How do you write?

[pagedr]

Hi all, I've been writing my own music for about a year now and am wondering how you "get in the zone" to come up with song ideas, specifically to create the tune and rhythm of a song.

I'm a writer at heart so lyrics aren't the tricky part, I actually really enjoy that process and am generally happy with what I come up with. It just seems like I'm never really thrilled with how a tune comes out, and I feel like a lot of the songs I write end up sounding really similar. I wonder if maybe playing and writing by myself too frequently leads to this.

I think I also try to compare myself to the artists I listen to as well. I write and play folk-rock/alt-country type music - artists I try to channel and am inspired by are Langhorne Slim, Gregory Alan Isakov, Rayland Baxter, Jim Croce, Townes Van Zandt, etc.

I think in some cases I'm overly critical of myself (as we all are), and also wonder if maybe some of the tunes I've written would really shine a bit more in my ears if there was a full band playing, instead of just me in my living room. Anyway, enough with my rant, but any ideas/tips/tricks would be much appreciated!

[Wyllys]

Long walks...

[Bob Womack]

I studied composition in college where my professor said, "You just have to write. Don't feel inspired? It doesn't matter. Write." Somewhere in there, while I was writing weekly pieces on demand for school, I developed the ability to just kind of do it. I don't wait for the muse because she seems to always be on another street when I need her. So, these days I just grasp for someone's style and go for it.


Bob

[Mr. Jelly]

After years of writing, studying, learning with different reasons to do it I write when I want and it's there in some form. For me the trick is understanding the standard I want/need to achieve. If I am not achieving my perceived standard then I need to put more work into it until I come to the point of feeling the results are perfect -/+. Every song benefits from a rewrite either lyrically or musically. They may be deconstructed and reconstructed in shape and form at any time.

[Dru Edwards]

I actually don't do anything to get inspired. There are days when the ideas naturally flow and others when they don't. When they flow I stick with them and build on them. Worst thing I can do on those days are put the guitar (and pen) down.

[jwing]

The harmonized scale is generalized as such: Imaj, IImin, IIImin, IVmaj, Vmaj, VImin. VII is just for music theory nerds and should never be used.

To write songs that sound original, I never use the harmonized scale chord sequence, and I often will throw in sharps and flats that are not in key. I swear, NOBODY writes songs that sound like mine.

It's too bad that music nowadays sucks, what with the homogenized girl-and-pickup truck songs and autotune voices that Nashville inflicts on us all. I can't get anybody to record one of my songs.

[jseth]

When I was a kid, I thought that "the Muse Bus" would come at whatever unscheduled moment, so it was incumbent upon me to BE READY when it arrived on my corner!

I'd sleep with a guitar and a notebook and pen near me - sometimes getting up in the middle of the night if I had an idea or a sound to explore...

Nowadays? Over the past 5 decades+, I just accept however and when ever the songs come... sometimes it's words, sometimes a rhythm, sometimes a set of changes... sometimes the darn thing seems to fall into my lap, fully grown, and other times I will "massage" a phrase or music for years until it becomes a song...

I say, take it however you can get it. Helped me a lot to get a handle on Diatonic Chord Theory; how and why all the songs I've loved "work"... but, when I became aware of that theory, I noticed that many songs I had written had already used some of the more 'advanced" concepts in that theory... so I'm not so sure that studying theory is necessary at all...

About the whole self-criticism thing? Just KNOCK IT OFF!!! When I look back throughout my musical life - actually my entire life - the most limiting thing I have ever done to myself was to be so hyper-critical... I don't mean being a good editor, and I don't mean that everything I've written should be recorded or played in front of folks... just learn to be easier with yourself, be kind to yourself...

And keep writing, playing and singing!!!

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by pagedr

Hi all, I've been writing my own music for about a year now and am wondering how you "get in the zone" to come up with song ideas, specifically to create the tune and rhythm of a song.

A couple of things I found writing for publishers years ago.

Write all the time. Morning, noon and night. Keep and take notes no matter what you are doing. What will happen is at some moments things just materialize. But you need all the preparation to be ready and that is what you are doing.

By writing all the time you will see your weak points and get tired of writing the same old thing. After you have a couple of dozen songs you will be able to look back on them and throw out the crap that all of a sudden isn't sacred any more. Or rewrite them.

There will come a time when you start changing where the rhymes lay. That pushes the melody to be outside your comfort zone. And more creative.

Learn to recognize a good song and what isn't. Just because a song is well known or a hit or written by a great song writer does not make it a good song.

You can always write more songs.

[TBman]

Starts with the melody hook. Expanding it can be a problem which is why I'll don't finish a lot of tunes

[pagedr]

Thanks for all the tips everyone! I probably need to get out of my own head sometimes more than anything.

Does anyone ever try to write while playing alongside random drum tracks? I've been trying to find some pre-recorded ones but am not exactly sure where to look other than YouTube.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by jseth

When I was a kid, I thought that "the Muse Bus" would come at whatever unscheduled moment, so it was incumbent upon me to BE READY when it arrived on my corner!!

Oh yes. I waited some time for that one, and decided to walk in the end.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by pagedr

Hi all, I've been writing my own music for about a year now and am wondering how you "get in the zone" to come up with song ideas, specifically to create the tune and rhythm of a song.

I'm a writer at heart so lyrics aren't the tricky part, I actually really enjoy that process and am generally happy with what I come up with. It just seems like I'm never really thrilled with how a tune comes out, and I feel like a lot of the songs I write end up sounding really similar. I wonder if maybe playing and writing by myself too frequently leads to this.

Yes, probably. You're working with the same limited palette.

You're lucky that you find lyrics easy. That's the hard part for me - at least I find I'm more self-critical with lyrics, because I don't mind if the chord sequences are fairly "normal". The "song" is the melody and lyric - that's what you "sing"! - and the chords are secondary. Naturally I try to make the chords interesting (for my own sake), but I have to avoid the temptation to make them too interesting, because nobody else cares about that. Non-musicians only listen to melody and lyric.

I don't try to get "in the zone". That's self-defeating. It's like trying not to think about something. If it happens, it happens. For me it sometimes happens with lyrics, where things like rhyme and scansion just seem to fall into place; but most of the time I'm hammering and chiselling to get things to fit, like a bad carpenter. (I remember a great Dylan quote, from many years ago. He was asked what, out of his whole body of work, was he most proud of. He replied "making the words fit". I know just what he meant...)

Musically, I try to let melody lead. I'll start a song with some kind of brief melodic idea - usually with a verbal phrase attached - and then just try to allow it to unfold by itself, note by note. Sing the phrase and try to feel what note needs to come next: same note, or higher or lower? how much higher or lower? The point being that a good melody is one that is easily singable. This process means I usually end up with a melody before the words are complete - and then I have to hammer-and-nail some appropriate words into place! I've never actually written a song words-first - although I have sometimes taken other people's words (poems) and set them to music.

Originally Posted by pagedr

I think I also try to compare myself to the artists I listen to as well. I write and play folk-rock/alt-country type music - artists I try to channel and am inspired by are Langhorne Slim, Gregory Alan Isakov, Rayland Baxter, Jim Croce, Townes Van Zandt, etc.

I do that too. I usually imagine my song being sung by someone else, or in a particular style. That's because I'm often inspired by hearing other songs, and thinking "I could do that"...

But my advice would be to open out your influences much more. It's fine to have an instinctive style that you gravitate towards (everyone does!), but you should listen to all kinds of other music too - and try and play it.

I always think about what made the Beatles great: while their contemporaries were just learning rock'n'roll songs, or blues tunes, they were learning country, jazz, folk, vaudeville tunes, even one or two classical pieces. They were simply ravenous for music in any genre. It meant that when they wrote their own songs they had a huge palette of sounds to draw from. They never ran out of ideas. (Paul McCartney has said that when he and John sat down to write a song, they always managed to finish one in that session; it was never a struggle, they never had to give up.)
And that was even before they made it; they didn't stop expanding their influences, hence the progress from Love Me Do to Strawberry Fields etc in four years.

It's a language, basically. The more vocabulary you have, the bigger the range of things you can say. The vocabulary comes - simply - from learning other people's songs. The more the merrier.

Originally Posted by pagedr

I think in some cases I'm overly critical of myself (as we all are), and also wonder if maybe some of the tunes I've written would really shine a bit more in my ears if there was a full band playing, instead of just me in my living room.

Yes, possibly true. At the same time, a good song is one you could sing with no accompaniment at all - lyrics and melody alone.

Still, it's common to be overly self-critical. It's common to think a song needs "something else", that what you have is maybe too simple or too boring. You need a bridge, or a key change, or something. Or a band filling it out.
When I start thinking that, I remind myself of Dylan and Neil Young, and what they could do with three chords, and sometimes just one short looped sequence. It takes genius to know when to stop - when a song is complete, even if it's short and simple; when you've done enough. Many great songs have just four chords, going round and round.

What I find is that the best songs come fairly quickly, and feel complete quite early on. They almost feel like you didn't write them, like they just emerged of their own accord. The worst songs are the ones you spend weeks or months trying to perfect, trying to polish up little details, or even trying to simplify them right down. The frustrating thing is that they are often songs that feel very personal and important to you - which it makes it all the more depressing that you can't quite get them to work, to hang together properly.... The best songs, in a way, don't feel so personal - they could be anyone's. They have a strength that doesn't depend on you (and doesn't depend on being performed in a certain way, or by a certain band).