I have written a lot of songs before. But what I did with them is play some chords on guitar, and sang over them. I want to try to get some new types of songs with riffs. And maybe different writing methods.

I play guitar and sing in my band. So how do you guys go about writing melodies over riffs? Music, then lyrics, then vocals. Vocals then music then lyrics.....etc....

thanks.

Pick out key notes in the riff for vocal melodies, and then use variations of those.

I was the main lyricist in the band that I was in, and what we did was worked out a phonetic meter that we wanted to use for the pace of the lyrics.

I'm sure everyone has their own method. But since we played "Goblet Metal" (to steal Robert Lunte's term) it worked well for us. (My younger brother called us "Hobbit Metal" like 20 years ago. LOL)


Tim

The writing process is always different for me. But I'll usually always start with the music, and then write the lyrics afterwards. In my opinion, it's of higher artistic value (and more challenging) if you write the vocal melody first and then write fitting lyrics on top of that, than if you wrote the lyrics first and just used some melody to accomodate the rhythm of the text. But to each his own!

Pretty much the only rule I use when writing music is: "if it sounds conventional, discard it." The only way you'll set yourself apart from the other composers is if you develop your own sound and explore new musical areas. I find this "exploring" one of the most rewarding experiences one can have as a musician. I strive to hear NEW sounds, rather than old ones. Isn't that what life is all about, anyway? Variety of experience.

Hi Andrew,

Good topic. In fact I've often meant to start a topic on just lyric writing. Yeah, it's a little off topic as far as vocalizing, but I'm sure there are lots of people here who would find it both interesting and furthermore, HELPFUL. (because I'm sure there are a lot of great artists here who would have good input...or now that it's started, I guess I should say, "...who WILL have great input)

I have 2 completely different situations. Composing on my own, and writing melodies and lyrics for Sun Caged.

On my own I usually operate thusly: noodling on piano or guitar until I stumble on something I like, then developing from there. Also, let me make this more clear...if I sit down with the intent of writing, I almost NEVER come up with something I end up keeping. When I just have a few moments to play and enjoy that for it's own sake, I usually end up creating something I really like and want to work on later when I have more time. That fact annoys the heck out of me, but ah well, such is the life of a non-genius artist. lol

On the other hand, in my band situation, the guys compose most of the music (though I put in my own input with arrangement ideas and sometimes melody ideas that come right away in the first stages of writing that then give the other guys more ideas about where else to go.) This is a rewarding, but very challenging situation. The music is often times extremely difficult to write for because it will sound straight forward enough, but as I get into vocalizing over it I'll find little things in my original inclinations that just don't work for very subtle reasons.

As for which comes first, that can vary, but what I usually do (and it sounds kind of corny, I know) but with the rehearsal or demo recordings playing, I just kind of meditate for a while and see what ideas come to me. These are usually just vague concepts, not fully formed lyrics. That way, the subject ends up being something that is integrally tied to the FEEL of the music. That is vitally important to me. For example, I just can't sing about my joy as a new first time parent over passages in F# minor, and C# Locrian mode, hahahaha!

Obviously the reason I was also thinking to start a topic on this is because lyric writing is NOT my strongest suit, And I'd love to hear other's thoughts on this too. I'm usually proud of, or at least happy with what I've written, but the process is really laborious for me, and consequentially ends up slowing the band down so I'd like to get better.

But the one thing I can say in the way of suggestions: Always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS! Have a notebook with you. I can't take credit for this idea, I read in somewhere, but it has really been a help. There are 2 main reasons. The first is obvious: you never know when good ideas will strike you, as you're drifting off to sleep, (jot it down! you won't remember that great idea you had the next day) right when you wake up, your brain is still half-in never-never land (you won't remember after the morning coffee clears the haze), while you're driving (this always happens to me commuting to and from work, so I've become pretty good at writing on a small note pad with out really looking at it...gotta keep the eyes on the road you know!)

The second reason this is helpful is because when you're trying to write and you don't know WHAT to write about or what feeling or line of thoughts will suit a song, then I like to page through my notebooks while listening to the music I'm working on and see what strikes...sometimes amazing coincidences happen, then you know you're onto something.

Hope to hear from some more people on this!

-Paul

I usually just start singing when I get a tune in my head to establish the actual melody, then figure out words for that melody when I want to really make it into something.

This is where I differ from the singer in the band RA that Jaime has songwriting tips from in raise your voice. I'm very complex with my lyrics, because I don't want them to be stupid. You only get out of em what you put into em. The people that listen to my songs tend to need a pretty good vocabulary, because I do, and I like to use it in my songs. If it only takes me an hour to write a song, I usually spend the next few days looking back over it to make sure it isn't too simple. Any mistakes I find, I get rid of or fix.

No disrespect to RA's singer. He's got a great voice, and his melodies are catchy, and as long as he gets his point across in his songs, thats what matters. I just don't particularly care for his lyric writing method. Theres too much simplicity in music these days for me, the mark of a great lyricist in my eyes is someone who makes you think. Just take this line from "take hold of the flame" by queensryche

"Throw down the chains of oppression that bind you,
With the air of freedom the flame grows bright.
We are the strong, the youth united
We are one, we are children of the (can never tell if he's saying light or night)"

Does anyone you know talk like that? I bet not. Is it good? You bet your $#@ it is.

Wow, great answers everyone :)
Thanks!

And yeah, I tend to strive for more complex lyrics too Jay Sin, although when I write lyrics that are more complex they never end up in a song because of my old writing method of playing the chords and thinking of vocal riffs then writing lyrics to that. But we got a new guitarist, were getting a new logo, and with getting a new guitarist I wanted to start making some more technical guitar riffs and start using my new found vocal skills ;)

And both of those combined makes it much harder to write, especially because i'm playing and singing at the same time. Ugh, sometimes I wish I had a seperate band for each haha.


Paul:
But so it sounds like I should start recording our practices for the songs we're working on and write the melodies while listening/think of melodies with the pre-written lyrics I have.


Thanks everyone ;)

Andrew,

recording rehearsals is IMHO essential for many reasons! by all means I recommend you do that.

I was formerly in a band where we recorded pretty much everything through a mixing board. It was a lot of hassle at times, but still useful. However, currently we just use a mini-disc recorder with a stereo condenser mic and it's super-duper simple, sounds almost as good, and is just as useful. So, it doesn't have to be a complicated set up.

The benefits are many. First off what you already said. It's great for the singer/lyricist to be able to mull things over later on his own. But second, it's great for the band too because so many times in the rehearsal room you either can't hear everything well enough to hear what everyone else is doing...or you're just to involved with your own parts and fail to pay attention to what everyone else it doing...

and thirdly, I'm sure this goes for most bands...a lot of absurd, stupid and comic events happen during rehearsal, it's always nice to have those things for posterity, ;)

-Paul

Great topic Andrew!

Mostly, my writing method is as follows: I sit and noodle around on my guitar and if I hear something I like, I play it a few times and record myself playing it repeatedly on a small digital recorder. Then I replay that and try to sing a melody over it. The recording is done because sometimes you come up with lines that aren't always easy to sing while playing an instrument and you might not stumble across those melodies if you're trying to sing and play simultaenously. Also, the riff is recorded many times continuously so that I don't lose the flow, repeatedly having to replay the riff on the recorder while trying to sing a melody.

Once this is done and if I like it thus far, I listen to it a few times and try to identify what emotion/mood it evokes. I can never progress with the idea until I decide what the theme is going to be.

After this, I sometimes go on to the theoretical side of things - identifying what the chords (or implied chords) I'm constructing in sum with the riff + vocal melody are and I then go about trying different progressions, vocal harmonies etc. If I have a strong mental hold on the theme, it's usually good enough to ensure I don't get stuck majorly in trying to build the song further.

I usually jot down little lyrical scribbles for each section of the song as I go along and I also generally do a lot of research on the topic, online and otherwise. At this point, I'm just writing facts/thoughts/feelings down without worrying too much about metre or rhyme. Eventually, I cull lyrics from the free-form writings. I write in free-form all the time about anything that strikes my fancy, inspired by the books I read, movies I watch or anything from everyday life.

It's very important to me to make sure that there are many periods of non-musical activity during all this so that I can listen to the ideas later and see if I still like them.

Would love to read more posts on this thread.

More on lyrics: IMHO, it's good to consider using a Thesaurus and a Rhyming dictionary. I used to be ashamed of this practice until I read Jimmy Webb's 'Inside The Art Of Songwriting' :)

Thanks!

At first I thought the whole rhyming.com thing, or w/e the site was, was cheating.
Its not though xP. Anything is fair game as long as you don't screw up the meaning or flow of the song for rhyming.

Welcome to the forum ;) I saw your thread on being new haha.

--
Andrew

www.rhymezone.com - yes, i've used it