Effective song writing

boyinabox · Post by **boyinabox** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 1:04 pm

I have a problem i donmt seam to be able to get past the initial seting up some instruments and a beat jamming a few ideas out stage.

I seem to spend time buliding a loop with drums, base maybe a lead and some tinkles. but dont seam to be able to convert this into a track.

Has anyone got any tips for this not arrangements but more guidlines or tips or making a song out of what you got i have thelements but dont know how to arrange them its some kind of mental block that i want to get passed.

javascript:emoticon(':idea:')

Winterpark · Post by **Winterpark** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 1:16 pm

listen to other people's music.

study what they are doing, and... what the hell, even try and copy it.

this will help you get the idea of arrangements, and instrumentation.

Meef Chaloin · Post by **Meef Chaloin** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:31 pm

if youve got a loop going (8 bars or whatever, not a sample) the you could try copying it over & over so it repeats for a good song length and then just go mad with recording automation, you can use the mutes/solos to create different sections and go wild with fx...you could have a whole song done in the time it takes to play through once! This the basic dub approach and can work wonders with getting a song out of a loop.
Once you have done a few takes you should have some (maybe vague) sections appearing, so you can just take it from there.

Live is ideal for this way of working but it might be easier/better to assign instruments to keys & trigger them when you want them to play.

Also just make a song out of what you have, however crap it turns out to be. Loads of people seem to suffer the same problem of never getting past loops and I did at one point but I found that once you get in the habit of stretching a song out of what you have it just becomes natural.

squareve · Post by **squareve** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:02 pm

Well, you are sort of breaking rule #1 of songwriting. Never start with the beat. The reason you should start with anything else (like a bassline, or a simple chord progression) is because a musical riff can be interpretted a number of ways in the beat realm, so you could come up with mulitple beats to match it. The other side of this however is that if you create a beat, your head is biologically locked into that rhythym so you are only thinking in the one frame of that beat.

Making a good beat is also very time consuming, so you essentially waste all your creative drive on one portion of the song. It's easier to lay frame work with the melody and adjust it later because with beats, they are addictive so you don't want to change them after spending alot of time on them. A musician is much more inclined to adapt the song to drums than change them. I think it's some kind of weird thing from our genetics where we are mesmorized by drums

Hope this helps out a litte

-Pi

also, i'm not just making this up. it was actually brought up in a recent interview with Royksopp in the UK mag Future Music, and is often mentioned alot of the "how to write a song" books.

boyinabox · Post by **boyinabox** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:15 pm

I gues its just a case of getting my feet wet

I see the point about drums and i think your wright it would be a good idea to start with a bass line or Rythum and builld it up also just jam it out then cut it up and wey hey its probably not as hard as one might think.

Thanks for the tips.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:21 pm

an odd and easy tip that may or may not help:

I have a file of 'mix reminders' , half finished junk that I have gone cold on, or run out of time.

I drag this onto my mp3 player and as I often have it on random play - I get a suprise burst of my unfinished 32 bars while I am doing the late night shopping. Oddly this often makes me hear a new direction for it.

my player records audio so I mumble/sing/ beatbox some audio notes into the folder for later use ... while frightening anyone near by

!

it's always worth trying one of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies too

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:40 am

Angstrom wrote: my player records audio so I mumble/sing/ beatbox some audio notes into the folder for later use ... while frightening anyone near by !

Gawwwd, if anyone got hold of my dictaphone... oh the shit they'd hear!!

handojin · Post by **handojin** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:53 am

agree with squareve, if you work out the chords before the lead then the lead and bassline will just fall into place niceley and not need to be over done.. for me atleast. whenever i try to right a song thats just really a jam (no chord changes) i find i have to spice up the lead a bit more to make it interesting or resort to making it more complicated with edits or tweaks. good chord voicing will make a plain old lead part come to life and not need to "show off" me and some homies came up with a term "masturbating all over the music" kinda like how a virtuoso guitar player will just wam out crazy solo's that need to chill out a bit to be more musical and in context,

Winterpark · Post by **Winterpark** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:08 am

you know... there are no right or wrong ways to write music... you can start with anything, bass, drums, samples, melody... whatever!

the trick is to follow your own aesthetic....

now... how do you develop an aesthetic?

handojin · Post by **handojin** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 5:54 am

i totally agree again.. i think you answered your own question though.. if we all wrote music the excact same way with the exact same tools.. it would all sound the same wouldnt it.. develop your own aesthetic by doing just what works for you.. and most importantly.,. what sounds good to you

Winterpark · Post by **Winterpark** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:07 am

handojin wrote:i totally agree again.. i think you answered your own question though.. if we all wrote music the excact same way with the exact same tools.. it would all sound the same wouldnt it.. develop your own aesthetic by doing just what works for you.. and most importantly.,. what sounds good to you

i think i needed my "irony" emoticon on that one!

Winterpark · Post by **Winterpark** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:07 am

edit: whoops... double post!

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:05 am

Pitch Black wrote: Gawwwd, if anyone got hold of my dictaphone...

... your balls would get stuck in the dial ?
... you'd beat them off with the handset ?

ah, schoolyard punnage.

Bagatell · Post by **Bagatell** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 5:23 pm

Boyinabox have a look at at Band-in-a-Box. Seriously!

spookydirt · Post by **spookydirt** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:11 pm

on the subject of 'don't write from the drums up' - i recall Kate Bush saying she writes from the rhythm track like this after Peter Gabriel showed her on his fairlight (going back a bit now...)

--Andy

Effective song writing

Effective song writing

Rule #1

Getting your feet wet