|
|
#16
02-28-2021, 06:28 PM
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
|
|
#17
02-28-2021, 06:57 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Made up my first song at 13; a basic rock and roll progression I played on a piano with very teenage style lyrics, revolving around girls and their physical attributes I was most attracted to. First songs I wrote that I still play were in my early 20's. In my 50's, over 10 years ago, I stopped playing other peoples songs, except to figure out what they are doing to learn something I like. I play around friends and in public at occasional open mic outings. I only play my own songs. People say they like them and some even asked if they could learn and play them. My hope is to play small café type venues, for a small fee, to stay more active in my retirement years. Most of my songs are based on well used formats and cord progressions. Some are different enough that I would say I've never heard anything quite like it. Many well respected song writers make no attempt to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak. 3 cords and the truth stuff has become some of the most recognizable and loved songs ever written. Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, B B King, The Band, Neil Young, and on and on and on.
|
|
#18
02-28-2021, 07:17 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I started writing my own songs immediately (40 years ago). I'm a better songwriter than guitar player. Each of us is different. Songwriting (lyrics and melody) comes naturally to me, and I haven't used a guitar to write one in probably 25 years. I arrange them afterward. I don't think most guitar players write songs that way.
|
|
#19
02-28-2021, 07:47 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I spent about 16 years learning other people's songs. I didn't think I could write my own stuff that people would want to listen to. Then I met a gifted songwriter who was always writing (sometimes 3 a week). He told me to just try it. Long story short I wrote one about where we were living and it came out alright. As was mentioned most songs are simply written. I had admired several songwriters in several genres. So I started really paying attention to how their songs were put together and tried applying their methods to my own ideas. Now when I write sometimes the whole song comes right away but most of the time I will spend several sessions refining the lyrics and melody to truly say what I mean. I find that I would rather play my songs than covers but I will still play some that I have played for a long time for variety and to incorporate things that I have learned since I learned the song. Now I can't imagine not writing.
|
|
#20
02-28-2021, 08:20 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I have the opposite problem. I only know songs that I write, and maybe a few covers. My songs are not very good, and I can't sing worth a darn, and I can't even play guitar that good, but I love writing songs anyway. I used to go to open mic's and do my songs all the time, but my open mic buddy went and moved to New Jersey so we don't do it anymore.
Here is a funny song I wrote that I just recorded quickly. There are a lot of mistakes...
__________________
~Bob~ Martin D-28 Satin Fender American Ultra Telecaster Last edited by Teleplucker; 03-01-2021 at 04:14 PM. Reason: Let's hope that was a typo, if not it's extremely inappropriate
|
|
#21
02-28-2021, 08:52 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
That was fun Thanks for sharing Last edited by Lkristians; 03-01-2021 at 04:16 PM. Reason: Adjusted quote
|
|
#23
02-28-2021, 09:18 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I'm better with prose than poetry...
I'm a better arranger than composer... I've written a few passable songs over my playing career, slip one or two into my solo sets every so often... Set some existing poetry to music with more success... I realized a long time ago that, try as I might, I'd never be another Gordon Lightfoot or Neil Diamond - and I'm OK with that...
__________________
"Mistaking silence for weakness and contempt for fear is the final, fatal error of a fool" - Sicilian proverb (paraphrased)
|
|
#24
02-28-2021, 09:49 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I find that I have a limited range. If I write my own songs it is easier to stay in that range.
Example: ‘if grandpa’s guitar could sing” https://youtu.be/wUO0BmR6fLs
|
|
#25
02-28-2021, 09:58 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I played other people’s music for about forty years, then got myself laid up where I couldn’t play. Rotator cuff repair on my right, picking, arm. For some reason, this spurred my to start writing songs. I could work out the chords on piano with my left hand. For a couple of months I was in a frenzy of writing. When I got the use of my hand back, I started putting the songs and the guitar together. Oddly, to me, since that curious spate of writing, I haven’t written again. I don’t know why, and I don’t worry about it much. It’s just a curiosity to me.
__________________
-Raf
|
|
#26
02-28-2021, 10:12 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
i believer that to successfully write songs, one should have a basic familiarity with the genre you've chosen. i have a friend who only knows her own songs, for which she creates her own chords. She's ambitious, tries hard, delivers her songs well and works to make the strum as interesting as she can. But no matter how many times I hear one, it's melody flits away from my memory as soon as the sound dies out. To me, they're forgettable songs, every one.
i feel that if she had first been immersed in other's songs, her writing would have roots from which she could branch out. In my own writing, I took this to an extreme. I must have played for 40 years before writing my second song. i rarely set out to write stuff and do not think of myself as songwriter, but the muse visits once in a while and, given enough time, I now have a sizeable body of completely original work. I'm working on a CD now of all original stuff and the problem is which ones I will have to cut in order to fit others in. 100 (or whatever it is) pieces do not fit on one CD!
__________________
The Bard Rocks Fay OM Sinker Redwood/Tiger Myrtle Sexauer L00 Adk/Magnolia For Sale Hatcher Jumbo Bearclaw/"Bacon" Padauk Goodall Jumbo POC/flamed Mahogany Appollonio 12 POC/Myrtle MJ Franks Resonator, all Australian Blackwood Blackbird "Lucky 13" - carbon fiber '31 National Duolian + many other stringed instruments.
|
|
#27
02-28-2021, 10:24 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I am a 64 year old jazz clarinetist/tenor sax player in an 18 piece big band. That has been my musical direction for more than 50 years. Not a guitar in sight or mind. A couple years ago I started playing clarinet with a bunch of locals who play the great American acoustic songbook. And it worked, remarkably well. But as time passed, lyrics started popping into my head on my ride to work. And so I got a guitar and began wood-shedding the song. And then another, and another. It has been an unexpected joy that extends my love for music in ways I could never have imagined. To sing and play music that I created and that others respond to. It is so different than my jazz work - so much more personal.
Within the past six months, about a year and a half into my guitar life, I discovered that I can actually play (attempt) songs I grew up with. I can go to the web and get the chords and make something that approximates the music I grew up with and is part of my DNA. I have been working on a finger style arrangement of Lola. Playing just the intro is an amazing feeling of creative accomplishment. With respect, those of you who grew up playing the soundtrack of your lives cannot imagine what a revelation that is. The difference between just listening to a song,and recreating it, is an epiphany. I just wish I started down this path earlier in my life. But, as I have discovered, many things come at just the right time. David David
|
|
#28
02-28-2021, 11:33 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I've always been something of a songwriter, but usually I ended up playing in groups who invariably wanted to learn familiar covers so they could get out on stage and make a little beer money. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, but I bit the bullet and followed along, just to have people to play with, and yes, it was often fun. Just not particularly satisfying. I did manage to work a few original tunes into the occasional set, and they were usually enthusiastic, but neither did most of those same people really have an urge to get into the composing side of things.
A couple of years ago, a close friend and I decided to sit down and try to write regularly, just to see how it went. A few months later, we had won our first song contest which gave us free time in a studio a few miles outside of Nashville, but --- we are still waiting to get vacations approved and Covid-19 issues out of the way so we can go record. Sixty-some songs later, we are feeling pretty good about how both of us have been spending our free time (even at a distance, for a while), and honestly never has playing been so rewarding and fun. Of course, we've written some clunkers (and sometimes on purpose), but there's a few that we are proud of creating, and I'm looking forward to getting them recorded, produced, and hopefully, available for download. We still work up a cover, once in a while, but only songs that we both love a lot, and might use as crowd filler/pleaser in an otherwise all-original set. Writing is a very educational experience, especially if you want your songs to be on a professional level in whatever genre you wish to explore, and I highly recommend giving a real shot. It's often like slowly pulling teeth at the beginning, but it gets better as time goes on. ... JT
__________________
"Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again." - Robert A. Heinlein
|
|
#29
03-01-2021, 01:24 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I`ve written lots of instrumentals..I have no talent for lyric writing and all the stuff I write pales in comparison to the material I play by other artists.Ho hum,at least I tried.
|
|
#30
03-01-2021, 01:46 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Nothing wrong with learning songs. It’s not just “covers” so long as these are the songs we truly like and move us. If I were in a pointless cover band doing songs I didn’t like just to play out, yes, I’d quit pronto! But I am in a cover trio now and we do song we dig ...funny thing, when we have fun, so too does the crowd.
 If you can write, more power to ya! I’ve written a few but trying to get over the “no ones gonna wanna listen to that” self critique. One day maybe I’ll throw one of mine I to the set and see what happens. But writing is hard, takes skill and perseverance, and yes talent. Just because I’m well read doesn’t mean I can write a novel. Just sayin Edward
|
on the PJ Blues!