Is it best to write the music first or the lyrics?

A

audiomic

New member
I play the piano quite badly, but often find myself wandering off and creating a few possible melodies. Apparently Lionel Ritchie used to write a song a day. It feels natural to start writing lyric ideas at the same time as creating the music.

anyone got ant methods for writing that works best for them?
 
This is the most discussed topics on all the songwriting forums on the net.... There is no concensus and certainly no "right way" (and never will be).
 
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I personally tend to shuffle them together. I'll usually start off singing the lyrics of the first verse or so to myself with a scratch version of the melody.
Then I'll write that down. Then I'll finalize the melody. Then I'll write the rest of the lyrics.

Sometimes I don't though. And that hasn't always been my process. It used to be that I would sit down and strum out a chord progression, then match words and music to that.

It's a creative process, I'd recommend just noodling around and trying different techniques until you find one you like.
 
While it's true that any and all ways can work, I think you work from the center out. Meaning, "Smoke on the Water" started with a riff, "Yesterday" began with a melody, "Born this Way" began with a bacon suit, lots of songs begin with beats these days. You get the idea. For me a few songs came from a guitar tuning. But know that's what your song is going to be, in my case a song to highlight how friggin cool that tuning is and how excited I was playing around in it.

But the hook element of the song is where you usually start, what's going to define the song. Usually the element is a vocal line or lines, but not always. (For most listeners, obviously, a great line or melody is alot easier to grab onto than a cool tuning)

I used to write alot of songs beginning with a "message" or philosophical point I was trying to make. Most of them ran out of steam after a verse or two.

Just my angle.
 
I can't write melodies. I write lyrics and I write chord progressions/song structures.
Which comes 1st? Different ways for different days!!
 
In my own music, the actual lyrics are just as important as the song itself, and I almost always prefer to have an entire song worth of lyrics written out and theeen sit down with an acoustic guitar and work out a good chord progression/rhythm that fits the flow of the lyrics, singing the root or 5th of a given chord for the vocal melody (I like to keep mine simple). The rest of the song flows from there.
 
Songwriting

This is probably the most debated question in songwritering.

I almost always start with the lyrics first which is contrary to many songwriters.

Not being a very trained musician, I find it much easier to come up with an idea first and lines to go with that idea as the wrods are my strong point. I sort of let the words write music if that makes sense. Once I have the words, I can start to hum a tune or beat in my head, letting the words guide me and by knowing what style the new song will be.

I think most highly trained musicians tend to do the opposite as their instrument is their main voice and the words are sort of secondary. There is no hard and fast rule that I am aware, I mean who would throw away a good lyric becasue they didn't write the music first and vise versa...
 
I always write the tunes and the chords first, usually simulataneously. This is a question only amateurs ask; write more and you will develop your own methods.
 
For this issue, I like to quote one of my favorite songwriters...

“Usually there is this feeling, this sentimate that has to come out and sometimes it’s more articulated and sometimes it’s more nebulous. When it’s more articulated I think the lyrics comes first and when its something that you don’t even know yourself, it will come out in a melody first.”
--Jon Foreman
 
I've usually come up with a title first and then the lyrics and then the music to (attempt to) fit...
But my last couple of tunes were music first then lyrics.
(shrugs)
so I guess whatever way is workin is workin.
I just roll widdit.
:drunk:
 
I've written songs in every way you can imagine. From starting with the lyric or music first, to just hearing an interesting drumbeat when I'm bored, to humming a melody over some random guitar riffing. I've got little bits and piece of song/melody/lyric all over my computers, house, car, office, etc. From a couple words, to full verses.

Whatever gets your creativity flowing at the right time is the way to go.
 
i definitely don't like when you hear a song and it sounds like the singer is reading lyrics and trying to fit a melody to them. i get this feeling with bjork songs sometimes. as far as my own style goes i always find myself writing the lyrics afterwards, singing along to songs even in gibberish sometimes or random words and i'll find that some words just sound better in certain parts of the song and i can even develop the lyrics from those words.
 
Hi,

I used to write lyrics first, because I'd had decades of experience wrangling words, and not very much with making music. But it often wasn't all that successful because I'd end up with lyrics that looked good on the page but didn't always sing well when I did begin to get some music going.

So now I try and alway get at least a pulse or rhythm going alongside the first lyric ideas. A sort of skeleton to hang the song on. A good song needs to have the key words punching along with the right spots in the rhythm and drive of the music, and it's hard to do that if you don't have any idea what that structure will be.

So now I have an early stage where I muck around with both lyric and music ideas until some sort of shape develops. Either one might push the other around for a while, but something eventually settles in. Then I'll work on the lyrics in earnest for a while. I might change the key or various chords later, or alter all sorts of things, but I'll usually keep the basic underlying structure fairly intact.

But as everybody says, there's no rules.
 
what i tend to do is come up with the idea for the song (I write Christian music) then i write the chords. then, as i play the chords i humm a melody or sing "woahs" and once i find a melody i like, i already have the syllables worked out. from there i start on the lyrics. this is the way i do 90% of my songwriting. i have done lyrics first and gotten some of my best songs but it was a lengthier process. as said above, it depends on the person. there are an infinite number of ways to write any given song. just use trial and error. happy songwriting!
 
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