Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Bojangles
It is a series of interviews with famous artists that explains their writing methods and guess what, they are mostly all different.
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Heck, even the same songwriter (like me) can use different methods for different songs. Sometimes it's a fragment of melody or a cool riff that starts it off. Other times I stumble on a chord progression. It can be a random lyric that pops into my head. I've had to compose commissioned songs based on a particular topic.
One thing I sometimes do, regardless of the starting point, is to identify the overall "feel" I want in a song, find other song(s) that have a similar feel, and borrow/adapt bits and pieces, whether chords, rhythm, or melodic cues. By the time I'm done, it seldom copies the original(s) very closely. (I do try to avoid borrowing lyrics.) It's a bit along the lines of Earl49's bit about modifying old folk tunes.
For example, the tune I'm working on now was inspired by some names written in a concrete sidewalk while I was walking the dog, and I decided I wanted it to have a "feel" a bit like some of the tunes from Nilsson's "The Point", where he does some neat circle-of-5ths stuff with the chord progressions and the songs have a certain "bounce" to them. Not that my song will sound like The Point at all, but... you get the point.
