Songwriting 101: Is there a process by which you write songs? Or is it unstructured inspiration?

[nightlight]

I've read lots of stories of bands suddenly having the equivalent of a mental apostrophe and then writing a song in a few hours.

But albums usually require a lot more than one song to sell. I do get how in the new era, one hit song is all you need to make big money on Youtube or Spotify. The filler in the albums be damned, perhaps, though I also think it is lazy musicianship and ripping off people.

Personally, I've written material for two, maybe three albums, but it's more hard work than inspiration when it comes to experimenting with chords and tuning, structure and syncopation just so my music doesn't all sound the same. Or, even more importantly, just sound like something that has no semblance to music.

Was curious about how other members approach this plateau of sorts where their creativity dries up, but they still require to write 5 or 6 more songs after one or two sure-fire hits.

Do you have any routines you follow when writing? Have you got a muse or talisman that you turn to? Also, if you have a band, are you the primary songwriter or do you all contribute?

 

[70 Mach 1]

I can only write music because im a man of few words. Lyrics aren't in my vocabulary.

I usually stay in the diatonic chord movement. I usually don't start on the 1.
Sometimes I'll never even hit the 1

Like to start on the 3 and embellished it

But this may not work for you all because i play bluesy funky clean with a touch of dirt

 

[cobrahead1030]

It’s all over the place for me.

Sometimes I’ll be at work, driving or in the middle of some random task & an idea will come to me. Usually those are basic melodic or rhythmic concepts. If I’m lucky, those become a decent riff & eventually turn into a song idea.

In my home studio, I like to come up with a real basic structure & build from there. Just kind of see where sounds & ideas take me. This usually gets into the weeds with trial & error, I like to experiment outside of my comfort zone.

In a band situation; sometimes we just jam and ideas flow that way, or other guys will write a part & I’ll have to go sit with it for a while to find something that fits.

These days I try to keep my band ideas pretty simple and see how the mates respond. In my younger days, I was quick to come up with arrangements that dictated what everyone else would play.

 

[Solarflares]

Offhand Zen comment I know, but the best music writes itself. You just have to know how to get out of the way.

 

[nightlight]

I like to noodle too. It isn't exactly paint by the numbers, but over the period of 20-odd years playing guitar, I have a sense of what chords might work and what might not in a song arrangement. So I usually start by just jamming, and more often than not, I'll record the idea as a portion of a song so that I don't forget it.

That doesn't mean I nail everything from the get-go. Sometimes I'll come up with a cool series of chords or notes and then I spend a lot of time deconstructing the whole thing and trying to see whether I can come up with a cooler voicing that creates tension, or amplifies the mood, or creates emotions.

I'm well aware that sometimes I end with what some may describe as a salad of riffs, but that's okay. I pick up the pieces later on and work on them some more to come up with more complete pieces of music.

That includes vocals in my book. There are few pieces of instrumental music that I truly gel with and after a few listens, I feel that they become boring. With a good vocalist, music sounds much better than just guitars, drums and bass, and elevates the entire thing.