P
philsick
New member
for me, i'll normally play around with chord progressions- this gives me inspiration for everything else
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
You'll probably get more traffic in the songwriting forum.
CrowsofFritz
Flamingo!
i hum a tune in my head and make the guitar and bass fit with it.
Chili
Site Moderator
I'll move it over.
Songs start in different ways for me. It could be a guitar riff, a melody, a line of lyrics, a hook.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
So many different ways. A melody might come into my head. I might be reading or watching something and a phrase or a line might spark me off. Or I might play something on the guitar or bass. Or I might hear a piece of or snatch of music or recall an old song and work out some music to it and then deliberately create a new melody. When I used to jam a lot, so many songs came that way. Or I might just take a well known bit and work it out backwards then put new bits to the backward piece.
I'm at the point now where, even if I have lots of fragments of a song and have lots of gaps in there, I know I can get it all to add up and make coherent sense by the time I come to mix it.
I'm at the point now where, even if I have lots of fragments of a song and have lots of gaps in there, I know I can get it all to add up and make coherent sense by the time I come to mix it.
X
Xdrummer
New member
The majority of the time I am playing a guitar or a piano and I'll find a chord progression that I like. This leads me to "scat sing" a melody which eventually starts to become word. At soon point the words become phrases - and one of the phrases will become the obvious "hook". I then really start the writing process.
On a more rare occasion, I will read or hear about something that I think will be a good song subject, and I then work specifically to create melody/harmony to write that specific song.
I have a belief that the "muse" will rarely choose to visit us, unless she thinks we are ready to receive her "gift" - I try to spend as much time as I can with an instrument in my hands - so she will see that I am ready!
On a more rare occasion, I will read or hear about something that I think will be a good song subject, and I then work specifically to create melody/harmony to write that specific song.
I have a belief that the "muse" will rarely choose to visit us, unless she thinks we are ready to receive her "gift" - I try to spend as much time as I can with an instrument in my hands - so she will see that I am ready!
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I'm more of a muse robber. I wait
till she's out visiting the sensitive artists 
then I persuade 
some incorrigibles 
to break into her pad and plunder the available goods. 
X
Xdrummer
New member
I'm more of a muse robber. I wait
So that's where my bridge disappeared to!
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Yeah, sorry 'bout that ! 
CoolCat
Well-known member
seems the acoustic chords with some melody in the head thought strikes first and the words first draft flop out there...possibly incoherent , the structure isnt much at first before being chopped down to 3 minutes.. is it me, you, them kind of crap.
...adding bass means its at least listenable for me a few times! its the most fun but can take it to the next level.
...then dust off the guitar and that can be either the worst part or bring in some new life to another level of better....often the song dies off there...if the guitar parts are working out ok...this means some more time spent on it.... maybe some riff or something to keep it interesting.
then for me, of course drums are my weakest, and if I forgot to put some DrumDrops track before the first.track..then its a real mess, a true scratch recording which is about 98% of the few songs I might do a year. then filed as "potential song" but low ass effort & skills it goes to the coffin file....the new one is more fun, I dont care to redo half ass songs.
off topic..? the worst of the worst is most often 99% of the time, when I decide to record something Im singing with an acoustic on Track 1 and it always sounds like ass later....its fun, lots of fun making noises and getting the gear turned on....but that first track is always like some bad scratch track idea...with bass and guitars and crappy drums slopped on it. So 99.5% are un-mixable because of the vocal and rythm has the energy but recorded so poorly all interest is lost in doing it all over again...so after a few days of polishing a turd its dropped off to the coffin file.
so I guess Im thinking, in observation, the song starts on acoustic chords but can change once other instruments are added.
like Ginger Baker said Sunshine of your love...was straight & boring until he changed the rythm to something else (and he got no credit as a songwriter but the manager did?)..supposedly the engineer said he came up with the unique drum beat idea too...which is odd because the engineer wasnt the drummer or even in the band...but I wasnt there, who knows. Jack Bruce got paid he wrote the boring version without the drum change.
but songs can take on a whole new direction on later tracking, imo. so I kind of go with it...thats the point.
...adding bass means its at least listenable for me a few times! its the most fun but can take it to the next level.
...then dust off the guitar and that can be either the worst part or bring in some new life to another level of better....often the song dies off there...if the guitar parts are working out ok...this means some more time spent on it.... maybe some riff or something to keep it interesting.
then for me, of course drums are my weakest, and if I forgot to put some DrumDrops track before the first.track..then its a real mess, a true scratch recording which is about 98% of the few songs I might do a year. then filed as "potential song" but low ass effort & skills it goes to the coffin file....the new one is more fun, I dont care to redo half ass songs.
off topic..? the worst of the worst is most often 99% of the time, when I decide to record something Im singing with an acoustic on Track 1 and it always sounds like ass later....its fun, lots of fun making noises and getting the gear turned on....but that first track is always like some bad scratch track idea...with bass and guitars and crappy drums slopped on it. So 99.5% are un-mixable because of the vocal and rythm has the energy but recorded so poorly all interest is lost in doing it all over again...so after a few days of polishing a turd its dropped off to the coffin file.
so I guess Im thinking, in observation, the song starts on acoustic chords but can change once other instruments are added.
like Ginger Baker said Sunshine of your love...was straight & boring until he changed the rythm to something else (and he got no credit as a songwriter but the manager did?)..supposedly the engineer said he came up with the unique drum beat idea too...which is odd because the engineer wasnt the drummer or even in the band...but I wasnt there, who knows. Jack Bruce got paid he wrote the boring version without the drum change.
but songs can take on a whole new direction on later tracking, imo. so I kind of go with it...thats the point.
J
jbarry
New member
Usually I'll play a sequence of notes, or a couple of chord fragments mixed with single notes that will sound interesting. That's usually a set up for me to fail though. I end up writing "guitarcentric" instrumentals that don't have a lot of melody. The instrumental tunes that I like best are driven by melody and are accented by guitar specific things. My general rule is "if I can't hum it, it won't work." As a result I have a lot of discarded "starts" in my GuitarPro folders.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
The manager didn't get a songwriting credit. It's credited to Jack, Eric Clapton {he added a major shift} and Pete Brown who wrote the lyrics. The manager, Robert Stigwood, might have got the publishing though. Some of them were tricky that way in the days before the artist realized that the money was in the publishing.
It's not unusual. On Pink Floyd's "Remember a day" the producer Norman Smith came up with the drum part and even played it because Nick Mason couldn't. On the Stones' "You can't always get what you want" the producer Jimmy Miller plays the drums because Charlie Watts just couldn't get the part. There are lots of examples of producers, engineers, even friends, suggesting musical parts that become iconic. Anita Pallenberg suggested the "woo woo" backing vocal that is an integral part of the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" for example.
It may have been the boring version {according to the master of cantankerous bitterness, Ginger Baker} but the song existed before that drum part became part of it.
Wholeheartedly agree. In fact, it's usually in the tracking that the song comes alive and really assumes its shape. Comparing the Bowie demo of "Quicksand" with the studio take is like comparing a photo of someone when they've just come out of the bath as opposed to when they're dressed in all their finery and made up.