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Other Topics => Creative Endeavors => Topic started by: pianoboy303 on July 21, 2005, 10:02:56 pm
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i was just wondering how you guys go about writing songs...i'm sure most of you write about your own life experiences, which i believe is the best way to right a song. but when you write one, how do you go about doing it? do you think about how to make this line rhyme and that line rhyme and whatnot? also something else i've been concerned with, writing piano melodies. how do you guys do that as well? do these melodies just pop into your head and you can transfer them onto paper? i would really love to write a song and write a piano melody to it.
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i pretty much do exactly what you just said.
Just let it come to you. Don't think too much.
That is the first step.
Check out my new(old) song.
http://rapidshare.de/files/3242633/Prisoner_to_a_Park_Bench.mp3.html
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thank you :D is that what you do for songwriting, piano or both? lol i have a thinking problem, i always have to think about what i'm doing. it drives me mad sometimes!!
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for the piano, I let my hands and my ears guide the song
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thank you :D is that what you do for songwriting, piano or both? lol i have a thinking problem, i always have to think about what i'm doing. it drives me mad sometimes!!
Ok, I have that same exact problem...and it makes it a little tough to write your own songs. HOWEVER, you can do it!
The way I think about writing music (when I just HAVE to think about it), I start off with an interesting chord progression--and go from there. Lyrically, I get a LOT of inspiration from other artists. I study WHY I think Vanessa's lyrics are so touching...what makes them special? Then I focus on the song I'm about to write and ask myself what the main point I'm trying to make is. EVERYTHING you write needs to support that point. I hate it when songs contradict themselves. It's also good to think of specific, descriptional lines...for instance, if it's a song about breaking up with someone, you might want to refer to the scene of the breakup, the time and place, the color of your ex's shirt, etc. Just stuff LIKE that. It paints a picture for the listener. Also, please be original. I beg you! Try to say "normal" things in an abnormal, special way. I love clever lyrics!
Hope this helps! :D
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"Melody first, and then the lyrics." - Benny Andersson 8)
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"Melody first, and then the lyrics." - Benny Andersson 8)
I TOTALLY agree with this. :D
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Let other musicians influence the way you write stuff too, I used to have so much trouble writing lyrics because I felt they just sounded dumb, but after I listened to certain words that other artists used that went well with eachother you sorta store them up and use them when you need them to get nice rhmes (spelled that wrong) And if you are having trouble finding a melody, try getting someone elses melody stuck in your head and build a song off that, I wrote lyrics to V's "Ordinary Day" after I got the melody stuck in my head, but at the time I didn't know the lyrics to it, so I wrote my own and used those for a later song... Writing will be easy if you just wait for it, but some people just can't do it...think outside the box...and wait for inspiration, because it will come to you. (And yeah writing does have a lot to do with personal experiences, and empathy)
Hoped that helped in anyway...
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Benny Anderssen from ABBA, of course. Who doesn't love ABBA?
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i have the sme problem as pianoboy at writing piano parts...my lyrics are personal. or sometimes a line pops into my tiny head I build off that.
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It's funny, because I usually go about "trying" to write a song on piano and it fails and then i'll hit something randomly after I think I'm almost about to give up and I'm like hey that's nice and I just elaborate. I try to always put down the music before the words because if I try to do words first I tend to have problems fitting the right tone to the music to fit the words. However if I have the music first I can write lyrics that fit the tone :)
I am definitely no expert though and I don't even usually like my songs. I can only seem to write sad, plaintive songs, nothing happy or quite that catchy... haha.
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Well, I must owe my lyrics to the fact that I'm bipolar and schizo.
Hahaaa.
Seriously.
I can only write when I'm in an episode...
Cause I start going into mania where you start rhyming your speech and talking all weird.
So then I just write it down and people like reading it.
*shrug*
So, get a mental disorder??
Hee kidding.
:D
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Bipolar and schizo?? Lol... what a combo
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Hm, I mess around on the keyboard. I'll usually play some random lick and be like "hey that sounds cool" so I just expand upon it and make it a song. It's the expanding part that is hard.. But then again this advice doesn't really work for you since you want to write songs with lyrics.. I just write instrumental stuff...
Amanda
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Bipolar and schizo?? Lol... what a combo
Aye, it can be quite rough sometimes...
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If you were being serious about the disorders, I'm sorry! I thought you were kidding so that's why I said "Lol"...
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If you were being serious about the disorders, I'm sorry! I thought you were kidding so that's why I said "Lol"...
Yeah, I'm being serious...
I really do have all that shit.
Nah, I didn't take any offense to it.
I get alotta raz about it already, so it's cool.
:D
Don't worry about it hun.
No harm done.
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Always have a pen and paper on hand so that when an song lyric idea comes to mind, you can write it down right away, or else you could forget it. Just take it from the most influential songwriters and musicians. I'm a writer, so that's what I do.
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I'd say that what's helped me the most is reading other artists' music. That way I've gotten a general feel for the way chord progressions are in most songs.
Don't try to write lyrics about something you don't understand. If you are absorbed by a feeling or really moved by something, then the words should come easier, because there'll be so much more to say.
I'd also say keep to a general structure: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. I mean, you can shake it up, but most songs follow that.
And most importantly, keep writing. I don't think anyone's songs are very good at first, but as you write more and more you'll get better.
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i just keep writing forever.. when you feel mad, sad, happy, funny, or even wanna write songs for fun. do it. it actually (tune) pops in your head when you want to sing some of the song you write.
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yea I ususally just sit down at the piano, and don't really look at it. I kinda just let my hands move around on it until something good comes out. Then I fiddle around with that little melody and add on to it so it becomes a song. If you're going to write a song, a key thing to concentrate on is contrast. You don't want the whole song to sound the same. Ways to do this are to have one chord structure for the first verse and use that chord structure for every other verse. Then change the structure for the chorus and bridge. The chorus is most often higher (at least voice-wise) than the verse, which further adds to the contrast and lets the listener know that, hey, this is the chorus. Lyrics? I can't give you much advice there. When I first started writing I just wrote whatever random thought popped into my head. But then I realized that random thoughts usually aren't very original/inventive. And when writing a song it's essential to make your song a piece of art, not a paragraph with music in the background. a poem of sorts i guess. Now when I write songs I figure out what the melody of the notes means. Why I wrote the song. Then I write about that. For instance, I wrote this really angry melody on the piano the other day and then asked myself, "why did I write this angry song?" then I realized that it's probably because of my friend's depression that's completely changing him...and so I began the lyrics. I focused on each line and wrote the whole song not in one day, but in about a month. I was always thinking about it...and when a new line or that phrase I had been dying to think of popped into my head, I wrote it down. Soon enough, it was complete. I hope that helps!
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That's cool. Check out Thirdmovement's thread. http://forums.nessaholics.com/viewtopic.php?t=9176 It's cool.
My songwriting tip...
in a song you can say what you want to say to someone's face but for some reason hold back. (A song that comes to mind is V's "Wanted"... she actually played the song to the guy she wrote it about, but he was stupid and didn't realize it was about him, hahaha or Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You".) You are the only person who can write that song you're trying to write. Anyone else would express it differently. You have the chance to express it your way. No one else can do that. It helps me to keep that in mind. Maybe that sounds a bit silly- but it's very important to be in the right frame of mind or you may unknowingly sabotage your chances to express yourself fully. Let me know if this helps, anyone.
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MY NUMBER ONE SONGWRITING TIP:
(probably)
Go out and get your heart broken.
Hehe
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^ :lol:
wait...why am i laughing... it's sad but true. The best songs come from crappy situations and when you're angry and feeling like crap. 8O
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Yeah. It's true. Life can really suck, but I'd prefer to write about it than kill myself. It's more productive. :)
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indeedy do.
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"Melody first, and then the lyrics." - Benny Andersson 8)
Was it not walt disney that said "melody first, my dear, then lyrics" god i could have sworn a hole through an iron pot. oh well. :oops:
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There is no way. I've been writing for three years, and I'm here to tell you exactly that. It comes to you. It doesn't have to rhyme, which is a common misconception of some people I really don't like who are not members of this forum, but to make it good, it has to come from the heart. It has to have a part of you in it, and it has to be real. Like I said, there is no set way to write a song, whether musically or vocally or lyrically. As long as you think that it's good and you understand it and you believe in what you did and what you wrote, then that's enough. If you do that, it will be good.
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"Melody first, and then the lyrics." - Benny Andersson 8)
Was it not walt disney that said "melody first, my dear, then lyrics" god i could have sworn a hole through an iron pot. oh well. :oops:
That was Roger Radcliffe!! Don't you remember that song he wrote about Cruella De Vil? :D
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Jameson wrote:
zurielshimon wrote:
"Melody first, and then the lyrics." - Benny Andersson
Was it not walt disney that said "melody first, my dear, then lyrics" god i could have sworn a hole through an iron pot. oh well.
Melody first my ass. =) I'll never hear the end of it, but lyrics are so much more important. The song is nothing if the lyrics don't mean anything, but the song can be everything if you have mediocre music and amazing lyrics.
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^MAYBE. But it also works the other way around. Mediocre lyrics & amazing music. I say if you just care about the lyrics, be a poet.
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^MAYBE. But it also works the other way around. Mediocre lyrics & amazing music. I say if you just care about the lyrics, be a poet.
Agreed. As a musician, I'd take crappy lyrics and amazing music over the opposition. Ryou-Neko, you have said that you're a writer, so you probably care more about lyrics.
Why not both? My writing style is very spontaneous. I barely ever go into recording a song with a complete song. I'll normally have a verse or a chorus or something.
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No, I care about the music too. It has to fit with the song and such, and it can't just be totally bad, but the writing is just more important to me. But, Jophess, I write music too, and have recorded an album-length demo, and I just think that writing is more important. And, yes, I am a poet. I care about both, but writing moreso. And it does work the other way, if you have mediocre lyrics and brilliant music, then it can still be a good song.
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I think that's probably why I don't really care much for most country music. So much of the time, they put all their effort into the lyrics (or sometimes, obviously no effort as all as so many songs sound like they just wrote down whatever came to mind) and then just started singing while they strum a guitar or two, and then BAM, there's your song!
But there's always the notable exception. :D
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I like the Dixie Chicks' new single, if that even counts as country. Lovely arrangement, it's a great song. Most country lyrics are pretty stupid. This journalist has a sadistic column in the back of my newspaper and she made fun of some Lee Ann Rimes song, it was hilarious. You can find the article somewhere here (http://louisvillescene.com). When you go to the website, search for Tamara Ikenberg and it should show a list of the columns. It's a more recent one. That seems like a lot of work, but it'll be well worth it.[/url]
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I always have trouble with melodies/riffs. Most of the time I start off with simple chords and then go from there. It usually helps me if I try not to think about it too much, because when I do I tend to stress myself a bit. Also, don't make yourself write something. I strongly believe that a song should be something you feel, and not something you're forcing out.
If you're having trouble with lyrics, there is this exercise that I find extremely helpful when needed. You'll need a stopwatch, a piece of paper and a pencil. What you do is you write for two minutes non-stop. Just write. It doesn't matter what you write or even if it makes sense, just keep the words flowing. After your two minutes are over, reflect on what you've written and brainstorm from that. I've written my best songs doing this.
I hope that was helpful.
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If you're having trouble with lyrics, there is this exercise that I find extremely helpful when needed. You'll need a stopwatch, a piece of paper and a pencil. What you do is you write for two minutes non-stop. Just write. It doesn't matter what you write or even if it makes sense, just keep the words flowing. After your two minutes are over, reflect on what you've written and brainstorm from that. I've written my best songs doing this.
I hope that was helpful.
Take it a step further: distance your conscious mind from what you are writing, if you can, so it's like you don't know what you're writing. It's called Free Association writing. Ya might have heard about it in the movie The Sixth Sense. Ooooh, spooky.
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You shouldn't set a time when to write. You should write when it occurs to you to write. Most good songs are spontaneous. Writing, music-wise, is different. What instruments do you play, if any?
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If you're having trouble with lyrics, there is this exercise that I find extremely helpful when needed. You'll need a stopwatch, a piece of paper and a pencil. What you do is you write for two minutes non-stop. Just write. It doesn't matter what you write or even if it makes sense, just keep the words flowing. After your two minutes are over, reflect on what you've written and brainstorm from that. I've written my best songs doing this.
I hope that was helpful.
Take it a step further: distance your conscious mind from what you are writing, if you can, so it's like you don't know what you're writing. It's called Free Association writing. Ya might have heard about it in the movie The Sixth Sense. Ooooh, spooky.
Very spooky, indeed.
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I see dead people.
But really, You shouldn't set a time when to write. You should write when it occurs to you to write. Most good lyrics are spontaneous.
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I see dead people.
But really, You shouldn't set a time when to write. You should write when it occurs to you to write. Most good lyrics are spontaneous.
I agree with that in some ways, but I disagree in others. I think that you should write everyday, not trying to create a masterpiece, but because it's good for you to write. I find that the more I write, the better I get at writing. I do agree that there shouldn't be a set time to write an amazing song, but I think there should be a set time to write.
If that made any sense.
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It made sense. =)