Do you guys have a backlog of songs in different stages of being finished?

[New Trail]

I have probably ten or so songs that I have parts of that I haven't finished. I might have a verse to one song, or an intro and a verse to another song, or a part here and a part there on another song, or everything but a chorus on another song, but can't seem to finish them. I don't know if it's a lack of inspiration or a lack of perspiration but I can't seem to finish these!

Anyone else?

[Lee Knight]

Not really. I used to I guess, but once it goes into that bin, for me at least, it's kinda gone. I always see it like this: There is a never ending spring of ideas. It's just a question of sitting at that spring and wading your feet. You have to let yourself get out of the slipstream and into the current. And not to question the ideas as they go racing by like Dorothy's bad witch dreams. Grab them, document them and stay focused on the goal. To finish this song.

If I found myself in your position, I'd put all that unfinished stuff out of my mind and start with a new credo. Finish the idea. And then grab everything that flies by, magnet and steel. The more you do that, the more you start manifesting ideas that are appropriate to the task at hand. And the task at hand is to finish the current song.

[Oswlek]

Dozens. Hundreds.

If you add in ideas it is well into the thousands.

But I am regularly finishing the major projects I work on. It isn't a lack of effort/desire/ability that creates the backlog, solely a lack of time.

[A Happy Crowd]

I have a bunch. For me, it's the lack of perspiration. I'll try to work on one, get frustrated, think that I should just come back to it later, and give up for the time being. Half-written songs which I have no intention of abandoning simply end up accumulating. I know I should force myself, but I don't.

[blue2blue]

Hundreds is probably closer for me.

I have around 170 songs or so I consider finished/published, but there are probably about that many sets of lyrics with a couple verses and choruses that at one time or another I included in my 'book.' (When I started my songwriting blog in 2005, I ended up sorting out a bunch of stuff that I no longer really felt connected with.) And then there are probably twice as many fragments and bits of things. And then there are certainly hundreds if not thousands of single idea bits or phrases that I've jotted down and salted away.

[LeonardScaper]

I have none.

I always get them to a point where they are on their own. I honestly have never gone back....even with the opus. For me that is because there is always something new that grabs my attention.

I suppose that when my muse eventually abandons me I will have lots to do.

[oldgitplayer]

I'm capturing new ideas every day in the form of :

I keep a WORD file on computer that has separate lists of:

Titles only
Lines only
Choruses only
General outlines of ideas

I also keep SOUND files of:

Chord sequences
Rhythms
Hummed melodies
Riffs
Bass lines

This just keeps the machine oiled, and anything that's worthwhile gets developed.
Maybe about 50% - the rest will rot.

[New Trail]

Whew.....I'm glad to know I'm not alone.

[rsadasiv]

Lots. If I'm in a crunch and need to squeeze one out I just grab something from the pile, dust it off, and call it done.

[ShadowsofBirds]

Yeah, I unfortunately am really bad at saving things so.. There would be a handful of half finished things, but mostly if I start something I'll finish it to some degree..

I have a backlog of ideas.. There was a quote, I can't remember who by.. said something along the lines of "I never write things down - If it wasn't good enough for me to remember it probably wasn't worth developing.

There are a handful of ideas I've dragged along for years that I hope I'll get to.

[rsadasiv]

Originally Posted by ShadowsofBirds

Yeah, I unfortunately am really bad at saving things so.. There would be a handful of half finished things, but mostly if I start something I'll finish it to some degree..

I have a backlog of ideas.. There was a quote, I can't remember who by.. said something along the lines of "I never write things down - If it wasn't good enough for me to remember it probably wasn't worth developing.

There are a handful of ideas I've dragged along for years that I hope I'll get to.

We had a thread about writing things down a while ago. I'm definitely in the "If I don't remember it, it probably wasn't any good anyway" camp.

[oldgitplayer]

There are a few variations on the theme here :

"If I don't remember it, it probably wasn't any good anyway"
"If I don't write it down, I don't remember it."
"It probably wasn't any good, so I didn't write it down."
"I didn't write it down, so I don't remember it."
and
"I remembered it, I wrote it down, but it probably isn't any good."

[grace_slick]

I have 3 levels of incomplete or in limbo songs.

1. The songs I've done but never properly finished and never really felt they were quite right and so my interest / motivation level for going back to them is non-existent and I eventually decided to just consign them to the archives as a "learning experience".

2. The songs I've done and fully intend to alter / finish, but keep getting distracted by new inspirations and also, the below type of unfinished song, which is...

3. The songs I've done and are virtually finished, but I just need to tweak ever so slightly to get them ACTUALLY finished.

So there ya go.

[dramey]

I have a bunch of them too. The popular wisdom seems to be, it's better to write 10 songs quick and hope one of them is good, than to spend too much time polishing a turd. Well, I'm a turd polisher, and if I cant get it shiny enough the first go around, I put it away for a while and come back to it again later.

Sometimes I get lucky and come up with something that helps me finish one, sometimes I realize that 2 of my partial songs can be combined in to one. I have a few I doubt I'll ever finish, but some other good may come from them so I keep them around.

[blue2blue]

Originally Posted by rsadasiv

We had a thread about writing things down a while ago. I'm definitely in the "If I don't remember it, it probably wasn't any good anyway" camp.

For the first 10 or 20 songs (that I cared about), I took that approach. Carrying around notebooks didn't fit my lifestyle. (I was very much into hauling my guitar around to different beaches, mountain sides, creeksides, etc. Something I think I should get back into. I live, literally, 2 minutes walk to the beach and, yet, have probably played guitar on the beach 5 or 6 times in 8 years.)

But then I found myself forgetting not just the lyrics to some songs, but about the songs, themselves, slapping my head months later and trying to remember some 4th verse. And I came up with a few songs in my head that didn't get written down fast enough, where I lost stuff and couldn't recover the memory to save my life.

After a while, I couldn't remember all of hardly any of them, as there were just a bunch that I liked to do. But by that time I had developed the habit of keeping a notebook all the time (and I still have them all, I believe, though I made a point in the late 80s of getting most of the stuff that was vaguely keeper into digital format.

[grace_slick]

I rarely make notes prior to sitting down and writing a song. If I do, it's more a concept and a key line that comes into my head. I write it down, then make myself completely forget about it. Otherwise, when I come to write the song, if I've thought too much in detail about it, I am immediately bored as the initial inspiration has been exhausted.

[Oswlek]

Originally Posted by grace_slick

I rarely make notes prior to sitting down and writing a song. If I do, it's more a concept and a key line that comes into my head. I write it down, then make myself completely forget about it. Otherwise, when I come to write the song, if I've thought too much in detail about it, I am immediately bored as the initial inspiration has been exhausted.

Wow, I am the total opposite of this. I get and idea and then totally immerse myself in it. I record a quick thing for me to capture the idea, then I play with it for however long I need to get the majority of it fleshed out. THen I record a more proper demo and post it here.

Once I start recording it goes even deeper, I put mixes on CDs and on my mp3 player, listening on every system over and over again. When I stop actually listening, I'm replaying it in my head and letting it flow in a more free-form manner, this is where a lot of the "aha!" moments come, when I'm writing without the limitations of my fingers.

By the time I am done, I've spent weeks on just that one song, and I've listened to it thousands of times.

FWIW, I don't buy the "if I don't remember it, it wasn't a good idea" thought process at all. Not even a little bit.

[LeonardScaper]

Originally Posted by Oswlek

By the time I am done, I've spent weeks on just that one song, and I've listened to thousands of times.

I used to do it that way. The floor of my truck was always littered with CD's that didn't make the cut but told me what I needed to know about the mix.

These days my songs get finished quickly. I have grown to like those first few takes, even if they are not perfect. I usually do the final vocal after posting here, but that whole process has really been streamlined. Everything gets finished. Nothing gets left behind.

It helps that I have finished so many....the engineering part has become second nature.

Originally Posted by Oswlek

FWIW, I don't buy the "if I don't remember it, it wasn't a good idea" thought process at all. Not even a little bit.

Hmmmmm.....I think there is something to that concept.

The good melodies and lyrics never leave after they have come to me. If I am forcing a song....something that I never do any more....then quite often it will fade.

[Chicken Monkey]

 

Originally Posted by rsadasiv

Lots. If I'm in a crunch and need to squeeze one out I just grab something from the pile, dust it off, and call it done.

 

This. Hundreds. I just found a stash of old notebooks that I'm looking forward to digging into--when I was starting, I had more ideas, but less sense of how to get the job of songwriting done, so I might do well to have another crack at some of my first songs.

[Chicken Monkey]

Originally Posted by Oswlek

FWIW, I don't buy the "if I don't remember it, it wasn't a good idea" thought process at all. Not even a little bit.

I think that's one of those things that guys like to say in interviews because it imbues a bit of mojo into the creative process. It seems like some of these guys still wind up publishing some of their old notebooks of songs, sometimes posthumously.

Every one of my fellow amateur hacks who profess to follow this adage write songs that I can't remember after hearing them . I think the writing is as much about facilitating editing as it is about remembering the song.

[rsadasiv]

Maybe I phrased it poorly. I do write lots of things down, but they are pretty much whole songs and I've been thinking about them for a day or two at that point. If I think of a line and I can't remember it a day later it probably wasn't that good.

[Oswlek]

Originally Posted by LeonardScaper

I used to do it that way. The floor of my truck was always littered with CD's that didn't make the cut but told me what I needed to know about the mix.

These days my songs get finished quickly. I have grown to like those first few takes, even if they are not perfect. I usually do the final vocal after posting here, but that whole process has really been streamlined. Everything gets finished. Nothing gets left behind.

It helps that I have finished so many....the engineering part has become second nature.



Hmmmmm.....I think there is something to that concept.

The good melodies and lyrics never leave after they have come to me. If I am forcing a song....something that I never do any more....then quite often it will fade.

My mixing experience pales in comparison to yours, Mr. Scaper. Hell, I just started using automation a few months ago and it wasn't until Rick and Stick helped me 3 months ago that I finally grasped how much EQ matters.

Needless to say, I spend an inordinate amount of time correcting mistakes. Just look at "Ordinary Life" which took me two weeks just to figure out the reverb was all botched up.

As for the ideas, I'm not talking about songs that I've started working up. Once it gets to that level, the tune is pretty much burnt in for life. I'm more talking about the concepts that appear in my head, or those late night fiddling sessions when something magical seems to at my fingertips, but is gone by morning even if I still recall the chords and melody. I've had countless promising things (that I know are better than other crap I've retained) just disappear on me. I've also stumbled upon great ideas that I was smart enough to record that I'd completely forgotten.

Experience tells me that I am able to forget plenty a good melody.

[New Trail]

Originally Posted by Oswlek

....FWIW, I don't buy the "if I don't remember it, it wasn't a good idea" thought process at all. Not even a little bit.

I agree.

Originally Posted by rsadasiv

.... If I think of a line and I can't remember it a day later it probably wasn't that good.

Maybe so, but it may make you remember what you were thinking at the initial idea of the song. The actual line itself can be modified but you have to remember it or write it down first to enable you to do so.

[Chicken Monkey]

 

Originally Posted by rsadasiv

Maybe I phrased it poorly. I do write lots of things down, but they are pretty much whole songs and I've been thinking about them for a day or two at that point. If I think of a line and I can't remember it a day later it probably wasn't that good.

 

I hope it didn't seem like I was speaking about you--in fact, I hadn't even noticed you had posted on that topic... I can remember some of your songs .

[rsadasiv]

Originally Posted by Chicken Monkey

I hope it didn't seem like I was speaking about you--in fact, I hadn't even noticed you had posted on that topic... I can remember some of your songs .

Nah - I realized (somewhat after the fact) that my original post seemed to imply that I was some kind of a Rain Man-style memory ninja, which is totally not the case.