I cant put songs together... How is it done?

[emperor_black]

The Light That Blinds by shadows fall - totally awesome first 1:45 or so but then pretty standard for the rest of the tune.

+1
when I popped in the cd, I thought it was an awesome intro and then it started sounding the same hardcore sh*t like 1000's of other bands. I felt like throwing the cd out of my car. My only concern was that I might get ticketed for littering.

yeah, I am stuck at writing a song. i have a nice lead down in A harmonic minor. But I have no idea what else to get together to form a song. some suggested to start with a nice chord. take the notes of the chord and work your way around it. Is that possible/feasible?

[GodOfRhythm]

The chord thing helps a lot, I find. I just start experimenting with it in octaves or get a progression and then try to base a melody off of the notes of the chords in the progression.

If all else fails: 12 minute guitar / keyboard trade-off soloing!

[mjl927]

One way to break out of a rut is to build off of a song from a band you like. Listen to their song and write down the song structure.....intro, verse, chorus, etc. Then, see if you can write your own parts for that structure. If you have a bank of riff ideas, try to match them up. If they don't fit right away, change the key signature of your riffs to make them fit.

Of course, take their structure and mix it up with your own ideas to come up with something new.

When I'm bored at work, sometimes I'll just write down song structures. I'll try to come up with maybe three different ones. Then, later on when I have some riff ideas flowing, I'll try to apply them to the structures. Usually the combination will inspire bridge parts or intro's, etc.

Still, the very best way is working with other people. A good team will trump an individual nearly every single time.....in pretty much every aspect of life! Songwriting is no exception. Find someone (or a couple of someones) who shares similar interests and see what you can come up with.

[AdRock]

I spit riffs and lyrics out like a Tommy-Gun, but I'm not too hot at making them fit, so I do much better with a partner , usually with the singer at coming up with the melody lines and how it all fits.

I'm kind of the same way, but opposite. Coming up with the initial riff is kind of hard for me. However, putting all the ideas together and arranging them is something that comes easily to me.

[atomic charvel guy]

i can write ten songs a night lyrically, musically maybe 3-5, but that's all they are 10 lyrical pages, and a few structured tunes. fitting the melody line , and one that just doesn't follow the note line, something different is where i need a partner. We always sat down and tried to let everyone contribute to the tunes but the riffs were and are up to the guitarist 98% of the time. It would be interesting to sit down with you if I still played AdRock.
We had enough tunes for three or four albums done , we just had to pick out the ten or eleven that we thought would be the best for the first album if we had gotten a chance to make one way back when. Now you can make an album at home , I think that's cool as hell with all the stuff out. i want to play but I have hardly the time as it is, I get pulled and tugged at all day and night it seems. I miss playing, but at least the songs , or at least some of them are on tape from '87-'88 recorded on a tape recorderin the middle of the rehearsal room. Somehow it came out discernable. Our singer blew, but everyone seemed to like the rest.

[atomic charvel guy]

It's not as hard as learning theory was for me, why I don't know, and I don't know much theory at all. my ear was a the gift given to me.

[SpudBoy]

I found that all I need is a good bridge...

hardest part of all

[toejam]

I found http://www.easy-song-writing.com/ and read some articles. I got ALOT of good tips for lyric writing and song arrangment.

Ive got this one song imperticular... its perfect.

Can't be perfect since there's no such word as imperticular. You must mean "in particular". :ROTF: Where's Ron?

[nsubulysses]

Maybe this will help, maybe it won't, but I usually never write songs on guitar anymore. I always have the song ideas and how I want stuff to sound figured out in my head, then when it's all planned out I figure out how to play the envisioned guitar parts.

I have only been able to do this for the last 2 or 3 years, though. I guess after a long time of playing guitar you can write music without it, because you know how to make the guitar sound the way you want it to anyway. Playing it is the easy part.

[OzoMan]

I usually just grab my guitar and start jamming. If I come up with something that forces me to nod my head like crazy, I repeat it and improve it until it sounds right. After that the riffs just keep coming and in couple of hours I have a rough song complete. Then I usually write it down so I won't forget it and leave it be. The next day I look what I've created and start improving it here and there. In a couple of weeks the song is usually complete. Nice and simple.

[horns666]

Writing songs is the one thing that comes very natural to me..

Sometimes I work them all out before I present them to my singer and he'll leave it as is, or make me do a part an extra measure here and ther to make things fit for him..

You're thinking to hard..just let it flow naturally..if you have 30 riffs in the bag..you prolly have 3-4 songs in the oven and don't even know it..

I had a few riff ideas for a song , I showed it to my singer who already wrote words he liked..we nailed it together in 20 minutes..beginning to end and it is the best song we ever wrote, because it came without effort..those are the best kind ..I think!

I'm partial to lots of hooks, grooves and something "Catchy" and do it around 4 minutes.. because your average listener has ADD..if you can't hook 'em in a minute..they won't care, no matter how well it's constructed.

Bill Z Bub

[AlexL]

In order to write a complete song, I absolutely have to have lyrics to work off of. Maybe because I feel it's the most important part of the song. Then, I try to find chords that fit the melody.

I have been in a huge rut as of late, but I am starting to get the bug in a big way to write some things.

Lyrics are hard for me. I have concrete ideas to write about, but I like the lyrics to be more about imagery and concepts than explicitly about the subject matter. Pisses me off when artists do it and I can't understand what they are talking about, but I know why they do it. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull is a master at this (A Passion Play, anyone?)

I must admit I have written some killer stuff, and I wouldn't have done as good of a job if I didn't have the lyrics to set the song structure.

One of the coolest songs I wrote were from lyrics a friend gave me, and I wrote it as an acoustic song. I played it for him, and he said "No, no, no, it's a rocker with lots of electric guitar". I rewrote it as riffs and arpeggios based on the original strummed chord structure, and it came out way better the second time around; the melody stayed exactly the same, mind you.

For lyrical assistance, listen to "Turn it on Again" by Genesis. Nothing really rhymes, it is very "stream of consciousness", many lines are repeated after one another.

Example:
I, I
Get so lonely when she's not there.
I, I, I.

Doesn't seem like much, but very emotional (dare I say beautiful) in context of the song. It's about someone getting attracted to someone they see on a daily TV show. But it doesn't come out and say it in so many words.

Not a typical verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure to that song, either. There really is no chorus to speak of. Great tune, though.

Great keyboards in that song, too, BTW. When writing music on guitar, try using more keyboard-style chords. This involves using chord inversions, where the chords are built as 3rd/5th/root, or root/5th/3rd for a more unique sound.

- E.

[Special-K]

Listen to your favourite songs and write down theri scheme..
Like this:
Riff A
Riff B
Riff B
Riff A
etc... and you will see the scheme
Intro
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Interlude
Solo
Outro...

[yard dawg]

You should hook up with other musicians and bounce ideas around and do a song with them. Very few musicians work alone. Most bands work together to come up with there stuff.

[Fragle]

good advice. however, other musicians doesn't necessarily mean jamming with a whole band. in my experience, all you need is either a good drummer or another guitar player who's playing style is inspiring you and vice versa.
moreover, for me it's very difficult to imagine what a song (or even a single riff!) will sound like without hearing the drum part to that riff or song. it happens so often that the "killer straightforward metal riff (guitarplayer pictures 16th note doublebass drumming in his mind)" in the end turns out as a moshpart e.g. with some creative drumming.
however, who's able to think like a drummer except for a drummer?!?! especially when writing songs that is.
another tough part is the question where the singing should go. so many times we've written verse-bridge-chorus sequences which then really turned into bridge-chorus-riff w/o vox or something like that.