Songwriting approach

[Lindsey]

Sometimes I randomly come up with something I like. I write it down in TuxGuitar because I keep forgetting things. I also make the mididrumtrack and bass using that program.
A lot of things I write that I think are worth keeping are just try outs. I start in a time signature I usually don't play in or use a certain type of rhythm. Sometimes it becomes practice, sometimes a songdemo. It depends on how the creativity flows. The pieces that are more than practice to me don't stay stuck in one bar ''shape''. There are tempo, key and time signature changes everywhere. I change it to how I play it. That will also make you more familiar with rhythm notations.
But I also tend to get stuck sometimes. I remember saying this once: ''Finishing something you may not consider perfect gives more satisfaction than having ideas you like catching dust.''
That's where the boring trick of setting up a song structure comes in handy. Which is also a good songwriting practice.
For example, set 8 bars for an intro, 10 for a verse etc. and make sure you fill them. The basic amount of bars for each depends on the tempo. Copy paste if you must, you can always add and remove parts. Creativity will take over eventually.
Looking at what I make, most of what I've been inspired by lately must be rhythmic metal, but looping will help you for the lead parts.

I feel like my approach is much like jamming with yourself. What's yours?

 

[Andrew Milner]

It varies for me. I'm actually planning on writing a book on songwriting sometime in the near future.

What I usually do though is figure out if I want the song to be instrumental or not. Because songwriting for instrumental songs is vastly different from songwriting for strophic songs (songs with verses).

For strophic songs, I usually try to come up with a riff that serves as an intro or verse, depending on how I feel it. I usually try to use 4 chords, ergo my riff would be either 4 or 8 measures long. I also try to vary it so as to not become boring (meaning have a chord last an extra measure). I can then move on to the chorus and then I also try to figure out if I want a pre-chorus or not. Basically figure out the structure of my song.

Instrumental songs though are a bit different. You need to look at the song as a group of bigger sections which are then comprised of smaller sections. But that's a bigger talk for another thread.

 

[idssdi]

I really just noodle and sometimes something I like comes up and I wrote a song for it. When I have the chord progression down I start writing lyrics and that's really all I do at the moment.

 

[Lindsey]

I really just noodle and sometimes something I like comes up and I wrote a song for it. When I have the chord progression down I start writing lyrics and that's really all I do at the moment.

I often find a chordprogression I like, but never find something to do with it. But I also don't do vocals