Hi, first post here. I play finger style acoustic guitar, just at home, no vocals. I lean towards Celtic music and write from that perspective.
So I started writing an instrumental piece the other day, CGDGAD #10. After the 4th revision I went on to writing something else as it just wasn't happening.
Many times I will start with a chord fragment and a transition to another which sets the basis for a theme, more than a melody. I get better results, but it takes longer
if I start with melody and fit the chords/intervals around that.
What is your process and how many revisions does a tune go through on average?
Hey, J!
The first shot just takes a few minutes — rarely more than about fifteen. Then the revising starts, and that goes through many, many pages. I've written a couple hundred songs, and they've all gone through dozens of rewrites. Example:
First verse, first draft:
Yesterday I was feeling so blue,
I was so far away from you.
I know you told me we were through,
but I still could not stop loving you.
Countless problems there, right? Not much rhythm, no originality, not enough alliteration or assonance, no internal rhyme — not enough heart, really. But the important thing was to get it down. Then I fixed and fixed:
First verse, final draft:
Yesterday my heart was bleeding black and blue,
a thousand miles from you, what else could it do?
The touts and the tabloids all said were were through,
but I still could not stop loving you.
And the chorus, bridge, and other two verses got the same treatment. Every line of it (except for "but I still could not stop loving you") got worked over relentlessly until it was keepable — both the words and the music. It's a short, simple little song, but it's a short, simple little song that took time to complete.
I've even written songs where none of the original words or none of original music made it to the final version. You're never done until the song is done.
I heard Salmin Rushdie interviewed when he was working on a book. The interviewer, Terry Gross, asked him if it was good. He said, "No! If it were good it would be done!"
Another writer story: Someone at
Paris Review asked Hemingway what the point was of rewriting the end of
A Farewell to Arms 38 times. He said, "Getting the words right."
So I just revise until it's good and until I get the words (and music) right.