How do you get ideas?

[li10]

I'm fed up of playing other people's songs. So for a while now I've been trying to write my own. That being a hard task itself, I want to write good songs - and meaningful songs, like the ones found on Radiohead's albums. Like the songs "Pyramid Song", "Motion Picture Soundtrack", "The Lukewarm", and "Street Spirit (fade out). I used to be into rock but now consider it a little shallow (I'm not bashing rock music though, just saying most of it isn't my thing anymore).

But the problem is: HOW?!

How do you keep it original? Interesting? Meaningful? I find a lot of Radiohead's songs can be very powerful... I want that. I just don't know how to get it.

 

[ido1957]

Use the knowledge and experience you've gained playing cover tunes to write original tunes. You know how to play your instrument now transfer that skill into songwriting.

Try different chord progressions. Find the ones that sound similar to the artists you are emulating but unique at the same time.

Whistle or hum melody lines for vocals and leads.

As far as lyrics go, you can write them before or after you have the music. A personal feeling/experience can be easy to write about because of its familiarity. I write a considerable amount of lyrics before I get enough words to design a full song. A lot of it is garbage, free-flowing thoughts, cliches etc but somewhere in there will be the meat of your song....

Like anything, you have to practice, practice, practice, to get good at it....

Good Luck - and post your works here once you have something written....

 

[avedic]

first of all...post something you've written...whatever you consider your best work. for all you know you're writing amazing music now. if not, we could always give what you're doing now a listen and see what could be improved in order to make your music more emotive.

 

[Nightfire]

First off, get a small handheld voice recorder and carry it with you everywhere Trust me, sometimes you'll have a sweet line running through your thoughts and you WILL have forgotten it by the time you get home etc. Same goes with melodies, sometimes I'll just be whistling melodies or make up a melody in my mind (I find it way easier to make up a riff or a melody in my mind, recording it, and then finding the chords for it rather than using chords and applying a melody to them) and a handheld recorder comes in super handy.
Second, listen to as much Radiohead as you can if you want to sound like them, or listen to as much music in that genre. When your writing a song you will tend to be more inspired to write that style of music rather than rockabilly etc.
Are you having problems coming up with a melody or with lyrics?


Mike

 

[mjr]

First off, get a small handheld voice recorder and carry it with you everywhere Trust me, sometimes you'll have a sweet line running through your thoughts and you WILL have forgotten it by the time you get home etc. Same goes with melodies, sometimes I'll just be whistling melodies or make up a melody in my mind (I find it way easier to make up a riff or a melody in my mind, recording it, and then finding the chords for it rather than using chords and applying a melody to them) and a handheld recorder comes in super handy.
Second, listen to as much Radiohead as you can if you want to sound like them, or listen to as much music in that genre. When your writing a song you will tend to be more inspired to write that style of music rather than rockabilly etc.
Are you having problems coming up with a melody or with lyrics?

Mike

I would agree with the previous posts. I'd like to add to what Mike said, though.

I carry a notebook everywhere.

Anyway, I don't know if you want to sound like Radiohead or not, but here's my advice (and it ties into what Mike said). As Mike said, listen to as much Radiohead as possible, and when you get to a good song, ask yourself, "What makes this song good?"

Write down your thoughts and feelings about the song. Write down your general thoughts and feelings during the song.

When an idea or a line hits you, write it down. You may be able to run with it, or branch off of it to another idea.

That's off the top of my head. If I think of anything else, I'll certainly post it.

 

[li10]

It's melody. I do get a lot of (well, at the time) great tunes going through my head, but I forget about them no matter how hard I try. It's so annoying, it's a lost opportunity. The problem is, my band is probably going to stay a 3 piece - and Radiohead is a three guitar band. Oh well, I'll just end up developing my own style and hopefully become unique! but yeah I sure will look into the recorder thingy... a dictation machine?

With the lyrics, I'm trying to make them really abstract and cryptic. The trouble is, I find it hard coming up with lines without music. So I need to make the music!

here's some fingerings of one thing I just made up today... so if you play guitar try them out if you want.

if you have a metronome, set it to 132, one strum each beat. And it's just downstrokes... well that's how I play it.


xxx223 - play 4 times

xxx221 - play 4 times

xxx222 - play 4 times

xxx021 - play 4 times

xxx220 - play 4 times

xxx120 - play 4 times

xxx020 - play 8 times

xxx120 - play 8 times

(repeat... if you really want to)

 

[mikeh]

The fact that you want to write original material means you have a writer in you who wants to come out (vs. some people who simply are not blessed with the desire) so you are already well on your way.

Naturally it depends a lot on if you are more concerned with lyrics (telling unique and interesting stories) vs. melody, etc (creating interesting music).

Songwriting 101 could possibly be - take a cover song you already know, and simply try to write different lyrics (naturally you could not actually try to profit since you would encounter copyright issues - but it is a good way to practise lyric writing).

To develop story lines (in theory song lyrics normally tell some kind of story) -write about thing you know or believe in, possible examples being girls, cars, drinking (or all of the above in the same song). Love songs are an obvious - perhaps cliche' option. Common methods include writing in the 1st person (I'm in love) the second person (you're in love) or the third person (Dick & Jane are in love). At first, writers may have to write very basic things until they can grow. Truly unique writing takes time to develop.

From a melody/harmony standpoint - if you know very basic theory (the basic scales (I-iim-iiim-IV-V etc) and basic circle of 5ths/4th you have the abiily to explore numerous chord progressions. Naturally, guitar driven songs are mainly about "riffs" so taking riffs you already know (from cover material) and turning them around came give you many pontential starting points.

More than anything - write often and write a lot!!! Almost every song writer will admit that they write a lot of crap for every one good song!!!!

 

[mjr]

The fact that you want to write original material means you have a writer in you who wants to come out (vs. some people who simply are not blessed with the desire) so you are already well on your way.

Naturally it depends a lot on if you are more concerned with lyrics (telling unique and interesting stories) vs. melody, etc (creating interesting music).

Songwriting 101 could possibly be - take a cover song you already know, and simply try to write different lyrics (naturally you could not actually try to profit since you would encounter copyright issues - but it is a good way to practise lyric writing).

To develop story lines (in theory song lyrics normally tell some kind of story) -write about thing you know or believe in, possible examples being girls, cars, drinking (or all of the above in the same song). Love songs are an obvious - perhaps cliche' option. Common methods include writing in the 1st person (I'm in love) the second person (you're in love) or the third person (Dick & Jane are in love). At first, writers may have to write very basic things until they can grow. Truly unique writing takes time to develop.

From a melody/harmony standpoint - if you know very basic theory (the basic scales (I-iim-iiim-IV-V etc) and basic circle of 5ths/4th you have the abiily to explore numerous chord progressions. Naturally, guitar driven songs are mainly about "riffs" so taking riffs you already know (from cover material) and turning them around came give you many pontential starting points.

More than anything - write often and write a lot!!! Almost every song writer will admit that they write a lot of crap for every one good song!!!!

Great points, mikeh.

Every song I've ever written, though, has been gold! Just kidding.

I never thought of the "take a song you already know and re-write the lyrics", although I've done that before with certain songs.

 

[Freddy]

More than anything - write often and write a lot!!! Almost every song writer will admit that they write a lot of crap for every one good song!!!!

Yup!

Except me, of course. Someone else writes all that crap stuff and leaves it lying around my place.. just wait 'til I catch him

Adding to what Mikeh said.. don't wait for an idea. Start writing anyway and the idea will develop. Inspiration is a side-effect of hard work

One thing I do if I have a musical segment I am playing with is just to play it over and over and just start putting sounds to it. Singing out load helps. Eventually a line comes.. it may seem like nonsense or it may just trigger an idea.

P.S. The guy who leave the crap stuff in my place also sabotaged my mirrors. I can't see myself in them any more .. just this slightly bewildered looking older guy

 

[ido1957]

That's a great suggestion - keeping a tape/digital recorder and/or a notepad handy for those spur of the moment ideas....

 

[mikeh]

The small digital recorder thing is a very good idea. I don't know how I lived without them. Just last night a lyrical hook came to my as I was in bed (just about to doze off). I reached over, grabbed the recorder (which I always try to keep in reach - wherever I am) and mumbled a few words.

This morning I could not remember the words - but viola, there they were on the recorder!!!!

Freddy,

That same guy has been sneaking into my house, leaving crap lyrics on my desk and messing with my mirrors (he also must be stealing my donuts, cause every time I look in the mirror he keeps looking older and fatter).

I suspect he's also resonsible for my guitars going out of tune and for perfectly good cables crapping out!!!!

 

[danny.guitar]

xxx223 - play 4 times

xxx221 - play 4 times

xxx222 - play 4 times

xxx021 - play 4 times

xxx220 - play 4 times

xxx120 - play 4 times

xxx020 - play 8 times

xxx120 - play 8 times

(repeat... if you really want to)

While honestly I'm not too crazy about the chords used in that progression, I think it would also help to mix up the strumming patterns a little bit. It can get pretty boring and sometimes even annoying with just simple 4 or 8 down strokes for each chord. The rhythm of a song is just as important as the lead/vocals. If not more important on some songs.

It's what will really get people into your music.

 

[li10]

I need to get into more lead-ish stuff!! I want it to be melodic like on OK Computer....!! That's it, I'm just ognna play loads of covers (even though it's not really my thing), so I can leaen what makes a good song.

 

[TerraMortim]

What I would suggest is to either...listen to EVERYTHING or NOTHING. After that, write what you feel. If you are angry write about it. It doesn't have to be really clever or complex to be a great song. Some of the best songs are very simple. Don't try, in the writing process (leave that for the mix) to sound like any particular band, or even genre. When I write, the writing process is completely free form, and then I decide after I start to get the song more developed and have session players or what have you layered on, what genre or what style I want to have it be. If you look at some of the most timeless songs out there, they could be played in any genre and still be well done. While this isn't 100% of the time, it's a pretty good starting point.

I would say, write riffs, ditties, short phrases that just happen to pass your lips, and just keep them in a huge library, most music isn't written completely and conciously from start to finish, it's ususally lets do that riff here and we can throw this vocal over that and then we can take out this riff and use it for a different track etc...

Don't be afraid to write just stupid little ditties, sometimes they can lead to the best songs out there. Don't be afraid of making mistakes, or making something "stupid". Phil Spektor, probably one of the greatest songwriters/producers of early rock records of the 60s would judge how great a song was by litterally how "stupid" it was. I think that the genius people ususally find in music is often unintentional. When people try too hard to be clever or original for the sake of it, it can come off as very impersonal (unless that's what you're going for).

SOmetimes just place your fingers on the fret board, or keys, or just start to sing the first thing that comes to your lips. Even if you think it sucks, it could turn amazing very easily.

Write...write...write...every day. Write someting, good bad, whatever. Constantly write and archive, write and archive. Those archives come in very handy. I'll often be in a song and about slamming myself in the face from frustration, and what do you know, that retarted little ditty I wrote when I wasn't feeling much of anything in the way of inspiration goes PERFECTLY with what I'm doing.

Try to avoid sounding too much like this band or that song or whatever. It's allright to sometimes take influence, but really what makes a band like Radiohead great, is they took what they feel and what they know and they just did what felt right to them. Don't feel intimidated if what you come up with isn't exactly what you were going for. Sure, most good musicians could emulate diferent genres or songs, which is a great skill, and I'm sure doing many covers, you would attain skills for that sort of thing, but... if you really want to make very personal, powerful music.. just write what you know, just like authors do.

Allow your creations to take a life of their own (for control freaks like myself this one is hard). Wait untill things have started taking shape before letting your mind get in the way of your gut feelings. Oh yeah, that's another good point. ALWAYS!!! ALWAYS! if you want to create original music, that is very meaningful, go with your gut. Don't think about it too much. Meaningful music has to be meaningful to you, or people will be able to sense a bit of fake-ness about it. The more I write music, the more I realize that in early stages, your mind and common sense are your worst enemy.

Allow yourself to feel ANYTHING, even if it's very disturbing, difficult emotionally, or against your entire moral fiber. Recently, I wrote an album that was based on the concept of the inner workings of a serial killer's mind. I subjected myself to hours of confession tapes, crime scene images, psychological profiles, etc... I allow myself for a time to in a sence, be that killer, if only in my mind, and then write the music as if I were a puppet, being controlled by my own emotions.

If you have no ideas... go back to step one. LISTEN TO EVERYTHING OR NOTHING. Personally, I go the everything route. I find sometimes listening to things that are totally different than what I'm writing actually gives me much more and much more original ideas. For example, I'm working on an industrial album, so am I listening to lots of industrial right now? Nope. I'm listening to a lot of opera, experimental symphonic music, and brutal death metal. The ideas for this industrial album I'm writing are coming much easier as a result. (opera is a very nice place to get great inspiration for all kinds of music, I think...but that could just be me) Sure, when it's time to polish things, the mind can take over a bit, and it's not so crucial to the process.

Hope this helps. It's a bit jumbled, but it's really hard to explain what makes a great songwriting process happen. It kind of happens. You just have to follow your heart and let it happen, and lose control to your song.

 

[Whatmysay]

The best way to start writing is to think in pictures – actually you can talk about feelings, but the image always comes before the emotion. Her face – your love, her face kissing another man – your hate, loneliness, etc.

While Radiohead’s lyrics can be abstract, they evoke strong images and those images often lead to a continuity of feeling. TS Elliot wrote his poems this way as well. Thom Yorke is very good at juxtaposing words and images to create unique visions.

Get your TV on and channel hop with notebook or dig rec. Stay on channel long enough to write a quick description of what you see or maybe a snatch of what dialogue you hear.

Then transfer (or do it first) onto A3 page spread out all over the place. Go to your music – pick a random track – determine the main theme of the song – turn of the music – write that theme in the centre of A3 – then try to write a song on the same theme using the images and words from the channel hopping. Add connection idea. Try to keep it sensual (in the truest sense of the word) what you see, hear or touch, maybe smell as you evolve the narrative of your song.

It could be a linear narrative that we connect with through the logic of the story or it could be lateral like you’re A3 sheet, and just evoke emotions in the listener.

This is some other stuff from a post I did on Writer’s block a couple of weeks back

keep writing, no matter how much rubbish you produce.

Creativity (or problem solving) is often the combination of 2 disparate ideas into a new into a new synthesis. With a song it could be words and music, words and words or even mixing music styles or structures. But mostly it is your subconscious that does this – so doing things like taking walks, contemplating nature, free writing; actually access those unique combinations that resonate with you and therefore a potential audience. But it is no good doing that if you are not feeding your subconscious with digestible ideas.

The guy who discovered the benzene molecule Fredrick Kekule said (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedr..._von_Stradonitz)
that he work it out that the molecule was round (up until then the math didn’t work out like in other molecules) after he had a day dream of a snake eating its own tail. But his subconscious wouldn’t have spoken to him, if he didn’t spend hours going over and over the problem.

My point is that to often we try to write songs instead of a song; thats why working from titles or single phrases is such a good idea. Even start with a known song or musical genre in mind that you want to emulate and do a ‘homage’ its not what you end up with as what you discover along the way.

Note books are great when you have a lot of random ideas thrown together – note the ideas from your book on a big single sheet (A3) of paper then see if any of them link up well or even tenuously – the combination of unrelated idea will often spark new directions.

Free write for 10 minutes, just write the first thing that comes into your mind (or record it) then put the best phrases and use the ‘big sheet’ technique above – or better still cut them out put them in a hat and pull them out and write them as lines to a song – some make sense some don’t; Bowie has done this all his career (there are computer programmes that do this now).

TV is a great source of inspiration – sound bites or answers to interviews often can be a staging point for a whole song – particular when it is someone who is speaking passionately about a subject – the language is instantly emotive. Just jot them all down.

My theory basically goes that you feed your subconscious as many different idea as possible (listening a lot of the time) then try techniques that allow its lateral nature to surface (Like above – do not forget a brisk walk – or treadmill) and let the divergent think grow. It is only later, much later that you bring judgement to bare and you start to think convergently as you edit and craft the song.

 

[Gorty]

When you lose a girl that you liked a lot, that will give you some inspiration to write a tune, be it a love ballad on the acoustic or a hard rock vengeful hate driven angst type tune on the electric.

 

[mjr]

SOmetimes just place your fingers on the fret board, or keys, or just start to sing the first thing that comes to your lips. Even if you think it sucks, it could turn amazing very easily.

I tried that once..and ended up with a few lines that would have been a terriffic comedy song about a naked man in a tree outside someone's window, that looked like he was trying to get inside.

 

[TerraMortim]

I tried that once..and ended up with a few lines that would have been a terriffic comedy song about a naked man in a tree outside someone's window, that looked like he was trying to get inside.

hehehehe. Takes lots of practice along with that. Eventually, doing that will yeild good results...just takes lots of time. The world needs more comedic songs tho, eh? hehe

 

[TerraMortim]

The best way to start writing is to think in pictures – actually you can talk about feelings, but the image always comes before the emotion. Her face – your love, her face kissing another man – your hate, loneliness, etc.

While Radiohead’s lyrics can be abstract, they evoke strong images and those images often lead to a continuity of feeling. TS Elliot wrote his poems this way as well. Thom Yorke is very good at juxtaposing words and images to create unique visions.

Get your TV on and channel hop with notebook or dig rec. Stay on channel long enough to write a quick description of what you see or maybe a snatch of what dialogue you hear.

Then transfer (or do it first) onto A3 page spread out all over the place. Go to your music – pick a random track – determine the main theme of the song – turn of the music – write that theme in the centre of A3 – then try to write a song on the same theme using the images and words from the channel hopping. Add connection idea. Try to keep it sensual (in the truest sense of the word) what you see, hear or touch, maybe smell as you evolve the narrative of your song.

It could be a linear narrative that we connect with through the logic of the story or it could be lateral like you’re A3 sheet, and just evoke emotions in the listener.

thats a really interesting approach. I'll try that sometime ... oh yeah one thing I forgot to mention in my first post, try a variety of techniques. It'll give you a variety of results, which keeps things more interesting instead of all the same.

 

[tweedledee]

song

I will find a bit of melody in my head, soemtimes just a couple bars worth but i quickly record it to my computer, and if the rest of the melody doesn't come to me i'll just write lyrics to what i have and let the rest come when it wants to. one of the fines ,elodiesi ever wrote, came to me in two part....six months apart. total writiers block for those months but when it came it was like magic.