Can you write as you go?

[wheflin]

I have written many songs. either lyrics and add music or vice versa. I want to try to write as i go as if i were writing in the studio. anybody ever done this? any tips or advice? how do you go about it?

Weston <><

 

[arcadeko]

I do it sometimes but the results are usually pretty weird. That's ok with me cause I like weird...

But - like I will come up with a riff or whatever and just blurt out whatever pops into my head - a lot of times it doesn't even make sense exactly, but its usually catchy so I just run with it. Then later I fill in the rest of the lyrics around that one idea.

Music is a little harder cause my drummer doesn't want to sit there for 20 minutes while I experiment with different chord changes

 

[grimtraveller]

Zillions of times. Usually it's in the moments when I've set up the mics and the drummer and I are just messing about, just warming up and making sure the mics are picking up. I've written or we've written so many bits that way. They're usually intros, born of quick jams. It never ceases to amaze them that I'll say, 'hey, that was neat ! I'm keeping that'.
Other times, when the guide guitar or bass has been recorded with the keeper drums or percussion and I'm about to lay down the keeper guitar or bass, I may change bits of what was originally meant to be there. The other week I was putting some guitar down to an already tracked piece. I was trying an experiment where I was going to record what was meant to be the intro, but with the varispeed slowed down so that I could do the chords in a different way {say it was a Dm, play it as a Bm, but slowed down by 3 semitones}. You can get really interesting sounds to each chord, like it was played in some esoteric position on the neck, somewhere I couldn't ordinarilly reach ! Anyway, I played some random chord positions, some of which I knew, some I just made up. Four chords, they went together beautifully and this became my intro and outro. I was able to craft a nice bass line to it. But it all happened spontaneously.
Back in September, I was experimenting with a suitcase as a bass drum {thank you, Moresound !}. My drummer friend was just off to Uni so it was a rushed session and we had a jam just to warm up. At one point, we hit this nice groove and the juices were flowing so I hit the footswitch and recorded about the last 4 minutes. It was just a 4 chord progression but it went through various moves, fast, slow, half time.......Had it been shit I would've just recorded over it but we liked it, despite it's imperfections. Then we recorded the song that we'd gotten together to record !
Over the next 5 or so months, I thought periodically about this jam piece and came up with 4 chord progressions which I intended to disperse throughout the song. But when I came to put something with the drums, I thought most of the progressions were crapola. Everything I tried seemed trite and predictable but eventually, I came up with a weird progression interspersed with one of the previously rejected parts and the original progression from the 'suitcase' jam. When I recorded it, I used a Y cable and played simultaneously through two amps {a line 6 spider and a Fender Bassman 100} and miked them. I liked it. I should add that just before last christmas, I was in the shower when this melody hit me and I worked out some chords for it and added it to the end of this song.
Some songs are very definite, others 'evolve', literally.

 

[Xdrummer]

I've tried - but find it to be less than effective. I find I record parts - change my mind and then have to erase and record something different.

I prefer to keep my writing sessions seperate from my recording sessions - and prefer not to even fire up the recording gear until I'm relatively confident I have solid lyrics, a strong melody and a solid arrangement.

 

[Jon Chorba]

I do it sometimes but the results are usually pretty weird. That's ok with me cause I like weird...

But - like I will come up with a riff or whatever and just blurt out whatever pops into my head - a lot of times it doesn't even make sense exactly, but its usually catchy so I just run with it. Then later I fill in the rest of the lyrics around that one idea.

Music is a little harder cause my drummer doesn't want to sit there for 20 minutes while I experiment with different chord changes

It's not how i usually write, but what you described is what I do when I have writer's block.

 

[Turtleface]

I've found the vast majority of stuff I compose on the guitar ends up being evolutions of little bits I play when I'm warming up my paws. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to getting the sounds I want out of my head, so I'll change progressions and rhythm patterns around until I've found what I want. Usually go about it scientifically, recording each change, and only changing one factor at a time. That way, I can get a dozen different approaches and then play them back one after another for a direct comparison. I'm lucky enough to have a fantastic songwriter to collaborate with, and as such, don't have to worry about the lyrical aspects too much, at least until I learn how to sing and play guitar simultaneously.

 

[Lida]

I write with my acoustic guitar. Normally, when I have an idea/topic I want to write about, I'd like to define the emotion color first. Then, I'd like to work out a chords progress (it was a bit hard at first, but it's getting easier after trying several chords and managing to work out several songs). Then, just like arcadeko, i play the chords progress over and over again and just blurt out notes pop into my head. If it sounds good, I just run with it. If not, I'd start over again. Last but not the least, I finish the rest of the song and the lyrics.

 

[Emerson Maningo]

I have written many songs. either lyrics and add music or vice versa. I want to try to write as i go as if i were writing in the studio. anybody ever done this? any tips or advice? how do you go about it?

Weston <><

One of my personal songwriting process involves working with a studio such as these steps:

1.) I start with a musical instrument like a guitar . If I wrote a great riff or passage..
2.) I then load up some sample electronic drum tracks that acts as timing or rhythm...
3.) I play together with the beats generated from the DAW.
4.) If I am very happy I would even start recording the guitar tracks directly...
5.) I then start writing some melodies and lyrics that would sound great out of that riff.
6.) I then try to change the beat by adding some drum loops , writes the chorus and the repeat the process until the guitar and drum tracks foundation is basically assembled.
7.) I try inviting some great singers (I am not a good singer) to sing that piece.
8.) If necessary I improve the song by changing its tempo, key , etc. as long as it sounds great.
9.) Once the melodies and lyrics are done, I then record the rest of the instruments like bass, etc.
10.) The very basic demo for that song is done.
11.) If I am fully interested with pursuing the song to be released commercially,I seriously record everything that is not properly done, for example using acoustic drum tracks instead of electronic beats. I then proceed with the rest of the music production process such as audio mixing and mastering.

This is how I write a song for almost 7 years now.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

Everyone writes differently. I write as I go and compose parts as I'm recording. That's why I do drums last a lot of times (contrary to what most would do).

I always wondered how bands with crazy sounds like Radiohead and Wilco wrote such strange stuff. Then I watched "I'm trying to break your heart", a Wilco documentary, and they usually started with a pretty basic acoustic G-C-D kinda chordal song and recorded that a a scratch, then added all kinds of weird stuff on top then removed the scratch. A pretty interesting way of writing and making it up on the go.

 

[dogn4u]

The Stones spent a lot of time doing (and evolving) take after take in various expensive studios. I understand that when Mick and Keith would sit knee to knee with acoustic guitars to write a song they would do a couple of things: 1) Keith would mumble or groan or bark sounds that only Mick could understand and translate for the masses and 2) They would focus on vowel sounds - an old songwriters trick, the thought being that once the vowel sounds were good, the actual lyrics really didn't matter that much. It takes a special artist to combine great lyrics with great melodies. Paul Simon, Sting Kurt Cobain has flat out said that the lyrics are almost meaningless in his songs; it's more the order of the vowel sounds.