Help needed on songwriting

[Diego Ayala]

Up until now I have stayed safe doing covers. There are so many good original songs on here that it has inspired me to have a bash...I have sat here long enough staring at a blank piece of paper.

Cheers

I have supplied a few lines of Lyrics to a couple of Members for them to use if they wish (No ties or binds whatsoever), so I thought why not start a Lyyrics thread, where Members can post Lines for the express use of others if they can't or don't want to use them themselves. Teething problems can be worked-out as the Thread builds. Any suggestions??

Hey Steve!  you shared the following lyrics with me...

DA - Thanks for the PM. If you're EVER self-conscious about your singing voice, then go and replay My Home Town several times - THAT should convinced you to give it a try. 

Anyway, obviously I don't know you in any way, shape or form, but what I've heard on your songs is a superior guitar player. Here are some lines of lyrics I've written on one of my pads around my house (don't worry, I've got tons). If you want to try to use them to form a song in some way, then go right ahead. Change them, delete them, add to them, or just throw the whole lot away. Or get someone to help you to add to them etc. There is absolutely no tune attached to these lines. Good luck.


"I was lying on my bed writing California songs
And staring at the spider on the wall
And the sun went down again on this shining Northern town
So who am I to say that it can't be done at all.

There ain't no darkness found
On the edge of this shining town
Just some more city lights that's rolling on -
There's hardly any space left, on this Island full of dreams
And Lordy help you now if you want to spread your wings".


SteveB

==>  I would love to add music to it => but it does not work that way for me.  It is like getting hit by a bolt of lightning and there's that crackling, light flashing, thunder and the smell of ozone in the air --- to tell you the truth I have never realy just composed a song around lyrics just to add music to it, but I guess that there could always be a first time.  songs take shape for me under different circumstances --- there is always that first spark that melds everything together - for me!

You know, it would be great to have a new posting with excecises like 48 has for his guitar students but for folks wanting to learn writing lyrics!!!  And go from music to lyrics and lyrics to music --- I know it would help me out personaly!  But sh*t got so many other things...  Definetly it would be an advantage to my music composition and to become an actual song writer and not just a musician...

[SteveB]

DA - No probs at all. It was just with reading that some people just can't get started, I thought, well if they have a few written lines in front of them, then it may provide the spark to start them on their way. There seems to be so much help around the Forum with the music side, I thought trying to help with Lyrics may help some others who find the music side easy to come by.

SB

[Greeny]

I posted this 'explanation' of my process before on another thread. On reflection, songwriting is such a personal thing that I'm not sure what works for one person will necessarily work for another. The main thing is that you WANT to do it. Desire is a very powerful and important thing .

....

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!!!!

[AndyR]

Yeah, I tried to post in this one yesterday (and one of the others a while back) - and I realised it's all really personal.

For me, I tend to do music and lyrics (for at least one verse) at roughly the same time.

I mainly write by "performing" in the living room. I start imagining the audience and then sing to them, do my rock star bit, etc...

Once I've got the basic ideas, usually a chord sequence and some improvised vocals over it, then I start analysing and reworking, playing it over and over again, to make it the best I possibly can.

This is usually done with a guitar (or piano), my voice, a pad of paper and a pen/pencil. I only tend to record something if the shape is finished or if I need to stop work for a length of time and I might forget what I was reaching for musically.

Once I have the main tunes/vibes sorted, I often sort out lyrics (tighten up lines, write missing verses, different choruses, etc) away from any musical equipment. Possibly sat on the loo (really good lyric writing place!) or maybe with a coffee and a fag out in the back garden.

[Glenn Mitchell]

I often use a derivative approach.
IOW something is derived from something else.
EG right now I am working on a song that started as some backer's chord progression I liked.
In this case I wrote down the chords and threw away the backer.
Then I chose my own rhythm and instruments.
As it progressed, I changed more things until I had a backer track ready for a melody.
Next I played guitar and synth against the backer until a melody took shape.
Next I expect I will sing along with it until some words form themselves.
Then once the lyrics start I will let them reshape the format. EG maybe add a chorus.
IOW one thing inspired another etc and the original inspiration is often abandoned for better and better ideas.
Evolution.

[IanR]

I'm fairly new at this but the way I seem to be doing it is like this:

1. Write a lyric (which may be complete or partial when I start to record)
2. Sing the lyric into the MBR over a click track at the right tempo
3. Hunt for the chords to match the lyric and the rythm of the song (I usually use chords in the key of G and use the capo to move up and down the neck to get the right sound for the song)
4. Add some lead in the bridge and the non lyric bits (I'm hooked on the pentatonic scale here)
5. Add some bass  (very basic)
6. Try to work out a drum track

At each stage I'm listening critically to work out if its going well or if it needs improvement.  If you listen to my songs, you can tell that the theory is superior to the practice.

After stage 6 I might decide to add something else such as harmony vocals or another instrument.

This is very different to some of the others who start with the riff, or a chord progression.  To me, the lyric is the thing that drives the emotion of the song.

[Satchwood]

Wow Ian, I'd never thought that someone could write a song this way - very impressive! 

I don't think that I could sing an original melody without any music backing me up; and then try to fit chords to my solo voice track - yikes...  How do you do that? 

I guess I might have to try your method and see what happens.........this would be thinking outside the box, big time for me ....

[IanR]

Wow Ian, I'd never thought that someone could write a song this way - very impressive! 

I don't think that I could sing an original melody without any music backing me up; and then try to fit chords to my solo voice track - yikes...  How do you do that? 

I guess I might have to try your method and see what happens.........this would be thinking outside the box, big time for me ....

Satchwood,

I guess it seems natural to me.  I'm 47 years old and have been playing music for about 7 of those.  So that means for 40 years, all I could do musically was sing the words.

When I write a song, its the words that seem to come first and can hear the melody as they are written. So that enables me to sing them without music.  Then, I just hunt for the right sound.  I already know if its a ballad or a kids ditty or whatever, so its whatever fits the words. 

I'm still very much learning.  My guitar teacher said to me today that I'll probalbly write a hundred really bad songs before I write anything I think is good. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm still getting up to the 10-15 songs, so I know he's right.  However, I really enjoy discussing my work and other peoples' work on this site, so I'm happy to share.

Ian

[Oldrottenhead]

i find coming up with music very difficult and is due to my lack of ability in playing any instrument, so any music i come up with tends to be very simple or minimalist, writing lyrics for me is the easy part, of late well since joining this site, you might have noticed i have a tendency to write lyrics for the music of others on here. with a good well structured song i can do this quite quickly, i dont think i have a particularly good voice either but what i lack in technical ability i try to make up with in expressing an emotion or feeling. and i think that is one of  the keys to opening the door so to speak, getting inside the song and not necessarily giving it welly but putting some of yourself into it.
or just letting the music take you for a ride. but like the previous posts i think its an individual thing what works for someone might not work for another there is no secret formulae well i dont know one lol. if there was all songs would sound the same, for me the songs that stand out are the ones that have an individuality to them and relate to you personally and as it is my impression that most songs are written by my fellow humans that should occur quite often, ok im rambling and probably off the thread lol.

[Redler]

I write often my songs this way...

I just strum my acoustic guitar and try play different type of chords. After finding chords (sometimes I don't even know their names) let say for a verse, I start hum a melody. In that point I'm getting in the mood of the song. I know which kind of lyrics it needs. But. Writing lyrics is difficult to me. Sometimes I can write a verse or two, but then comes STOP... a long time ago I wrote poems and sometimes I compose a melody to my old poem. I have translated a few of them, but they are a bit 'bad english' as my messages - so they needs some spelling.

Sometimes composing takes time, sometimes they comes easily. I compose a verse, trying several chords and may leave it for weeks. Later on, I find a new option and may put a new chord pattern after the first draft and finally there is a song. This sounds my songs are very complicated works, but they aren't. I use often maj7/m6/m7/sus2/sus4 chords among minor and major chords.

After purchasing micro br I got a huge boost in this hobby. There were actually 15...20 years I didn't play at all. All those chords I play now were unknown to me then, except minor/major chords.

In a nutshell; strumming and humming. It is my way:). And recording instantly the new ideas on MBR - I use it as a notebook, too.

-Kari