PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting The Nuts and Bolts of It All: How do I....?

A METHOD OF BUILDING A SONG. PART 2

1. how not to get lost in the stylepicker !
so ive saved lets say 30 styles with different names with my chords in that NROK folder. maybe time for a tea break lol or its bed time. now what ?
well what i do is not only save the latest style but also additionally save the latest as LATESTNROK.
i do this so that after my break i boot up LATESTNROK.
and lo and behold the style is hilited in the stylepicker so i know the point ive reached.
(easy peasy if one sticks to alpha order for the styles. by clicking on the style name heading. you can have other orders also eg tempo ascending or descending etc etc.)
2. now some people might decide to use searches in stylepicker eg even 8 , or rock or shuffle or whatever. just be aware you might miss a "nugget of gold". for example in a recent song i did i finessed a lead guitar break from a worship style into a nearly manic rok lead
break.
if i hadnt been going through all the styles in detail i might have missed it ! SO NUGGET LOST !
(as a comical aside my wife tells her girlfriends "sometimes you gotta date a lot of frogs to meet the right man" . lol. why the heck she picked this frog with my music madness beats me.)
given the foregoing its the SAME with songs.
GOTTA FIND THE NUGGETS. now frankly i'm not saying i'm any good, let me be clear ; but i try very very hard to do the best i can and its fun doing so.
so my advise is FIND THOSE NUGGETS.
FIND THOSE HOOKS !
3. ok so whats next ? youve been through all the styles.
jotted down in your notebook instruments you like/nuggets youve found etc etc. and youve built up 80 different files maybe in that NROK folder. (remember do back ups !)
whats next ?
4. TEST SINGING//TEST LYRICS.
what i find going through all the styles is that i get more lyric ideas also. so i write those down.
at this point i try to finalise the lyrics on paper.
next i take one of "NROK like" styles in the nuttyrok folder and export to stereo wav. which i would call eg nrokguidebeds. its just a guide stereo bb trak exported from bb.
(at this point let me say some people have a different method of doing things. eg all audio also in bb and i DONT wish to debate this ! and i do recognise the NEW utility traks feature.)
i'm just trying to keep it easy for new users to grasp.
(without getting into the bb plug in. and other complexities.)
then i import into my daw of choice (other people use all sorts of different daws) reaper or rb in my case.
i import into a trak labelled. BED GUIDE TRAK.
i make sure my daw is set up to save everything into the original nuttyrok folder i created in phase 1 at song beginning.
ENSURING THE DAW IS SET TO THE SAME BPM AS MY BB SONG.
in this case NROK. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT !
now i start testing out my lead and back up vocals on several different traks. playing back with bed guide nrokguidebeds etc.
and thus finessing the lyrics/makeing adjustments etc.
so i end up with both a stereo guide bed trak and guide mono vocal different test traks.
plus at this point for laughs i might futz around noodling on my instrument (in my case geetar) and haveing relaxed fun. or use my midi keyboard hooked to usb noodling along useing a vsti instrument plug in. trying to find nuggets of sound from the depths lol.
writing more ideas down in my notebook for the NROK song.

at this point i usually try and step back from the song and assess for the Nth time. is this song worthy ? where are the song hooks ? does it rock ? etc etc. or is it junk ? lol. does it crank me up ?
at this point i try also to assess the "style" of vocals for the song.
ie should they be like "all macho" lol or "sweet"
or "down n dirty" or "cute" or or or or etc etc.
i like experimenting also with different styles of back up vocs. what does the song need ?? is there any talking in the song ? by way of an intro or any "shouts" or other vocal nuances ? screams perhaps ? etc etc etc

more next time.

best
time for a cup of tea.
oldmuso