An idea for coming up with song ideas if you compose on your own

[Ricklh]

This is something I tried over the weekend and was very pleased with the results so thought I'd share the idea...who knows, it may help someone else.

The centerpiece of my little set-up is my Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer, which I plug into it the following:

1. Squier Tele into Digitech effects box - (stereo TRS cable out) to stereo track on the Behringer)
2. Two mics into Behringer (panned fully left & right for full stereo)
3. Zoom drum machine into mono Behringer channel.
4. Run cable out of Behringer into either an MP3 player with "line-in", or your PC. (I used an iRiver MP3 player and the sound quality on playback was surprisingly good - now I can listen back at any time without booting up my PC.)
5. Get a nice mix of the guitar/drums & mics then begin recording while experimenting with the various drum patterns and try to come up with guitar riffs and/or chord progressions that work well with the patterns. If you come up with a drum & guitar "demo composition" you like, make up lyrics on the fly and sing a scratch vocal along with the drums & guitar. It may/probably will sound like total crap at this point but the idea is to brainstorm for song ideas, & melody. Continue recording as long as you want moving through diffferent drum beats, guitar riffs After recording anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, stop recording and play it all back. You might be surprised to find you've come up with 2 or 3 very workable song ideas.
6. You can also take the 2-track recording you've just made and add some bass on your multi-tracker of choice to flesh out the potential of the song ideas you've come up with.

 

[ido1957]

Good strategy - this will definitely work AFAIC. The more ideas you get down the more you have to choose from.

 

[rayc]

OR get the cassette player & press record then jam away.
There are so many ways to skin that particular cat but you've come up with a way of justifying possession of stuff into the bargain.
Me? I sit on the lounge with my thin line semi acoustic in my hands & when I come up with something that sounds OK I play it over and over before writing the progression down with pen & paper.
there are dangers associated though...
memory loss,
paper loss,
running out of ink,
being too lazy to write stuff down,
falling off the lounge
and so forth.

 

[Spike]

Seems a rather long and drawn out way to put your inspiration down into concrete form.

Reminds me of an old mate of mine who had his own little studio set-up in the rear of his garden. He told me he used to get up in the morning, make a cuppa, then go down the garden path and unlock his studio. He then used to fire up Cubase, turn the mixer and the amps on, switch his synth on, then say to himself: "Now, what sort of song shall I write today"?


All well and good if that's how these people create their music, but personally it would never do for me. Being primarily a guitarist my ideas always come to me when I'm just sitting alone with my acoustic, just idly strumming away with no thought of writing a song or forcing my creativity at all. I find ideas come to me when I'm not really trying.


But horses for courses. If it works for you, then fair play.

 

[Whatmysay]

falling off the lounge

I just added an ergonomic chair to my recording chain to avoid that.

Only problem is it takes my half an hour to get in the appropriate yoga position just to sit in front of the computer!

I'm all for what ever works - I find what I write on tend to determine style. Ac G usually gets the lyric going, keys is great for the melody. E G (particularly through my MiniPod f/x) leads to very rock/blues riff based stuff.

I'm not a big one for starting with loops or beats but last year I did the music Bollywood style for a version of Three Penny Opera and started with Indian loops form "World" music sample pack and I really enjoyed working in this way.

I rarely write progressions down until I finish song and have an inconsistent approach to writing the lyrics - but I am a big fan of 'forgetting as a filter of quality' if you can't remember it the it must not have been that good - I seem to remember a lot of crap as well so it is not the filtering I do!

 

[mattdee1]

I've used looping ideas on the computer to help spur along the writing process.

But I'd only bring that into the mix after I have a decent "song basis", which, as somebody already pointed out, often comes about by accident when you're just sitting around with your acoustic guitar and not even actively trying to come up with something.

Since I'm playing guitar and singing, I find that looping a riff or chord progression on the computer gives me more freedom to focus strictly on the vocal aspect, which sometimes allows me to come up with melodies and ideas that I would have missed if I was partially distracted by playing guitar at the same time. Once I have the vocal line the way I want it, it's sometimes a challenge to go back and be able to simultaneously play guitar and sing the new melody, but it always comes with practice, and ultimately ends up making me a better all around player because I just pushed myself to do something that I couldn't before.