Is there a particular method key or scale you like to write in?

LazerBeakShiek

Find Polaris..and Return
For songs that have a message or story , I was thinking about story boarding. Drawing a few pictures to methodically tell a story. Pull from the images important lines, similar to a screen play. Perhaps it could work.
 
I use the ass-in-chair method for writing the lyrics and developing the message.

AFA the key/scale...it's whatever I hear in my head at the time, and then I'll flush it out at the piano usually, sometimes with guitar.
At that point I'll try a few different keys to see if it works better, though about 75% of the time it stays in the original key I heard.

Coming up with songs was never a problem...it's the finishing part that takes work.
 
So far I got a picture of a

Rocket ship
A sunset
and a tree

Yeah,I dont know. I think I was supposed to come up with a story first and then draw pictures. Whatever.
 
For songs that have a message or story , I was thinking about story boarding. Drawing a few pictures to methodically tell a story. Pull from the images important lines, similar to a screen play. Perhaps it could work.
Whatever gets you through the night.
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Can you break it down a bit ?
 
Can you break it down a bit ?

So there were these producers for disney on a behind the scenes show the other night. The writers and directors sitting talking in front of large pictures. Like using them pictures to write the story. So I thought I can do that, perhaps it will help the song writing process.

There were 3 pictures I drew. And Nothing really came of it.
 
Am. I have to make a real effort to use other keys. I use Em and Fm sometimes. Oddly, 70% of my work is in minor keys - no idea why, I just like them!
 
Yes minor keys, or All sharps and flats. The black keys. When I was first learning keyboards, I did not know the complete scales. So I would hold the bend wheel 1/2 step and play the black keys for a solo. The trick works. I dont think the whites all work together, you need to drop one of the notes. Blacks work together as their own key.
 
Since most of my songs are written by me and are going to be sung by me........I have to be aware of the melody range and decide the key based on that.....most of the time. My range is not great but includes enough keys to keep my songs from all sounding too much alike......and I purposely make the arrangements and instrument selection as varied as possible. The type of song I'm writing also can determine the key. Blues tunes feel better in certain keys......pop songs need certain keys.....etc...etc. Just my 2 cents worth.
 
For me, no real method. It is whatever strikes me first, whether that is a melody line, a lyric, a guitar riff or a chord progression. From there I flesh it out to see what becomes of it. A few times i have something I want to say and try to write a song around it, like in a deliberate, commissioned manner. Those songs almost never work out.

For key signature, I pretty much stay within the CAGED group. If vocal range is an issue, I'll use a capo.
 
A few times i have something I want to say and try to write a song around it, like in a deliberate, commissioned manner. Those songs almost never work out.

Try speed. Get the idea out faster. My ideas leave as fast as they come. If I can track bass guit keys and voice to a tempo, I can fill in the blanks arranging later.

I meant get them down in 10-15 min .
 
I've gotten more song ideas in the shower than any other place. I know it's a cliché...but for some reason it just happens, and it's not something I consciously think to do. I'll just be moving along, and then a melody pops into my head. I don't know if it's anything to do with the sound of the water which kinda masks all other outside noise, that makes it easier to hear a song in my head.
There were times when I walked out of the shower more than once with just the towel around me...gone into my studio and stood at the piano working out what I was hearing in my head...because if I didn't, by the time I would dry and dress...it would be gone, unless I kept singing it over and over in my head the whole time I was getting dressed.

Another oddity...I've heard songs while running the vacuum. It's like that drone from the vacuum drowns everything else out, and suddenly I hear a song in my head. It's the oddest thing...but it seems like the times when I am least trying to think of a song...that's when they come, and it's often when I am engaged in some semi-subconscious activity, like showers or vacuuming, or even just driving in the car (radio off), and that drone of the car and the traffic...it puts me more "in my head"...and that's when I get song ideas.

AFA storyboarding...that's common with film/video so that all the players/techs can get the general idea of the story line, which is much harder when you're just describing it with words. I don't know if it would be of much value of one person when writing a song. I think you will get more mileage by simply writing down some phrases or thoughts about anything...life, love, the world...just jot them down, single words or short phrases without pause to think about them.
Then afterwards, sit and ponder each one, and see if it triggers some further song ideas.

I usually think of a "song story" off of a single word or single phrase, and then use that to build on...rather than first laying out a complete story from start to finish, and then writing lyrics to it. Like for example - "She woke up to a dark morning"...it's just a random thought, it may not even end up as part of the song lyrics, but it can trigger the ideas for the story and the lyrics.

I find that often once you start, the lyrics lead you, and when you follow the rhyme and meter you set, that also pushes you along, or sometimes forces you to change your direction to make it all work...which brings me back to a point in another, recent thread...the more words you have at your command, the bigger your options for where you can take the lyrics. If you limit yourself, it may seem like it's easier, but you then have less creative options.
 
AFA storyboarding...that's common with film/video

Interestingly, the project I'm currently working on is setting old, dark and obscure fairy tales to music.

So our approach is not dissimilar to storyboarding, i.e. we go through the story and break it into chunks, then we figure out the particular bits of the story that each verse will encompass.
 
Well I drew a rocket ship, a sunset, and a tree. It is going to be a work in progress. If I conceptualized it from 'found art' such as a painting, then I could come up with it from the original artists perspective, and substitute my own. Picture books might be a source for this material.

The ole 'Beak is full of good ideas.
 
Interestingly, the project I'm currently working on is setting old, dark and obscure fairy tales to music.

So our approach is not dissimilar to storyboarding, i.e. we go through the story and break it into chunks, then we figure out the particular bits of the story that each verse will encompass.

Well that would make sense if you already have the old fairy tales to use as your storyboard guide...:)...but I don't know how many songwriters will actually draw out storyboards in order to write a song...?...which is more of a film, video and theater approach, drawing out images, since all those processes are bout visual story telling.

Hey, it if works for someone with songwriting, do it.
 
I have a favorite method but I'm just taking the EASY way.

I stay in C for TWO reasons. I can write the song and then I can transpose it using any one of a number of programs and my DAW. I never really LEARNED how to actually WORK in the other keys; I am a singer more than anything else, I never played an instrument. Secondly, Neil Diamond usually wrote in C, at least early in his career and my voice is similar and I love his songs (1974 and before)

George
 
'A D
Where it began I can't begin to know it
A E
But then I know it's grow - in strong
A D
Was in the spring, then spring became a summer
A E7 D C#m Bm
Who'd have believe you'd come a-long '

or

'A
1. Money talks.
2. Honey's sweet.
D
But it don't sing and dance, and it don't walk.
But it ain't nothin' next to baby's treat
A Bm
And long as I can have you here with me,
And if you pardon me, I'd like to say
C#m E
I'd much rather be
We'll do okay '

Neil Diamond? Odd comment. I think he was one of Americas more popular song writers of that time.

That is not C. What songs are in C? But, I do see the similarites in his progressives. C#m and Bm together says A to me.
 
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Well I drew a rocket ship, a sunset, and a tree.....The ole 'Beak is full of good ideas
I'm still lost. Maybe it was that Sainsbury's sherry.
I never really LEARNED how to actually WORK in the other keys
Two things dramatically entered me into the world of different keys ~ varispeeding and capos. And sometimes, combining varispeeding and capos takes me to all kinds of wonderful places. But that's my personal trip ~ a listener will rarely think "oh, he's playing that in F#" or "wow, G#m, that's a rare one !"
Try speed.....I meant get them down in 10-15 min
Glad you clarified that !

Am. I have to make a real effort to use other keys. I use Em and Fm sometimes. Oddly, 70% of my work is in minor keys
There is no rhyme nor reason to the keys I use. It kind of depends on whether a song is written on a bass, a guitar or just as melody in my head. If it's my head, I'll just find the closest chord that enables me to sing it but that still may not be the signature key the song ends up in. There again, a song in the simple G,C,D,Em type keys might be sent up {or down} a semitone just for the heck of it.
 
many people, especially in amateur rock bands, think that changing a key of, say, a song that you're covering, is just a matter of doing exactly that, and all will be well. That's untrue, and it's one of the main reasons why the great classical composers such as Beethoven often felt the need to write a separate symphony for all the principle keys, together with (probably) finding a suitable key for the particular instruments being featured to sound most effective. Then, and particularly where a guitar is featured in Rock song, one has the issue of playing in a key which produces chord inversions of a suitable 'colour'. Take 'Days' by The Kinks: the original is in D major. The open D chord at the beginning and appearing throughout the song has a sparkly vivid 'lightness' to it which nails the whole sonic character. Kirsty McColl's cover is (I think) in A major, which sound firmer, deeper and darker, and IMO is much the worse for it, losing the 'wistful farewell' character of Ray Davies's original. It just sounds rather trite. When you change key, the triad notes of some chords come in a different order. You cannot tamper around with keys and supposedly 'equivalent' chords as if you were just changing your socks. This is a constant source of irritation to me in my own informal band. Move 'Grapevine' from Eb to C minor just so that the singer can hit the notes is bound to lose some of the 'brooding atmosphere' of Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, as well as making the horn parts lose impact because they're too low
 
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