Your creative writing process...

S

soundprizm

New member
Hey people... Just wondering... What's everybody's song creation process like? Do you write the lyrics first, then add the music? Bass line first, guitar, etc?

Would be cool to see how other people are doing this. I've been listening to my fav artists, and I find myself wondering how the hell they're writing their material!!
 
hmm... a tough one because i do it differently every time. i think typically, to start with, i have an idea in my head of a mood, an unusual chord change, or even just strange sounds that can only be acheived through weird recording techniques. so i'll sit down with my recording stuff and my trusty nylon string guitar and begin writing or experimenting. i'll put chords together and basically write the song as i record it, adding unusual noises that were part of my initial idea where i see fit. then i go back to just playing the guitar part and come up with a melody to go along with it. then i spend a whole week putting together lyrics that slowly but surely come to me.
i think thats my process more than any other.
 
It varies wildly. Could be a guitar riff, could be a bass line, cound be a vocal melody, could be a drum beat. Could be the kids down the block that likes to make up nonsense verses and have sing alongs. And no matter what provides the inspiration for the song in the first place, it could very easily get further inspiration from any of the parts and instruments within itself.
 
Though I have written all the music for some songs of mine before laying a lyric down, and (at some other times) have written out all the lyrics before even touching my keyboard - I pretty much prefer to sit down at the keys and marry a piano track to a lyric line. In this manner (at least for me) there seems to be a tighter partnership betwixt the two.
 
My style of music is acoustic folk so I tend to focus more on lyrics than anything else. Rarely I will be plunking at my guitar and noodle out a nice progression or an interesting arrangement and that will lead to a new song. It is more common for me to sit down with my notepad and write the first verse or two and then construct the music around the central idea of the song.

My song lyrics are very deliberate and I usually construct songs around lines or ideas that I really like.
 
Generally, I write lyrics first and foremost. Of course, I'll write riffs all the time, but more often than not, I'll place riffs/chord progressions with lyrics rather than writing lyrics to fit something instrumental.
 
Sometimes I'm riding down the road,
I start humming then singing
I free associtate anyway, so stuff is popping in my head all the time.

Sometimes I'm banging around on the guitar and something comes out of it.

I've pulled out old stuff I've written and rearrange to fit something new.

But I think most of the time, the music comes first. I have a chord progression and maybe one phrase thats the center or hook and build on that.

j
 
The lyrics always come first for me and they bring with them the melody( just something that happens in my head ) My songs usually write themselves.....if I spend a great deal of time on one line or another, I usually scrap the whole thing.....just was not meant to be!
 
wow, this question has been asked about 25 times since I joined the board. Did you try the search function before you asked it? I seem to remember one of those threads got pretty long. It may give you a lot more insight.
 
heh i get random writing spasms haha, i often write when i have a crush or am crushed but NO EMO lol, but yeah, and then i do a guitar part in my head and find the notes
 
Mine is like Hayley's comet. It's so infrequent. But when something does happen it is usually all in one go. I'll be strumming, then words will come, then an idea for a story or a theme, then the verses, then sometimes even a chorus idea. But you don't always have to have choruses and all that stuff.
 
Hi All,

I always do lyrics first, separately from any playing. I find it much easier to modify a melody around the lyrics than to change writing I like to accomodate the chords.

Cosmic
 
GoldFalcon said:
My style of music is acoustic folk so I tend to focus more on lyrics than anything else. Rarely I will be plunking at my guitar and noodle out a nice progression or an interesting arrangement and that will lead to a new song. It is more common for me to sit down with my notepad and write the first verse or two and then construct the music around the central idea of the song.

My song lyrics are very deliberate and I usually construct songs around lines or ideas that I really like.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do too!
 
i write rap lyrics and in never seem to get stuck with ideas so im always writing... so if im writing at home i'll usually find a beat to write to... but if im at school writing or some place where i aint got a beat ill just write a few verses and later choose a beat for it, then do the choruses etc...
 
I write in a range of electronic genres.

I typcially start out with a harmony played on a specific sound. From there, I may add a bass line, but I quickly get REALLY anal about needing a song structure. Lyrics and melody come late in the game for me. Its seems kind of silly to come up with a song structure before knowing the lyrics, but that's what I do. Of course, I'll change anything in the process if I think it will help the song overall.
 
There really aren't any set rules with this sort of thing. Inspiration can come in all variations at the outset, whether it be vocal, lyric or instrument melody.

For instance, you might hear a good chorus to a song in your head out of the blue, and so you could start with the vocals first. For me, it will generally start with an idea in my head first, and then I'll transcribe the various parts to it in order based on my mood and what I feel like working on.

Sometimes I'll feel like adding the drums first. Sometimes the keyboard or guitars. You can do it in any order you like so long as you can keep track of all the pieces, which I tend to think most artists keep track of in their head.
 
soundprizm said:
I've been listening to my fav artists, and I find myself wondering how the hell they're writing their material!!
Click to expand...
I'm interested to know who you're listening to. What music is making you react in that way?
 
I always try to do lyrics first as I find it difficult to write them around a tune etc.

I like the techinque of having someone elses lyrics in front of you, then you use the structure of their lyrics (rhymes, syllables). Then you just rewrite the melody and hey presto, a new song... Mind, I've only ever done this once, but it worked very well
 
I play primarily metal music and alot of instrumentals so I guess that stuff in particular would not apply. But for stuff with vocals, I still always write the music first. I usually have a lyrical idea or a song title in mind when I am creating the guitar lines, etc. which can help me to envision where certain phrases will go and things like that. I always write lyrics based on humming or roughly mumbling melodies over the completed music. Often times going back and rethinking certain parts of the music afterwards in order to fit in certain vocal phrases that I really like. I usually approach writing music rhythmically rather than melodically. If that makes any sense. That is probably a pretty common heavy metal philosophy, although it is all based on inspiration so every now and then all my methodology goes right out the window. ;)
Also I write and record simply to satisfy myself artistically rather than to appeal to any kind of commercial or mainstream audience....that probably has quite an impact on my methods as well.

Obviously by reading through this thread hardly any two people do it the same! :)
 
Most of the time it's lyrics first for me. Often it is just one good line or phrase that I just can't get out of my head. If I don't come up with a second line fairly soon I write that "one good line" down and file it back for future reference, I'm just now getting around to finding a place for some lines which I came up with years ago. Sometimes songs just happen, I'll pick up a guitar and suddenly a new song jumps out, words and music comming together faster than I can write it all down. On rare occasions (for me ) a melody gets going in my head or a riff suddenly turns into a melody, when this happens I play it over and over untill I feel the mood that the music expresses, then find a story to fit the mood, convert the story to a poem to fit the music, then I step back and say "wow, I just wrote a ballad!"
 
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