Writing style

[Edge100]

Hey guys,

 

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster.

 

I just wanted to know if anybody else writes in the same way I do, or if I'm just an oddball.

 

Bascially, I quite often will find myself just creating a bassline or guitar or keyboard or drum line in my head. Sometimes, I can even string together a bunch of these ideas into a coherent "bit" of a song. Then I try to capture this as quickly as possible and I spend hours jamming over top of the basics, trying to move the song along.

 

Eventually, something will come out of it...enough to give me the framework of an entire song. Words come later, usually, when I find a set of lyrics that fit the song. Or else I mix the basic structure and carry it with me in my iPod/car, trying to come up with some decent words. Obviously, this method is very time consuming, but I just cant seem to sit down with the guitar and work out a chord progression and a lyric and be done with it. For me, the song kinda evolves.

 

Basically, I'm generally a music first guy. However, I notice that most people are lyrics first, and that somehow, writing the lyrics first makes the song more 'valid'. I know this is crap, but I just wanted to see if anyone else composed in a similar manner to me, just to make myself feel like I'm on the right track.

 

Mike

[Raptor5618]

Well my way is lyrics first. However, if you read about how a song was created or how groups create their song it seems to me that most of them do the music first. So I think you are probably in the majority and not in the minority as it seems here.

 

When it comes to a song being popular I think that the popularity can come from having great lyrics but it also might just be the tune is great. There are many many songs where the music is great but if you look at the lyrics they pretty much make no sense and many times words are selected just because they fit the tune rather than fit the lyrics more strongly.

[storm_in_heaven]

Often I write the two independently, and then somehow fit em together. Either that or i use a chord progression or riff i've been messing with and "jam" lyrics over the top of that.

No matter which way you do it, its valid, if the glove fits etc. DOn't be disheartened because you do it differently to what everyone else seems, it may a better method, and hey, if it works for you, i might work for the rest of us

 

SiH

[paraphonic]

I like the way you approach writting.

 

Every time you jam over the set structure of your songs, you are trying different melodies. Great idea.

 

I have done this thousands of times. Who is to say, the first melody you come up with is the best.

 

I listen to songs that I am working on in my van or anywhere else I can---endlessly. Sometimes, you will come up with an idea, that is so much better, you throw most of the song out and work from the new idea.

 

Geniuses, write a melody once. You know---the shortest distance between two points thing.

For the rest of us, you make something. YOU throw something out . You make it too busy. Then you clean it up.

 

Bands on tour, may play the songs pretty much the same, to please the fans, but those songs evolve. They get tighter and the stuff that is weak is cast away.

 

I like the way you think.

 

paraphonic

[Forbidden]

Exactly the same way as you, though I find this way kind of wierd. I've been taking other approaches but this way seems to work well.