How do you get started writing a song?

That’s both hilarious and a genuinely interesting idea.

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The day isn’t over yet, but that is a serious contender for the coveted “post of the day” award. Funny stuff : -)

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Amazing :sweat_smile: I’ve wasted hours trying to write acceptable lyrics….

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Feel a bit bad for the witches though! Maybe they were just misunderstood :sweat_smile:

Edit: I actually decided to side with the witches so I need to write a song about vengeance for their unjust murder!

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Good point. Maybe I’ll just “write” a part II to this called Revenge of the Witches

Joking aside I found it tough to write lyrics and then come up with melodies that fit. It can make for some awkward phrasing. Melody first, then the iterative process of putting in lyrics (which may dictate occasional and slight changes to the melody)

Another option is melody with nonsensical placeholder lyrics. Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” got started with him singing “Scrambled eggs. Oh my baby how I love your legs”

Edit: @tommo I just read your edit. Great minds, innit?

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I find I can carry on a song from a short beat or vibe. Almost like various AI are doing now, giving them a prompt and it flows from there. So for me I start with something that I’ve been playing during my noodling. And with some rythem added it blossoms into it’s own thing. I think thats how most songs are done, it creates itself in a way. As long as you Don’t try to force ideas into it.
I think thats probably whats been talked about before, so ultimately my ideas come from noodling. Turning that issue of playing the same thing out habit into a positive. I also find if you go through that process of creating songs from your overplayed licks, that you create new licks that you may start to do too often, but you can just keep going with that process and your noodling will be far more varied, as building on your noodling you create new noodles and soon you’ll have an Asian dish of some kind.

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I think this is about as far as my musical mind skill goes, and the way I do it is it has to be in the morning for some reason I think this has to do with my age, but my mind is more fresh during the morning as well as I don’t feel as critical so it’s more carefree. I noodle, but I kinda chill noodle, and let the next note, pattern, arpeggio, or sequence come from my mind as I go. This would be how I find new lick ideas, but it still doesn’t feel like melody since it’s more linear trajectory if that makes any sense.

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A lot of country and folk songs are written from the idea (whatever it may be, often a catchy title) while a lot of rock songs are from the guitar riff. In the former, it’s okay if the music is generic because the focus is the vocal, whereas in the latter, the music is the focus and listeners may not even know what the lyrics are.

I often talk stream-of-consciousness just to see what comes out. (When in school, I prepared for tests by imagining I was leading a review of the material and improvising answers. If a good line came out, I caught it by the tail, so to speak, and used it in my essay.)
I wrote a whole song around the line: “How to sink a golf pro / With one of them little rakes”. (The song is called “I’ve Learned So Much from Her Mistakes.”) Obviously, that’s all about the idea: the music is bone simple.

When my wife hears me going on like this around the house she’ll say, “Are you talking to me or just talking?”
“Just talking, honey, and it would be wrong to listen.” :rofl:

This is the lyrical equivalent of noodling.
As for that, when I noodle, I think about riffs and grooves rather than solos or sequences.

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I’ve got y’all covered with this query, “write a song about the terrible vengeance that witches extract after being burned alive and being sent to hell.”

Verse 1:
Once upon a time, in a land far away
Witches roamed free, casting spells all day
But the people grew scared, and they wanted them gone
So they captured the witches, and they lit the pyre

Chorus:
But the witches did not burn, they only laughed
For they knew they’d return, with terrible vengeance
From the depths of hell, they rose again
To extract their revenge, on those who condemned

Verse 2:
The witches came back, with power unmatched
They cast their spells, with a vengeance unmatched
They turned the people to stone, with just a glance
And they watched them crumble, as they danced

Chorus:
But the witches did not burn, they only laughed
For they knew they’d return, with terrible vengeance
From the depths of hell, they rose again
To extract their revenge, on those who condemned

Bridge:
No one could stop them, their power was too great
They wreaked havoc on the land, with no one to abate
But in the end, the witches grew tired
And they returned to hell, their vengeance satisfied

Chorus:
But the witches did not burn, they only laughed
For they knew they’d return, with terrible vengeance
From the depths of hell, they rose again
To extract their revenge, on those who condemned.

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So freakin’ metal! :metal:

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I’m sure most of us get similar suggestions by the YouTube algorithms, but I just watched this the other day:

Billy seems, in my experience talking to various musicians over the years, someone that people either love or can’t stand. I’m strictly speaking from a musical standpoint :slight_smile: The pumpkins were a huge part of my adolescence so they’ve always held a special place in my heart.

Still, I consider myself pretty objective and I think I can say without bias that Billy is one of the best songwriters of his generation. He writes several different types of songs, yet they always sound like “him”. His chord progression often are not “stock” and he always manages to convey powerful emotions in his songs. To me, that’s a great songwriter. He talks about his process some in this interview (see how I’m back on topic now? :slight_smile: ) For him, it’s all about a background chord progression (acoustic guitar most often) and just humming a melody over it. Lyrics come absolutely last.

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Good save, I was about to press that “BAN” button :rofl:

By the way, do you remember any key timestamps for the songwriting discussion, or is it the whole thing? No probs if not :slight_smile:

Wouldn’t be the first time for me, wouldn’t have been the last time for me :slight_smile:

Um yeah I should get some timestamps I’ll post them in a bit. It is sort of peppered throughout but it is a pretty good/interesting interview in general. Lots of cool recording stories. Still, only so many hours in the day. It’s a long interview.

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I am intrigued I will watch it all the way through tomorrow morning when the old mushy brain is more alive. :laughing:

I need to see if I can find the top gypsy jazz players who are kinda beastly at chord melody phrasing.

It’s probably kinda like playing a progression enough for your brain to kinda relax into it, and just wander around in the forest singing la la la la relaxing and just enjoying the progression soundscape like a fun vacation type setting, as the progression is playing over and over, over the span of weeks or months probably, maybe even years who knows… i mean not all songs are masterpieces. then the chord progression melody/theme will just kinda come to fruition, or maybe not. LOL

Probably have a melody and then lyrics and lastly a chord progession. . Those staple can be rearranged at will.

We didn’t talk about album covers yet. For that, one can also use a computer. Here is a potential cover for our album, made by this query to DALL-E 2:

a photorealistic rendering of a coven of witches being burned by irate villagers in a forest on the cover of a heavy metal album entitled “Witch Slayer.”

I’m not sure how the pictures it generated ended up as they did, but what the heck, it seems good enough to ship product.

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