As I have said recently in another thread and long before that other in threads; I have the song (mostly the main vocal melody) done before I boot up the DAW and get that main vocal melody recorded (also as my guide) to construct all other parts around it. I could go on with more details but I'm busy right now!

Great stuff here!

My so-called method usually involves a good bit of noodling around on my synths...then it usually falls into some kind of melody line that goes on to the drones I've set up...or somesuch thing   

<Follow up from my previous post #11> 

Before I rant on I like to say; sometimes all it takes is one or two lines (melody/lyrics) to get the creative juices racing at light speed..... 

In the earliest stage of writing a song I like the main melody to stand on it's own and see how harmonies work with it.  Those harmonies may not necessarily end up being vocal parts, it can be a piano or another instrument.  

I might play the main melody on piano for example along with the harmonies and if that all works well then that's fine. 

So anyway.....  my preferred workflow is to get the song written particularly focused on the main melody before I boot up the DAW.... 

The DAW; 
First up the guide tracks are recorded;  I need to get the main melody down as early as possible.  

Since these are guide tracks of course most likely they will need to be re-recorded again later to ensure I capture the best performance. 

Initially the drums are also recorded as a glorified metronome so of course later on I add other parts (of the drum kit and percussion) and refine them all because IMO each song is unique and requires attention to detail; every bang, smack, clang, crack, whack and smahoof along with all the expressive nuances is very important in regards to drums and percussion. 

Organized - Ready to go: 
BTW; when I boot up SONAR I load up a template that contains all my fav go-to plugins, above those tracks are audio tracks. Everything is readily available to go, go, go LOL!! 

The Journey Begins: 
Once that main melody is nailed and the lyrics are happening it's like a story is taking listeners on a journey, I need to translate that (get it recorded); as I can hear the whole band in my head. 

Patience : Step by Step Process;
When getting down to the nitty gritty of it all, I work from the very start and take each part one at a time.

I try my best to make that journey interesting at every step of the way from start to end and it's as if the main melody/lyrics determines how the other instrument parts are to be done. 

I also make sure that all tracks in each part of the arrangement flows well from one to the other and all tracks sound good and sitting happy in the mix. 

BTW; the mix levels are all well balanced as I work on the song. The mix almost entirely dry as a bone except the vocal track(s) will have some EQ filtering, comp and a touch of reverb. 

Mix levels/balance and panning is important because I need to hear everything in perspective as I work on sounds, performances and tracking. 

Song arrangement;  
Earlier on once I get the main vocal melody guide done I will also have a basic beat happening (mostly as a glorified metronome) and I will cut the clips into sections such as; intro, verse, bridge, chorus and whatever. 

From there I can clearly see without hardly zooming in where all those sections/parts start and end.  This also makes it easy to arrange the song, try various arrangements, whatever :) 

Loopy Loop: 
To be honest on rare occasions I will boot up the DAW without a main melody to work on I'll dive right in and create a beat and do a bassline and go thru a boat load of other sounds, then tweak and whatever but the main melody may not come about... about 8 hours or so of doing not much else other than playing around and around in circles like a dog chasing it's tail however..... 

.... I guess not all is a loss; I do come up with some nice sounds and ideas.  I can easily translated that back to my preferred workflow as explained above so that I can focus on writing the main melody and lyrics.

Anyway... there's no harm in experimenting and whatever workflow works for whoever is the one that will do.  I'm basically just saying my preferred workflow might not suit everyone. 

Don't blame The tools or Lack of 'em; 
This is in regards to writing songs because creativity comes from within so IMO the best songs are written from the heart. 

My Studio DAW setup is very lean and low budget, all my vocals are recorded with a handheld Shure mic and with no mic-stand. I have one keyboard and a guitar.  My entire studio setup including PC cost about $2,500 but recently I added a new hard drive and DUNE softsynth yet still there are two songs I'm working on and I don't require my new toy (DUNE) to get those songs written. 

Techno - Dance - DJ Workflow; 
Sure I understand and would not be surprised if a lot of writers prefer to boot up the DAW and get that beat happening as soon as possible long before a vocal melody is done. Yeah I know, I know it's all about the beatz, the 'Vibe' LOL!! 

But I could be out and about without a DAW and simply tap my hands and hum to get the main melody and lyrics happening, I can get the whole song written long before I boot up the DAW. 

IMO in general I say to anyone..... 'do what you feel' whatever workflow works best for you, whatever pleases you :)

What about Hardcore Rock, Alt-Rock?
In that case I prefer to work directly with a band to capture that live essence (human feel) at every step of the way. 

Unless of course it's a satellite (online) band. This is probably a popular workflow especially for the busy lifestyle'r or simply because of the shear distance (location) between band members. 

But nowadays I prefer to work alone and my music direction and goals have changed.  

Working with a band requires total commitment by all band members with focus on the same goals.   Anyway... I've already gone into more details about that in another thread ;)

Danny Danzi

rsp@odyssey.net


I'm working more with melody first these days, along the same lines as James G. Then building the chords underneath.

My familiar method of chords or riff first, got to where it was like this. This actually happened about 3 weeks ago.

Noodle on guitar and find an cool riff. Pull up a drum loop and record the riff/progression. Add a bass line. Add another guitar part. Start doing a rough mix. Screw around with some plugins. Sing a gibberish melody line til I get something I like for a melody. Record that. Call the wife in to take a listen. She stands in the doorway snapping her fingers and starts singing "Riding the storm out, waiting for the fallout" with this silly grin on her face and she turns and strolls out of the room. I sit crestfallen in my chair realizing I've just spent 3 hours writing and recording another song that was written by someone else over 25 years ago. Yeah, time for a different method.

Randy

I luv you d00d...please keep posting your comments! You and guys like UBubba need to hang with us more over here. :)
 
I do the same thing, Randy. It's all about the melody for me. I used to do it like James Yoyo but I had a problem with that. I'd end up with killer music beds that wouldn't have the melodies to carry them. They sounded more like instrumental tunes.
 
Now that I grab the melody first, the song literally seems to write itself which has been a breath of fresh air for me. Or sometimes I play a riff on guitar or piano and mumble over it...and once that melody is there, it dictates the rest of the song and shows me the way. If I can't come up with a good melody to push me and the song, it's usually an idea that gets sent to the "ideas folder".
 
As for your comment about writing stuff that's already been written...bro, it's both a blessing and a curse. When you do stuff like that, it shows you're blessed with the gift of a good ear. The curse part is "why didn't I realize this before I spent 3 hours on it?!" LOL!!
 
When this happens to ya Randy, spin the progressions backwards or inside-out. It usually makes for something interesting that still may sound a little like the song you copped, but it will push you in another direction that may show you even better results. Worst case scenario, it turns into a song that was "inspired by" which is still perfectly acceptable. :)
 
-Danny

I luv you too dood, but not in the way like you were a sax player with 6 pack abs, and a fan blowing your hair back while you blew a mean solo. No....it's different than that.;)


Randy

   I find I can not force it out, or else it comes out like garbage.  Generally,  a lyric line or 2 or 4 will pop in my head while I am doing something else.... I grab my phone and record the line with the melody I have for it in my head.  Later I will grab my acoustic and sit down with some paper and the phone.    If it's worth half a crap the songs generally pour out of me and it's done in 30 minutes or so.    If it takes me more than one sitting to complete I usually end up tossing it, or it just never gets done.    It's like, if it wasn't hitting me hard enough to be truely inspired and come out naturaly then it really wasn't a strong enough concept to exist as a song.

  In most cases that initial line & melody become the verse and I will write the guitar line to fit that melody, then as I write the rest of the verse(s)  I kinda let the melody & lyrics tell me where the chorus is headed.  Is it going up?  shifting keys?   does it involve a pre-chorus?   Then I will work on the music for that section but the entire song is based around the lyrics/melody and not the other way around.  I want the musical vibe to match that of the lyrical content.   By the time I have a verse-chorus-verse-chorus section done I am usually hearing a bridge/turn around, something new for the ear and will often let the guitar dictate the direction here and write lyrics and melody around that.   Once I have this basic foundation of the song I usually stop there and bring it to the band.  Together, we will add intros, outtros, stops, chunks, and spice it up.  This also helps the rest of the guys take some ownership of the process too rather than finishing it myself & sometimes they have fresh ideas that work really well that I hadn't thought of, this works as long as the song foundation is solid enough they can get a sense for my direction and add to it, if not....  you get 5 guys pulling a song in 5 different directions and it comes out sounding that way.   
  My other guitarist Chad is phenominal at adding these little atmospheric parts and lead riffs that take my basic (generally power chord) riff to new heights and really push the song over the top.  This is why in project after project, band after band I try to include him whenever possible. 
    I find more than half of my initial concepts never get to moderate completion, and of those, about half are good enough to bring to the band.  You need to be subjective enough to say "even though I worked hard on this & I like parts of it.... It sucks" and only keep what is worth keeping.   That's my opinion, & my methods for most stuff.

A few years back when I was working with Tim Wilkinson, and before he'd picked guitar back up (he stopped playing for 20 years), he would write an entire song, lyrics and melody, and record it accapella. I would then work out what chords might fit behind that melody, which very often threw up some really cool changes, and ones which I probably wouldn't have thought of if I was writing on guitar.

I think sometimes 'muscle memory' comes into play and you can end up going to over-familiar chord patterns. Starting with melody first can avoid that.

Here's one that started out accapella;

Better Days

There was a cool little accident with this song, in that Tim sang the whole thing in a lower octave by mistake and I kept it; the higher octave take fitted very nicely over that and gave the song a lot of vocal depth.

In my more prolific days (1987-2000), lyric first. Then get the meter down. Be sure of the syllable count. Then develop the melody. Then the chords. Then the "arrangement". Back then I paid an arranger (ex-piano player for Barry Manilow) who would pretty much play it all and maybe I'd add an acoustic guitar or bass track. They were intended to be "pop" tunes to shop around. Almost sold one once.

These days, in The CHB I mostly write lyrics after Strummy comes up with the riff. Steve and I just completed the basic tracks for another CHB song where we each wrote 50% of the music and the lyric. 

rsp@odyssey.net

Danny Danzi

rsp@odyssey.net


I'm working more with melody first these days, along the same lines as James G. Then building the chords underneath.

My familiar method of chords or riff first, got to where it was like this. This actually happened about 3 weeks ago.

Noodle on guitar and find an cool riff. Pull up a drum loop and record the riff/progression. Add a bass line. Add another guitar part. Start doing a rough mix. Screw around with some plugins. Sing a gibberish melody line til I get something I like for a melody. Record that. Call the wife in to take a listen. She stands in the doorway snapping her fingers and starts singing "Riding the storm out, waiting for the fallout" with this silly grin on her face and she turns and strolls out of the room. I sit crestfallen in my chair realizing I've just spent 3 hours writing and recording another song that was written by someone else over 25 years ago. Yeah, time for a different method.

Randy

I luv you d00d...please keep posting your comments! You and guys like UBubba need to hang with us more over here. :)

I do the same thing, Randy. It's all about the melody for me. I used to do it like James Yoyo but I had a problem with that. I'd end up with killer music beds that wouldn't have the melodies to carry them. They sounded more like instrumental tunes.

Now that I grab the melody first, the song literally seems to write itself which has been a breath of fresh air for me. Or sometimes I play a riff on guitar or piano and mumble over it...and once that melody is there, it dictates the rest of the song and shows me the way. If I can't come up with a good melody to push me and the song, it's usually an idea that gets sent to the "ideas folder".

As for your comment about writing stuff that's already been written...bro, it's both a blessing and a curse. When you do stuff like that, it shows you're blessed with the gift of a good ear. The curse part is "why didn't I realize this before I spent 3 hours on it?!" LOL!!

When this happens to ya Randy, spin the progressions backwards or inside-out. It usually makes for something interesting that still may sound a little like the song you copped, but it will push you in another direction that may show you even better results. Worst case scenario, it turns into a song that was "inspired by" which is still perfectly acceptable. :)

-Danny

I luv you too dood, but not in the way like you were a sax player with 6 pack abs, and a fan blowing your hair back while you blew a mean solo. No....it's different than that.;)


Randy

HAHA!!!
 
good thing I'm secure in my masculinity, eh, Randy?

Muse comes to me, I don't come to it.  Any stimulus can trigger a melody line or hook for me:  other songs, cars whizzing by, planes overhead, a bad guitar solo, a piano concerto, a little boy dropping his ice cream, a dog barking at a squirrel....it's endless.

something always triggers a melodic line and/or hook in my head - even if it's just "waking up" to it.  that short melodic line will always be a melody and will sometimes have words, but not always, and will sometimes have a few words of the phrase, but not all of them.  as soon as I hear that, I try to record it somewhere.  either play it on my MIDI piano into sonar or record it into my phone or somewhere so I don't forget it (I"ve forgotten more hooks than I've remembered!)

from there I'll develop a chorus melody and lyrics.  Once I have a fairly firm chorus, I'll start developing the chords for that chorus on piano. 

once I have a draft of the chorus, I'll usually then put that much into Band in a Box and start creating the structure of the song including chord progression for the verse.

it's only after I've made a draft of the whole song chord structure that I start writing lyrics for the verses (TYPICALLY - there are always exceptions).  I'll make the melody for the verses out of the chord progressions I chose for the verses.  verses are my weak link.

there are exceptions, but this is almost always the way it happens for me.

It's a "by ear" thing for me.

I do arrangements predominately, so, the first part is covered as it only involves tweaking. The rest of it is me filling in the blanks somehow.

I've just finished the middle portion of my Blossoms track, and it sounds from an instrumentation arrangement standpoint much, much better than what I had before and I've been working on this track for a year if not longer. I've still got one more part (ending is done) to work on before I call it quits.

The production side of it - probably still needs work as I am a novice DIYer though I'm learning.

Anywho, yeah, I go from the top and build up underneath it. Sounds odd, but it's not since this is nothing but basic theory - considering the archaic definition of music. I believe in the current definition, but given how I construct, the former definition is quite useful (although music doesn't consist of all those parts nor do I necessarily write in that order.)

After the established melody, I might go for a rhythm part next, but most certainly harmony will be in there somewhere since that's the part I'm really comfortable with and utilizing the techniques that come with arranging, both "tonal" parts complement each other very well - despite some often used hostility - which isn't hostile at all when used appropriately.

Another technique I use - most recently with Blossoms is grouping. Which instruments complement each other? This is useful when the track count is hefty.

Piano + Strings; Bass + Drums + Percussion, etc. When do these instruments come in/go out and how do they accomplish each?

I'm still stuck on some parts concerning Blossoms, but like I did with fixing the middle part, I'll eventually go away for awhile then come back. I'm working on other songs as well, but the techniques very likely won't change.