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.

 

[Drew]

When I was a songwriter, I would noodle around on the guitar until I found something I liked. This often happened right when I picked up a guitar for the first time of the day--before my hands settled in to muscle memory and playing the same stuff over and over again. Then I would decide if it was an intro part or verse or chorus and then keep building and adding other parts. As I was putting the parts together, I would come up with a rough idea of the melody. Eventually I would take the idea to my co-writer/vocalist and he would make my basic melody a lot more interesting. We would add lyrics later.

Often ideas hung around for months before they would start to form into something.

Also, the singer would bring me a melody and I had to figure out some music to go underneath that. That was much more difficult for me.

 

[BABMusic]

It depends. Sometimes you just get a random motive or something rhythmic that just excites you and then it writes itself. Other times, you are grinding at the piano just patiently waiting hours for something that makes sense to appear. If I feel I'm hitting too many walls, I will steal something else someone else wrote and then change it a lot into something that's me.

 

[Techdeth]

Drugs . Lots and lots of drugs . Crack meth fent . Not those pussy ones . Anyhow

I only write riffs when alone.
Then I get with a drummer and see where those riffs go when jamming . Maybe we finishisg skeleton . After I record is playing it live to reference I go back and see what I feel is need . New bridge . Solo here or there . Does it feel like we need to get progressive and go somewhere else .
But playing with a drummer while I write is most important
I want me and him to be antenna for what the MUSIC tells where to go . Magic happens writing with a live drummer that is purely sub concious . I want it all to happen to me . Not me making it happen .
Things flow best while writing with the natural flow of the drummer you play with

 

[Sick Michael]

yeah, alcohol and goading

 

[japetus]

I tend to start with beats. I don't write a lot of stuff guitar based. Does anyone else do this?

 

[BABMusic]

I tend to start with beats. I don't write a lot of stuff guitar based. Does anyone else do this?

Rhythm is often the most important first step towards the direction of where the music is headed.

 

[Solarflares]

Drugs . Lots and lots of drugs . Crack meth fent . Not those pussy ones . Anyhow

I only write riffs when alone.
Then I get with a drummer and see where those riffs go when jamming . Maybe we finishisg skeleton . After I record is playing it live to reference I go back and see what I feel is need . New bridge . Solo here or there . Does it feel like we need to get progressive and go somewhere else .
But playing with a drummer while I write is most important
I want me and him to be antenna for what the MUSIC tells where to go . Magic happens writing with a live drummer that is purely sub concious . I want it all to happen to me . Not me making it happen .
Things flow best while writing with the natural flow of the drummer you play with

Have you tried working with a drummer?

 

[DanTravis62]

I certainly have musical "epiphanies" sometimes where I write a whole song at one shot

But most of the time I build them up riff by riff, piece by piece - which generally starts with a rhythm/drumbeat, then melody, then riffs

Generally, if it's an epiphany lyrics come first, if it's built piece by piece lyrics come second

 

[Geo]

Drugs and alcohol, lots of drugs and alcohol.

 

[NeubyWanKaneuby]

I tend to start with beats. I don't write a lot of stuff guitar based. Does anyone else do this?

I like grabbing a drum loop and figuring out lyrics to go with it.

Sometimes I'll just make a whole drum track if I'm feeling ambitious.

 

[Rackman]

I don't write a ton, but when I do I generally start with a "donor" song that I want to be kind of like and an idea or phrase of what I want the song to be about. Then it's incremental from there - start changing the donor into what I want.

 

[ners]

Find an existing riff I think is cool and want to sound like, play it in a different tuning or backwards or something to make it closer to "my sound". Assuming I like that, I then tend to play it repeatedly for like 10-20mins straight as this often causes me to fuck up playing it even more so at this point it sounds fairly different than the original riff while still having a similar vibe.

Just yesterday I wrote a riff I'm digging by using the picking pattern from Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" and the three notes from the intro to The Rolling Stones "Satisfaction". Of course all this is done in Drop C# with a higher gain head, so it's sounds fairly different but still has some vintage vibes mixed with a more modern sound.

That's just to get a riff though. A full song usually means doing this like 1-10 more times and trying to see what actually fits with the first riff. Then repeat for however many verse/chorus/bridge/etc are needed (which is hard to do for me without a drummer or singer guiding how to compose the emotional journey of an entire song).

 

[CoreyW]

I just have a large collection of partial riffs, or cool progressions that I struggle to work into anything.

 

[nightlight]

Like others, I like playing to drums too, but I kind of find it difficult to write music to them.

Usually I'll first have all my guitar parts sorted out and then programme some drums that I'll record over. This allows me to play parts that push and pull in different directions when it's all put together.

I really should spring for more midi packs, just stuck with the free ones that come with Superior Drummer and the SDXs I got.

The most fun I could have, of course, is to record my midi drums and then add everything else, but playing to a metronome is something I still struggle with when drumming, especially for metal.