Do You Wirite? Compose?

[pornographicpoet]

One poet who was a surprisingly talented musician was Allen Ginsberg. Check out some of his songs if you have a chance...

 

[B_Hickboy]

I compose. It's no secret. And when I'm dead, I will decompose.

If you read my blogs, you will see. I also am working on a piece for my friends right now, and nobody gets to hear it but them. So there.

 

[Deno]

Back in the day I had 3 pretty long sequences I wrote on my Amiga 500 using Bars and Pipes Pro. Then my HD took a crap and I converted to PC's. Never found a sequencer quite like it since. Nothing seems to be able to record live keyboard and keep it in sync with the other tracks. The only actual writing I did was in a solfeggio class in high school.

 

[invisibleman]

I compose. It's no secret. And when I'm dead...
you'll still be composing and making $$$ off yo' shit. Selling them as vault tunes, and having HickBoy commemorative 6CD sets. Getting French Riviera pussy and getting your forehead caved in with those beyotches sucking your doodle.

If you read my blogs, you will see. I also am working on a piece for my friends right now, and nobody gets to hear it but them. So there.

Selfish beyotch. Keep working on your piece :usa: with your friends.

 

[Pitbull]

One poet who was a surprisingly talented musician was Allen Ginsberg. Check out some of his songs if you have a chance...

There have been quite a few.
The culture was different in Ginsberg's time
Beat Poets of the 50's in coffee houses accompanied by jazz musicians
followed by the folk music in the 60's.
Some rap is reminiscent of the beat generation but just like there were a lot of crap beat poets there are a lot of crap rappers.

Names of talented songwriting poets that spring to mind
Bob Dylan
Leonard Cohen
Phil Ochs
Gordon Lightfoot
Gil Scott Heron

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

I've recently started to give songwriting a serious go. Lyrics are essentially where I fall down, I can sit with my guitar and come up with tunes very easily, but I suppose that's not hard. What is difficult is actually conveying the message without lame clichés or sounding like you're trying too hard to not write clichés. Over the last month I've just written everything down and seen what comes out, and also began to listen a lot more to lyrically driven songs. In the summer I'll try and come up with a few decent ones of my own.

Recently saw this guy live and was inspired a bit too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVuur7aTX8w

 

[Pitbull]

I guess there are a lot

Laura Nyro

Jacques Brel

YouTube - Jacques Brel - Ne Me Quitte Pas

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I don't know abot you folks but my mind is racing tnite. I have yet another 100 pieces of paper w/notes, lines, and choruses that don't match up and will hopefully find themselves in their proper place in a poem or a song or something one day.
DAMN! I hate it when I think of a good line..it's just one and it has nowhere to go.
Color me mr. box of bits o' paper! :biggrin1:

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I've recently started to give songwriting a serious go. Lyrics are essentially where I fall down, I can sit with my guitar and come up with tunes very easily, but I suppose that's not hard. What is difficult is actually conveying the message without lame clichés or sounding like you're trying too hard to not write clichés. Over the last month I've just written everything down and seen what comes out, and also began to listen a lot more to lyrically driven songs. In the summer I'll try and come up with a few decent ones of my own.

Recently saw this guy live and was inspired a bit too:
YouTube - Frightened Rabbit - Poke

That was a great post. I'm flailing about in the world trying to write this crap. trust me I din't pick this idea t do this it kinda picked me. I think sometimes it would help to have the music first and have some sort of framework to work in instead of the mind just wandering and writing what you 'think' are lyrics.

 

[Wish-4-8]

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’m hungry
And I’m thirsty
And I’m tired
And I’m bored

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

And I’m lost
And I’m done
And I’m dust
And I’m fucked

Something nonsensical I wrote in 10 minutes

I picked up my guitar and started noodling with this.
Starts in Am and alternates with G.
The middle sections:
Am
"And I’m lost
G
And I’m done
F
And I’m dust And I’m
E
Fucked"
(quote feature is not working right for this)
The only problem is that it wants to repeat at this point. I dont know if playing twice is OK. It is more difficult to sync up the same rhythm with following lyrics.

It ends up sounding like a song from Nickleback, or at least in that style. Which is funny, being that you are Canadian.

I guess that is something non sensical that I did in 10 minutes too.

 

[Zeuhl34]

I write music on a program called Guitar Pro that lets me write for up to 15 instruments + drums. I play keyboards (though admittedly, not too well), and I consider myself a better composer than musician. Also, I've written a fair amount of lyrics, but I don't consider many (if any at all) to be all that good, as my lyric-writing style is generally too straightforward for my own tastes.

I don't like to comment on the quality of my music and let others decide for themselves (though I do write what I think sounds good), but if nothing else I am prolific. Thanks entirely to that program, I've written 8 concept albums (2 instrumental) with varying degrees of success in addition to a good amount of other unorganized stuff.

 

[morsecode]

I picked up my guitar and started noodling with this.
Starts in Am and alternates with G.
The middle sections:
Am
"And I’m lost
G
And I’m done
F
And I’m dust And I’m
E
Fucked"
(quote feature is not working right for this)
The only problem is that it wants to repeat at this point. I dont know if playing twice is OK. It is more difficult to sync up the same rhythm with following lyrics.

It ends up sounding like a song from Nickleback, or at least in that style. Which is funny, being that you are Canadian.

I guess that is something non sensical that I did in 10 minutes too.

lol, that's awesome, Nickelback was the last thing on my mind (as I like it to be ), when writing it, it would be interesting to listen to your interpretation of it and see how it differs from mine. (Mine was a more hardcore/metal thing)

 

[morsecode]

I write music on a program called Guitar Pro that lets me write for up to 15 instruments + drums. I play keyboards (though admittedly, not too well), and I consider myself a better composer than musician. Also, I've written a fair amount of lyrics, but I don't consider many (if any at all) to be all that good, as my lyric-writing style is generally too straightforward for my own tastes.

I don't like to comment on the quality of my music and let others decide for themselves (though I do write what I think sounds good), but if nothing else I am prolific. Thanks entirely to that program, I've written 8 concept albums (2 instrumental) with varying degrees of success in addition to a good amount of other unorganized stuff.

Guitar pro, rules. I used to write a lot on it, but I lost those files and consequently lost my riffs.

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

That was a great post. I'm flailing about in the world trying to write this crap. trust me I din't pick this idea t do this it kinda picked me. I think sometimes it would help to have the music first and have some sort of framework to work in instead of the mind just wandering and writing what you 'think' are lyrics.

Yeah, I think it is probably easier with some music. Although the other day when I was just writing a completely new song popped into my head as I wrote, which has never happened before. Like I could hear a demo or something :boggled:

Dailymotion - Death Cab For Cutie I Will Follow You Into The Dark - a Musique video

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

After being driven crazy this last week by words, choruses, paragraphs that I have HAD to write down, all unconnected and not associated w/the next I've decided there is NO SUCH THING as a poem or song that's unfinished. Somehow all those notes and 15 thousand pieces of paper that line your pockets and notebooks and gum wrappers will eventually find their way to a full sheet of paper.
As I bang my head on the table, I just have to string some thots together and hope piece of paper A meets piece of paper B or they might inspire poem C.
I'm such a nut that I was writing something tnite and had to go to the store. I was writing on tis piece of paper on the elevator wall,,,,stopped on the street phone booth to add a line, went to Rite Aid and on liine was writing on a what was then must have looked like the insides of Jeffrey Dahmers mind....pieces of thots...sentences and some paragraphs. This doesn't happen all the time but when it HITS you you HAVE to have apen and paper. If not you go home and SLAP yourself because you lost your 'brilliant' idea. These thots can really kill you as much as they elate you!

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

Been putting my lunchbreak in my new job to good use but it's slow progress. Sounds like you produce a much greater volume of material.

 

[Captain Elephant]

I've been a professional musician for over 20 years now. However, I'm not much of a songwriter. Yeah, we all have songs we've done. Various bands over the years have done a few of my works, but there's no Grammy material among them.

Lately I've been putting music to others' words. It's easier and the words almost dictate the melody. Sometimes the lyricist is surprised at what I come up with. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not.

Up until three months ago I was primarily a studio musician. The studio's fallen on hard times so I've dusted off my road kit and got back on the bus. It's tough going back on the road at my age (40s) but I'm adaptable and it pays the bills.

There might be a song in there somewhere.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I've been a professional musician for over 20 years now. However, I'm not much of a songwriter. Yeah, we all have songs we've done. Various bands over the years have done a few of my works, but there's no Grammy material among them.

Lately I've been putting music to others' words. It's easier and the words almost dictate the melody. Sometimes the lyricist is surprised at what I come up with. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not.

Up until three months ago I was primarily a studio musician. The studio's fallen on hard times so I've dusted off my road kit and got back on the bus. It's tough going back on the road at my age (40s) but I'm adaptable and it pays the bills.

There might be a song in there somewhere.

Your life sounds like good material for lyrics! Use it baby. It all ends up on a page somewhere. you're lucky you're a musician. I used to be eons ago.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I don't know why this all came upon me in the last year or so. I used to like to write and I did write a screenplay that was almost sold to a British film company (long story) but the last 9-10 months I've had to start carrying a pad around w/me because these phrases, choruses, paragraphs, ideas and the lot come into my head when I least suspect it and if I don't have pen and paper they're long gone. The backsides of my job timesheets are jammed w/stuff that if taken out of context would probably have me commited.
I have a GIANT stack of paper nat notes that this weekend I'm going to try to put on my computer and look at in print instead of my physician's writing and try to make sense of it all and piece it together. At the risk of sounding Burroughs and doing a cut and paste I will attempt it.
I'm thinking economy of words too. very important I think. Saying what you really mean w/o belaboring it.
I was thinking of Cole Porter and yes this video in particular: YouTube - Down In The Depths - Lisa Stansfield
even tho it's done by a contemporary artist it's very hearfelt. And the lyrics are tite, controlled and tell a good story. Damn when was the last time you saw the phrase 'pet-pelliated gown'?! Brilliant song about a woman whose rich and her love life sucks and money doesn't buy happiness.


With a million neon rainbows burning below me,
And a million blazing taxis raising a roar,
Here i sit, above the town,
In my pet-palliated gown,
Down in the depths
On the ninetieth floor

While the crowds in all the nightclubs punish the parquet,
And the bars are packed with couples calling for more,
I'm deserted and depressed
In my regal-eagle mess,
Down in the depths
On the ninetieth floor

When the only one you wanted wants another,
What's the use of swank and cash in a bank galore?
Why, even the janitor's wife
Has a perfectly good love life,
And here am i, facing tomorrow,
Alone in my sorrow,
Down in the depths
On the ninetieth floor

(repeat)

Down in the depth
On the ninetieth floor
With a million neon rainbows burning below me



Also it's irritating that a situation arises like tonite....I'm cleaning the tub, my hands are pasted w/Clorox paste and I can't get a chorus of words out of my head but I KNOW if I don't run for paper and pen it will be gone. This always happens.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Sometimes like tonite, you try to write. Some of it all falls into play and the story you're trying to tell works, It all rhymes (or kinda) and the story's progressing and you dare to take it up a notch and then the characters freeze in yr mind and you then run in circles in your apartment talking into the air. What did I mean? What did I want to say? Again you ask who are these people, what do they want from eaxh other...how do I get them there..and what words will take them there even if it sucks...you can always rewrite, It's the getting it down from yr head to papaer so you don't lose the inspiration that matters.
A back alley
a gas station
a playground
a mall
People can meet people there and even if you never wrote anything you can imagine what happens on Fisherman's Wharf when she got there despite the fact that she would never, ever be found there. She was crying, mascara running, her skirt torn from the atack and running the five blocks from those 2 guys. Her hands so trembling as she tried to light her cigarette it took her 5 tries. She took a final eye search around and when she finally found she was alone only then,,,she took a deep, long drag on the cigarette. She exhaled, wiped the tears then fell into a puddle of tears, bending over, her head in her knees. Somehow she never ever dropped the cigarette during the long, heaving sighs.
After some time she coughed. Coughed and then took a long drag from the cigarette. As she straightened up, slapped somed some ashes off her skirt and finally stood erect, sniffed everything in, looked into the air, oout at the wharf and decided ENOUGH.