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[Muso] jimmy jazz's 115th Scream (Songwriting Help)

Started by jimmy jazz, October 10, 2005, 06:37:20 PM

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jimmy jazz

I've recently started to write songs, a hobby I find hugely enjoyable. The problem is that I get constantly infuriated with the lack of 'backbone' in the stuff I write. The creative side is no problem and I believe I can come up with inventive, original stuff if I try but the fact is that they are pop songs of a sort, so they need some sort of formula. At the moment I have pages of ideas and no idea on how to change them into songs. It's like having loads of nice ingredients and wanting to make a nice meal out of them. Is this a common early problem to have when writing? How do fellow VW's cope with it? Is it something that comes with practice? A lot of questions, there, you see. Any help would be greatly appreciated as it's infuriating.

Not obviously asking you to reveal your secrets of course...

It all depends how you go about writing.  In my band, we have two song writers, myself and the rhythm guitarist and our approaches to writing are vastly different.  In his case, he noodles around on his guitar until he comes up with a riff or chord pattern he likes.  He then brings this idea to the band, with some possible chord patterns for verses, bridges etc and we all chip in our idea for arrangements, dynamics – ie; we jam on certains bits and find the 'glue' this way, if you like.  Then he writes a vocal melody around lyrics he has already written.
However when I write, almost the entire song (musically) is written in my head, or hummed, ooohed or doo doo dooed into a Dictaphone, before I even sit down at my keyboard.  (I drum for the band by the way, but I write my songs on keyboard).  My feeling is, I'm not going to sit and fanny around for ages trying to find a riff, it has to drift into my head and get stuck there before I'll even consider it.  I have all my vocal melodies sorted as well, almost like I multi-track it in my head – it's like I can hear the complete song before I sit down and actually play it.  I then write lyrics around the melody I have.  Never the other way round.  It may be some lyrics I've written already, but I'll chop words, change things to fit the tune I've written.  For me, the tune is more important than the words.  Similar to yourself, the stuff we do is pop-rock stuff so this is my formula for writing.

Intro riff (could be the chorus riff)
Verse (simple and stripped)
Bridge (building)
Chorus (catchy and sing-along)
Rpt. Intro riff (unless it's the chorus riff!)
Verse 2 (dynamic version of verse 1, different lyrics, obviously)
Bridge (rpt 1st bridge)
Chorus (same)
Middle 8 (New riff)
Chorus x 2
Outtro riff (same as intro)

That's how I tend to arrange my ideas.  I have been writing songs for many years now, so probably a lot of it is practise and I'm sure loads of the other VWs have better ideas, but this is how I write my more 'poppy' stuff, and it works for me.  It's also good to study the songs of bands you like - not to plagiarise chord patterns or anything, just to listen to how they arrange songs.  If I want to write, say a really catchy, upbeat pop rock song - I'll listen to Cheap Trick's In Color album, as for me it's pretty much the quintessential album in that genre.
The main thing is to enjoy yourself.  The best thing is coming up with something that gives you the same goose bumps that your favourite bands give you.  It doesn't get better than that.  Good luck anyway!