Songwriting as a band, what's your approach?

[Badside]

I'm kinda tired of writing songs alone in my basement, dragging notes around on the screen and playing through my Pod with headphones.

 

I want to write songs as a band, with the cranked Marshalls and everything. Yet I don't know how to approach it. Sometimes we'll improvise and it'll be amazing, but most of the times it's just banging in E until we get tired. I want productivity!

 

How do you approach it? How do you get a band to write a song?

[squealie]

Somebody gotta come in with a riff. Preferably 2 parts that go together.

 

Bands are great for arranging songs, but the foundation, or germ of idea has to be there first.

[Singin' Dave]

+1 -- you should encourage your band mates to work on and bring in some riff or verse chorus chord progression ideas to practice, on which you can work and build some brigdes and songs.

[snaresmacker]

feed off each other. make sure everyone knows that it's ok to stop playing in the middle of something to share one's thoughts/ideas.

[Brian Krashpad]

I've never really done the "jam until its a song approach." Doesn't work for me.

 

Most of my songs come pretty spontaneously, and are written entirely in my head, both lyric and melody. Then I sit down and write down the lyrics and try to figure out the chords.

 

Once all that's done, I take the song to the band. Usually it's up to the others to make up their parts (although I occasionally write a bass line or lead for the other guitarist) and to figure out an arrangement.

 

BK

[tdempsey]

 

Originally posted by Brian Krashpad I've never really done the "jam until its a song approach." Doesn't work for me.

 

 

+1 on this.

 

I hate writing with the band. There's not a good explanation, it has just always been like pulling teeth with any musician.

 

I'd rather - like Brian - come in with a fully realized song and let the others write their parts.

 

Of course, this is theoretical. My cover band has a few originals mostly written by singer & guitarist, and I (bass player) compose strictly new-age type, "soundscape" kinds of pieces at home. Not the kind of thing a bar crowd wants to hear.

[Brian Krashpad]

Originally posted by tdempsey Of course, this is theoretical. My cover band has a few originals mostly written by singer & guitarist, and I (bass player) compose strictly new-age type, "soundscape" kinds of pieces at home. Not the kind of thing a bar crowd wants to hear.

 

Fwiw, in my main band, I write most of the material, and am the lead singer. I encourage others to bring songs to the band, and in the past members have done that. They've also come up with some cool occasional covers [we did a rawked-up "Time Warp" from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a similarly sped-up (albeit starting slow for the 1st verse) version of Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead" on our most recent CD a couple years ago; our then-other guitarist/singer sang both of those].

 

Right now in the current membership though, I pretty much have to do all the songwriting and cover-choosing. The only cover we do in our single-set show (being an original band all our shows are 1 set) now is a version of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," which was my idea. The first "verse" is actually the original chorus of the song (most people have never heard the verses of the orginal), sung just with me a clean guitar. Then we get a Ramones-type 4-count and the whole band rocks out while I sing 2 verses of the same melody with different lyrics (about the Troubles) that I wrote, interspersed with a couple punkabilly-type solos. I love screwing with songs and making something totally different out of a song everyone's heard before.

 

 

BK

[Body Bomb]

Ditto to what's been said here already. Usually, either the other guitarist and I will come in with a loose structure for the song, and then the four of us will hash out an arrangement over the course of a couple practices.

 

Usually everyone writes their own parts, and whomever wrote the song will say "I like that bit," or "I don't really like that," until we come up with something that everyone likes.

[ShoNuf]

Our band is a juggernaut when coming up with original material, and we do all of it as a band in rehearsal. Well, almost all of it. Every member is encouraged to come up with riffs outside of practice and then we play it live. Usually the next riff will come out during play, and at that moment we can "feel" if it works in the song.

 

We are also lucky enough to have musicians that can take a concept and then pull something out of the ether to create music. For instances I asked our rhythm guitarist to play a "groovin' type of metal blues swing" (rediculous I know) and he will surprise the {censored} out of me by playing exactly what I was hearing in my head.

 

So I have found that opening the creative process to everyone in the band is absolutely essential to writing as a band.

[Lee Flier]

Well... like others have mentioned, usually the bass player or I will have at least the genesis of a song idea before the band tries anything... usually we don't just start jamming and come up with something.

 

But if I get an idea, I'll run it by them and we'll play it together, and often I'll do a quick recording of it on a boom box. This tends to give me the impetus to keep writing later on, as I hear my initial idea "fleshed out" and that might give me and/or somebody else in the band some idea where to go from there. Then I'll write the next bit, run it by them again and we'll continue the process. They will also often help with the arrangement as it goes along or suggest something: "Maybe it should have a bridge here" or whatever and we'll try different things. I (or bass player) will usually do the actual writing of the melody and lyrics away from the band, though, then run each section by everybody and make changes as needed or suggested. That seems to work really well.

 

Once in awhile we do stumble onto something while jamming, though, which is always cool although we don't try to force it. A couple of weeks ago our drummer came up with a really cool drum part out of the blue and it already sounded like a part to a song... and it instantly made me think of a guitar riff, so now we're turning it into a song. That's been really fun, but not how we normally work, although I'd welcome it happening more.

[leepmeister]

We've had a few different approaches that seem to work:

 

1. Guitar thinks of a cool riff(s), brings it up to bassist (or vice verse) parts are added/rearranged until there is something fairly set, then it is played in practice and singer comes up with lyrics.

 

2. Singer writes song and we fill in our own parts. These turn into the more typical sounding 4 chord verse, 4 chord chorus songs with some poppy lead guitar melody.

 

3. Usually during set-up, someone starts playing something random, somone else kicks in, and we go "hey, that's pretty cool" and work with it a bit. Those turn into the more odd/obscure songs that really are defined by a particular part.

[Carbophos]

In my band we obviously work out the arrngements together

Sometimes we jam and out of jam come some rough ideas of rifss, licks and such. But again they are worked out into the songs at home and later polished at practices///

[Badside]

I have everything I need to come up with full song demos at home, but I hate writing everything alone. Well I like it when I do it for myself (songs that wouldn't fit with the band but that I feel like writing). But when the band is concerned, I like to include everyone's "touch". My strong point is with songs structures, arrangements, harmonies, etc. Everything that is related to musical theory, I know it all. The singer however, doesn't know a C from a C# so he really sings from the hearth and he has this way of coming up with melodies that are far more interesting and catchy than mines (sometimes when I wrote the melody, he'll find the way to screw it up yet turning it into something better!). The bassist is good with "punches", little spicing that he adds to the song that keeps them interesting, and the drummer is somehow the best lyricist .

 

That's why I want to make them work, but it gets kinda hard to start something. I'll throw a riff out and we'll start playing with it, but then everyone just kinda goes in its own direction without listening to others and realize it doesn't work so we'll go back to that original riff and stick to it until we get bored. It gets really frustrating. We've been in a creative slump for a few years now since we began working as a full time cover band. Now everyone says he's interested in getting into originals again, but we can't bring the creativity back it seems. We did change drummer since then, but the new one is an accomplished songwriter, so that shouldn't be the problem!

[Lee Flier]

 

Originally posted by Hardtailed I have everything I need to come up with full song demos at home, but I hate writing everything alone.

 

 

Me too. I don't find it very inspiring. Definitely the band provides the impetus to write more and helps the writing process.

 

It sounds like you have a couple of problems: 1) you need to work on listening to each other more and playing in a song-oriented, ensemble fashion as opposed to "jamming" which is a bit of a different mindset. And 2) Usually it's tough for a band to collectively come up with the initial idea for a song, although sometimes it happens by accident. So if you come up with at least a few idea "sketches" that are not complete songs, it gives everybody something to hang their hat on as opposed to playing aimlessly.

 

I think if you work on those two things regularly, the collaborative ideas will naturally start flowing better.

[cozmicslop]

I really don't dig writing with the band. Working out the arrangements together is a good idea. I always try to leave it to the player to work his/her own parts out to their comfort as long as they don't change something I think is important.

 

The reasoning? I'm always being asked to provide lyrics, but they never seem to like them. Everytime I bring in a song sketch that I've done alone, they all seem to like it. I'm just gonna guess at the reason. When you're jamming, it's just too much stimulation. Everybody pulling in different directions and chasing each other around makes it hard to really focus on an idea.

 

It just works better for me to set the drum machine, pick up the random intrument and let the song come to me. Then prepare as complete a demo as I can; drums,bass, guitar, vocals, and bring that and an open mind to everybody else. A lot of creativity can come within restriction if you can set up a solid foundation.

 

The other way, at least for us, only seems to lead to bloody fingers and wasted tape.

 

Everybody else seems to write better independently, as well.

 

Having said all that, We've come up with a lot of great ideas just vamping during a show. The guitarist is amazing, having played with heavyweights in every genre. I've played with him for over 15 years. We know each others styles and influences so well that we can almost alway guess what the other might do next. There's no telling where we might take off at any time. The audience is there to play off of. Instant feedback.

 

The thing is, even though great ideas and good music, they aren't songs. So we use this stuff for rave ups or interludes and stuff to do between songs. If we could craft some of that stuff...

[joolzriff]

a song is only what the melody lines are(vocals)....

write the song/melody lines and put music to it...thats the dillio my friend......u may smash your head against a wall for ever writing the music first and trying to add lyrics later and that adding lyrics later usualy turns out Naff cos u may end up changing your arranegment around anyways to suit the vocals and keys!

[Carbophos]

Originally posted by joolzriff a song is only what the melody lines are(vocals)....

 

Say it to prog band or thrash metal band

[Deef]

Someone go get your copy of Little Feat's Hoy Hoy! and let me know if I'm remembering this correctly: In the liner notes, someone talks about the band jamming in the studio, just fooling around with the tape rolling. Lowell George walks in, grabs a guitar, says "keep playing", steps up to the mic and starts singing. Four minutes later they have a song written AND recorded.

 

Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

 

Deef

[joolzriff]

Originally posted by Carbophos Say it to prog band or thrash metal band

but he did say the word 'SONG'....

[Carbophos]

 

Originally posted by joolzriff but he did say the word 'SONG'....

 

 

A lot of SONGS started with the riff and/or are famous because of the riff first and foremost...

 

Smoke On The Water

Money For Nothing

Enter Sandman

Highway To Hell

 

etc... etc...

 

Anyway I don't care if cetrain music can be categorized as a 'song' or 'piece' or 'symphony' or whatever....

 

I follow 3 rules

 

1. Music can be classified only as good or bad. Genre, style, form, etc doesn't matter

2. Vocal is an instrument. Often , but not necessary always, much important.

3. Lyrics must fit the music and that's enough, music is 100000000 times more important

[incurab1e]

don't wanna butt in but they way you're doing it is easily as useful and productive as writing with the whole band IMO. we have been doing the same for a while, mainly cuz of having no drummer and/or living miles away from each other. Although it may not be a spontaneous as writing with a band. it really gives you time to think about what you're doing and to come up with some really interesting stuff. it can be difficult whn jamming with the band cuz its pretty rare that everyone is on the same page as you if you get my meaning

 

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