Writing a song - CLUAS Irish Indie Music

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Last Post 10/4/2006 4:57 PM by Pol

Writing a song

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Pol

Basic Member
Posts:113

10/4/2006 4:57 PM
There's nothing happening today in here so im starting a kind of productive stupid thread ..about song writhing .. How do you approach it ? spur of the moment improv with your instrument ?do you work better with a team ? do you dream up melodies and try like a whoooore to make them sound the same in your head as on the guitar ,do you set your self tasks i.e read Mayan history and write a song about there torturous lives ,or do you dabble in other religions to find new and meaningful things to steal ? Or do you just jam it out and stick in lyrics and hope they mean something .What is your thing ?when do you know its good and when do you feel like you just have to walk away from it ...discuss or just don't post .

raoul

New Member
Posts:79

10/4/2006 6:09 PM
hmmm..don't know about anyone else but my favourite way of writing lyrics for a song is by using snippets of conversations and things people say in every day conversation. Like for instance..down at the EP this year having a drunken covnersation with a friend about the way that almost everybody has at least one psycho-ex, to which her fella who had been listening in, turned around and said to her... "I think you're my next psycho ex". brilliant line for a song. Apparently Lou Reed uses the same "technique".

dermot_trellis

New Member
Posts:69

10/4/2006 6:21 PM
Song 'writhing'? Sounds painful. It's kind of impossible to lay out the 'standard songwriting process' in a nutshell, because no such thing exists... it's different for everyone who ever tries it. In my experience you start by playing around with whatever instrument you're working on until you happen to chance upon an interesting sound, melody or chord sequence, then write it down (or better, record it) and try to add other parts that fit in with it, or get in your band\songwriting partners to do the same.. It's just a mixture of luck, inspiration and craft really, trying out a whole lot of things and being able to spot which ones are worth persuing. As for lyrics (if you use lyrics) it's the same thing, you just just start off with an idea that interests you and play around, add bits and pieces until it feels right.. Sometimes ideas that you come up with for one song end up happening to sound good with ideas from another and you merge them together, it's an organic process.. Musicians often seem to say that the best songs almost drop in front of them out of thin air, one moment they have nothing and 10 minutes later the whole thing is essentially written, like they were channeling it from the ether.

Unicron

Veteran Member
Posts:1696

10/4/2006 7:42 PM
quote: Originally posted by raoul hmmm..don't know about anyone else but my favourite way of writing lyrics for a song is by using snippets of conversations and things people say in every day conversation. That's a really common way of getting idea's for songs. There's no real formula to it as far as I can see. Sometimes you sit down and have a point you want to make, sometimes you'll have a bunch of notes in a book and throw them together, sometimes you'll be absentmindedly be strumming a guitar and start singing. Sometimes you'll jam something out and almost have the music finished and someone will go "um, we don't have lyrics" and then you start scatting out a melody and see what takes shape. Sometimes you think God is whispering in your ear, but if that happens then you're a schizophrenic.

Rev Jules

Veteran Member
Posts:1041

10/4/2006 8:22 PM
Niall Toner swears by this book as a great masterclass in how to improve your songwriting chops http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tunesmith-Inside-Songwriting-Jimmy-Webb/dp/0786884886/sr=8-3/qid=1159989691/ref=pd_ka_3/026-0071477-7499606?ie=UTF8&s=books Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting (Paperback) by Jimmy Webb Paperback: 443 pages Publisher: Hyperion (10 Oct 1999) Language English ISBN: 0786884886

Flem

New Member
Posts:45

10/5/2006 10:25 PM
get a note book or use a phone with a good memory for saving drafts and write down anything that you hear or think you hear that sounds good if you mis-read something and it makes it sound cool or clever take it it's yours collect as much stuff as you can and a melody should develop at some point use and discard at your leisure if it's not working give it time and space and maybe a drink or two you think differently with a hangover channel that and harness into something great then just find the root note of the melody and mess around until you have something you are happy with

sleepyglasseye

New Member
Posts:14

10/6/2006 12:32 AM
Jesus, ever hear of commas & full stops there flemy? You could've channelled & HARNESSED your wonderful thoughts into a wonderful post but it was s**te. Ah well, I'm sure all those ground breaking tunes you penned more than make up for it.

astroboy

New Member
Posts:10

10/6/2006 3:10 AM
quote: Originally posted by Flem get a note book or use a phone with a good memory for saving drafts and write down anything that you hear or think you hear that sounds good if you mis-read something and it makes it sound cool or clever take it it's yours collect as much stuff as you can and a melody should develop at some point use and discard at your leisure if it's not working give it time and space and maybe a drink or two you think differently with a hangover channel that and harness into something great then just find the root note of the melody and mess around until you have something you are happy with Yup, thats the way. Ideas generally come at the worst possible time! If you have the time to sketch down or record the best ideas you have you can compile the best of them. Then again, I'm a firm believer in the ethos of "If its good enough, you'll remember it anyway." Generally I find music comes before lyrics, and that the lyrics are inspired by the feel of the music, but there are exceptions to everything. Testing things out on different instruments usually is a good way at poking holes in things too. Play it on guitar then play it on piano and find the strengths, thats my way.