how does everyone create new songs...i can never find anything that could inspire me enough to write a song. how does everyone do it.
Ryan just made a thread on his song writing process. It's really helpful.
I usually think of some cool line, and I build up around it. Words are the easy part for me, it's the music part that I struggle with.
I think writing lyrics is the hardest part for me. It's usually because some lines sound too similar to other songs, but nothing is like the feeling of completing your very own song.
never try to force lyrics, it'll never work , and you'll just get pissed. Almost all the times they come randomly. for me its in the shower.
-if you do get the first few lines, sit down and write it out. write out everything and dont cross anything. if you need to to draw arrows and such, but crossing out things can ruin a "what might of been" song.
-remember that "rhyme schemes are for d-bags". lol, not really, but its what i tell my self because forced rhymes are the death of a song. if you have something that doesnt rhyme dont worry about it.
-nothing is cliche or cheesy, or stupid.
I'm more of a composer than a lyricist... though I try to do some songwriting from time to time.
For me, it's best to come up with a chord progression or a basic melody first.
Then, if composing an instrumental piece, I expand on the melody, add some variations to it, and just extend the piece out.
...it really just all depends on what sort of person you are... how musical you are... what sort of musical training you have, etc. etc.
Just be yourself, and you'll come up with something that is distinctly you.
Take your instrument, and do your worst - while recording it on a tape recorder. Then go listen to it again, and ideas should start to appear. After that, tune and lyrics just kind of come naturally - think of them as the icing on the cake.
The way most songs are written is as instrumentals or chord sequences first, and then vocals later.
with lyrics thats how i kinda did my own song, but i forgot the chords T____T"
For practice, write a joke song. Or possibly an everyday topic. A lot of folk songs seem to be about "what living life is." It doesn't have to be profound. What is living life to you?
Write out what do you do every day, as long as you like, and then read over it. Think of a way that you could describe it in only a few words. (Maybe, "just scraping by on hourly" or "dying a day at a time in a call center." Or "Watching the kids grow up to be honest young men" ) Then tell me, the listener, about it, and why I care, and how this might effect someone else.
I've tried taking my music and putting lyrics into it....... i choked on the cake and died..
I can come up w/ melodies, but the lyrical side is HORRIBLE!!!
Write one around the other. Don't write two seperate things. That works for me, anyway.
that could be good lyrics!
i start with a title, get a chorus, and by starting in the middle, work my way out to both ends.
words always come first for me.
i let the rhythm of the words suggest a melody.
feelin' nearly faded as my jeans"
often my chorus will also double as a first verse.
as far as inspiration, just listen to people talk. i live in the south, lots of slang and more than a little twang. language is music. pick out the good bits of overheard conversations and write a song.
Here's a link to an E-BOOK on CHORD PROGRESSIONS... it goes into a detailed explanation of chords 'n stuff, has some exercises and examples, even some audio examples. Its not free, but I think its well worth the price.
I do a couple of different things when I'm writing a song.
First of all, I try to figure out what the song's about. Is it a song about a topic (for example, politics or religion), is it a song about a person's struggle, or is it about a relationship? If you can pinpoint what you want the song to be about, it will help the words come faster. I tend to do some free-form associations on another piece of paper so I can work out some ideas in this arena.
Secondly, I try to come up with a title. That may sound like a pretty simple thing, but it helps. I personally try to make sure that the title isn't something totally out there. If you can fit it into your song's chorus, then all the better. It'll give people a strong hook that they can grab onto both lyrically and musically. It's kind of like home base. Here's a song (http://jddennis.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/pigeon-of-the-system/)that I wrote where I came up with the title first. It was a stray phrase that I came up with while walking to a concert in Washington, D.C. that stuck with me.
Next, I try to come up with at least one or two stories that try to convey what I want to say. I'm a guy who relates to stories in songs. It helps the listener relate to the characters. In "Pigeon of the System," I used two different characters, telling short third-person stories as my verses. I've also written songs where there was just one character telling a first-person story. It all depends on what you want to get across.
Next, I start writing the lyrics, developing a melody that feels natural to the words as I go along. This is usually where I sit down and try different chord progressions, too. I let the melody come first, though, and that's shaped by the words. So the chords are For the first verse this is pretty easy. It gets harder as I add verses, though, because I feel strongly that the melody should be the same throughout all the verses. Some songwriters change the melody to fit the words they want, but that always sounds unnatural to me. If the words match the melody all the way through, it doesn't sound forced to the ear. By the same token, I am very adamant about getting the same number of lines in my song. In Western popular music, people are listening for resolution. The writing of the song should seek to provide both lyrical and melodic resolution all the time.
So, after the choruses and the verses are done, I tinker with a bridge if I feel the song needs one. For me, this tends to present the main thrust of the song in a different light. It just reinforces what the main song is about.
I tend not to write instrumental sections into my songs. I occasionally will have a chord progression that can be soloed over, but I feel the performers should have as much freedom arranging the music as much as they want. If they want a solo of some kind, the verse chord progression usually provides enough harmonic diversity to act as a palette.
Finally, I come up with a little closer or coda to end off the song. This could be a couple of independent lines or a modified chorus. Again, just something that provides resolution.
One other thing I'm mindful of is this: Sometimes you've got to break your own rules. I don't always start by asking what's the song about. I don't always use the title in the chorus. It's kind of like what my theory professor taught me in school: learn all the rules and THEN start breaking them. So, that's what I do. And I sometimes I get really good results that way.
OK, that was a bit long-winded. I hope it helped, though.
I have multiple ways of doing this.
i wish sheet music and tabs appeared in MY dreams!!