLOW....don't force it!
 
Without looking, I think I've got around 5 in progress. Half or more lyrics are written and I have a melody for each in my head. I usually don't pick up my guitar until I've got it all worked out upstairs.

I always have at least 2 or 3 I'm actively working on. I just finished one I started 13 months ago. I created 3 completely different versions in my head and played with it for over 12 months before it all gelled into a song that's nothing like the previous versions.

I have one song I wrote over 30 years ago, forgot the last verse a few years later, and spent the next 29 years trying to remember the exact lyrics and phrasing. Got it all put back together again last year only to decide it needed to be adjusted here and there - so go figure. At least now I have a complete, and better song.

Sometimes I'll wake up in the morning and have nearly a complete song (words and guitar chords) in my head and I have to write it down as fast as I can before it disappears.

Quite a few times I have been driving, listening to the radio, and my mind will pick up on a musical or vocal phrase, twist it around a bit, then create a complete new song (words and music) in less than 10 minutes - while I'm driving. I like it when that happens.

I cannot just say to myself "grab your guitar, sit down and write". I've got melodies of all kinds playing in my head every waking hour and there are times when pieces just fall together and become a song out of thin air. I scrawl it on some paper, or my phone's notepad. Then I loop it endlessly in my head until it comes together.

I hear melodies in everything: When the waste management truck lifts and lowers dumpsters - and when it backs up.. the beeping. A laser jet office copier when it's fired up to print something. Water from a kitchen faucet filling a glass pitcher... It's all musical to me. I hear patterns and I generate melodies from them. Do I need a doctor? :p
 
trying to mix and make sense of one, started drums on another, and wrote about 90% of one with my toy acoustic. The depressing part is that I'm not good or organized with capturing ideas and never revisit so many ideas. I thought writing the chords in a notebook would work, but found out that when i revisited the chords, I couldn't get the right feel/rhythm/tempo/melody, and it doesn't work. I have a private channel on youtube called "song ideas", and i need to start dumping everything there, and remember to always bring my pocket camcorder. (I still don't have a smart phone). When i have time, i'd like to go through all the scribble in my notebook and try to salvage any of those ideas. Some say that the good ideas will stay with you, but i'm not sure if i agree with that.
 
Yeah, I have countless ... that's if you're counting really tiny ideas, like a riff I like or a lyric that could inspire a song.

But I have dozens that are just one verse and a chorus maybe. Most of my songs usually sit like that for 5 to 10 years before being completed, if they ever are. There are exceptions, but that tends to be the way it goes more often than not. Lyrics are certainly the bottleneck for me as well.

I can write the music -- chords, melody, riffs, etc. -- seemingly all day every day. I never run out of ideas for that. In fact, I've stopped even jotting down things unless I really like it because I have such a huge backlog of riffs/melodies/etc. that I'll probably never get to.

Lyrics take much longer for me to write. When they come, I'll usually get a section or two of the song at once, but it takes a long time for them to come.
 
I usually have 3 in the Queue. That is waiting to be recorded.
It's actually almost a cycle for me.
I do a bout of recording and then go into writing for a while.
I get to about 3 songs and then the "pressure" builds to where I need to record them.
I typically don't have half recorded songs.
I tend to finish what I record (or abandon it if I can't make it click) and then move to the next.
On occasion I start over with a brand new set of tracks.
Not sure why I prefer that to just editing but I do.
Sometimes there's a detail or 2 to tighten up later but usually I close the book on one before moving to the next.
But as a disclaimer I'm a hobbyist.
My stuff isn't all that complicated.
Vocals, backing vocals, drums, bass, several guitar tracks and very little trickery.
Sometimes I get 1 of 3 that are "keepers".
Sometimes 2 of 3.
Rarely all 3 and rarely none.
I don't know what is special about 3 but it's how it works.
Sort of a "Trilogy" in the Spinal Tap type of sense.
 
I usually have 3 in the Queue. That is waiting to be recorded.
It's actually almost a cycle for me.
I do a bout of recording and then go into writing for a while.
I get to about 3 songs and then the "pressure" builds to where I need to record them.
I typically don't have half recorded songs.
I tend to finish what I record (or abandon it if I can't make it click) and then move to the next.
On occasion I start over with a brand new set of tracks.
Not sure why I prefer that to just editing but I do.
Sometimes there's a detail or 2 to tighten up later but usually I close the book on one before moving to the next.
But as a disclaimer I'm a hobbyist.
My stuff isn't all that complicated.
Vocals, backing vocals, drums, bass, several guitar tracks and very little trickery.
Sometimes I get 1 of 3 that are "keepers".
Sometimes 2 of 3.
Rarely all 3 and rarely none.
I don't know what is special about 3 but it's how it works.
Sort of a "Trilogy" in the Spinal Tap type of sense.

I like this idea of write 3 then record them. I'm going to see if I can get on that schedule. Thanks! :)
 
About 30 to 50 (I'd have to count). Some are just an idea/riff that still need a lot of development, some are done but need lyrics, and some are done entirely but just I need to get around to recording them.

OP, if you have a few that are 80% done don't stress over it. Get them done when you have the time and they flow. You can't force these things, but you also can't sit around and be lazy hoping they write themselves. It's a fine line. My advice would be to work on them daily or at least weekly and see if anything flows.
 
I've written hundreds of songs. It takes me ten or twenty minutes to write one.

Then it takes me a couple of months (or years!) to rewrite them. Typically they go through about two dozen rewrites. On a few of them, by the time they were done none of the original words or music was still there.

I've never found it hard to write a song. Five in a day isn't unusual for me when I have the time and no distractions. I just need an axe, a pen, and paper. They're always running around my head, and only a few of them make it to the sit-down-and-write-the-damn-thing stage.

I subscribe to the one-in-ten rule: I have to write about ten songs to get one good song. So I only learn them occasionally. There are maybe ten or twenty that I can sing and play all the way through, another batch that I almost know, and another batch that I'll get around to learning eventually.

The folks in the (non-pro) bands I play in like them, so I figure it's worth putting the the time into rewrites, as Hemingway said, "to get the words right."

There are over a hundred my website and maybe fifty or sixty more I want to post when I get around to it. Since I'm not a pro, there's no hurry. Here's the site: Home

And here's a batch I'm especially fond of: Oberon O'Blivio and the Outcasts of Samarra

As you can see, I've gotten a little carried away.

Anyhow, here's my song-writing advice, which is worth about as much as the money I've made writing 'em (zip-point-doodly-squat): Don't think. Write.
 
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man, that's the story of my life! lol. too many half-done songs, too few good ones. I am finding that working on one song exclusively sometimes sends me down a rabbit hole of over-analyzing and diminishing returns.. but having more than two going at once and nothing gets finished. I also like to have a song or two in various stages of mixing or recording, so I can keep fresh. I don't do this -- but It would also be wise for us all to keep a list someone of everything we have in the hopper and what stage it's in -- so we can actually tracks our progress or lack of -- lol. That's just called organization and "work flow" -- don't know why I am so resistant to the idea of workflow in recording, as if it's something to be avoided...All the mixing folks I respect keep saying -- Just get the song done the best you can and move onto the next one, because that how you learn. I agree -- except I'm not doing this just to make songs off a list. If something's not coming together, I'd rather wait until it does -- or perhaps abandon the song completely if I can't get it sounding right. I's not like anybody's waiting around for my "next release...." sad, but true.
 
Since the studio computer bombed and I have no way of replacing or rebuilding it financially, my music has tanked. I just don't feel like even practicing. This funk has got to die. I need to keep writing and playing music. I just go from week to week at church, playing piano or bass or drums (whatever is needed). I hardly pick up my acoustic. I haven't touched the electric stable in 6 months. I broke down the drum kit and only play at church. Don't think I've turned the piano on more than twice in the last 6 months either...

I really need my studio back...so to answer the question, I went from 30 good song ideas last year (and a bunch of throw aways) to 0 this year..
 
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