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Finding stuff to write about

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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14320
    Chronicles by Bob Dylan is chock full of phrases that are worth stealing wholesale. Likewise, the prose of Leonard Cohen.

    The working title for one of my music collaboration projects is Starlight. Just last week, I cribbed a bunch of phrases from a radio documentary about pioneer astronomer George Ellery Hale. All that I have to do now is arrange those coherently and add a few rhymes. If that fails to impress my collaborator, I may be forced to read up about Watney's bitter ales.
    Be seeing you.
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  • TJT1979TJT1979 Frets: 181
    Great thread. My band have recently decided we should be writing some original music but it's hard to know where to start.

    Cheers!
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14320
    Check out the documentary Paul Heaton: From Hull To Heatongrad


    Be seeing you.
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  • francerfrancer Frets: 369
    edited December 2018
    I think you can take every day situations and turn them into inspiration. For example, today I gave someone some money and advice and they basically ignored me and spent it on a load of crap for themselves and their friends, and left me to clear up the mess.

    Or in other words i gave my teenage daughter some money to go to the supermarket and buy herself some lunch to cook at home. I’m exagerrating for effect (to avoid derailing into a parenting thread), but I hope you get my point.

    There used to be a website by a guy called Axeman Jim who had some really good songwriting tips, it was more metal based, but he gave a great example of turning a dog stealing a dropped sausage at a barbeque into a set of metal lyrics. 
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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    edited December 2018
    Free songwriting course from Berklee College of Music here..

    https://www.coursera.org/lecture/songwriting-lyrics/point-of-view-pUQjV
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • revsorgrevsorg Frets: 874
    I scanned through everyone's answers and didn't see anyone mention Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies

    You don't have to buy the cards, you can get the strategies here


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  • Thanks all for the very useful remarks, thoughts and ideas. Very much appreciated.

    Silly me though not having responded for a while, as in actual fact I may not have been all that clear with what I was asking about. I'm ok with lyrics generally (relatively speaking, obviously I'm still rubbish but less rubbish than at the music bit) but it's actually more the music I was looking for ideas with as nobody listens to my words anyway. As in finding things to represent with the music, caring enough about something to try to find a way to recreate that feeling in the music. The words can just be fit to it afterwards if needs be. 

    Not sure I'm explaining myself very well to be honest
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14320
    Oblique Strategies cards are intended to introduce semi-random variations into unfinished creative projects. They are of little help if the project has yet to get off the ground.

    I'm ok with lyrics generally ... it's ... the music I was looking for ideas with
    If you have words written down, hopefully, their meter should suggest a basic rhythm and tempo. Once you have that, try to devise a melody. Once the melody is established, the rules of harmony and counterpoint will govern what the accompaniment chords need to be.

    Silly me
    You really need to stop running yourself down like this. It is not conducive to creative work. 
    Be seeing you.
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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    edited December 2018
    Thanks all for the very useful remarks, thoughts and ideas. Very much appreciated.

    Silly me though not having responded for a while, as in actual fact I may not have been all that clear with what I was asking about. I'm ok with lyrics generally (relatively speaking, obviously I'm still rubbish but less rubbish than at the music bit) but it's actually more the music I was looking for ideas with as nobody listens to my words anyway. As in finding things to represent with the music, caring enough about something to try to find a way to recreate that feeling in the music. The words can just be fit to it afterwards if needs be. 

    Not sure I'm explaining myself very well to be honest
    The Berkley course should help, as it's just a toolbox of methods that can help you forge lyrics to fit any song.
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • Oblique Strategies cards are intended to introduce semi-random variations into unfinished creative projects. They are of little help if the project has yet to get off the ground.

    I'm ok with lyrics generally ... it's ... the music I was looking for ideas with
    If you have words written down, hopefully, their meter should suggest a basic rhythm and tempo. Once you have that, try to devise a melody. Once the melody is established, the rules of harmony and counterpoint will govern what the accompaniment chords need to be.

    Silly me
    You really need to stop running yourself down like this. It is not conducive to creative work. 
    I'm not good at writing the lyrics before the music, only at fitting words to music, if that makes sense. Good poetry doesn't work into good lyrics usually as the metre is too rigid
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • kinkin Frets: 1015
    I've got to disconnect from desire
    Take a break from the then and the now
    Bridges built and burnt
    Just missing the when and the how

    Crap i know, but that took all of five minutes using the oblique strategies @revsorg ; posted above, just get something down, it doesn't have to be the greatest thing ever written , just keep writing until you find something you like.

    The music is the same, take a chord sequence and rearrange it or write a different melody to the original.

    Keep the chords and add something completely different underneath it, a lo fi sparse drum pattern under a baroque classical progression, you might end up just keeping the drum pattern and writing something completely different over it.
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  • I think I was hoping that getting concepts or feelings to represent would bring the music side of it, though this is more than likely on the false and naive assumption that this is how music is written, rather than just trial and error!

    Going to try to get some rhythms together over the Xmas period to try and build from there
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • steven70steven70 Frets: 1262
    edited March 2020
    ..
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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    edited December 2018
    Words are made of syllables, so you could just enter a single note rhythm into your DAW and add some words and a melody later. It's the idea or concept that is important, so the words don't need to be set in stone before you start the music. There are of loads of little tricks that you can utilise when writing your lyrics/melody, i.e. point of view, line-lengh, chord tones & non-chord tones, rhyming structure, etc..

    All writing styles exist in their own framework which you have to learn, whether it's a novel, film script, news article, poem, academic paper or song lyric.
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • ewalewal Frets: 2558
    I write for my band and I write for my solo project. Although I write instrumentals for both, I apply slightly different ground rules and workflow.

    Band tunes are more rudimentary sketches - it's pointless spending time writing drum parts because the drummer will do his own thing, whereas the bass player and guitarist have good ears and will play a part if I suggest it - although I trust them to write their own parts too.

    Solo stuff - I try to constrain myself to a degree - I have a definite idea of the genre/style I am writing, I have a pre-loaded project template with all the main instruments I typically use including a few signature sounds. I tend to write tunes that are initially too long, then edit them down.

    In both cases, I have learned that while friends and family are encouraging, don't expect them to give much in the way of critical feedback, or even to listen to things!
    The Scrambler-EE Walk soundcloud experience
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  • Read more. Listen to different bands.

    For a great lyricist try clutch or the national

    I feel like this someyimes you have to seek inspiration in new places

    Instagram is Rocknrollismyescape -

    FOR SALE - Catalinbread Echorec, Sonic Blue classic player strat and a Digitech bad monkey

     

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  • kin said:
    There was a very interesting interview with Ryan Adams on , i think, channel four , called "the great songwriters " or something like that.
    It showed him using A thesaurus/dictionary and books of sayings, just randomly opening them up, picking out a phrase here and there and getting inspiration from that. He called the process "stacks" i think.
    Ryan does indeed do that. Somehow the songs are still about girls all the time. 


    Instagram is Rocknrollismyescape -

    FOR SALE - Catalinbread Echorec, Sonic Blue classic player strat and a Digitech bad monkey

     

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  • prowlaprowla Frets: 4896
    A lot of really good songs are little comments about nothing in particular.
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