Recording without second opinions...

[KonradG]

I've been writing music for about 4 or 5 months now, and have only truly felt good about 2% of the stuff coming out for the past month or so.

I have found myself getting frustrated with myself when i hit a mental barrier and have to force myself to continue sitting in front of the computer screen and figure out what the song needs.

Any suggestions? My band seems to be very un-helpful.

 

[HomeMadeHitShow]

Sorry no tips here other than to tell you it's a common problem. It's a viscious circle, if you try to force yourself out of it then it just gets worse and worse.

I would relax and pickup a keyboard or guitar and just noodle, something will come.

 

[Mindcore]

Best songs I've written took me about 5 minutes to write, other times, like you I stare at the computer writing crap after crap and walk away.

For me anyway, I can't force it, when something twigs in my mind I take advantange of it, otherwise I practice getting good sounds, or creating riff librarys so when I do get stuck and need a part, I can listen back to cool stuff I wrote but forgot about, it's only HDD space.

 

[mixsit]

Confucius say, err, Psycho Cybernetics said that in the most basic terms the creative process works like this; (It's very simplified, but direct.)
You (we) use our conscious side to do the work, collecting and focusing on the 'problem's parameters (this would be you gathering ideas, bits and pieces, banging away in any way you can, etc.) Then during a period when (or while) you are not consciously working on it (a sleep period typically) the unconscious process takes over.
The result (hopefully) is you wake up with 'new found' inspirations (or solutions, whatever). So mostly it begins with the work' up front, then comes the pay off -as if by magic...
Or so we have been told.
Wayne

 

[FALKEN]

I like to look at guys like Thelonius Monk who wrote over 5,000 songs in their lifetime. How did he do it? He just had his process down. He had his process down so well that he could hear a song in his head, play it once for the band before the gig, and then the entire band would play it flawlessly, once. You have to figure out what your process is, and then do it over and over and over. It gets faster and easier and the songs get better. There is no single process that works for everyone. You have to figure out what yours is - it could take a while. It probably took me 6 years of writing total horseshit until I figured out what works for me. but once I did I wrote close to 100 songs in one year. it would be pointless to tell you what my process is because everyone's is different. but the basic idea is that you need to come up with ideas, and brainstorm on each one, and then edit them so that they're a song. there are a few books on how to edit lyrics. there are particular faults that everyone makes with lyrcis and picking up a guide would give you a quick checklist to make sure you didn't do something wrong. and sure, lyrics can't technically be wrong, I guess, but they can be close and there are usually ways to make them better. The last thing is to remember that not every idea is worthy of being developed into a song. its easier to throw out the crap once you know its crap and start working on something new. for me at least. I haven't ever been able to "force" a song into being good. I always just throw it out and come up with something better. hope this helps.

 

[Good Friend]

writing great songs

Do you want to write great songs every time without needing a computer to help you? Do you want to impress chicks and impress your friends? Learn how to use the harmonic scale like second nature and youll never be bothered again with what to write. This is no joke or gimmick. The harmonic scale knows ALL and transcends all genres of music and all time. Im not kidding around the harmonic scale is the least used but most effective songwriting tool of all time. When you hear a note, then another note, the difference between those two notes frequencies is a ratio of some kind. Every ratio of a scale is more or less complex. The brain, EVERY HUMAN BRAIN EVER, feels these ratios the same and can tell which intervals are simpler or more complex. That gives you the power to push and pull tension and release in the listeners mind. The harmonic scale is the use of ratios within chords. Once the technical side is gone, you are left with experience using the harmonic scale and you dont need to bother with terms or ratios ever again. Its natural after awhile. Dont believe me? Dont believe that the harmonic scale is the secret? Well did the beatles write any good tunes? Because EVERY SINGLE SONG THEY EVER WROTE IS STRICT MANIPULATION OF THE HARMONIC SCALE. Like it or not there is no magic behind music. Its in the ratios of frequencies and the emotions they create in the human brain. No human being is immune, because every brain reacts the same to ratios and intervals. Styles of music may be varied in preferences. But styles of music are cultural extensions, NOT FREQUENCIES. You are all very welcome.

 

[chessrock]

Nice .

 

[Mindcore]

Stay tuned for my next single.. M=V/x-y2 (v-9)

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Just follow my sig...

G.

 

[dwillis45]

Two cents gathered from a former life as an artist and photograher. Try to find what the art critics call "your own voice." Not a singing voice but a style that's unique to you and reflects your approach and experience. Try not to emulate others even if you admire their sound. If you want to dress like Eddie Vedder, that's fine. But don't try to become him or his music. Finding your own style is hard and it can take years, so don't drive yourself nuts in the process. Listen to as much music as you can, but listen to the interplay of sounds and instruments rather than the overall product. Avoid cover songs unless you can add something meaningful or use them as a vehicle to hone YOUR playing. Cover songs belong to someone else and when you record them they provide an immediate, recognizable frame of reference to judge your abilities. If you cover Hey Jude you are either a good Bealtes impersonator or an embarrassment. Your own music may suck but at least it stands and falls on it's own merits or your ability to sing, write, play, and record. Trying to sound like someone else is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to finding your style and recording good songs. I spent years trying to be Neil Young. During the eighties I traded all my Neil Young records for Joy Division albums and started singing like Ian Curtis (I think Ian heard me sing and hung himself to ease the pain!). As I got older, I fell under the spell of Robyn Hitchcock but I had the sense to see a developing pattern. I stopped trying to be someone else and started writing my own stuff. I also let my own singing voice emerge. Alas, no more English accents and no high pitched wails about Southern men, the state of alabama, or cowgirls in the sand. I also started writing lyrics that reflected my own experience and things I knew something about. I remember working as a fine art photographer using a giant feild camera and reading Ansel Adams' personal notes about photography and the creative process. I got inside his work but I ended up taking pictures of mountains, trees, the ocean, or anything else HE photographed. Of course, I knew nothing about the mountains or landscapes, so everything became derivative. Finally, I took the advice of a more experienced photgrapher and began looking closely at my immediate surroundings. My work improved noticably because I focused on things that were close to me and meant something. Do the same with songwriting and avoid singing John Denver songs if you live in Buffalo.

End of two cents--OK, morelike ten cents or a dollar....sorry.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

dwillis,

Great post,worth every penny!

I agree with the spirit and the thesis of your post completly. There is one small detail that I do somewhat take exception to, though. It's kind of tangential to the thread, but as long as we're talking about it...

Your thing about the cover songs I'm not completly sure about. Just one hilarious example: One of the live bands I work with does a cover of (believe it or not) "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears. It sounds nothing lke Spears' version, nor does it sound anything like Weezer's version. It has the band's own stamp on it, it rocks, it rolls, and it sounds fantastic.

Those in the audience that have no clue that it's a Spears' tune - though they get an idea when the male baratone lead singer starts pulling his pants down around his hips and doing a sad parody of that Britney arm thing halfway through the song *all in jest, of course* - think it's just a great goove tune.

Those that do recoginze it from the opening "Oh baby baby..." stare at eact other in disbelief and even chuckle a bit at first. But by the time they get through the first chorus they are really diggin' it as a totally different interpretation that sounds great and makes sense in a way they would have never admitted before they came in the door that night. By the time the end of the song decays away, they have brought the house down.

Now maybe this works for this band because they have been at it for a while and they indeed already have their own sound and confidence, their own "voice", as you say. Perhaps before one has discovered and developed that voice, covers may not work so well. If that's what you meant, then we are in perfect agreement. However, once one has found that "voice", interpreting covers through that voice can be a great way of identifying the uniqueness of that voice. Yes people will want to naturally compare it to the popular version, but when that comparison shows that the cover is sooo different and sooo good, that will be perhaaps the most memorable performance of the night.

G.

 

[Mindcore]

Great advice DWillis.

SSG, I didn't take his post to say that covers are bad in that regard, more so people trying to emulate thier favourite bands.

I've always been a huge fan of Faith No More, and seen them live many times, they always throw in a couple real offbeat covers, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie, New Kids on the Block!! and they would just rock those songs in thier own way, and you could tell they were having fun, and the crowd loved it.

Now if that was the pinnacle of the show, they would be pretty lame

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

All true.

G.

 

[Dani Pace]

You want to write songs? First off, turn off your pc, get your instrument and start playing, if there is an idea in your head it will come out through your fingers. Computers are great but the best songs (imo) are written from the heart, not with a keyboard and mouse. If you are trying to come up with "something new," then you will certainly have to get away from the computer. A computer is only capable of reproducing whatever is programed into it. Writing on a computer may increase your technical ability but may stifle your creative thinking process and impeed your writing process. Once you have the basic idea you can easily program it into the computer but the truly good ideas occur spontainously while playing a real instrument.

 

[dwillis45]

I agree with the spirit and the thesis of your post completly. There is one small detail that I do somewhat take exception to, though.

You're right. I guess I was thinking narrowly in terms of the songwriting process itself. People play music for all kinds of reasons and entertainment is a perfectly legitimate function. I like to hear an occasional cover from a favorite band. Camper Van Beethoven, for example, does a killer Pictures of "Matchstick Men" and I always liked REM's version of "Toys In the Attic." Covers are also a good vehicle for leaning to play or to find common ground when jaming with another musician. And in older forms of music (bluegrass, traditional, country, blues, etc.) they are staples which carry on a tradition to younger listeners and musicians. Not everyone wants to be a songwriter. But if you do and you take it seriously, at some level the activity takes on an air of craftmanship and you have to start paying attention to funny things like themes, concepts, and literary devices. You also start worrying about artistic issues like developing a personal style. And you can easily get uptight about issues like the role of cover songs.

 

[DM1]

Playing cover songs is like getting a free lesson in how the original artist wrote the song. For the sake of the lesson, never a bad thing. (Like dwillis says, it only becomes a bad thing if you let it define your style.)

Any suggestions?

I read that John Lennon wrote his early stuff by making up new words for songs he knew, then changing the melody when it came time to record. This is now my go-to trick when I'm stuck in a song. I try to finish it off in the style of someone the song reminds me of. That gets the song done, then I can worry about tweaking it, or deciding if it's even any good.

Some other thoughts:
- Get to know your songwriting process. I mean, know it intimately. Be able to describe to someone else exactly how you write a tune. When you have this level of familiarty with your creativity, it's much easier to a) turn it on an off, and b) know when it's just not happening.
- Learn the difference between right and left brain. Take a course in painting or drawing.
- For me, songwriting and editing use opposite sides of the brain. Songwriting is about getting my flow on, completely right-brained. Editing is about critically analyzing, almost entirely left-brained. If you're the same, it's probably important that you separate writing from editing. When I stop in the middle of a good creative session to tweak some words & phrasing, I lose the flow.
- More simply put: never judge yourself when you're in a creative zone. The right side of your brain is fundamentally incapable of separating "good" from "bad."
- Even more simply put: finish the song. Then decide if it's any good.
- Everyone's creativity ebbs and flows. No one is fully creative 100% of the time. Accept this, and allow yourself to relax when the muse isn't calling. You say you've been down for the last month or so. Frankly, that's not a long time, especially if you've only been writing for 5 months.
- Avoid alcohol and drugs as a shortcut to creativity. Write two good songs in that state, and pretty soon you'll be unable to create any other way. Read Stephen King's On Writing.

Peace.

 

[legionserial]

I also get the odd mental block, can't decide "what comes next". Do I throw something new in? Change the tempo? Change the timbre? Sometimes I havent got a clue. Sometimes I have no clue how to transition from one part to another. I'm stuck at that pont on one of my tunes at the moment. As always.

This is why I often work on more than one tune at a time. If get stuck, I have a think in silence for a few minutes. Run through the song in my head from start to the point I'm stuck at. I try to go with it, bop my head, tap my foot, drum my fingers on something, then I see if something comes naturally. What comes natually in my mind, I try to see if it works in practice with my guitar, or programming a drum riff. If that fails I play it through on the guitar in much the same way and see if anything comes naturally. If it can't think of anything, I leave it and move onto something else.

My holy grail for songwriting is my job...I hate my job, its boring, and repetitive. This means I can sit and think about music. When I have 7-8 hours to kill doing repetitive tasks that require no thinking, it frees up lots of space in my mind for me to work mentally on "what comes next" or "what if I do this". Then when I get home, I can run in the door with a bunch of ideas I have spent hours formulating and check them out to see if they work. If they do then "eureka". If not, well maybe you can use it later somewhere else, or in another tune. To that effect I have a massive stockpile of riffs on my computer. Always useful.

I think that if I think about this stuff when I'm dong something I hate but have to do, its better. Cos if I am sitting in front of my computer for hours, not pressing a button, and just thinking, I start to kick myself for not being productive enough, and feel like I'm wasting valuable time I could better spend doing the more active parts of the music, like playing instruments/recording/tracking/mixing/programming drums etc and the general hours of fiddling I do.

I dread the day I actually get job I like!....

 

[KonradG]

Very cool guys, greatly appreciated.

-I'm no longer going to write songs while sitting in the recording studio or in front of a computer, like someone above mentioned. I need a reset button to bring me back down so i can quit being pressured by deadlines.

I've gotten some cool ideas for changing my methods because of your posts. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me, very thankful!

Conrad

 

[Zaphod B]

Excellent posts, all.

I'd like to add that for many artists - photographers and writers come to mind - much of the artistic endeavor never sees the light of day. For photographers, only a small percentage of photos taken will ever be printed as anything other than negatives or thumbnails. For writers - think in the typewriter paradigm here, please - most of the paper ends up wadded up in the trash can.

The polished result that you see, hear, or other otherwise experience as a result of effort by an artist is just a tiny viewport into an enormous amount of self-examination by that artist.

So, KonradG, if you're only satisfied with 2% of your work, you are still light-years ahead of those who are not capable of artistic creativity. Maybe you feel that you've got a high chaff-to-wheat ratio, but there's still that 2% that is good stuff!

 

[dwillis45]

My holy grail for songwriting is my job...I hate my job, its boring, and repetitive. This means I can sit and think about music. When I have 7-8 hours to kill doing repetitive tasks that require no thinking, it frees up lots of space in my mind for me to work mentally on "what comes next" or "what if I do this".

Your in good company here--Einstein the patent clerk and Nathaniel Hawthorne in the customs house come to mind.