Song writing practices

[Hippie]

I'd be interested in how some of the song writers write. I find that if I'm writing a song then I always try to write with just the piano and vocals. I strongly believe if your song works in that format then the mix is the least of your problems. You have to start with a good song first. Anyone else use something different?

[dennis f]

I start out differently all the time....sometimes I'll be fiddling with drums and call up a rhodes patch and viola here come the words. Sometimes the tune is completely in my head and it's just a matter of throwing down the chord progressions, though I have to admit that just fiddling around until I find some cool progressions and writing the words later is a majority of the way I write.

[O'love]

i also believe that a good song is a song with a good "hook" .. so simply a guitar or a piano is all you need to create the "hook" ... mix and arrangement come after that...

btw, i think it's *amazing* that peeps i respect so much for their products, people i look up to as a european househead, are dropping their knowledge over here! aaaaaaarghhhhh!!!!! ;)

Olaf

[socratez]

I know some poeple who had proffesional training in music theory who can write melodies and chord progressions in a second hail.gif

I want to learn that to, i find myself thinking about beutiful chords and melodies, but its very frustrating not being able to reproduce them.

[ January 21, 2004, 09:19 PM: Message edited by: socratez ]

[martino]

i almsot never start with the melody. Usually chord progression over a beat. sometimes no beat. Just on the rhodes or piano.
It's more fun to come up with the melody first then harmonize it after...this unfortunatley is rare for me.

[TheDeeperMovement]

Originally posted by socratez:
I want to learn that to, i find myself thinking about beutiful chords and melodies, but its very frustrating not being able to reproduce them. Something that brought my music on ten-fold was to find out what musical scales where bein used in the music that was blowing me away...then spending a couple of hours a day hitting the keyboard (literally at first)listening to choreds in the scales and doing any sequencing to those scales (for me mainly jazz n blues scales). The chords and melodies in my head became a lot easier to achieve after that. A little bit of music theory goes a long way smile.gif

[Digiman]

I usually find that people can either write songs or they can't, just seems to be an intrinsic quality that someone has.

[<dennis f>]

Unfortunately I think this is also true.....You can brush up on writing skills but generally either ya got it or don't. Same goes for most other artistic endeavors that one chooses to do...It's not a learned behavior.