Songwriting...need advice and help

[JakeK]

I was talking to Jacob today, and he said that we probably won't get anywhere if we constantly cover other people's music. I totally agreed with him, and after a few ideas being tossed, it came to the idea that I should start writing songs. I told him it's hard because I couldn't write a song to save my life!

I need tips on writing. I'm about to write my first song this weekend (hopefully starting tonight after I study for an English test), and I need to know a few things:

1. When writing, should I have an instrument on-hand so I can make up riffs and chords as I go along? Or should I write the song first and then pick out chords and riffs?

2. Is it better to have a solo or no solo?

3. Suppose that Jacob's voice range is different from mine. How do I accomodate the song so that it fits his voice range?

4. If I want call-and-response backing vocals, how do I work them in?

5. Is there any topic besides love that I can write about?

6. Do I write parts for the other musicians (bass, drums)? Or just play the song on guitar at rehearsals and have them write their own parts?

7. When writing, what is the one thing NOT to do (I'm sure I'll get a few responses for this 'un)?

and lastly...

8. Will you guys be able to proof anything I write, and help me out with chords, riffs, solo, etc?

Anything you guys can help out with will be appriciated! Who knows? I may cover only at home if my first song(s) go well.

[deaconblues]

The answer to all of those questions:

Play covers first.

Play as many as you can in as many different styles as possible. This is your first band - you need to take your time and make sure everyone is competent at playing together. I've been in bands that didn't last two practices before breaking up. After a while, you'll start feeling comfortable enough to stray out into creative territory, but you have to learn the basics. Bands don't just write songs out of nowhere - they build on musical influences. Play enough, and you'll see your own style coming through.

[jimk]

1. When writing, should I have an instrument on-hand so I can make up riffs and chords as I go along? Or should I write the song first and then pick out chords and riffs?

There are as many methods as there are songwriters. Writing lyrics has always been for me the most difficult part. So, that's the part I tackle first. I keep a legal pad, that I use in a special notebook. It's helpful for me to start out with a title line. It focuses my thinking, and forms the subject matter. Even if I don't finish the lyric, or if it falls apart, no matter. I save it. I may be able to come back to it in a few days, weeks, or even months and salvage someting, a line, a couplet, or just a two or three word image.

But you don't have to start out that way. Another way, is to orcompose the melody first. Get that polished up just the way you want it, arrange the chord changes just so, and let the melody suggest a title, a phrase, or an image.

The thing I think to avoid is to write both the lyrics and the melody all in one sitting. Because then they get laminated making re-writes or editing very difficult. And you will want to go back and re-write, possibly many times before you get it right.

2. Is it better to have a solo or no solo?

I'd let that grow out of rehearsals.

3. Suppose that Jacob's voice range is different from mine. How do I accomodate the song so that it fits his voice range?

No problems. Just re-arrange the song in Jacob's range. Change keys.

4. If I want call-and-response backing vocals, how do I work them in?

This is fun song writing. Start with a line, we'll call Line A. Then write Line B. Then rhyme line C with Line A, then sing Line B again.

5. Is there any topic besides love that I can write about?

Sure! Almost anything you can think of is grist for the song mill. How about "The Shopping Trip from Hell" or something you read about in the newspaper. Or take a line from a billboard on the highway you saw.

6. Do I write parts for the other musicians (bass, drums)? Or just play the song on guitar at rehearsals and have them write their own parts?

I suppose you could. It depends on how complex your composition is. If it's a straight 12 bar blues, then that's over arranging a bit, I'd say.

7. When writing, what is the one thing NOT to do (I'm sure I'll get a few responses for this 'un)?

Keep your point of view consistent. If you start out writing in first person "I did this, then this happened, and now I say to you..." keep it that way. One pitfall is suddenly to shift into second person.

[

and lastly...
8. Will you guys be able to proof anything I write, and help me out with chords, riffs, solo, etc?
Anything you guys can help out with will be appriciated! Who knows? I may cover only at home if my first song(s) go well.

Several suggestions I have:
1. Find a local song writer's group, go there sing your songs, and listen to the others' songs. If it's a well run group, they'll give you valuable feed back.
2. There's a really good book I used to help me out. It's called Successful Lyric Writing by Sheila Davis. Yeah, it's a cheesy title, and I'm sure Ms. Davis didn't come up with it; probably her publisher did. It's a workbook and is filled with many, many different lyric writing exercises. Who knows? Maybe one of those exercises will turn out to be your first hit single!
3. If you think don't have the "double gift" as Davis calls it, the ability to both compose a melody, and write the lyrics, seek out a co-writer.
4. Don't be afraid of writing your bad songs first. Everybody starts out somewhere.
5. And take what Mr. Powell has said to heart.

Hope this helps.
JimK

[melibreits]

Songwriting.... a fun topic, and something I really enjoy doing!

I suppose the process is different for everybody, but often for me I will just be strumming a guitar when I'll come up with a cool chord progression or riff.... generally the words will just pop into my mind while I'm playing around with it, or at least I'll have a general idea of where I want the song to go based on the sound of the riff. Once I write the chords down I will sit down with a pad of paper and a pencil (with an eraser, I do lots of re-writing, trying different words and phrases), and come up with potential lyrics that will work....there is generally much editing and rewriting between the rough draft of the song and the final copy.

And every once in a while a song will come to me that is ridiculously simple.... Like, I'll have a dream about a song, and the song will have written itself--that only happened once, though! It should have happened twice, but the first time, I completely forgot the whole song when I woke up, but I wrote a song about that experience, called The Song Of My Dreams (which will finally be ready to be unveiled very soon--it is in its final stages of production now, as a collaboration with another very talented Forum friend....)....

Songwriting is very subjective, really.... Although lately the music has come before the words, sometimes it's the other way around. Many of my songs are based on poems I wrote in high school and college, before I had a clue I could write music. I was overjoyed the first time I picked up a guitar and realized that the words I had written long ago could take on a new life as songs!

I suppose the main thing about songwriting is to have fun with it, and don't take it too seriously--you can write a song about just about anything....but try to make sure that the tone of the music fits the words.

[kiramdear]

Big respect to the teachers with their knowledge of how-to. Songwriting is a wonderful preoccupation and the thrill of hearing your ideas realized in song is worth all the learning and work you can put in to make it happen. But take a deep breath, Jake, and take your time.
I'd go with Dan's advice for now. Your best teachers are your favorite musicians, and you'll come together with your band faster and better doing the best songs that you know and love now, no matter who wrote them. Look how the Beatles started, doing covers until they established themselves and then slipping in the originals that were good enough or better to replace the covers, as they wrote them. It's really hard to make art in a vacuum; you gotta prime the pump, train your instrument (your musical mind), crawl, then walk, then run, then fly. The main thing is to get busy, get out there, spend a lot of time working with the others on arrangements that work for everyone. This is your first band so it's best run by consensus; you probably don't have the musical and leadership skills necessary to be the boss. You'll have more fun and learn a lot more if you don't try to be the leader. Spend some time just assessing your individual contributions to the group, building skills with easy enough songs that everyone can succeed, and finding your places in the gel.
Songwriting and arranging will come naturally after you engage in some problem solving for a while with the material that you and others bring to the table. In other words, you just develop a feel for them after you swim around in the ocean of fantastic cover material out there. One day you'll have a dream like Mel or see a billboard like Jim, and out will pop this fantastic new Jake original, but that's after you've already learned your favorite 200 covers by heart and riffs and chord progressions are running through your veins and filling your every quiet moment.
In other words, it's about immersion therapy. If you've got enough good originals to keep you and the guys busy. then great! But until then, don't fall out of practice because you're holding out for an all-original setlist. Just keep pushing on any kind of great material, work hard and the originals will catch up with you. Beware of working up originals that aren't as good or better than the rest of what you're doing. But also, as Jim said, don't be afraid to write a bad song or many, you gotta try, take it around, find out why it's not the best, then come back and do it again. I wrote bad songs for several years before I introduced any originals to the group, had sense enough to keep them at home. But that's how I cut my teeth and after a while they started sounding pretty darn good ...
If you need any advice that's what we're here for

[jimk]

Something else I thought of, Jake. Listen to all kinds of song writers. Listen to Cole Porter, Geroge & Ira Gershwin, as well as Lennon & McCartney. Heck even listen to the real old dudes like Stephen Foster. Dissect their songs. Find out what makes them work. What makes "Yesterday" or "Oh Susanna" work?

One of my favorite old dudes is a guy named Henry C. Work. He composed a really masterfully written song called "My Grandfather's Clock." Look it up, study the lyrics. That song still works and has stood the test of time after a hundred and thirty years. Why?

When you do your covers, really get into the lyrics. Tear them apart, study them, analize them, listen critically.

It's also useful to become acquainted with the blues. So much of American music has it's roots in the blues. Learn how blues lyrics are composed. There's a form that blues follows both lyrically and musically.

This is all fun stuff. Enjoy the ride.

JimK

[tennis_nick]

One tip I can give you is try not to fall into traps!

When I started out about 5 monthes ago, I wouldn't write something in a certain progression because I didn't like using something too standard, but you get past that eventually and just think of the tune.

Another suggestion I can give you is not to rush yourself at first. The Beatles could do it, but they were fantastic at what they did when they rushed Can't Buy Me Love as a single, or Rubber Soul as an album. Take the time for ideas to kind of pop out.

No song HAS to be about one subject or another. While waiting for a toy in the mail, I wrote a song called "The Postman" (one of the favorites of the ones I've written, I listen to my demo often!). I misunderstood a Johnny Cash lyric as "If I was a sailor and drank only wine" and from there, a song about an alcoholic man just fell out.

At first, don't rush yourself, take your time. In 5 months of trying, I wrote about 8 tunes, but I only bothered recording/keeping 3. You're always your own worst critic.

[jdogric12]

Wow, a lot of great responses. I'll just add this somewhat bleak comment to help keep things in perspective:

90% of the songs everyone on the planet writes are complete ****. Don't get discouraged if you're not getting the results you want, just write MORE.

And always give stuff the shelf test.

[JakeK]

Whoa! I wasn't expecting this much good advice. Last night, I was plunking around on my Telecaster, and wrote this really cool riff. Despite me writing it on a guitar, I think it'll sound extremely cool on bass. No fuzz, but a LOT of treble on the bass. The bass is pretty much the lead intrument, while the guitar is the rhythm instrument. The bass also takes to an amazing solo, I have planned out. The song is in the key of F#, and it sounds really good. Should I capo the guitar/bass at second fret and play it in key of "E", or should it be tuned down a half step for key of "G"?

I'm going to talk to Jacob in a few minutes (on school computers) and see if we can collaborate with writing anything.

[kiramdear]

Cool, dude! Choice of key should correspond to the singer's best range. Some acoustic guitar riffs are dependent on position and require a capo but most rock guitar can be transposed straight for simplicity, check it out and you may find a nice surprise by shifting your riffs and chord voicings up around the fretboard. Fretboard's got a lot more range than your voice so settle for what's comfortable to sing. Work out the arrangement with Jacob in improv. Chalk up a diagram, such as verse, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, chorus (one of my favorites for short pop format) but don't be too rigid, play the sections after each other, mix up the order if it sounds better, perhaps throw in an extended solo if it feels right. Just play with it and be open to wild card discoveries along the way.

Don't capo the bass. No one ever does that.

[JakeK]

McCartney did...

[jdogric12]

I have capo'd basses before. Nothing wrong with that.

It seems silly to detune a guitar when it already works fine in another nearby key.

[kiramdear]

Well live and learn. I've never seen that before.

[kiramdear]

On the other hand, what do you expect from a left-handed guitarist who learned to play righty, then lefty and then got stuck on bass duty?

[JakeK]

Right, I talked to Jacob, and he told me that he'll work and add on to something if I get the majority of it written. Wish me luck, this is going to be tougher than I thought.

By the way, the riff has a bit of Kinks influence in it, I think.