Hey everyone, just wondering what your songwriting process is like. I know everyone has his/her own way of doing it so please explain!
When I first approach a song, or bring a verse or something to band practice to show the guys, I first think about how much fun it is to play, ie how many different ways I can play over it. A simple progression like Am, Dm7, C can yield a huge amount of melodic ideas. By looping the progression I can work on a vocal melody or practice different ways to play over it and usually figure out if the progression is going to work in about 5 - 10 minutes for me. Thinking about rhythm is another way to make a "boring" or static chord progression more exciting. One passage of our tunes is essentially an E9 chord but it stays exciting and syncopated with the way the bass and the drums lock up with how the guitar player is playing the chord. Sometimes if I am bored, I will pick a key - let's a say D Major. I take the pick and flip it, if the Adamas side shows up, the next chord will be minor (diatonically in the key of D of course) and if the wings show up, it'll be major. That last part is just really for fun though, but it helps to generate ideas, and it will work with any pick.
Picking up jingles while playing in front of the TV is another way to generate ideas.
I use my loop station quite a bit for writing songs. It helps a bunch when writing harmonized guitar parts. It usually takes me a while to write a full song because I dont write lyrics, so the structure of the instrumental songs r a bit different....I try to stay away from a verse - chorus -verse - chorus - end of song type of structure. Writing is always fun because its challenging to write something intricate and thoughtful, and when u finally get what u want its very rewarding
Most of my good songs come from playing acoustic guitar. It's usually very intimate and the vibrations and dynamics help spark my creativity.
Not sure which aspect of songwriting your talking about, so I'll give my usual type of overly long-winded response:
I just start by messing around and if I stumble upon a chord progression that I like, I tend to try to make it as melodic as possible - either simply the movement in the upper notes of the chords, or adding colors to create a melody (ie, maybe hammer on a 9th on one chord, drop a 4th to a third on the next...).
I tend to call this a jam; its not a song, but no longer just aimlessly messing around - its something created. Its something I might bring to a band practice to see where it goes organically with the group.
However, if I try to turn that jam into a song (ie, using the jam as a chorus, then trying to add a verse), I almost always find that whatever I add sounds contrived. Its usually really similar to common, standard key changes, or 'stock' ones I made and often use in jam sessions when I need a quick change up.
This is the key juncture for me when it comes to songwriting. How do I get from a jam to a song? Sometimes it comes naturally with the band. Other times, the keyboard player will fill in the gap and bring it for the next practice (either by my request or he will come up with something). But if I am going to finish the song myself, I try to not push creative, just let it happen naturally. The same way I wrote the initial 'jam,' I will eventually find that I wrote something else that would pair with it really well.
When I was younger and had much more time to play, I would practice finding ways to connect any two jams I had written - it was really helpful for composing/arranging music.
As far as lyrics, my perspective on music is absolute. In other words, the song needs no lyrics and there is no innate connection between any lyrics and any song. Because of this, I find adding lyrics to be really difficult and when I try, I feel my lyrics are more of a passable poem rather than lyrical - they sound clunky to me put to music. When I have written lyrics, its usually adding on to a nearly complete set of lyrics written by a bandmate. I try to write playful lyrics that aren't too literal. I added the following lyrics to songs I wrote in high school:
"Going down the old brick road, bent out of shape from such a heavy load."
The road at my high school was brick and in disrepair. The lyrics are meant to imply, somewhat nonsensically as roads are inanimate, that the road was upset and exhausted from the schools archaic and traditional administrative values and rules. In fact, that small section of road was kept brick as a reminder of the schools history. The lyrics are, to me, reminiscent of the Grateful Dead's 'Going down the road, feeling bad,' and Simon and Garfunkel's lyrics, 'restless dreams I walk alone, narrow streets of cobblestone."
And later in the same song:
"Bring along your lute, don't forget your flute, bring along an open mind and try to stay in tune."
This lyric has double meaning. Friends would often just stop by throughout the day when we were jamming, often for a toke or the like. The lyrics could also be read: 'bring along your loot, don't forget your pipe,' and, of course, music and tokin' are mind-opening, especially for the open-minded ;)
A final example of lyrics came from a guitar workshop when I was about 15. The instructor said write lyrics using the words: "Dark Clouds," and to be as 'limbic' as possible. I was reading Robinson Crusoe and came up with:
"Dark Clouds swallow the sky, rushing winds go by and by, waves heave like the sobs of my heart, stranded here my life fell apart."
Both literal and metaphorical. Several years after I wrote this, my friend and I wrote a mock-80's-tune using this lyric (and adding onto the lyrics). Again, my absolutist perspective on music resulted in the disconnect between fairly deep, emotional lyrics and a goof-song.
It seems somewhat common in jam bands that the musicians have a disconnect with lyrics. I mean, the Dead and Phish both have lyricists.
If I am recording, I might 'write' a solo. While most jazz musicians I know like to take one pass on recording solo's (and I do this more and more often out of laziness), I used do several passes of somewhat aimless improvisation, paying attention to phrases I like. Then I try to tie some of those phrases together in a cohesive solo. Apparently the method of tying together melodic phrases is actually how Trey writes his melodies; I read recently that he said he used to carry around various recording devices and sing whatever melody had come to mind into them. He would have the parts of a solo 'sung' into several recording devices, which would be scattered around his house, etc. Then he would put it together into a cohesive solo. Trey can get away with this, but if I started singing into a portable tape recorder, I think people would stop spending time with me.
Some other thoughts:
Apparently if you write out Beatles melodies and chords, you can see the melody is often the shortest space between chord tones (small melodic movements rather than large intervals - this is a 'rule' in classical music as well). Because of this, some people have implied that the Beatles wrote chords for a song first, then wrote out the notes in the chords and picked the smoothest melody (shortest intervals between notes). I personally really really doubt the Beatles did this - I think they were just great with melodies, but if you find yourself struggling, this is a good exercise to make melodies that communicate well. It always seemed contrived to me (well, it is kinda contrived by definition).
Lastly, I think that sometimes I make things too complex - like I have to prove myself by writing byzantine music, lol. So KISS (keep it simple stupid). When I'm playing acoustic alone, sure, complexity is great. When you start recording a song, simple parts can come together to make complexity (sum/whole is greater than the parts). Too much complexity will get dense and lost in the mix.
I don't write nearly as much as I should - but I usually come up with a riff or melody first.. Lyrics wise, I like wordplay and being clever perhaps to a fault. Then again Zappa makes me feel all special in certain places.
I've actually found myself using this for writing songs:
http://www.collegehumor.com/i/musical-dots
It's a fun little time waster which I managed to turn into a way to come up with nice little riffs.