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Pardon the ramble...not a great answer to your question...
Cheers
Bud
Not at all! That was a very enlightening answer, I think! I totally get what Janice is talking about now. Also I feel like "vocal dancing" sounds beautiful, even if it was meant as a critique. Keep up the great work with all your guys' song writing. 
Cheers,
Ember
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For songs that have lyrics, lyrics are first almost always. For instrumentals, I have less structure.
The only songwriting training I have ever had was Pat Pattison’s class from Berklee. That class is 90% about writing lyrics and song form. Maybe even more than that. I credit Noel96 from here for turning me on to that class. The other resource that I continually mine which is more song form and chord/melody structure is Matt Blick’s Tickets To Write website which catalogs all of the tricks and tactics the Beatles used in very digestible ways. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have gone to that well many times for inspiration. Those both sound like useful tools to help with songwriting.  That website sounds really fascinating and like its a gem for people learning to write songs or hone their skills, newbies and experienced songwriters alike.
Cheers,
Ember
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I was just listening to a great podcast interview with Todd Purdum on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program about his new book on Rodgers and Hammerstein and the influence of the musical Oklahoma on Broadway. When Richard Rodgers wrote with Lorenz Hart, Rodgers would write the music first and Hart would then supply the lyrics. When that relationship ended (both because of Hart's alcoholism and ultimate death) and Rodgers began collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein, and they switched. Hammerstein would write the lyrics and then send them to Rodgers to write the music. Now, of course, Rodgers had been studying the play and had ideas already in his head before he got the lyrics, but he made the comment that he went deeper into the music by having the lyrics to guide him. Given that Rodgers and Hart's collaboration was very successful, as was Rodgers and Hammerstein, it's clear that it can work both ways.
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Now I am curious what everyone else's methods are. Do you use sheet music and write out what you want to do first? Do you jam by yourself or with others and write down chords as you play them, then apply lyrics (if at all) to them later? Or do you start with lyrics first and work on the sound to match later? Or perhaps something else? I'd love to know! Personally.... I've written songs with all approaches mentioned here and by subsequent posters. The most important aspect of putting a song together is the subject matter/story line.Once I've nailed that down anything can drive me to continue to a finished product. Could be a chord progression I've been putzing with, hook line lyric. Sometimes I finish lyrics first, sometimes chord progression or arrangement is completed first and I'll structure further lyrics to that. I'm not a love song/crooner/ballad kind of writer. But, in a recent one (last year) the line She Sizzles came to my pea brain. It stuck with me and after a few weeks I finished up the lyrics for it and the music was structured around the lyrical arrangement. So....I really have no propensity toward either of the various song writing approaches. It's interesting to hear how everyone finishes up their song writing efforts. Back to topic.....
Last edited by chulaivet1966; 04/10/18 07:41 AM.
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Hi Ember,
I cant really do lyrics first so it has to be the music.I could write lyrics first but id have to make them fit the music not the music fit the lyrics.However usually I make the music,then listen to it about a zillion times (lol) and the lyrics come while im listening.Put it this way if I wrote the lyrics first and then made the music it could turn out like a pro jockey riding a donkey rather than a pro jockey riding a stallion ,once I think I have a stallion to work with I go look for the jockey to ride it ,urs Hugh
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Write how ever you feel like writing and change things up. There's more than one way to rock
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My songwriting process involves reverse engineering. First i write my acceptance speech for my Academy Award for best original song. Next i read reviews of the song in Rolling Stone and other important music media. Then i check how well my song has done on the Billboard charts and check my royalty statements from my publisher and BMI. Next i reread the listing in Taxi or MusicXray that led to my song being placed in that film. Next i use Reaper and Adobe Audition to do the mastering. Next i use BIAB to do the musical arrangement. And then, finally, i write the song.
Last edited by ManInTwoSocks; 04/10/18 03:28 PM.
Matador is beautiful,a symphony of style
Excitement is ecstatic, passion places bets
Gracefully he bows to ovations that he gets
But the hands that are applauding are slippery with sweat
And saliva is falling from their smiles
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I was just listening to a great podcast interview with Todd Purdum on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program about his new book on Rodgers and Hammerstein and the influence of the musical Oklahoma on Broadway. When Richard Rodgers wrote with Lorenz Hart, Rodgers would write the music first and Hart would then supply the lyrics. When that relationship ended (both because of Hart's alcoholism and ultimate death) and Rodgers began collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein, and they switched. Hammerstein would write the lyrics and then send them to Rodgers to write the music. Now, of course, Rodgers had been studying the play and had ideas already in his head before he got the lyrics, but he made the comment that he went deeper into the music by having the lyrics to guide him. Given that Rodgers and Hart's collaboration was very successful, as was Rodgers and Hammerstein, it's clear that it can work both ways. Thanks for sharing that link! I am definitely going to have to remember that and give it a listen later at home. It sounds really fascinating and perfect for the topic!
Last edited by Ember - PG Music; 04/11/18 05:52 AM.
Cheers,
Ember
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Personally....
I've written songs with all approaches mentioned here and by subsequent posters.
The most important aspect of putting a song together is the subject matter/story line.
Subject or story is a big thing for me with music. I am curious to hear how artists like the Decemberists write their songs and what their methods are, as they can really weave a good story! And they rarely sound the same. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic!
Cheers,
Ember
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Songwriting
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Hi Ember,
I cant really do lyrics first so it has to be the music.I could write lyrics first but id have to make them fit the music not the music fit the lyrics.However usually I make the music,then listen to it about a zillion times (lol) and the lyrics come while im listening.
That's definitely a fair and good method to use. Whatever you process is, if it works for you, then it's valid. Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Ember
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Songwriting
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Write how ever you feel like writing and change things up. There's more than one way to rock
I whole heartedly agree with this! That was a big reason why I started this topic and posed the question. I wanted to see what everyone's person process was. It seems that songwriting is just as personal as the music itself. This has been a very eye opening thread for me!
Cheers,
Ember
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Songwriting
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My songwriting process involves reverse engineering. First i write my acceptance speech for my Academy Award for best original song. Next i read reviews of the song in Rolling Stone and other important music media. Then i check how well my song has done on the Billboard charts and check my royalty statements from my publisher and BMI. Next i reread the listing in Taxi or MusicXray that led to my song being placed in that film. Next i use Reaper and Adobe Audition to do the mastering. Next i use BIAB to do the musical arrangement. And then, finally, i write the song. I had a good laugh with this one! I actually laughed out loud. Thanks for sharing this strategy with us! 
Cheers,
Ember
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I have written a few dozen songs, most of which were part of a rock opera. So I started with some basic themes and some ideas about an overall story. But when it came to writing songs, it often began with an electric bass line. Then I'd figure out what chords on guitar could work with that bass line (mostly trial and error assuming the bass was playing a root note and testing Major and Minor chords). Then I would try to figure out what part of the story I could tell that fit with the song and then I'd go write lyrics. I have a lot of trouble figuring out the vocal melody and I still don't have any clear idea of how that gets done. In some cases, the singers greatly improved on my scratch vocals. Once in a while I would start with guitar chords and sometimes the whole thing would come chords, melody and lyrics all in 15 minutes. But that's pretty rare. Here's a song that started with a bass line which sounded creepy and that became the inspiration for the song "The Creeper" which starts the whole story... https://soundcloud.com/zurlocker/the-creeper
Last edited by ZUrlocker; 04/12/18 10:22 AM.
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eddie1261
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eddie1261
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I would say it's 90/10 that I write lyrics first. One recent exception was "Titles" where I wanted to do that industrial/trance tune and given the nature of the music bed for the song, the music had to be first. Usually though the lyrics come first.
I get asked from time to time "Where do your song ideas come from?" My answer has been the same for a long time. Songs are stories set to music. Stories can either be fact or fiction. I don't do fiction well. Most of my songs are "relationship" songs, and I am notoriously BAD with relationships so many of my songs are "We tried. We failed. Buh-bye." songs. The big band thing I did was about the last girlfriend I had (and she will be the last!) where I actually said the words that were the hook to her. "I don't care where you go, as long as you're gone". One from my CD was called "When The New Wears Off." I was out for the evening with a woman in 2009 and she spent the whole evening going on and on about moving away to be with the latest Mr Wonderful who was going to make her a star. Meanwhile, she can't write, she can't play and she can't sing. And after we parted ways for the evening I said out loud to myself while driving home "Man, she will be back in a couple of years when the new wears off." When I got home I went upstairs and that song was written in about 20 minutes.
The last one, Livin' On Wheels, I explained in a thread that I was laying in bed one morning after the dog had awakened me to go outside (at 6AM!!!) and I thought "Man, I have so many things to get done before I'll be living on wheels." Another quick write.
Sometimes I struggle with the lyrics being cohesive and still maintain the proper sense of prosody. The cadence of the lyrics has to fit the cadence of the music, and that can call for a lot of tweaking, like "How else can I say this to make it fit?"
And that's usually how it goes for me. Lyrics tend to determine genre, and the cadence of the lyrics dictate how long the phrases will be, thus the Real Band style I look for.
Last edited by eddie1261; 04/12/18 03:36 PM.
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One thing worth mentioning is that songwriting takes practice as much as any other endeavor for which one is interested. With practice it becomes more natural. With practice fear of embarrassment fades. With practice it becomes something you can teach and should try to do so.
I cannot recommend enough the free songwriting course from Berklee college of music which focuses on lyrics and song form. Again, many thanks to Noel96 for turning me on to this class. I’ve had several years of enjoyment now using the concepts from that class; getting to a point where if any idea hits me as one I want to dwell on for a bit, I have confidence I can turn that idea into a set of lyrics for a song without much trouble. Through practice.
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I cannot recommend enough the free songwriting course from Berklee college of music which focuses on lyrics and song form. Again, many thanks to Noel96 for turning me on to this class. I’ve had several years of enjoyment now using the concepts from that class; getting to a point where if any idea hits me as one I want to dwell on for a bit, I have confidence I can turn that idea into a set of lyrics for a song without much trouble. Through practice. Scott, Like you, I still find Pat Pattison's approach brilliant. No-one else teaches lyric writing insight and strategies like he does. I've been to many of his seminars now and every time I go, I always pick up something that I didn't know before. The tools that Pat has given me have proven extremely useful over the years. I'm the same as you in that I've also discovered that if something catches my attention, it's not that hard to turn it into a set of workable lyrics. All it boils down to is knowing what to do and having an approach in mind. And this is where Pat's strategies really shine. I'm also a huge fan of Andrea Stolpe's book. Andrea is a student of Pat's who has taken his idea of object writing and has developed it into a songwriting strategy called "Destination Writing". I've found Andrea's approach incredibly productive. Pat's books and Andrea's book are the ones I keep on returning to time and time again. I just keep on reading and re-reading them. If anyone is interested in these books, they are... 1. Writing Better Lyrics (2nd Ed., Pattison) 2. Essential Guide to Rhyming (2nd Ed., Pattison) 3. Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure (Pattison) 4. Writing Better Lyrics & Songwriting Without Boundaries (Pattison) 5. Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Story Telling (Stolpe) The Book Depository has them at pretty good prices at the moment. All the best, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2024
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I have been, perhaps that's the problem.:-)
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I also found Pat Pattison's Berkeley course on Coursera to be very helpful in developing lyrical structure.
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Interesting thread. I tend to differentiate between songs and compositions--because they require two completely different processes for me in terms of music and lyrics. A song, to me, is something you can do on a piano or acoustic guitar with nothing but a vocal and it will sound great unplugged. For those works, I have found that you can't *try* to write a song. It either lights upon your head like the proverbial butterfly or it does not. The harder you chase it the more it flies away. But if you sit still...as they say. For SONGS, the words and music come to me at the same time almost all of the time and the ones I like usually take 15 minutes. Then there are artists who do COMPOSITIONS. I would put Yes and Rush into this category. They spent months figuring out each part. When I take a whack at a composition it also takes a while to put everything together. I love compositions and I really enjoying listening to Close to the Edge by Yes all the way through in one sitting, but I can't say as I have ever walked around humming anything from it. I find myself walking around humming songs all day though. When I "interpreted" Clifton's Vietnam song (which became 1969) a few nights ago I didn't write anything down at all, or even rehearse, because I didn't feel like it. I simply propped a tablet on the music stand under the mic with the words from the forum original in front of me, plugged in, hit record, started strumming and sang what came to mind. What happened in between record and stop was what I printed. Sometimes I think it is best to just go ahead and do it--tap into that Divine Muse--and just go for it. It is really easy to overthink a song. To me a song is like love--just let it happen or you will spoil the mood.
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Hi David, Very insightful look into your approach to your music. Thanks for posting this. Best, The Buford
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