Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

A place to discuss songwriting. Yours, or someone elses.
Disciple83
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Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 243898Post Disciple83

I haven't written much recently but when I was doing songwriting, I really benefited from my band, who are far better songwriters than I am. Every now and then I can come up with a riff that I like, and that I think would make a good main riff for a song, but I have a really hard time taking that riff and progressing it to the next section of a song (if I'm working on it on my own). So I essentially get stuck on that riff. It's odd, I feel like I have better sense of "direction" when it comes to composing solos (not that my solos are that great anyways), but for a riff or a rhythm section, I have an extremely difficult time transitioning once that riff is over.


Anyways, this is something I'd like to get back to soon (songwriting) and perhaps I just need to keep practicing in creating songs. I've told myself maybe I just need to commit to making a complete song, even if the song is not very good or satisfying. The continued practice of putting together a composition (whether it's good or bad) may help to develop the skill of turning ideas into songs.
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Dinosaur David B
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Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 243900Post Dinosaur David B

Yeah, the only way to really learn is by doing it again and again. But YES, lean on your bandmates. Watch what they do and learn from them (too).


When I was doing instrumental guitar music (over only one or two drumbeats), my thing was usually to come up with one part I liked, and then find another one (occasionally two) to add to it. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's a good way to start, but that's not like writing complete songs with intros, verses, choruses, bridges etc.


In Feints, I'd still come up with most of the initial song riffs or ideas, and often secondary parts, but I began learning how to glue them together (and make them into intros, verses, choruses, bridges etc.) by working with Amy, who is a MASTER songwriter. I'd just try to watch and learn, but she's so damn instinctive and fast, it was hard to really take in how she does what she does. To be honest, at the time, I didn't think I was learning that much from the experience of watching an expert. But I was wrong.


When I started writing songs for my current project, I didn't want to lean on Amy to write songs (or to rearrange pre-existing song ideas that desperately needed arranging and often new parts). My singer isn't much help other than for the odd lyric or two.


So I started doing it all myself. And what I found is that I HAD learned subconsciously -- by simple the observation and repetition of working with a master songwriter. Without doing ANY song work between Feints and this new project, suddenly, I knew how to put it all together. I even started writing the lyrics and vocal melodies -- something I had never done on my own. I've also figured out what hallmarks I want my songs to have (great hooks, and catchy choruses), and I know how to get them. It takes me more time than it takes Amy, and I don't consider myself a master, but I now know I can write good, complete songs with hooks and choruses that stick in your head (confirmed by my bandmates).


So the takeaway here is by all means, try to work with better songwriters whenever you can. Pay attention to what they're doing. It might take some time, but you may well pick things up, even if you don't realize it's happening in the moment.


The other thing you should do is familiarize yourself with songwriting basics. Like common song forms. Google that. And get comfortable using traditional arrangement formulas before you try and write Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner or Achilles Last Stand.

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Disciple83
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Joined: Mon May 23, 2005 4:56 pm

Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 243904Post Disciple83

Thanks for the resource and the helpful suggestions!
Haffner
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Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 243906Post Haffner

I'm nowhere near a master songwriter, but my writing got better after I spent a lot of time with The Beatles' Revolver, White Album (hey, you could pretty much take your pick with the Beatles), plus the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds and Smile Sessions. Good Vibrations alone was tremendously inspiring to me, check that song out and hear how perfect Brian melded things like cool counterpoint and involved harmonies into a super engaging song. Wouldn't it Be Nice was big for me too. A Day in the Life by The Beatles really blew me away...still blows me away. My favorite by them, easily.


Deep Who cuts like Sister Disco spurred me to try quirkier stuff, too.
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Dinosaur David B
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Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 243908Post Dinosaur David B


Haffner said:


I'm nowhere near a master songwriter, but my writing got better after I spent a lot of time with The Beatles' Revolver, White Album (hey, you could pretty much take your pick with the Beatles), plus the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds and Smile Sessions. Good Vibrations alone with tremendously inspiring to me, check that song out and hear how perfect Brian melded things like cool counterpoint and involved harmonies into a super engaging song. Wouldn't it Be Nice was big for me too. A Day in the Life by The Beatles really blew me away...still blows me away. My favorite by them, easily.


Deep Who cuts like Sister Disco spurred me to try quirkier stuff, too.


[/quote]
Can't go wrong with any of that.



One of the things I've purposely been doing is trying to marry ballsy/heavy verse riffs with hooky, poppy choruses. To me, this is usually the right recipe for what I want to do. Don't be afraid of the term POP. Many of our favorite Dino bands do this kind of thing. There are obvious ones like AC/DC and the Scorpions, but also, think of a song like Children of the Sea by Sabbath. That's a good example of a ballsy/heavy verse riffs with a melodically poppy chorus. It's only the amount of distortion added that fools you into thinking that chorus isn't poppy.


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Duojett71
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Re: Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 247187Post Duojett71

Bedowyn is still chipping away on new music. It takes us forever…but I think the new stuff is fairly adventurous and outside the box. Hopefully we will be ready to record this fall. These songs are shaping up so good that I am almost reluctant to play the older stuff live.
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Dinosaur David B
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Re: Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 249998Post Dinosaur David B

Here we are a couple of years later and I'm working on the second Last Chance album, so I'm resurrecting this thread. 

This time around my experience was pretty different.  When we wrapped up the first album, we had two of my songs left over that came along too late to make the first album.  I was able to get drum tracks (from our first album drummer, Jordan) for those as part of the first album's sessions, and basically that's where I left them. Demos with the real drums delivered. Ready to track real guitars whenever we started work on the second album. 

We released the first album May 2022. Had a PR company do a bit of a push on it. That took some time, but we were essentially on well-needed BREAK from creating new music for about a year. The PR push didn't do much, nor did submitting songs to Spotify playlists. That whole experience was kind of soul-crushing.  Not being able to get the 1st album's music more widely heard really sort of de-incentivized me to write more music.  

My singer, Frankie, and I talk regularly. And while we both wanted to do another album, there was both no rush, and a long period where we just could NOT get motivated. We'd be talking every week like maybe we should sort of start -- kind of thinking about, maybe, starting to sort of get back to trying to work on new songs. 

But I still had a bad taste in my mouth from not getting the first album heard enough. And aside from those two leftover tracks, I had almost nothing cooking. I listened to some of Frankie's demos -- which are always just an idea -- a riff or two, strung together. Sometimes a lyrical idea. Almost never a chorus. It's never is it a complete song.  It's always on me to take what's good from the idea, and write and arrange the rest of the song. That also means revising any lyrics to fit the new arrangement, too. We picked out two of them with good potential, and I filed them away. And more nothing happened. 

Everything finally changed when I finally decided to get off my ass and check on Jordan's availability. I knew he was out on the road, killing it with Slaughter. So I figured I better find out when he'd be home long enough to do some sessions for us. And as you all know by now, Jordan was booked solid -- till at least 2024, he told me.  And as you all also know by now, I was able to get a pretty good replacement!

Enter Brian Tichy
When I was able to secure Brian to do the remaining eight tracks on the album, that lit a fire under my ass like nothing else ever had before. We knew we wanted a 10 song album. We had the two leftover originals, and we decided that for this album, we'd do a cover. So that left seven tracks to write and demo!  Further, the reason I could get Brian was because he was on a break from touring with the Dead Daisies. I only had roughly a six week window where he'd be home in his studio. Plus, he was doing rehearsals with the Daisies, and other sessions with the likes of Michael Schenker, Don Felder and others. 

But I wanted to work with Brian so fucking much! Like I said, it lit a fire under my ass. I went from no motivation to full-throttle motivation! I had to come to come up with seven songs, and I had to come up with them FAST! I actually had to tell Brian that while yes, we were hiring him to do eight songs, we only had the cover song demoed and ready for him.  :doh:
 

Under the Gun
So this is where we get back to the songwriting topic. I had never had to write songs under the pressure of a time constraint before. In Feints, I wrote about half of the songs, and they came when they came. And if they didn't come, I was working with someone who could crap out hit songs like the goose that laid the golden eggs. So if I didn't have anything, Amy could always come up with something.  So we never lacked for material. And the thing I've found is that I can be totally dry and without ideas, but when I get mentally engaged in a project, and musically stimulated, the songs do come.  It happened with Feints, and that's what happened with the first Last Chance album. When we started, I had nothing, but Frankie had a bunch of solid ideas that gave us the initial push to get started. Once I got rolling working his ideas into new songs, I started coming up with my own new songs.

But this was different. If I wanted Brian -- and I sure did -- I had to force myself to write. This was very new for me. But now I was incredibly motivated and energized.  And as I said on the new LC album thread, every day after I'd finish my workday, I'd get in the studio and write. 

I went back to my old tried and true best way of getting started. The drum machine. For as long as I've been writing songs, my best riffs and ideas are usually inspired by some drum groove. If I have to come up with a guitar riff out of thin air (Iommi and Hoffmann can crap them out effortlessly), I can occasionally do that, but I have a really tough time. For me, for whatever reason, if I hear a cool drum groove, the riffs come much quicker. So I used that knowledge and really leaned into it

Also, knowing that Brian was going to be my drummer very much colored the kinds of drum grooves I coaxed out of the machine. I wanted to take full advantage of Brian's talent. His Bonham-like sonics, and his Ian Paice-like dexterity. I wanted the kind of grooves he laid down on Pride and Glory album's heaviest tracks.  I wanted syncopation. I wanted swing.

So I would mess around with the drum machine until I found a cool groove. Once I found the groove, I tried to find the guitar riff. And true to my songwriting history, the riffs and songs started coming. And thank goodness, they did! 

To make matters worse, my singer was suffering from some kind of allergies he hadn't experienced before. He was so congested that for months, he couldn't sing.  So not only did I have to come up with the riffs, the arrangements, and the lyrics, I also had to sing the scratch vocals on the demos.  And for lead vocals, my voice sucks! 😆

But I was getting it done! I was basically writing, completing, and demoing a song in a day or two. And the weird thing was, I was writing them so fast, I wasn't sure if they were even any good:lol:  I literally didn't have time to dwell on that. I really had to just trust my initial instincts, and go with my gut. 

I went for the low-hanging fruit first. The first things I sent Brian was the demo of the cover song. And a thing based on a riff I had lying around for a few months. That bought me a few days. I had reached out to Brian on 4/16/2023 (my birthday). He sent back the first track (4/29/2023) and holy fuck! There was Brian Tichy's drums exploding out of my monitors on my fucking demo!  :bow-blue: 
Happy birthday, Dave!

From there, I started feeding Brian the stuff that I wrote to specifically tap into what I love most about his playing. I was sending him two songs at a time. As soon as I finished the demo and ran it by Frankie, I'd send them off to Brian. Again, just going with my gut that the songs were good. And as the drum tracks started coming back (phenomenal); and as I've started now tracking the real guitars, I'm come around to the opinion that despite the time constraints, these are some of the best riffs, and stickiest songs I've ever written:confusion-shrug:  I'd start tracking the guitars, and the damn songs would get stuck in my head for days. In my experience, that's a dead give-away that you're on the right path. BTW, playing with a drummer this good, forces everyone in the band to raise their game.

So I guess the point of all of this is that in the past, I used to take my time and really think my songs and arrangements out. And while that's all well and good under ideal circumstances, it's kind of cool to know that I could deliver 5 new-from-scratch, complete songs, and two more from Frankie's very basic ideas in about a month:icon-eek:
 
Never done anything like that before. And I'm not sure I'd want to HAVE to do that again. But it's cool to know that in a crunch, I delivered the goods. 
 
 
 
 
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Haffner
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Re: Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 250010Post Haffner

This sounds very familiar. I've certainly let the Arrows of Suck pierce my Metal armour in the past, and I blame myself for letting it happen. I went from 2014 to 2020 without any motivation to write Rock/Metal or even play guitar, and it was overall a pretty unhappy era.

I too have experienced things like motivation-through-necessity, and actually wrote a couple of my best songs that way.

For me, though...I noticed you didn't mention the outta-nowhere Inspiration factor (you may have earlier in the thread, if so forgive me).

In 2019 I moved to (ugh) Springfield, Missouri, a city of super nice people but featuring several factors I really hate: 6 month Summers that are viciously hot and humid as hell, horrible drivers, almost no Metal people at ALL...just to be with this girl I'd met on FB. I was pretty miserable about the move, plus I had to live separately from her for awhile before marriage (personal reasons) and was stuck in a crappy house-to-share with people who had nothing in common with me.

Then one day, while riffing Metal with my headphones on (this is mostly Country music territory, btw) I came upon a riff and felt struck by lightning (in the "good" way). The basic structure of the song, even most of the lyrics, came to me in the course of 24 hours and I felt...well, i don't want to get all supernatural on y'all. This has happened on several occasions before, and is a (most likely lucky) factor in my songwriting.

I too often use the drum machine (Superior Drummer Xpansion pack) for my riffing sessions, great stuff.



 
 
 
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Dinosaur David B
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Re: Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 250012Post Dinosaur David B

Haffner wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2023 6:41 pmI noticed you didn't mention the outta-nowhere Inspiration factor (you may have earlier in the thread, if so forgive me).

 
Well, I could contend that Tichy came out of nowhere, but I know what you mean. I think the closest I've come to what your talking about is when I inadvertently trip over something like a riff or progression in the moment, and then I work that to completion.  

Prior to this current experience, there have only been a couple of times where I deliberately set out to write a song in the moment, and succeeded. Both times were in Feints. For one, I had been asked to try and come up with something uptempo. I went out on my lunch break from work, set a click track to something quick and wrote Dogs, right there on the spot. The other time, the direction I was given was to write something in a key we don't always use. Again, I went out on my lunch break from work, and thought to myself, how about F. We've got nothing in F. And I wrote The Finest Line. In F. Which tore Amy's voice apart. Oh well. Be careful what you wish for.   :lol:
 
 
 
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Dr Nick
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Re: Songwriting - anyone writing (besides me)?

Post: # 250023Post Dr Nick

Been trying to get some motivation. Even went to a songwriting workshop someone I know ran last year - came up with two riffs on the spot that took over the meeting.
But nothing came of it, and I've just got so much going on that setting time aside to write and develop something is a luxury I just don't have. 

Never been especially prolific. I can come up with riffs, chord progressions, and like reacting to a drum pattern or rhythm. 

I suck at lyrics though. 

As an aside, anyone seen the "First of October" Youtube things? Couple of musicians get together one day of the year to write/record a 10 song album. Variable results, some very funny stuff, but interesting to see their process. They've done 4 so far. 
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