Songwriting Approach

[Banter Shack]

Any songwriters in here?

Do you plan the songs you write or do you start writing lyrics and improvise? Do you edit the songs you write?

Cheers!

[Gdjjr]

I don't plan- inspiration and ideas don't accept plans- yes I edit as they evolve-

[Dru Edwards]

I almost always come up with the guitar part first and then try to sing a melody over it. When it doesn't work but I have melody in my head I'll try to adapt the guitar to it. Then the lyrics come.

I know other people who are the opposite. Lyrics first and then the melody/guitar.

[catdaddy]

Like Dru, I almost always start with a musical idea involving a melody or chord progression. Then, I work on matching a lyric to the emotional suggestion of the music. After that the process usually involves a good bit of editing. I once had a song that I started writing in the 1970s and finally finished 45 years later thanks to an obsessive drive for perfection and an absurd tolerance for endless editing. Not that I consider this method a good model for efficient songwriting.

[Gdjjr]

Lyrics come first for me- I have probably a dozen sets of lyrics waiting on a melody, yet, sometimes it (the melody) comes to me as I'm writing the lyrics-

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by StevieB86

Any songwriters in here?

Do you plan the songs you write or do you start writing lyrics and improvise? Do you edit the songs you write?

Cheers!

Yes to all those questions.

My writing process normally begins from an initial idea. Most often it's a verbal phrase that sounds like it has musical potential - especially if it suggests a topic for the lyric that could be expanded to a whole song. Something interesting for the song to be about. Beyond just "i love you" or some similar hackneyed old cliche.

The phrase falls naturally into a rhythm (easy to sing), and usually a vague melodic shape, but I have to find the latter on the guitar - my voice is not that great, but finding the melodic phrase is usually accompanied by finding a chord that fits it.

Once I have that start, the process of completing the song can be easy or (much more often!) difficult. The hardest thing is getting lyrics to rhyme and scan. (I always remember Dylan in an interview, when asked what he was most proud of in his whole career, replying: "making the words fit".)

Finding chords and so on is easy enough, but there are two main problems there. One is trying to avoid sequences I've used before, or predictable cliches, but the worst one is when a song just starts sounding feeble, lacking punch. The melody starts kind of meandering rather than sounding strong and hooky. That's when I just have to stop working, leave it alone. Hammering away at it just makes it worse, and I have to wait - days, often weeks, sometimes months - until some other inspiration strikes. (I'll probably be working on other songs in the meantime.)

I also try to bear the basic K.I.S.S. principle in mind. My heroes here are Dylan and Neil Young, who both know when a song is finished, when they have done enough, even if that might be very little. It's too tempting, when a song seems dull, to try to "improve" it by adding stuff. Wrong strategy! - unless the stuff you add ends up better than the original stuff, in which case you can drop the earlier stuff.

The other source of inspiration I sometimes get (other than imagining a verbal phrase) is noodling on the guitar. Sometimes I'll find an attractive melodic motif or chord change that might inspire further development. That can then become an instrumental composition. I still might try adding words to it at some point, but the words have to kind of suggest themselves - i.e., I try to imagine what kind of verbal phrase would naturally fit that melody.

[standup]

I start with lyrics most often, but have worked other ways too.

When I have a lyric I like, edited so that it’s pretty consistent and coherent, I’ll often try to start hearing the melody in my head before picking up a guitar. If I know what the melody is, that keeps me from immediately playing the same old thing on guitar.

The melody serves the lyric, the instrumental parts support the melody.

That’s how I prefer to do it.

[Mr. Jelly]

Yes ........ Everything, everyway snd anyway to keep the spark alive through a song is acceptable. Anywhere where the spark seems to dim in a song is where the song needs to be changed. A song should be worked until it gets to a point where anything you do to it will diminish it. How one goes about it only matters in the sense that it worked in the end.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by StevieB86

Do you plan the songs you write or do you start writing lyrics and improvise? Do you edit the songs you write?

As Mr. Jelly also replied, "Yes".

Some songs start with a topic or a subject I want to write about. Some start with some lyrics, a phrase or a line or two, and get built off of that. Some start with a guitar riff, chord progression or bit of melody and get lyrics added later. Some songs are more "planned" in that I know the lyrical direction or the way I want the song to be structured ahead of time, sometimes I get an idea for a song or part of a song by noodling around. Inspiration can come from many places and directions.

As for editing, it's a writer's truth that most writing is re-writing. Lyrics, melody, chord changes, whole sections constantly change as I'm crafting a song. There are always many, many tweaks and revisions before I get to a finished product.

[Brent Hahn]

A lot of mine have come from overhearing things. People say stuff in really original ways, lots of it inadvertent, that would never occur to me in a million years. I used to do some of my best eavesdropping in bars, which was great for gathering inspiration but bad in some other ways, so I've been a lot less productive of late. On the other hand I've dropped 15 pounds and I get going a lot quicker in the morning.

How that stuff turns into melodies, I have no idea. It just rattles around in my head and somehow it happens. But once something has wormed its way into my head and started to become a song, I work really hard at it and can take quite a while to get it to the point where I think it's worth hearing. Even then... I've got this one song I wrote maybe four years ago, and one line has always bothered me and I need to fix it. Hope I can find the Pro Tools session.

On the other hand, I have two different people I sometimes perform and record with who are hugely prolific, and a third guy I don't play with who's very active in the LA open mic/singer-songwriter community. They've got at least a hundred songs apiece, and that third guy has way more. But they're all spaghetti-against-the-wall people; out of 20 things they put forth, there might be one where I see the kernel of a worthwhile song. Monkeys with typewriters, these people. I totally don't understand that.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

But they're all spaghetti-against-the-wall people; out of 20 things they put forth, there might be one where I see the kernel of a worthwhile song. Monkeys with typewriters, these people. I totally don't understand that.

I know a songwriter who's very prolific like that. I've heard her say at a show, "Here's something I wrote this morning," probably meaning she has worked on it for a day or two but maybe really did just toss it off before breakfast. The song structures tend to be simple, and the lyrics definitely stream-of-consciousness mode--very little rhyming, stuff often doesn't scan rhythmically with the melody. But she manages to make it work. And I'm sure many of her songs do get editing to tune them up.

I can't work that way; my songs are way more crafted and I spend an inordinate amount of time on each one. If I had a contractual obligation for 12 new songs a couple times a year for a record label, I'd be in trouble.

I met a guy once who advocated writing a song *every day*. A complete song, not just a riff. He said it's more of a creativity tool--just throw stuff down; it will probably follow Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap"), but it will get you in the habit of writing stuff, and occasionally you find a gem, or something that can be used again. Writers often have similar habits--sit down and just write for a set time, every day, even if the only thing you can write is "I don't know what to write...".

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

I met a guy once who advocated writing a song *every day*. A complete song, not just a riff. He said it's more of a creativity tool--just throw stuff down; it will probably follow Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap"), but it will get you in the habit of writing stuff, and occasionally you find a gem, or something that can be used again.

I guess that, in a sense, I do what he's doing. But I do it in my head while I'm busy with other stuff. And in my case, 99.9% of it is crap.

[Brent Hahn]

Followup to Post 10, I found the PT session, changed that line, and re-sang a different line further down. Have no idea what mic I used the first time, but this one seemed to match pretty well. Thanks for the reminder, AGF, and hooray for DAW automation and instant recall.

[blews]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

I almost always come up with the guitar part first and then try to sing a melody over it. When it doesn't work but I have melody in my head I'll try to adapt the guitar to it. Then the lyrics come.

I know other people who are the opposite. Lyrics first and then the melody/guitar.

Ditto here - I write the same way....

Always keep a pencil and pad on your nightstand or in the car driving ....I seem to get most song ideas and catchy lyrics when nodding off, waking up or driving....

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by StevieB86

Any songwriters in here?

Do you plan the songs you write or do you start writing lyrics and improvise? Do you edit the songs you write?

Cheers!

Hi stevie

I have tried to plan, and twice (in 58 years of playing/writing) it worked.

Most of the time, I'll be practicing or noodling and zing into my head. Sometimes they are instrumental licks, or chord combos, and at other times lyric ideas.

I just record them into my Zoom H1 and get back to noodling, practicing or rehearsing.

Later I'll show them to my gigging partner, and sometimes they turn into songs.

I actually have several songs which developed out of combining some of these.