Where do you get your music ideas from?

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monkie

monkie

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I get my ideas from listening to other people's stuffs. Somestimes ideas just pop out from left and right; can't get 'em down all at once and later all gone.:eek:

How do you keep yourself motivated?:D
 
I try to listen to at least 4-5 "new" CDs each week - in many different musical genres. Not always new artist - but CDs/music I've never heard before. I tend to really disect the songs to understand the hooks, the arrangements, etc.

I also read various music mags (at least 5-6 per month) - in particular things like Guitar Player, Recording, etc. which give me ideas and expose me to artists I may not be aware of (so I can listen to their CDs). I also read biographies/autobiographies of various artists (1 or 2 each month).....which always inspire me and often lead me to the artists who inspired the artist I'm reading about

And more than anything else - I play/record as much as I possibly can. The more I have an instrument in my hands - the more new ideas I can try, or often simply stumble across.
 
For me, I can hear new music from experimenting with different sounds. Going from guitar to piano, or selecting a different tone on the amp modeler-thingy. Switching it up. Just moving the capo up a fret or two is enough to inspire new music.

Sometimes the words drive the music, sometimes the music dictates the words. It's enough to keep it fresh.

I found a sound recording app on my cellphone. When I get an idea, i record it on the phone so I don't lose the thought. I hate losing a good song because I can't get it down quick enough.

Cheers,
 
It's the voices.... they tell me to play things, and sing things. Sometimes, I obey. Sometimes, I do not.
 
Better than the voices try Tag Crowd. Just discover this site - you put in text and it generates a visualisation of the tags (words) based on frequency.

I put in the lyrics of my last 20 song and got the image below. It would be cool to put articles of half finished ideas and see if it throws anything inspirational up.
 

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Thanks for the link whatmysay - a great tool for attempting to avoid overdoing a word/phrase theme.
 
I have a lot of different ways for writing songs... lyrically who knows. Sometimes I can bang something out in a few minutes, other times I'll end up with 30 or 40 handwritten sheets of just crap. Not even lyrics, just ranting on something I'm angry, happy about, etc. I can go back to those later and highlight and pull out the stuff I really like that pops out or really says it the way I wanted too. I've got some good stuff that way. Sometimes all it takes is a catchy phrase, aliteration, or whatever. I quit trying to force myself to write a long time ago... anymore, I write whenever I have an idea. I had a 3 year dry spell on lyrics and didn't write anything, and then wrote about 9 full songs in one night, over the course of about 2 hours. I was in an interesting mood - I kept all but one of them. I also never throw anything away. I'll find stuff from 10 years ago that I forgot about, or that'll spark something else. Usually I try something different anymore.

On guitar... I do get in ruts. So I try alternate tunings. The last few times I tried new tunings I wrote about 4 songs almost immediately that I still think are good. Since I've had the home studio setup for about 2 months now, I've come up with a lot of ideas just arranging a simply drum track in Cubase from drum software and just speeding the tempo up, slowing it down, and just looping it and playing too it.

The methods I've gotten the best results out of usually only work once, though... I also try to keep up a lot on the news, politics, gossip, humanity in general. There is a neverending ammount of topic out there that I've pulled from, as most of my songs are about experiences that other people have had. My life is pretty good, and pretty boring so there isn't a lot of material there, I have to turn to the rest of the world....
 
Reading, listening - any stimulation (ANY) can get a result. I read heaps of mags too. Uncut & Q both put out free(?) CDs with their issues & it's usually stuff I wouldn't have gone near so I'm forced to open my tiny mind to new ideas at least long enough to reach for the skip button.
I still have ideas from the 80's that I haven't brought to fruition yet - a phrase, a lyric, a verse needing a chorus etc. Chugging around with them brings results eventually. the latest one in the MP3 Clinic - Sewer Song
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6409835&q=hi was drafted & recorded in about 1983 onto a cassette tape with a stereo portable tape machine & built in auto level mics but the verse stunk. I came up with a new verse just before Christmas 2007 (that's 24years). I tried a newer lyrics, (Sewer Song), revamped an old lyrics (The Master's Gone Away) & in the end my collaborator came up with a melody & lyric of his own.
Oh, COLLABORATION - always refreshing.
 
Funny you should ask. I heard a song in my sleep the other night. Woke up, wrote it down, recorded it and posted it here. I'm about to do a rework of it, but you can listen it you want. It's called "Get There." I won't link it here, that would be a shameful plug.:rolleyes:
 
Anywhere. Little tunes I hear. Slight intonations or phrasings I hear, things like parking lots and lawnmowers for my experimental work, melodies and scales in American music, moods feels and emotions from lights colors and places I've been.

Oh yeah, and what I can actually play.
 
I read in an interview a while back that said good artist copy and great artist steal. Well, I'm not good or great, but I copy and steal as much as I can get away with.:D
 
I don't usually have instrumental ideas pop into my head. I may think up certain techniques and vague ideas I want to incorporate, but I'm basically like a rat pulling a bunch of levers until a piece of cheeze hits me in the head. I have no idea what I'm going to create until I'm playing it and I'm thinking, "holy crap, where did that come from?" Lyrics, on the other hand, are very calculated, and they come from a lot of introspection about past events in my life, philosophical/theological journeys, social observations, etc. I try to avoid most of the cliche topics, or at least, try to avoid approaching them in a played out way.
 
Xeries said:
Funny you should ask. I heard a song in my sleep the other night. Woke up, wrote it down, recorded it and posted it here. I'm about to do a rework of it, but you can listen it you want. It's called "Get There." I won't link it here, that would be a shameful plug.:rolleyes:
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I always hear about people doing this, but I have successfully remembered a dreamed up song once in my life. Every other time, I'm mad, because I think it was a good song, but I have no idea what it was.
 
monkie said:
I get my ideas from listening to other people's stuffs.
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Ditto - my training comes from years of listening to the radio, hammering away at the guitar, copying riffs and licks and singing covers in bands. Play by ear mostly, but I know the notes on the treble clef (lol).

I listen to talk/news radio mostly except when my daughter is in the car then I listen to top 40 Rap and Pop. I figured a few years ago that I should know enough "theory" to write a song. So far I've written about two dozen songs - not chart toppers by any means but I like 'em....


monkie said:
Somestimes ideas just pop out from left and right; can't get 'em down all at once and later all gone.:eek:
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I have writing "sessions" where I sit down and write lyrics for an hour or two. Then once I have something somewhat together, I go into the basement and hack away until I have a melody. Usually once or twice a week when I'm motivated and don't have to shovel snow.... I'm not one for carrying around a notebook or recorder but that is a good idea...

monkie said:
How do you keep yourself motivated?:D
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I think you either have to want to do it for personal satisfaction, or there will be no motivation...
 
Don't Follow.....Leed

I LISTEN to other artists styles, melodies, hooks, etc. and then the thought of twisting the instruments comes to mind. Like I'll take one chord or even one note from a song and totally reshape it to my liking. I'm an experimentalist (if dats a wurd) and whatever sounds today, or draw some type of emotional reaction, it's in. I combine different genre's of music like jazz and Funk or R&B and HipHop. The combinations are endless and fun. All this gives me the ability to be very creative and trendy. If you've ever taken a cooking receipe and added just a little of your own spice, then you feel me.

:cool:
 
AKR said:
I always hear about people doing this, but I have successfully remembered a dreamed up song once in my life. Every other time, I'm mad, because I think it was a good song, but I have no idea what it was.
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I wouldn't worry about it. In my experience, when I do remember the songs, it's not even worth it.

I was bugged for years by this song that I kept on hearing in my dreams. In the dreams it was always the greatest song in the world, and I knew that if I could remember it, it'd make me famous. Then I'd forget it as soon as I woke up.

Eventually, I did manage to hang onto the song into waking life. Turns out it was just a Damn Yankees song with the words taken out. :(
 
Life, observation.
One of my songs came from waiting in line at a deli and observing how the woman behind the deli counter treated the customers.
 
Well, we could talk all day about the moral implications of illegal music downloading. There seem to be a fair number of people who back up their massive pirate mp3 collections with something about "the music industry is dumb" or "sharing doesn't hurt artists" or whatever. All a bit dubious for me -- is it coincidence that music sales started plummeting the exact moment in 2000 that Napster came out? And these days, a lot of artist are selling DIRECT on itunes and etc. -- so when u pirate their songs, you are literally deciding not to pay the person who made the music -- there is often NO record company involved now....

Anyway ... my take is that I tend to use iTunes not for any moral reason, but just because I HATE dealing with the two main problems with limewire/bearshare etc

Problem #1 -- spyware/virus/filth
Problem #2 -- lack of selection

I'm into techno/trance/electronic music almost exclusively, and a lot of the stuff is actually pretty HARD to find on limewire... I could spend hours looking for it but I prefer not.

I tend to search around on iTunes for compliation series that I feel have good selections, and then just buy whole compilations... recently I've been spending way too much money on this series --
 
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