hmmm...iv found lately that nothing major (or even minor) has happened in my life for me to write about in songs...and the stuff im using for topics happened a long time ago and iv already used it quite a bit. i suppose its a good thing that nothing bad has happened for me to write heart wrenching woe tales about :P but im bored!
one good thing is im being forced to boost my creative process and focus on other things to make a song different to something iv already written, for example im trying to write a song about the same topic in two different genres: soft heartfelt acoustic and poppy blink 182 sounding simple rock. just as a test, looking at it from to different directions.
another thing iv been wanting to do but havent been able to get my head around is watch the news or read a newspaper and write a song about something i read, either from third person or from the eyes of the person involved, eg 'the joke' by lifehouse. its very hard though, good practice i would assume then :D
have other people come across this before and what did you do?
as a creative process what do you do to make songs? (not including the spontaneous one line that blossoms into a song)
haRRy
I think the fact that you are challenging yourself to come up with different perspectives and writing songs from different angles is a great thing. Of course, having something to drawn from in one's life always makes for good songwriting. I'd say, be careful what you wish for! You just may get it!
Here's a problem I'm dealing with...I've got PLENTY to draw from...I just don't have the musical vocabulary to help me put all of that stuff into song! :oops:
If you're stuck right now..have you tried to colaborate with someone? Maybe someone locally or online? Maybe become the next Elton John and Bernie Taupin!
Teamwork- A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
Hey Cole, why not try the Sunday Songwriter's Forum? Different theme every week - if nothing else, it's good writing practise. You have to think out of your normal comfort zone and away from your normal style. Or to put it another way.....
"The Sunday Songwriters club is a stretching exercise for your mind. Arpeggios for the brain cells, so to speak. After all, writing is like playing - to get better, you have to practice."
I've found, over the last three years or so, it's made my writing more disciplined and more focussed.....when I first started, I'd write maybe a verse and a chorus, then I'd be stuck for a second verse and scrap the whole thing....now I think more about song construction, layout, the finer details....
Give it a try - what have you got to lose?
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Hi Cole,
Bob Dylan said a good songwriter needs Experience, Observation and Imagination. If our life experience has been restricted to school, work, relationship then we either have some pretty generic stuff to write about or we expand our landscape by reading and films. Songs built on experience are fine but once you've discovered we all pretty much have the same ones it all gets to be 'same old same old'. There is a huge market for 'same old same old' and if you're writing to entertain that's fine.
Personally I find beer to be a great catalyst :wink: No, seriously, some means of switching on the subconscious for ideas is a well-proven route of many of the greats though I don't personally encourage any other substance. Can I say that here? :shock: I find ideas and phrases come in the twilight zone before sleep and on waking so I keep a notebook by the bed. This was also useful when I had a stressful job as I found just making a note of job I needed to do in the night let me put it out of my mind and sleep.
Also you'll be aware of the left side / right side of the brain analysis i.e. do yu enjoy starting with a blank sheet and working at it in stage 1,2,3 as an ordered, methodical person or do you like concepts and work intuitively?
Here's a piece of fun / interest.
concepts over blank sheet of paper, all that white freezes my brain up! :S
i have found, and maybe try this sometime, that if i know i have to go out somewhere or have something done by a certain time, and i sit down before that and write, the ideas flow so much better with that time frame set in my mind. then i have to stop and go do what i needed to do. but this doesnt work if a fake a time (ie i know that i dont REALLy have to do it) or if i sit down and say 'ok il give myself 10 mins to write something' its strange hey :P
i am a bit tired of a lot of my songs sounding very much like 'one of my songs' ... so i was thinking maybe i should use this period of 'writing time off' to improve my musical skills and use the music as a tool to creating songs. i nearly always start with a tune and put words to that, and things get samey :S :(
in answer to blueline, i have found that times where the feelings are strong and the music is lacking is the PERFECT time to write, forgotting verses and structure and ryhme and just write words, phrases, and even poems or whatever, i have two writing books, one that is 'songs' and i write stuff in there that is going to be in a song, and another book thats just ideas and feelings, so in the future sometime when i have a good tune with no words or am missing a certain something from a song im writing i go to that book and read what i had written months before, it helps a lot with inspiration and gets you back into the emotions you felt then, its helped me a lot.
i have two writing books
That sounds like a good system, I'm going to have to try that.
I have written songs from newspaper articles, books (theres nothing like good fiction, try some Dostoyevsky), movies, TV shows (I like PBS), dreams, and been given ideas from other people like someone already mentioned. I may write a song in first person about something that happened to someone else or write in third person about something that happened to me.
Also, what songwriters are you listening to. I think sometimes we tend to subconsiously mimic what we may be listening to the most. It may help to change up the discs in your cd player. I know I got on a real Townes Van Zandt kick, buying and listening to his cds alot and I found I was tending to write like him (not a bad thing), but soon realized my songs were starting to sound the same. So I started listening to other folkies like early Bob Dylan and Michael Reno Harrell or even some hiphop like Eminem (don't crucify me but I do respect his ability to write lyrics) and the variety showed up in my songwriting.
If you normally write songs with a "hook" or chorus, try writing without one... or vice versa.
I also like to experiment with rhyme schemes ie AABB or ABAB or even AABBCCD or AAABBB. Some songs I write in 4 or 6 line verses and some look like groups of random paragraphs of differing lengths.
One time I said to heck with rhyme and wrote a song that didn't rhyme at all.
A couple of times I said to heck with verses and the whole song was one really long verse.
There are also times when I had to take breaks from songwriting and go a couple of months no writing anything and like you said, honing my guitar technique.
I'm not trying to tell you how to write, just stating what works for me. My point is to think outside the box, it never hurts to try something you've never done before. And don't forget to have fun!
yeah mixing up writing styles is a good thing, i cant write real catchy stuff. i love lyrics that are crypic or dont seem to make sense like 'i was standing on the beach like a black and white movie' (from angus & julia stone) but i cant write like that. iv tried, and i have a lot of songs that span a lot of genres. but im still bored :P not as good as a want to be. you know what i feel is missing the most? strong emotion, even the simplest words can carry the strongest feelings. thats what mine dont, they are creative clever or whatever else a dozen people have said but they lack emotion, i feel emotional and try and bring it out in the singing cause the lyrics are close to heart but it doesnt seem to come through properly :(
i have some old songs posted in this thread (a fair way back, i cant remember what but you might be able to find something)
oh and that song for the comp.
and thanks for the support everyone, dont be afraid to hijack the thread, we can make it a writers support thread :)
i have two writing books
If you normally write songs with a "hook" or chorus, try writing without one... or vice versa.
I also like to experiment with rhyme schemes ie AABB or ABAB or even AABBCCD or AAABBB. Some songs I write in 4 or 6 line verses and some look like groups of random paragraphs of differing lengths.
One time I said to heck with rhyme and wrote a song that didn't rhyme at all.
A couple of times I said to heck with verses and the whole song was one really long verse.
For all my support for writing from the right side of the brain, any decent songwriter also applies discipline. I once listened to the Beatles album, Revolver with a notepad and just wrote down the song structures e.g. R, C,V,B, (riff, chorus, verse, bridge etc.) - fascinating how little similarity there was between tracks. On one of John's, I think it might be I'm Only Sleeping or She Said , the structure was a mirror with the order of sections being reversed after the middle. These must have been deliberate frameworks that the songs were built on. Eleanor Rigby has two choruses. I understand one psalm at least in the Bible was written with each consecutive verse taking the next letter of the alphabet. I find giving yourself a restriction or a limited frame actually helps focus rather than having so wide a range of possibilities you don't do anything. 8)
How I often work: grab the guitar, hit the record button and keep playing chords for a few minutes. Just drift around, repeat if it's nice, change it if it ain't. When you're done re-wind and overdub the vocals. Don't write lyrics or a melody beforehand, just improvise both in one take. Do this three times every day (+- 30 min total) and you can thank me next week for the tip. :P Ten bucks says there's a lot in your mind that you'll never write about but will just come out if you improvise.
just updating on my first post...
i havent really progressed a lot yet, still got the same problem. but i have been changing the style of the music i listen to, eg going from damien rice to motion city soundtrack...and the new and different writing styles im hearing are getting me excited about writing creatively! for example, i was stuck around the 'Am - F - etc depressing slow moody acoustic stuff' but after listening to the new motion city cd about 15 times (... :P oh yeah, it rocks!) i sat down and, without any music yet, wrote:
No sleep or therapy
Late night dancing with the trees
In the park, when it got dark
Hid our deep seated stupidity
Eyes glow and teeth shine
And deep below within my mind
Plans break and formulate
To let me know how to make you mine
I'm going over and out
(I'm going over and out)
To see outside my walls
I wanna see it all
I wanna have no doubt
When I go over and out
(When I go over and out)
To find someone sometime
To know just what I'll find
And I suspect it'll be a lot like you
Dada nananaa dada nananaa…etc
…
IT HAS DADANANA BITS!!!!!
which i have never done before! then i went on to put a simple but fast happy (electric distortion) tune to it, which led to a lead riff (that follows the dadana bits) which led to overlapped vocals, and that led to me having to figure out the recording equipment i bought a while back to be able to hear everything at once. and it sounds alright!
so the moral of this story is: i listened to a diferent style of music and that stirred up a huge amount of creativity that just kept going! its a good thing... :P :D
How I often work: grab the guitar, hit the record button and keep playing chords for a few minutes. Just drift around, repeat if it's nice, change it if it ain't. When you're done re-wind and overdub the vocals. Don't write lyrics or a melody beforehand, just improvise both in one take.
I agree. Getting the chords, rhythm and a scatted melody prior to lyrics I still believe is the best way for most of us.
To quote Peter Gabriel (not worthy etc.) "many great songs have bad lyrics but none have bad tunes".
unless its green day or rhianna!! hahaha :P
unless its green day or rhianna!! hahaha :P
I hadn't heard of said lady until a TV ad the other night. '"The day the music died" indeed. :lol:
well...things happened...
the girl i really adored asked out one of best mates...
so iv got stuff to write about again!!
and iv already got a sheet of A4 filled out...oh i love writing :D
