Have you written your own song on the guitar before?

[rokdog49]

I’ve written some over the years.
A few got positive reviews from people who felt sorry for me.

[stevo58]

I used to write a lot of songs, and produced a lot of crap, but I haven’t written anything at all in the last ten years. Here are the ones I haven’t gotten around to taking down yet. Warning: these aren’t acoustic songs.

You get what you pay for.

https://www.soundclick.com/artist/de...?bandID=907546

Steven

[Tadmcd]

i've been writing lyrics for about 40 years (in response to someone's question: usually in the shower or while driving). i used to send them to my kids and good friend, all of whom play guitar, in the hopes they'd write a tune; they never did.

so about a year ago, i got a guitar, learned to make it produce noise(s), and now i write my own songs (god bless the circle of fifths). nothing fancy, i'm not a very good player. but, i can sing and strum and find the right chord every now and then.

as i bonus, i get to force my kids and good friend to listen to the results and they rue the day they declined to write a "good" tune.

come to think of it, that might make a good song...

[DukeX]

Yes, instrumentals and songs, but most songs (lyrics and melody) are written in my head--no instrument needed to write a song.

[rstaight]

Originally Posted by rllink

Yes I have, just silly cheap shots at country songs and a bunch of stuff for my grandkids that I jot down so I can do them again. Nothing profound or meaningful.

Sometimes those are the best.

[lonecedar]

Hey Hubcapsc -that was a nice little song there - I listened to it and started humming the tune - good job !!!

[mawmow]

Well, I play only fingerstyle and had the pleasure to write two bluezy pieces as part of a funny contest between friends :
One is a quite standard blues in E and the other is in A with variations that finally made it sounding quite jazzy...
We had a bunch of fun !!! ;-)

[UncleJesse]

Quite a few in the last year or so. Probably close to 20. Not all are great and I'm not the greatest lyricist but I think I'm alright at crafting a melody and I can write the heck out of Em bridges

[UncleJesse]

Originally Posted by Deliberate1

I got one of these. The playback quality with good ear devices is remarkable. Warning, though. There ain't no hiding from a recording. But it will school you.
David
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

Iphone music memo works great for me. Then I can sit down a record vocals and guitar together on my spire studio. It's good enough for me to remember. Since my songs are really to play live it's more just to capture feel and inflection.

[Br1ck]

I lost count at around 150. One year I challenged myself to write a song a week. When you retire, you can do things like that.

I talked to a lady from the Yukon Territories who took a song a day for a month challenge, every February. You can do that when It's below freezing outside.

[247hoopsfan]

I’ve written about 25. I wrote this one for my mom shortly after my dad passed a few years ago. She would cry every time I played it for her, said it captured their life perfectly. Now she is gone too....

https://soundcloud.com/247hoopsfan/a-fathers-song

[Headless Folkie]

I got my first guitar at 18, and tried writing some songs as I was learning to play. Of course, they were the kind of ‘wisdom of youth’ and unrequited angst songs so common for that age and will NEVER BE HEARD BY ANYONE, because I was no Jackson Browne - with his show-off “These Days” at 16. (And for the record, at 60, I am still, and will ever after be, no Jackson Browne.)

Later, for a few years I wrote songs on a regular basis for a local weekly radio comedy show, at which point my playing was probably at it’s highest level and the ability to record in a studio meant I could sing with a full voice and the recordings were fairly good quality.

I only restarted in the last couple of years, after a new friend who heard those earlier recordings asked why I didn’t write any more. I basically said, 'because I had no reason to,' but then to fullfil a promise that I would write her a song or two if something came to mind, did so, and that kind of got me back into it again. Still, not on any kind of regular schedule, but when an idea or excuse comes to mind - to share with friends or the specific subject of the song. But I have started putting a few on YouTube - not just to make the sharing easier, but to try to ‘incentivize’ myself into writing more regularly.

The recording quality (I live in a thin-walled apartment now, so I have to keep the voice ‘in my throat,’ and the playing isn’t what it used to be), ensures that these will never turn into sleeper hits, but when I write, it’s mostly because I like playing with words (I have a song that may well have one of the highest innuendo per capita counts in recorded history), and amusing friends and family, and it serves fine for those purposes. The song below came from an email that a close friend closed with, “Sincerely.” I laughed when I read it and told her that when I saw such a businesslike signoff, I half expected to see a resume attached - and then took the idea of making the signoff a kind of “Dear John” substitute.

If you play it you’ll see what I mean about the less than studio quality of voice and instrumental, but it does illustrate a point I’ve always believed (and may be of use for those in this thread who mentioned that they’ve only written instrumentals because they don’t think they can sing)… Not being able to sing is no reason not to sing (it didn’t stop Leonard Cohen and others), just like not being able to dance is no reason not to dance. If you wanna, and it’s good enough to entertain family and friends, or even just yourself, go for it and have fun.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by LeDave

Have you written your own song on the guitar before?

Yes, I have. Here is one glaring example.

[tippy5]

I write bits of songs everyday. I have written hundreds of whole songs.
From 2012-2018 I was in 3 originals only song circles and open mics. Plus I took 13 straight semesters of Adult Ed Songwriting class.

Everything was going swimmingly until people started filming and posting on FB willy nilly. Exit stage right.

[flaggerphil]

Four of them over the decades.