Everyone's Writing Process

[galestermusic]

To all of those who write, I was just curious what your writing process...not so much the subject contents of the lyric but the mechanics. How do you know where you want what?

Do you use a format? Trial and error.

Would like to hear everyone's input on this!

Also RIP Farrah Fawcett....she passed away this AM and I can't tell you What that post some 30 years ago meant to me! 

[assassin]

Yeah Hi , I love this question , and interested what people will say.
But i defo use a forumla - but I start with guitar and get a riff going
and make it as simple as possable.
like    intro/verse/ch/verse/ch/br/2ch/end     =        A/B/A/B/C/BB

if the verses are 16 bars and the chorus is 8 bars
this gives you a song at 120bpm of about 2min 40sec
the perfect song lenght.
But differant chords patterns may lead you to varing this format.
Tell me if iam wrong.

[Greeny]

There's no single format for me. Generally though, I start with a lyrical theme / idea - normally something as simple as a song title. This kind of tells me where the music should be going (e.g. angry, romantic, rocked-up, miserable etc etc). From there, I'll play guitar and look for a riff or hook that I can develop into a verse or chorus or bridge (my songs always have at least three distinct parts). I'm always looking for a 'big' chorus - if I find that, the rest falls into place fairly easily. I also play around with a capo as another way of coming up with a different feel / flavour. At this point, I'll be humming the vocal melody, but I often find that words start appearing along the way. I've learned to write them down, along with the chords before I forget them! Then, I'll write all the words and 'live' with the song a bit - i.e. play it through on an acoustic over a number of days if I can. This allows me to smooth out anything that's not right, and get a good feel for the whole thing before I record. When it comes to recording, I'll already know what I'm after in terms of feel, speed and guitar tone. I'll have worked it all out in my head on the train / bus etc. I pretty much stick to a 3:00 minute to a 3:30 minute song length if I can.

Now, with Jemima's Kite, I do something very different. All my guitar parts are riff-driven and I don't have to think about lyrics or vocals, so I'm literally just playing guitar and looking for new sounds / chord progressions / riffs etc.

Songwriting isn't an exact science though - you never know what is / isn't going to work until you do it. And sometimes you just stumble upon something magical. That last part is what we all strive for!!!!

[Vanncad]

I have been listening to quite a few tunes on this site and I am quite impressed with the songwriting abilities of some of the contributers here.
Many of the songs on this site are 10X better than the stuff on the radio these days.

I have been writing songs for a long time, but have only had the time and opportunity to record a few.

I am really glad 64 guitars introduced me to this site (through his BR Forum) because I don't really know any other song writers that have reached a level of the magnitude shown on this board. There is some really good stuff here and I think we can all benefit from the advice of each other!

When I share my songs with other people, the first thing they usually ask is "How did you come up with that?".
A lot of times I can't answer that question because songs just pop into my head and I try to write them down or record them as fast as possible before I lose the idea. I see it more as "receiving" a song rather than "writing" a song.
I'm sure many of us can relate and that is probably the reason why so many people own the smaller BR recorders.

Another thing that people often ask is "Do you write the music or the lyrics first?". My answer to this is "Usually both at the same time" because it normally starts with a riff or chord that I immediately attach a word or phrase to. It's almost like I can't break the two apart because there is such a strong bond between the two that it just "feels" right.

I like to record my rhytmm guitar to the Boss rhythm patch 314 and sing at the same time. I then go back and start adding layers (programming the drums is the worse part) until I the song fits the vision in my head. I don't normally go back and add to a song after I have mastered it once. I'm kind of lazy that way  .

- Vann

[assassin]

hI tHANKS Vann for the insight very well put -- i agree thats what iam looking for
is advise , and helpful critasisem ( sorry cant spell 2 well )
from people who know what there doing ( thats you lot !)
Look farward to other posts. That why ive posted SOMETIMES on the
br 600 page coz i would like help advise on where i should take the song.
Oh and thanks Greeny for your post
.

ASSASSIN

[Ferryman]

First thing is I write VERY slowly and it's a painful process. If it's a song, rather than an instrumental, there are two ways that I do this.

Way 1 - start with something on the guitar. So the music comes first, I get a basic structure and feel together and then build the lyrics to fit the music. On this song:

https://songcrafters.org/community/post-your-work/is-paris-burning/0/

I started with the guitar riff in the verse and built a basic song structure on the guitar. I then saw a newspaper clipping about an ageing movie actress who had tried to commit suicide and for some reason that sparked the image of a guy who had once been her lover sitting in a cafe seeing this article and reminiscing about their relationship and what had happened. Cafes = Paris in my mind and I thought of the movie title "Is Paris Burning?" as a good title for the song, and it all kind of fell together. BTW, the movie has nothing to do with actresses or love stories, it's a war movie!

Way 2 - start with the song concept and get lyrical ideas first, then build the music to fit the lyrical idea. That's what I did with this one:

https://songcrafters.org/community/post-your-work/cassilda's-song-a-bit-scary/0/

which you can see is going to be part of a concept album based on a gothic horror novel. I am working on the second track and for this one I wrote the lyrics (which took four weeks!) before I started work on the music.

I tend to get a lot of inspiration from books, films, news and studying history. I don't write much about my own experiences, I find that very hard. Greeny is a master of this, and he is very, very good at it.

Like Vann if I use the BR for drums I record most of the music over a drum pattern with the right style and at the right tempo and then edit the drum track once the structure of the song is finalized.

Most of my songs tend to follow a formula like Assassin but it's a good idea to try different formats sometimes, otherwise your work sounds a bit samey. Bosko Schwarz is a master of this, check out some of his stuff.

Cheers,

Nigel

[SE]

Songwriting for me is all about moods,feelings and everyday events. Somestimes it happens very quickly and if it,s not recorded it,s lost, sometimes it all kicks off with a subject, a riff or a hook and from there it,s just go with the flow and see where it takes you
When recording I,m the same as Nigel play the riif or chord sequnce over a drum partern that sounds ok then edit it when it,s completed.
Mainly I stick to what I know, which is mainly rock driven tunes but every now and then I,ll try somthing different jusy to mix it up a bit so as not to become bored.

[Bosko Schwartz]

Hey LESTG!

Cool topic!

For me, I usually tend to start off just messing around with different chord progressions on the acoustic guitar.  When I find one I like, I will usually hum a melody line over it on the spot.  I like to have the melody line early on in the song.  That part will usually evolve into either the chorus or the verse; once I have that pretty set, I will sort of let the song follow it's own natural (or sometimes in my case, unnatural) course, trying to sort of "feel" my way from one part to the next so that there is a cohesive segue between chorus and verse or bridge.  I will usually transfer these chords to the piano to see if it might sound better as a piano-driven song than guitar.  Then I just tweak and polish until I have each part pretty set with the chords, changes, and the singing melody.

Structure: I try not to allow myself to be locked into a standard song structure, so for me, anything goes.  Some songs have three or four parts that are completely different from each other and never repeat.  Some have one part that repeats once and a middle part that doesn't.  As long as the parts seem to fit together in some way, shape or form, it works.  A lot of the structure depends on the general feel of the song ... the type of percussion it will have (pounding drums or no drums at all, etc.), whether or not it will be mostly acoustic or electric guitar, or piano-driven, and messing around with all the other possible sounds that could come into play.  After "debating" with myself and playing with the different possibilities, I decide on what works best for the song and then go whole-hog into it.  I usually have a pretty good idea of how I want the finished product to sound before I even record a note.  But sometimes things change during the recording process and the song goes into a whole new direction.

As for lyrics, they are almost ALWAYS the very last thing I do.  I always have the singing melody early, though, so a lot of times words that fit the syllabic structure of the vocal melody will pop into my head and influence the theme of the song.  The overall feel of the song itself also influences both the theme and the lyrics.  Once the theme is established, the words can be written.  Sometimes it takes days, other times minutes.

So now I am curious -- what is your writing process?

PS: I just stumbled into this post and found to my surprise that Nigel was "promoting" my music completely on his own accord and without my knowledge, and due to the fact that we only just "met" a couple of days ago and hardly know each other, I think that is one of the coolest and kindest things I have seen in a long time.  Thanks, Nigel!

[Davo]

Good topic, I dont think songwriters talk about this enough...perhaps we are shy, secretive, or just embarrased.

First I come up with a riff.  Then another that sounds pleasing together with the initial riff.  These may become a verse and chorus.  Sometimes strolling through effect presets on the MBR alone is inspiration enough. Then I put it away for  a while...many times even forgetting about it.

If I still like it later, I develop a song structure. I may play a melody on guitar or hum something.  Then I think of words/moods/feelings that the song suggests.  From this I think of words that go along with it.  I know it may not be popular, but the online thesauras and online rhymers are helpful for this.
Then I come up with lyrics...which is my least favorite part...I always put em off to the last minute.

Usually bass lines and leads come fast.  Recording the whole thing usually comes fast too.

I will go for weeks without something I consider decent...then in a couple days the beginnings of 3 or 4 good songs come outta no where.  Last night I was watching a horror movie and one came to me!

[Vanncad]

This is a really good topic.

Davo - good point about putting it away for awhile. That is good way not to "force" the song and I think it can sometimes make for a better result.

I used to have a notebook that I would keep beside my bed and sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a couple lines of lyrics. Some made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but some were pieced together to form some fairly decent songs.

The key (I think) for lyrics is to just keep writing stuff down, whenever the inspiration hits (use sticky notes, a cigarette pack, a napkin, etc.), then go back and re-visit these scraps of inspiration to build your masterpiece.