Song writing.....

[Davo]

I consider the mood and tone of my verse, and go from there.  Sometimes I do it half time or even double time.

Whatever I do it has to flow or it just does not sound good.

[tony]

So If I can push this further I
Say the drum pattern would be static (I'm not taking on changing drum patterns yet)
And I wanted to have a simple structure of verse chorus verse chorus
and picked a riff for the verse of say Am Dm G which I think is in the key of C (or Am)
how would you go about adding a chorus or even adding a bridge
Please forgive me if this is all bollocks I'm just trying to understand where I go to next and so far this is really useful
Thanks Again

In your first post you said that you wanted to get from 'a riff idea to creating verse to chorus and even bridge'.  I think that is a good way to go but try to separate that riff from what you said above, 'a riff for the verse of say Am Dm G'.   Even if a riff comes to you with a chord progression attached, try to separate it off and think of it as a little bit of melody all on its own and then try to harmonize it in different ways.  If you can harmonise it in two different ways then that might be the basis of your verse and chorus.

In the example above, Am Dm G, that is going to lead back to C (assuming that we are thinking in C) and that will give a vi-ii-V-I, which is about the commonest progression in the world outside of folk and blues.  But without it your melody could go a lot of ways.  And, if you want to get away from your beloved blues as you say above, stay away from those sevenths for a while.

I think Rikky Rooksby's The Song Writing Sourcebook is very good and particularly on structure.

Good luck, 48, and thanks for a good thread.

[Greeny]

This is a big subject - and having written hundreds of songs, I'm firmly of the opinion that there's no right or wrong answer, just a myriad of different approaches that you could take. For me, it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you have a song at the end of it!

Starting with a riff is a perfectly fine way of writing. But then you have to make a decision on where the riff is going to fit into the song. This could vary - e.g. it could be the intro and verse, it could just be the chorus, or it could be a refrain running through the verses and choruses. Angus Young and Keith Richards are masters of how to base songs around riffs. This is where all the Jemima's Kite songs largely come from.

Then you will have a song like 'Sweet Dreams' by Eurythmics which has no real structure, just a recurring chant. But it really works.

I tend to have three parts to my songs... verse, bridge, chorus. It's important that either the verse or chorus has a good melody (if not both!), but you can get away with one. I tend to use the bridge to build the tension and launch a big chorus from, but you can also take it down. Another thing that works well is to have the same chords in the verse as the chorus, but sing a totally different melody over them. This has worked really well for me.

Songs for me are all about moments of inspiration, whether that's a riff, a title, or a tune in my head. Keep a notebook and the BR handy!

Good luck... although I'm so late on this post that you've probably already done it!

[Tangled Wires]

Totally concur with what Greeny has said on the subject. I personally never sit down and write a song, something will come to me whilst playing, whether it be a chord structure, a guitar riff or a bass line that I will like the sound of. I then find the tempo that I want it to be played at, select one a standard drum pattern on the BR, and start recording it. Once you start added other parts to this, you then start to get a feel for the structure of the song.

After I have finished the music, I often wonder how I got to where I did with it and how it ended up like it did!

Just go with your instincts on it, is about the best advice I can provide!

[StevieM]

There's no way I can comment on the playing side of this, I'm not like you clever lot, I can't do all the rhythm and all that and make up the music side of stuff.
About all I'll say is about the words side of things and thi sis only how I try to do it, everyone else has their way.
I'm never without a pad and pen somewhere ( or scrap of paper/wood/anything), so if I just think of a few words, sometimes just a title, I write it down. Occassionaly there'll be a whole song comes out in one go, most of the time not, sometimes those odd couple of words or sentences turn into something, sometimes not. There must be thousands of little scraps of whatever laying around somewhere!!!!!

When I do get something complete, it's just a question of re-writing to get verse/chorus, in any order as it seems to fit. There are some on here who can just come out with a whole track in one go, all in the right order, and sing it, just like that.
And we ALL know who they are

You listen to some tracks they even seem to have the chorus as the 1st verse ( if you see what I mean?

Where do ideas come from? Anywhere!!!!!! Bit's out of books, something someone says, maybe overheard conversation, bits off the tv, odd words on other tracks-----and on and on and on.

Dire Straits Money for Nothing came from an overheard conversation in somewhere like MFI.

Where does inspiration come from? Who knows? It's all totaly personal.  Phil Collins In the Air Toinght supposedly started from a noodle drum riff ( are they called riffs in drumming?)

This probably doesn't help in the slightest

[Greeny]

I love the fact that it's not an exact, logical science - otherwise you could just program a computer to write songs. Trial and error, happy mistakes, random flashes of inspiration, flights of fancy.... they're all human traits, and all wonderful components of songwriting.

Going back to 48's original question a bit more specifically, writing blues songs is a little different for me... I think it's perfectly acceptable to 'borrow' someone else's structure or chord progression - mainly because most (if not ALL!) blues songs are an adaptation of a previous song. You can bring originality in the lyrics, feel and tone of how you play it. In 48's case, that's gonna be deep gravel in the vox and smooth blues lead licks.

Just a thought.

[Diego Ayala]

What I am trying to do is to go past the development of just chord progressions to end up with a song that just sounds right to me - want to go further and build the structure to be able to add variability like say a bridge - to be able to break it down into verse chorus verse bridge chorus or something to that nature --- i have never even thought about these changes while developing a song - it just seems to materialize and it makes sence --- but of late have been thinking about these changes that can also be made to a song with other instruments and not just to add lyrics, but to also add instrumentation in place of lyrics = like what the vocals would be doing.

It will be quite interesting for me to keep building songs with these in mind...

[The Reverend 48]

This is great all the posts are giving a real insight how you brilliant musicians go about song writing
I guess naively I was searching for 101 song writing but it seems that everybody goes through a different process
I was asking an impossible question...But getting great answers

The good thing is I am thinking about music differently now
It makes me realise the skill involved with song writing
Tim I wasn't thinking about any Blues type stuff I wanted to jump out of my box.......
But on reflection as I know the Blues Genre a bit it may be the best place to start
Please keep your thoughts and experiences coming as I think it's fascinating and I'm sure others are interested

[Diego Ayala]

Tim and others => when you folks add bridge/change in the progression/structure, what path do you folks usualy follow, and how do you figure the melding of the chords so you can get back to your original structure - so it melds together?  Do you just finish the bridge on a chord that would match the begining of a verse or chorus?

[Ted]

I'm having a bit of writer's block right now, so this is a good topic for me.

I'm not the kind of songwriter who ever gets to say, "The song wrote itself."  My process is rather torturous and forced, but here are some things I do to help me along.

Capture Everything, Dismiss Nothing.
Anytime I get a musical idea, with or without words, I record it in a short snippet. I have lots of short recordings of me...

• humming, picking, and/or strumming groggy music that was in my head when I wake up in the morning or in the middle of the night
• groggy explanations of the dream that accompanied the music
• speaking lyric ideas that occur to me

When these melodic ideas come with words, I don't commit to keep them together.

I use the MBR's MP3 mode which is quick and dirty--but I've learned to double check to make sure that the input is set to MIC.  I've recorded several MP3s of silence.

Before I had my MBR, I used to use a digital camera.  When my MBR isn't handy, I use the voice memo feature of my cell phone.  I dump all of these ideas into my iTunes into an "album" called Music Sketches.

When I listen to these later, sometimes I have no recollection of the idea or recording it.  Often, if I do remember it, it's much better than I thought it was at the time.

Lately, when I don't have even a kernel of a lyric idea, I just sit down with a notebook and start writing whatever stream-of-consciousness inanity is in my head.  I'll fill a couple of pages before I stop. It's 99% drivel, usually, and looks nothing like lyrics.  Then I go back and look at it later.  Sometimes there's a kernel or two in there that I didn't recognize at the time.

Mix 'n' Match Until something Catalyzes
I'll do some experimenting with my palette of words, chords, and melodies, until something sounds right.  It's a wonderful moment for me when I feel I can commit to whatever theme I've forged together.  It's usually enough for me to sit down with my guitar, pencil, and notebook and flesh out the structure and the rest of the words over a day or two. 

I usually write down twice as many lines as I actually use.

Structure is a Crutch. Watch me Hobble
Sometimes the structure just comes to me.  More often, I find myself very consciously choosing a formula, such as ABABCAB.  Bridges (the "C") are nice when they occur to me.  But I can live with myself if I don't have one.  Sometimes a bridge can be as simple as a breakdown of the "A" section, or the "B" section modulated, or a solo of course.