General Music Chat

The best ideas always seem to slip away if you can't document them right away. Try humming the melody into a portable device. Never leave home w/o it.

I usually just play around with different scales and chords in several keys. I wrote a pretty good song once using 7th chords in 3rd inversion..

One thing I'm learning now. Unless your song is signed, or you're finally playing it live, it isn't "finished." It's just a framework for what may be.

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And even if it has been recorded and/or performed, it still ain't necessarily done.

Thats for sure Mary. Man our stuff is in a state of constant change.
I would not have it any other way.

A guy I know who goes by the name of "Uncle Brother" wrote this;

"You can holler from a hill to a hill.
You can do it any time of the day.
You can't holler from a holler to a holler
'Cuz there's always a hill in the way."

I thought it was brilliant until I heard the rest of the song, but I'll never ever forget that line.

His biggest problem was that he thought he was gonna try to teach something deep & meaningful in every song he wrote, & then proceeded to make it so personal that no one could ever get any message out of the lyrics, cuz they were so muddled up in personal stuff that you had to have lived it to understand anything, & by the time he explained it to you, you were no longer interested. I've known a lot of ppl like that. I generally try to avoid them.

I got a small, cell phone sized digital recorder not too long ago, and have started using it for this. A couple of times I've used it to grab chord progressions so I can remember them until I can set up the computer and make a base track to work with, it helps a lot because I've lost the idea before in the time it takes to get everything set up. I've also used it for lyrics that pop into my head driving around or whatever.

Great little device to have, 512MB storage, fits in a pocket, pair of AAA batteries last pretty well, records 18 hours on high quality setting (batteries still good after 3 hours running constantly). $35 after tax, not a bad deal...

Hmmm...I just realized I still have some lyrics sitting there on it I haven't brought out and worked on yet...

Sitting at the keyboards just practicing, or messing around, and then something sounds catchy or interesting, then build off of that.

The best ideas always seem to slip away if you can't document them right away. Try humming the melody into a portable device. Never leave home w/o it.

EXACTLY! And everybody (almost) has that device on them at all times. It's called a cell phone. Call your voice mail and leave a voice mail for yourself. I have dozens of lyrics w/ melodies, choruses, just melodies. Licks, basslines. All sang into a voicemail. Phrasing timing and tiny nuances make the idea great. Save those nuances with your cell phone!

^

I find it incredibly hard. Sometimes it will just come other times it just won't. Like others here I have ideas off the cuff and they are usually the best ones so I keep a Dictaphone handy so I can at least hum the damned thing. This has worked for me (So far).

I'm still working on a 5/4 piece, but it's hard to keep at it, for some reason. I've been experimenting on this for years! Very frustrating, it be.

That sounds exciting...keep at-it

I tried working on this idea with a drummer a few times. Ya know, the drummers I"ve been working with really hate 5/4 or 7/4 or the rare occasion that I've experimented with 11/4. (On the 11/4, there's emphasis on 1, 4, 7, 10 + 11, in my experiments. Drives 'em MAD!)

One song I had got a rhythm in my head that just wouldn't leave, I ended up writing the entire thing in my head long before ever applying it to any medium... about a year after that, I actually designed and recorded it, although it didn't sound much like what was in my head, it was the first 'real' recording I ever did, and I always thought, one of the best.

Other than that, I get ideas while noodling, warming up, or even playing other songs... some stick and most don't. I found it's really hard to put a pre-conceived idea onto someone else's lyrics though.. and I don't write lyrics well at all.

So my preferred approach is to take lyrics, poetry, whatever, and design the music around my perceived mood and rhythm of the words themselves. When I can do this with unlimited time and pressure, I can poop out a great tune, I think.