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aberdeen-music

Song Writing


Huw

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I'd be interested to know how other bands (local or not) go around their song writing. Heard a bunch of bands doing it a bunch of different ways.

If anyone has experience in which a more than one way which one has worked best for you/your band?

Also interested in whether different genres/styles a/effects the way a band writes.

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Guitar line > subject matter > lyrics > song structure normally when by myself. Usually the structure follows straight after the guitar/bass line ideas when I've been collaborating recently.

I can't churn out songs very well however. And a lot get thrown out after being completely finished, so my output is extremely low.

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I churn out too many...low quality control:down:

Usually I start with the lyrics, ...get them honed a bit and find some sympathetic chords, leading eventually to a melody line.

Recently, however (due to need for a tune/song a day) I've been creating simple chord patterns, then looping them, before quickly writing lyrics. It's more hit or miss, but sometimes I'm surprised at the results sounding pretty OK...less laboured and more fresh sounding.

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Guest Steven Dedalus

In my 'glory days', I found the best way was to find two New Order songs, take the musical melody from one, and then take the vocal melody from the other, and bung them together.

Surefire hit every time.

Also, bear in mind the Ramones principle - "Second verse, same as the first."

You can't go wrong with that.

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with blessed, it comes from maybe 10 different ideas, we then extend and cut the ideas as we see fit, then place them in an imaginary song to see where the bits would fit best, once thats figured, we just right bits to fit the already written ideas together and then lyrics and everything come from that.

Either that, or we steal ion dissonance riffs :)

x

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with archives stuff we generally jam it in a room/at home. comes from a guitar riff or nice bits we have and we form songs round them. some of the stuff is written on guitars, some bits are made by bass and drums with guitars on top. lyrics get done, then the vocals go on last, and when the song is recorded, the vocals get confirmed. most of our stuff starts at one point and ends at another.

with the robot house stuff i generally write everything, then other add the bass and drums through listening to me whinging or making funny noises that are supposed to be drums. not jammed this in a while and keen to get back on it again though

we spend hours and hours and hours on the brickshithouse stuff :D

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with blessed, it comes from maybe 10 different ideas, we then extend and cut the ideas as we see fit, then place them in an imaginary song to see where the bits would fit best.

do you end up using all those ideas or no? and do you come up with them collectively or write them on your own? i heard a while back Renn is some sort of Guitar Pro virtuoso and writes a lot of his music on there. Blessed time signatures + guitar pro; that just baffles me. i'm far too musically inept for anything like that.

with regards to the archives stuff - thats basically the way we write and what i was trying to explain in a "crap at explaining things" kinda way.

what about key and scales and stuff like that? does somebody have an idea and say "its in E minor" or is it just a kind of trial and error to see what fits? (questions directed at everybody)

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' date=' post: 427575"']

what about key and scales and stuff like that? does somebody have an idea and say "its in E minor" or is it just a kind of trial and error to see what fits? (questions directed at everybody)

with bands i've played with it was trial and error definitely, but things would have gone a lot smoother if they'd been able to tell they were playing an e major riff/progression o_O

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For, latest, band tunes see most of Maxi's Archives method. Building on a riff, bass line or drum beat is great fun, not always the most efficient manner in writing but fun none the less.

Own material: writing and inspiration can come from a guitar sound, riff, a chopped up and sampled drum beat (own recordings), or a keyboard sound, melody. Sometimes a song title will come first and conjur an idea. No lyrics to date, so never a vocal melody. That said some of my latest ideas are screaming out for them which is a pain in the ass when writing instrumental music.

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Oh, and I come up with most of my vocal melodies in the shower

aha... The trusty shower method. Melody hooks aplenty in the shower whilst nowhere near a recording mechanism. Chinese whispers usually means that the genius hook I had in the shower is pile of bland dung by the time I hit the keyboard or geetar... Chances are that it was bland dung to begin with but I like to think it was great and lost into the ether :)

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Building on a riff, bass line or drum beat is great fun, not always the most efficient manner in writing but fun none the less.

I don't know... If you mean time-wise your definetly right. But the sound we are getting out at the end is definetly what we all want and something none of us could have come up with on our own.

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It helps if your unemployed of course! And if your willing to be a slave to the art! For me, it's basically chords-melody-lyrics but lots of possibilities. I guess everyone works differently. I can only work alone, tried collaboration few years back but always had the feeling of needing to be in control. Knicked a melody from a bird once, of the winged variety that is. Hmm, maybe I was :gringo: at the time. Anyways, least it cudna do me for plagarism! The song was poop.

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. Knicked a melody from a bird once, of the winged variety that is. Hmm, maybe I was :gringo: at the time. Anyways, least it cudna do me for plagarism! The song was poop.

you're not the only one to do that... theres a quote from guthrie govan saying the same thing about it not being able to sue him. can't remember what it was exactly

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' date=' post: 427575"']do you end up using all those ideas or no? and do you come up with them collectively or write them on your own? i heard a while back Renn is some sort of Guitar Pro virtuoso and writes a lot of his music on there. Blessed time signatures + guitar pro; that just baffles me. i'm far too musically inept for anything like that.

with regards to the archives stuff - thats basically the way we write and what i was trying to explain in a "crap at explaining things" kinda way.

what about key and scales and stuff like that? does somebody have an idea and say "its in E minor" or is it just a kind of trial and error to see what fits? (questions directed at everybody)

yeah, generally allthe stuff gets used, because we chop and change so much that we can make odd riffs work together,but as i said, we do extend and certainly cut riffs to make them fit better, this can also lead to dropping entire sections.

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