[ACE159]

How do you guys write songs....I remember a thread like this and someone posted there steps....anyway any advice

[ProCarbinesRule! (Banned)]

remember its not about writing songs. you have to look as good as possible at all times.

seriously though. we normally just write a guitar part and work off that.

[ACE159]

ok....i always look good.......and other suggestions

[paintball0276]

im far from a artist/musician/ song writer/ ect. but write about something meaningful. If you have "something to say" then say it.

[Mr. Ando (Banned)]

create chord progression, develop theme, improvise, repeat theme, end song

[ACE159]

sounds good...

[DayoftheGreek]

Originally Posted by ACE159

sounds good...

Improvise a lot with other musicians and by yourself. Keep playing until something really awesome happens, then write it down. Keep a log of all the cool things you play, and decide which one fit together or which ones need more exploration. Ask for input from the rest of the band too.

[PB_SEAN]

Originally Posted by ProCarbinesRule!

remember its not about writing songs. you have to look as good as possible at all times.

Writing music I've come to learn is all personal. Me personally, I just kind of try to submerse myself in my mind and see what I can come up with.

[vanquish_v12]

personally for my band, usually someone (usually singer, guitarist, or bassist) comes up with a riff or chord progression, brings it to practice, and we all just jam and groove on it for awhile to see where it takes us. This helps us brainstorm, and as we jam the singer usually sings nonsense and random words to come up with a cool vocal melody and see if there are any particular words or phrases that come to mind naturally that fit with the music. Then we separate it into sections (verse, chorus, pre-chorus, intro, etc) and the singer (or sometimes the guitarist, since oftentimes he will write most of a song before bringing it to practice for the rest of us to play) writes lyrics that go along with the music.

So in short we jam, structure it, then write lyrics that fit the mood and style of the music. That way the emotional focus of the song is the music itself and not just the lyrics, but the lyrics tend to fit naturally so it all becomes one single package that works well together. I find it difficult to write lyrics first and then come up with the music, but some ppl do like to do that so it varies from person to person.

Remember, meaningful songs are good, and all your songs should mean something to you and evoke a certain feeling in the listener, but that doesn't mean they all have to be serious. Fun, random songs are good too. Just look at the Chili Peppers. You can come up with a single word or phrase that sounds funny, random, or cool, and write a song around it. It can be about food, picking up women at a bar, something random that annoys you, etc.

Also, if you are just messing around on your instrument and come up with a cool riff or progression, write it down. DayoftheGreek was spot-on there. Usually when I come up with something cool I'll forget it ten minutes later if I don't write it down. This way you'll accumulate a whole notebook of cool stuff to play, and you can try putting things together, developing them more, and turning them into full songs later when you have time.

[DeMoNiC_dImEbAg (Banned)]

Originally Posted by PB_SEAN

Writing music I've come to learn is all personal. Me personally, I just kind of try to submerse myself in my mind and see what I can come up with.

That guy literally has zero talent.

[tonysk83]

Well, I have a lot of recording equipment so I don't really write anything down I just record everything.

Usually if I am by myself I find a cool drum loop that I think I could build a song out of. I then just put the drum loop on repeat, setup my guitar and just play to it and try to figure something out that sounds how I want. Usually I will put down rhythm guitar tracks first, then go over for lead guitar, although not always. I also usually add bass after I have the rhythm section down, just because I am not great at bass.

I personally like going drums, shaker/tamb, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, lead guitar

[ThatsWhatSheSaidV.2 (Banned)]

Originally Posted by vanquish_v12

Also, if you are just messing around on your instrument and come up with a cool riff or progression, write it down. DayoftheGreek was spot-on there. Usually when I come up with something cool I'll forget it ten minutes later if I don't write it down. This way you'll accumulate a whole notebook of cool stuff to play, and you can try putting things together, developing them more, and turning them into full songs later when you have time.

Another thing to add to this, record yourself while the song is fresh. I can't tell you how many times that I've wrote something down and then forgot how to play it because all i had was the tab. Record yourself with anything possible so that you don't forget how the song goes.

edit - lol at the april fools joke

[vanquish_v12]

^good advice.

Since I play saxophone I don't write things out in tabs, I just write the chord names or the note names, and I end up forgetting how it goes too since I didn't write down the rhythm.

[ThatsWhatSheSaidV.2 (Banned)]

Saxophone? If you write out the chord names then I have a question for you. It's pretty off topic but it's something that I've been needing to know. How do you know the name of the chord by a series of notes? Do you play the series of notes and can tell what the chord is by the notes or do you play the notes by using the chord?

[Mr. Ando (Banned)]

I imagine a lot of it is finding out which chords are 'implied'

[vanquish_v12]

Originally Posted by ThatsWhatSheSaidV.2

Saxophone? If you write out the chord names then I have a question for you. It's pretty off topic but it's something that I've been needing to know. How do you know the name of the chord by a series of notes? Do you play the series of notes and can tell what the chord is by the notes or do you play the notes by using the chord?

I guess it kinda works both ways, depending on what you're doing.

So say you look at a chord that is written on a piece of staff paper so you can see all the notes in it, you can tell what chord it is by what notes it contains. But when it comes to reading jazz music and other music where you have to improvise over a bunch of key changes, usually the chords will be written using only their letter designations (ex: F7, Dma, Bmi, etc). In that case you need to know the scales and chords that each of those designations refers to by memory. So you can both
a) tell what chord you're looking at based on the notes that are in it, and
b) tell what notes to play based on the chord symbol you are given

So it works either way.

So in terms of reading music, you read chord symbols and they tell you what key to play in for each measure, and you need to know all the notes that each chord symbol contains. When it comes to jazz thats alot of material to learn, but for rock its actually very simple, easy, and repetitive because there's not alot of variety in most of it.

It's kinda like how you can write "D-O-G" to spell the word"DOG", or you can hear someone say "DOG" and automatically know that there is a "D-O-G" in it. So you can think as notes as letters, and scales and chords as words.

[ThatsWhatSheSaidV.2 (Banned)]

Thanks a lot. That helped a ton. And I know what you mean when you say that it's a lot to learn in jazz, I play guitar in school jazz band, and it's a lot of stuff to learn.

[Minigoth1]

Intro.
power chords.
small 10 note solo.
power chords.
screaming.
power chords.
/song.


it seems to cut it now-a-days.

or how about...
repetative beat.
same phrase over and over.
random one word remarks throught he song to encourage said phrase to be repeated more.
/song.

[DeMoNiC_dImEbAg (Banned)]

Well the guitar parts for most new music is just 16th note power chords that change very differently from the ones before them. The guitarists in bands today for the most part are no talent *******s.

Seriously, if you can name all 6 strings and now how to play even a few scales, you know more than half of the guitarists today.