Do You Wirite? Compose?

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

After I stopped acting I thrust my hand into songwriting. I like doing it and it of course I throw almost every page out the window. I think I have a good voice for a rhyme/lyric but I always doubt myself.
The stuff I write isn't mainstream but I'm trying to work the parameters more of it.
I have a stream of consciousness style and trying to get it into a place where it does that and also says what I mean....
Trust me I learn from Frankie Avalon songs to Marvin Hamlisch. But in terms of writing a song....the stuff I want to say right now doesn't rhyme.
OK before I describe again how I threw all my notebooks into the fire..
Talk to me..............

 

[Dooky]

I am a music major in college. in high school i got various music awards and accolades. my band director referred to me as more of a friend than a student. Got two 5's on the AP exam for Theory. I write music a lot.
Enough with my boasting

One thing ive learned while writing. is to stop writing sometimes and listen. Since I am a trombone player i prefer to listen to trombone players often but one rock band ill never stop listening to is avenged sevenfold. while their music is somewhat rough(especially their older albums) you can still find an outrageous amount of musicality involved. While i despise their "punk/scene" like image i just look past it and listen. Their newest album is quite strange if you ask me. the variety of music is an inspiration to me in the music i write. it reminds me to listen to everything. (i dont mean to sound like a fanboy sorry ) I hope i dont come off as trying to tell you to listen to them either. sorry if i gave that impression. anyways, the advice that i am trying to give, as a musician to another musician, is keep listening. Also, another thing. dont worry if you feel like it sounds too much like something else youve heard before. trying to hard is also bad.


Last Edit : dont worry about rhyming. its more about timing.


oh the irony!!!

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Good point listening to hard is bad and I suffer from that all the time I never even tell anyone this. I do this on my own.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Also yo can write a multi million seller like this: Bernadette Peters - Not a Day Goes by (Live) - Free MP3 Stream on IMEEM Music w/simple and endearing lyrics and then you could do that and try to put yourself into the same song.

 

[Dooky]

I myself, personally, feel that music is better without lyrics. I feel like too many songs rely on lyrics to convey the emotions of the songs in order to shroud the fact that the backgrounds are plain Jane. maybe if all your lyrics are turning out bad, stop writing lyrics. I don't mean to be a harsh critic or anything of the sort sorry if i offend you i am just attempting to be honest. what instruments do you specifically write for? maybe try throwing in a few newer instruments here and there. and what sort of genre do you write for usually? something i like to do while writing is to never write the same type of music twice. If i write a trombone quartet, the next thing ill do is maybe brass quintet or a chorale piece or maybe even a rock band song.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Dooky I got half way thru your post and had to stop. Yr siezure avatar is too annoying and I hope someone that really suffers from that doessn't sue you for inducing one..it's happened before.

 

[Dooky]

they dont have to read it. they get a seizure it's their fault. i just chose it cause it was the least lame default avatar i could find

 

[invisibleman]

I myself, personally, feel that music is better without lyrics. I feel like too many songs rely on lyrics to convey the emotions of the songs in order to shroud the fact that the backgrounds are plain Jane. maybe if all your lyrics are turning out bad, stop writing lyrics.

I like music without lyrics as well. Lyrics do paint the song in a fixed way. But instrumentals can be open to individual interpretation.

I think that there is always a need for good lyric writing. Lyrics are hard to write. But I think that they can become easier when you have fleshed them out by writing...writing...writing. Write in journals. Write a lyric by the line. Write interesting things. Use your powers of observation. Lyrical writing involves the senses: sight. touch. smell. sound. taste. feel. actions. thoughts.

I once read Sting (Gordon Sumner) had an easy way of working through "writer's block"--he asked himself what was he afraid of saying and he gave himself permission to write what he wanted to express.

 

[Incocknito]

I write, in fact I'm writing now...

I would like to write songs and maybe in time I will but it will take a lot of practice and "craft".

I even had a sexy, beautiful, milfy member here send me a book on songwriting long ago. I should dig it out.

However, I am in the process of writing a book which is so good it will be turned into a movie!

Starting three sentences with 'I' does not bode well though :tongue:

There's another member here who writes songs...I forget his name. Think its LonelyGuy or something???

"Every time I comb my hair, thoughts of you get in my eyes" <3

 

[Novaboy]

I write stories and music. Not a lot, but I dabble. I like harmonies and layers in music. I have to confess that I really like Enya for the harmonies and multilayered sound. I like experimenting with many tracks and over dubs for a full sound. I've also written some songs for children one of which was performed by a mass choir of about 300 students.

I also find the seizure avatar very distracting and hard on the eyes. It makes reading the posts very difficult.

 

[invisibleman]

Here are some of my personal songwriting sheets. But it is for those who write songs with the guitar. It is not tabulature based though.

I will put up examples on how to use them later.

 

[B_Hickboy]

Here are some of my personal songwriting sheets. But it is for those who write songs with the guitar. It is not tabulature based though.

I will put up examples on how to use them later.

You are a fucking genius. :hug:

 

[pym]

Here are some of my personal songwriting sheets. But it is for those who write songs with the guitar. It is not tabulature based though.

I will put up examples on how to use them later.

Nice chord sheets....i'm keepin' em too!
Guitarist of 38 years now......i play everyday of my life.

THANKS.

 

[morsecode]

YouTube - Beautiful Child - Swans

if you write something as eerie as that, you are a genius

 

[invisibleman]

Here are some of my personal songwriting sheets. But it is for those who write songs with the guitar. It is not tabulature based though.

I will put up examples on how to use them later.

You are a fucking genius. :hug:

Nice chord sheets....i'm keepin' em too!
Guitarist of 38 years now......i play everyday of my life.

THANKS.

You're welcome. Have fun using them. I have one other one songwriting sheet...but it would probably be easier if I told you. I got the idea from WRITER'S DIGEST magazine. I read them all the time in the public library. Anyway, let's say you are stumped for songwriting ideas. Here is what you could do: Find some interesting pictures. Take some pictures around your neighborhood. Use a digital camera. Use that camcorder. Write songs based on the images you took or found. You could find some interesting images in magazines. Use your imagination to create a song based on photographs and found visuals.

The original idea in WRITER'S DIGEST was they would feature a photo. And people would have to write a 250 word short story based on that photo.

 

[Pitbull]

Just writing prose is hard enough
Poetry that is work
Songs - Need talent too.

Most poets cannot write music.
Most musicians cannot write poetry
Getting the words & music together - that is why there are composing teams.
Beethoven only composed one opera and with revisions that took him 11 years and he had a librettist.

This made me think that my dad had two of the heavyweights of 20th century American music as customers back in the day. Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rodgers.
Too bad one cannot acquire talent by association.

 

[invisibleman]

Just writing prose is hard enough
Poetry that is work
Songs - Need talent too.

Most poets cannot write music.
Most musicians cannot write poetry
Getting the words & music together - that is why there are composing teams.
Beethoven only composed one opera and with revisions that took him 11 years and he had a librettist.

This made me think that my dad had two of the heavyweights of 20th century American music as customers back in the day. Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rodgers.
Too bad one cannot acquire talent by association.

Songwriting does take a lot of belief in one's self. Some poets can't write music. Some musicians can't write poems. That doesn't mean that they aren't able to learn to do so. People become by doing. And learning what has been done that is interesting. Taking interesting things and make interesting things for themselves.

 

[Pitbull]

Songwriting does take a lot of belief in one's self. Some poets can't write music. Some musicians can't write poems. That doesn't mean that they aren't able to learn to do so. People become by doing. And learning what has been done that is interesting. Taking interesting things and make interesting things for themselves.

You are right.
After all there are some who have done it in the course of history and have been excellent.

Being musical is required.
Easier for a musician to be a poet than for the poet to be a musician.

The voice can be an incredible musical instrument.
The words are the notes.
The rhythm and flow of the words make the song.

 

[morsecode]

Taking my shots on this side of the sun
To keep me away from thinking
The body decays but the mind stays the same
What will it take to free it?

My thoughts are released, but plastic it seems
To imprison my soul, to keep it away from the rot
And the mundane, and the vague, and concrete, and obscene
And the pain, and the bliss

And I&#8217;m hungry
And I&#8217;m thirsty
And I&#8217;m tired
And I&#8217;m bored

Give me a taste of your flesh, a drink of your sweat
A bite from your teeth
It&#8217;s all that I need, to know that I breathe, I assure you
I probably lied; I&#8217;m most likely dishonest, so cut me in half
It&#8217;s all that I need, all that I need, I implore you

And I&#8217;m lost
And I&#8217;m done
And I&#8217;m dust
And I&#8217;m fucked

Something nonsensical I wrote in 10 minutes

 

[Not_Punny]

A friend of mine once offered me a really good piece of advice:

Whatever the song is about, write it as a letter to "the person" (the object of the song, whether it be an ex, your current, a relative, a friend, a dog, yourself or even God).

DO NOT bother with rhyme in the beginning.

Write and write until all the trite Moon-June crap is written off.

You will find your hook and the honesty within.

Just write (without paying attention to rhyme or meter) until the crap is gone.

Sort of like mining for gold.