# How do you guys develop ideas?



## myung-trucci (Aug 18, 2011)

I'm in a sorta difficult place with my writing at the moment. All I can seem to write is really basic metalcore type stuff like Trivium and BFMV...I really want to be able to write stuff like Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Veil of Maya, Dance Gavin Dance, Dream Theater, and all the other bands that influence and inspire me. The problem is that I can't come up with any ideas that aren't just really generic and bland...okay, maybe I was exaggerating with the Trivium/BFMV thing, but I certainly can't produce anything on the level that I aspire to reach.

How did the more developed songwriters among you develop your style and sound, and what would you recommend I do? (I am reasonably familiar with the rudiments of music theory and modes, so I don't think lack of theory knowledge is a problem). 

Thanks in advance everyone.


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## jrg828 (Aug 18, 2011)

try listening to other kinds of music, new tunings, or goin back to the basics. the majority of the stuff i write is ideas from youtube vids i watch, tryin to find new ideas for chords or techinques i never bothered to practice


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## Dayn (Aug 18, 2011)

Expanding one's horizons help. Listen to a _lot_ of different music, and maybe try composing in that style, even if it is just a one-bar lick. It might not seem much, but since I started playing music over six years ago, I can look back and definitively see the recipe that made my style... and it's a _lot_ of ingredients.

So I can suggest listening to new stuff. And I mean active listening, not just sitting by and enjoying it. Really dissect and analyse what's going on. For example:



How does this artist structure their songs? Are there definable verses and choruses? How are transitions handled? Are there any particular motifs, whatever they be, that are repeated? How often are things repeated?
What is the harmony like? What does the chord progression, if any, do? Is it simple, or complex? Do they linger on a particular chord for a few bars? How do they exploit that harmony in reference to the melody? How does it all work together on that chord? What is its feel?
How are things phrased? Are they close-clustered voicings? Perhaps they're widely spaced, fourths and fifths apart? How wide are the intervals in chords and melodies? What is the rhythm like? Are there any variations in phrasing in the same song?
Those are three big points you should look for when you actively listen to a song to learn from it. Even if you don't have a good ear, doing this helps you develop it. If you're still not sure, look up sheet music or tabs: learn from them. Don't know a chord progression? Look up a tab of it... when you find it, go back and listen: you'll get better at recognising it. I've been doing it for about two years since I started properly composing, and I'm still amazed at how subtle some things are. Some things I never knew existed in songs.

And it's not just for guitar. It's for _every single instrument_ in the songs you're learning from. You have to work out how everything works together as a cohesive whole. I really think that delving into _percussion_ and learning the basics of it will help. If you get a good rhythm going, you can almost put anything on top of it. Building a skeleton of a song with most of the parts you want will always sound _far more_ interesting than if you just had a generic guitar riff with no backing.

Umm... that's about it I can say, really. I'm sure there are plenty of things I'm missing, but this is what I do to learn how to take advantage of various styles. Now _actually writing_ is a different matter... I just tend to get a little idea, be it melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic, then see what style it wants to take me in. Then I copy-paste like hell and get a good full-size skeleton. I hope this helps? I'm still not at the calibre I want to be, but given that I save every single thing I compose, I can look back and definitely see that this has helped me to improve.


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## shreddanson (Aug 18, 2011)

The advice in the 2 posts above me = perfect, but I would also like to add that you shouldn't just set out to sound like band a or band b. Taking influence from artists is great, but mimicking them is pointless. Sit down with your instrument, get intimate with it and find your own voice. How do you think Abasi or Bulb developed their signature sounds? Practice your ass off. Playing what everybody else is is over-rated.


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## myung-trucci (Aug 18, 2011)

Thanks a lot guys, all your advice has been great, especially Dayn's post, I'm definitely going to analyse a lot of music like that and try to absorb it into my playing 



shreddanson said:


> The advice in the 2 posts above me = perfect, but I would also like to add that you shouldn't just set out to sound like band a or band b. Taking influence from artists is great, but mimicking them is pointless. Sit down with your instrument, get intimate with it and find your own voice. How do you think Abasi or Bulb developed their signature sounds? Practice your ass off. Playing what everybody else is is over-rated.



Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Eventually developing my own style is something I definitely want to do. I guess I just need to analyse more of the music I like (and some different stuff I haven't heard before) and write as much as I can! 

Do you guys think writing music is something that comes from pure inspiration, or is it a skill like the technical aspects at guitar that you improve by working on it bit by bit?


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## Dayn (Aug 18, 2011)

myung-trucci said:


> Do you guys think writing music is something that comes from pure inspiration, or is it a skill like the technical aspects at guitar that you improve by working on it bit by bit?


In my experience... 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. You can have the inspiration, but it means nothing if you don't know how to write a song. You have to develop that ability, otherwise your musical expression will be stunted. As I said before, I keep everything I write, no matter how bad or short it is, and I suggest you do the same and force yourself write, no matter how bad or short it is. In time you'll start to nut out how to structure something the way you want, and with that experience, you may be able to hear in your head what you want a song to look like as a whole. It gets a lot easier when you study other songs and learn how they work.

For a few pieces of music I've written (that some aren't finished), I either came up with something small, or I found something I had written _yonks_ ago. Yeah, even the bad and short stuff: a few times I ended up spending about five hours straight developing something _horrible_ into a pretty good piece after I had the ability to write things better.


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## myung-trucci (Aug 18, 2011)

Thanks again for your advice man. It seems to be a bit of a rarity on the internet for people to go out of their way to genuinely help people. Less so in this particular forum, it seems. 

Everything you've said makes a lot of sense, I guess I just need to start putting it into practice now. I think my biggest problems are that:
a) I'm still playing with the kind of musical vocab I had when I thought generic-core was so genius I had to imitate it
and b) I'm inexperienced in writing full complete songs.
I guess the key is persistence. By the way, do you write using a program like guitar pro or do you record things into a DAW? Or some other method?  Just curious to hear from someone more experienced. XD


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## Dayn (Aug 18, 2011)

Regarding point A, that's what you're trying to remedy when you listen to more music.  B will come afterwards through practice.

I use Guitar Pro 5 to write my stuff, using both tablature and sheet music together. Myself, I'm... not terribly good at improvisation on the spot for anything except whistling, so I only record voice memos on my iPhone, and record my guitar rarely into Ableton Live. All of my composed music is in (digital) manuscript and exported to MIDI instead of recorded in sound. One day I'll get the tone I want to record properly... in the meantime, I use a Sega Megadrive soundcard emulator to export MP3s from Ableton.


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 18, 2011)

You know how they say people who are actively looking for a relationship sometime have a harder time finding it? I find the same thing happens when I'm looking to write a riff or a solo or whatever. They just WON'T come to me.

I come up with the most ideas when I pick up the guitar expecting nothing and just start goofing around. Sometimes I'll get really nerdy and pretend I'm on stage in front of a bunch of people and just kinda not think about anything at all and let loose w/ whatever my hands decide to do... Whammy jackassery, shredding runs way faster than I probably normally would (or trying to anyway), etc... 

And usually somewhere in the middle of that I'll play a lick or a chord that catches my ear and I start fucking with it over and over and over until suddenly I've come up w/ a cool melody or a cool lick or a new run that I can use or whatever...

And it all came out me just fucking around and having fun rather than looking to write something awesome. It's way easier when there's no pressure. 

Listening to more music is ALWAYS helpful too, as the others have pointed out.


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## SirMyghin (Aug 18, 2011)

I would say learn your crap, that always helps. I don't agree that changing your tuning will help you get ideas, unless you are just randomly stumbling on ideas that is. If you know what you are futsing about with tuning becomes irrelevant pretty quick. 

I do most of my work conceptually after I get a seed idea through my playing, or not, something it is just a mental thing like "I want to compose something in a lydian scale." During the writing process I am generally working without instruments in hand, I find it much more productive. You might want to get a little deeper into theory, I have found it to fill my head quite well. If you don't understand all your chords ,there is a good chord, when you can build any chord you can imagine 5 different ways a lot opens up to you. Scales are just the ultimate basic level really, and overall a scale alone doesn't tell you a whole lot.


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## cwhitey2 (Aug 18, 2011)

listen to death metal with this:







maybe something to smoke too 


It really helps me to jam with someone, involve them in the creative process and you will at least double your ideas.


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## shreddanson (Aug 18, 2011)

cwhitey2 said:


> listen to death metal with this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This guy's got the right idea


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## SirMyghin (Aug 18, 2011)

Jamming is another great way to seed ideas indeed. I have a weekly jam of sorts and we run all kinds of ideas past eachother. My general thoughts on that are if it isn't going anywhere / can't be jammed along with in an interesting way, it probably isn't worth it. Then again I don't like unison playing between multiple instruments.


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## Solodini (Aug 18, 2011)

I agree with pretty much everything said: listen actively and analyse, do so with a huge range of music and find similarities where you can. Transcribe something them strip out the rhythm and see how it sounds played as straight crotchets or quavers. Then strip the melody from the rhythm and see how that is sounding. Work out whether the part you like requires bothe the rhythm and harmony or if one of them alone was the bit which attracted you. 

Also, once you learn a bit about theory, it becomes quite easy to just focus on the big things like what key, chords or time sig you're using but forget about what is actually going on within the music. Stick a macro lense on your music and learn what sorts of intervals and small rhythmic figures you like and tie them together. It may turn into a scale, chord or time signature you have never heard of before but you will have learned it by using it and will know how to use it in future, rather than being bamboozled by concepts in a book which the book hasn't taught you to use. 

In terms of whether writing is inspiration or craft, I'd say learned craft is what makes a consistent writer. Without inspiration, a skilled composer can pick a time signature and a starting note and build something as one would build a house. Think of a carpenter who can build consistently solid chairs of different styles on demand but someone else wanders beaches looking for unusual driftwood to make one off pieces which depend on the quality of the piece of wood they started with but had no initial influence over. Generally the greats can fit both examples, no matter what their trade, and do so where necessary. Musically that translates to writing good albums of consistent quality music with conscious stylistic variation and then write something brilliant when struck by inspiration and learn from that high point. 

In terms of writing things down, I think it is beneficial to either write down every idea and force yourself to try to make something good of each one or write down none at the time of inspiration and just try to remember them. The heart of the idea will stick with you if it's a good one. 

In terms of breaking out of your metalcore constructs, change one note randomly and possibly every other instance of it to suit and see how that sounds. You'll ease into other sound palates without being scared off by doing something completely foreign. Sorry for the rant but I hope it helps.


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## StratoJazz (Aug 18, 2011)

I just listen to music and try to imitate it. Some times i get right to the letter, other times i get it wrong, but still capture the musicality of it. I write something of off what i get wrong essentially.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 19, 2011)

I agree with a lot of what's been said already, perhaps to varying degrees. Soldini mentioned the notion of music as a craft and as inspiration. Fucking take that and run. As personal as music is, and as noble an art form as it is, music is also a business and can be the perfect example of a competition. I'm not saying that in a good or bad way, it's just the reality of the situation. That said, to make yourself noticeable, it's a good idea to be fluent in music, both in technique and analysis. In other words, music is like a language: you learn the vocabulary, the grammar, the syntax, and then you speak it. Becoming more educated in music means that you can communicate yourself more effectively in music. I won't tell you what you need to learn, but it should be proportionate to the degree that you require. I'm probably one of the biggest examples of theory overkill on this board - if you wanted me to explain hexachordal mutation in fifteenth century French motets to you, I could do so without a problem. Do you need to know about that? Probably not, unless you list Guillaume Dufay as your biggest influence. It's appropriate for me, however, because I'm a composition student that had to take music history classes and can't get enough of music theory in general. Learn what you want to and need to learn, but at least have the basics down so that you don't always start at square one.

And then there's this inspiration thing. Music is notes, but it's also not notes. Just like a book is words, but more than that it's an idea. The Bible, the Quran, the Communist Manifesto, Being And Nothingness, Mein Kampf. You recognize these names because they embody an idea, because they are socially relevant. The words in them don't matter - there are countless ways that they could be organized - but the idea in them is what sticks out. I'm going to show you a couple pieces of visual art here, and I'd like for you to look for something ideologically common between them.











You might notice a couple of objects that are present in both paintings - globes, musical instruments, fancy clothes, trinkets - and the style is similar. That's just the artistic vocabulary, though. What makes them different? Well, one is a portrait, the other is a still life, one certainly looks like a nicer scene than the other, and there's a _huge fucking freakishly distorted skull right in the middle of the first painting_. (If you view it from the correct angle, you can see it in 'normal' perspective. You can bet your ass that Hans Holbein had to know his theory to paint that. )

So, what's the deal? Well, get this: these are what are called 'vanitas images', a genre of visual art associated with Flemish painters from back in the day. Vanitas paintings are a reminder that being is transient, and they often do so by showing things in various states of decay: peeled fruit, dead flowers, skulls, bones, instruments with broken strings, just regular instruments (because music only exists while it's playing, after all), broken pots, shit that's been knocked over. Okay, cool, we've got that message. There's something else here, though: by associating these things with other items in the paintings - nice linens, ornate platters, statues, shiny stuff - the painters are saying that wealth, too, is transient. Alright, you can't take it with you, what's new? But we're not done! The title of the first image is "The Ambassadors". They're politicians. The painter is not only saying that you can't escape fate and that your wealth can't save you, but he's saying that politics will eventually succumb to the same end. In the still life, there's a miter (the pointy pope hat), a turban with a crown on top, and the ruins around the scene indicate that some big shot head honcho type is somehow involved. This image says that political authority is only temporary, but also that religious authority has bupkis.

Or at least that's my interpretation. Ideologically, these paintings are loaded with all sorts of goodies. They are evidently very different paintings, but knowing now what they convey, they seem very similar. And we see it on other forms of art, too. From Shakespeare's Hamlet: "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end." That's the power of a message: it overcomes the limitations of the medium. It is for that reason why I think that, first and foremost, it's most important to figure out what you want to say before engaging in creative art. There is no shortage of music with a weak message or music with no message. You'll never see the disappearance of bland and generic paintings. Shit literature with no potential for influence will always exist in abundance. Why? I don't know. I tend to think that people get absorbed in the technique and the trivia of art and in the process overlook the one thing that will allow it to flourish and endure: an idea. Rather than looking at it as a question of how to make ideas, try looking at it through the perspective of your audience: why should anyone want to hear your ideas? If you can make up a compelling answer for that question on your own, then you have harnessed the most important part of expression: figuring out what the hell it is you want to say.


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## Shi7Disc0 (Aug 20, 2011)

sometimes i write melodies using piano roll and turn them into guitar riffs, thats helped me break outside my "muscle memory" bank i always seem to revert back to. 

I also surround myself with new music constantly, like JAGA JAZZIST, Ratatat, freakin APHEX TWIN :] im always searching for new music and using other peoples ideas to inspire my own.

YOUTUBE other people playing guitar riffs, it might give you a new riff or idea you havent thought of. 

You wanna play like a certain artist? 

Surround yourself with their music AS WELL AS the artists that inspired those people. 

So for example you wanna sound like BULB, well listen to everything Misha has ever freakin made and I also listen to Karnivool (which i believe is one of Misha's fav bands), and Obviously a shitload of meshuggah.

Another Example
TOSINS sweep picking stuff is heavily influenced from Frank Gambale, so I listen to alot of Frank and go through his lesson videos. 

Hopefully some of these ideas can help you break the mold :]


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## Dead Undead (Aug 21, 2011)

Konfyouzd said:


> You know how they say people who are actively looking for a relationship sometime have a harder time finding it? I find the same thing happens when I'm looking to write a riff or a solo or whatever. They just WON'T come to me.
> 
> I come up with the most ideas when I pick up the guitar expecting nothing and just start goofing around. Sometimes I'll get really nerdy and pretend I'm on stage in front of a bunch of people and just kinda not think about anything at all and let loose w/ whatever my hands decide to do... Whammy jackassery, shredding runs way faster than I probably normally would (or trying to anyway), etc...
> 
> ...



This is EXACTLY what I do most of the time. If I take a systematic approach to music (since I'm rather inexperienced with theory/composition still) then my playing starts to sound same-y and uninteresting. I also find that I write a lot of my best stuff between 1:00 AM and 3:30 AM. 
A big thing that helps me is watching videos of other guitarists (esp. Chet Atkins, Reb Beach, Guthrie Govan, etc. Musicians that have really developed their own style) and I'll get some ideas of my own that branch off from that.
I also really like Trevor de Brauw's and Laurent Lebec's (Pelican) approach to writing.
You can read it here:
Pelican's Laurent Lebec: The Guitar World Interview | Guitar World


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## Explorer (Aug 21, 2011)

myung-trucci said:


> I'm definitely going to analyse a lot of music like that and try to absorb it into my playing
> 
> ...Eventually developing my own style is something I definitely want to do. I guess I just need to analyse more of the music I like (and some different stuff I haven't heard before) and write as much as I can!
> 
> Do you guys think writing music is something that comes from pure inspiration, or is it a skill like the technical aspects at guitar that you improve by working on it bit by bit?



There are lots of people who do analysis to learn how certain structures work. A lot of us, for example, learn the individual parts of speech in school, and then learn to diagram sentences, and so on.

Musically, I'd suggest that learning that parts of musical speech will allow you to understand what you're hearing, and will make such analyses more fruitful. Writing music, like writing in a written/spoken/signed language, can be broken down into those parts which will enable you to take those elements you hear and to reuse them by knowing what they are, instead of just learning them by rote repetition.

With that in mind, I highly recommend The Songwriting Sourcebook: How to Turn Chords into Great Songs, by Rikky Rooksby. Why does this chord progression sound tougher? How did they make this part sound mystical? It was so happy a moment ago... how could it possibly have turned so heart-wrenching? This book can help illuminate all that and more. You'll learn the nuts and bolts of how chord progressions work, and can turn things in exactly the direction you want, instead of just settling for someone else's progression. I've even used this when someone else has released a song with the great germ of an idea, but which doesn't seem developed enough... which means that I was able to use the material for inspiration, but then to put my own spin on it.

"Melody in Songwriting" by Jack Perricone teaches how to write interesting and diverse melodies. Again, by learning what works under a variety of circumstances, you can go in the direction you choose, instead of following someone else. You can even use the ideas of others as inspiriation, but then develop them further.

Inspiration let me recognize a good idea, whether my own or belonging to someone else. Technique and knowledge lets me take any idea and make it worth listening to. 

Sorry if you weren't looking for purchase suggestions, but *sometimes it's easier to learn Chinese from a language course, which breaks everything down to basics, than by attempting to analyse books and newspapers from the beginning. *



SirMyghin said:


> I would say learn your crap, that always helps. I don't agree that changing your tuning will help you get ideas, *unless you are just randomly stumbling on ideas that is. If you know what you are futsing about with tuning becomes irrelevant pretty quick. *
> 
> I do most of my work conceptually after I get a seed idea through my playing, or not, something it is just a mental thing like "I want to compose something in a lydian scale." *During the writing process I am generally working without instruments in hand*, I find it much more productive... .



As SirMyghin notes, once you know how one thing follows the other, you don't have to develop techniques to stumble upon new ideas, whether through copying others or noodling in a new tuning. 

I usually "jot" down my ideas on a portable recorder, and come back to them later when I'm at home. However, unlike SM, I will sometimes work on one instrument to get an idea of what I want, and then transfer it to another, leaving the normal playing idiosyncracies and melodic structures of the instrument to the side. Aerosmith's "Dream On" is different from most guitar rock because its main figure was originally composed on piano. Anything you can do, whether writing without instruments, or on a different instrument from the eventual target, will break the finger habits which can lead all your compositions to sound the same. 



SchecterWhore said:


> I agree with a lot of what's been said already, perhaps to varying degrees. *Soldini mentioned the notion of music as a craft and as inspiration. Fucking take that and run.* As personal as music is, and as noble an art form as it is, music is also a business and can be the perfect example of a competition. I'm not saying that in a good or bad way, it's just the reality of the situation. *That said, to make yourself noticeable, it's a good idea to be fluent in music, both in technique and analysis. In other words, music is like a language: you learn the vocabulary, the grammar, the syntax, and then you speak it.* Becoming more educated in music means that you can communicate yourself more effectively in music.



I tried to neg rep MusicTheoryWhore for his elegant visual examples of motifs and of putting theory into practice, based solely on his not bringing it into the modern age by relating both to Shelley's _Ozymandius_ and Kansas' _Dust in the Wind. _I may have inadvertently given him positive rep, which makes me gnash my teeth in anger and frustration. Still, I hope my intentions in accidentally giving you positive rep will make you shed a bitter, angry tear. *laugh*

I always suspected that Holbein used some sort of camera obscura to product that embedded image. Your thoughts?


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 22, 2011)

To tell you the truth, I don't know much about the techniques of anamorphosis available in the 1500's. Generally, I just accept that the Renaissance was crazier than most people give it credit for. Case in point -
















I think that the bar for technique set by the Flemish artists was pretty insane, and this was a time when perspective was really put to the test, so it doesn't surprise me that such a trompe l'oeil could be executed as in Holbein's famous work. As per his method, I don't know. Maybe he painted while standing at an angle to the canvas.  I don't consider myself a reputable commentator on painting technique, so I'm saying all of this with caution. What I consider more impressive is Holbein's marriage of technique and seemingly bottomless symbolism. At some point, I heard that the skull also serves as the artist's signature - a pun on his name (Holbein = hohl bein = "hollow bone"). There's much discourse on the work, I'm sure what I know of it is but a drop in the ocean.


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## drgamble (Aug 22, 2011)

Stop thinking so much. Some of the greatest songs are really simple concepts that don't sound very interesting by themselves, but sound great as a piece of a much greater pie. I have always found that when I started to think too much, everything sounds like crap. Trying to sound like something imo requires too much thought. I usually don't get the theory stuff involved until I got something going and then say "oh, it's in the key of D minor, let me see what else I can do with this." Usually though, I will start with something and just build on it. 

Experience is the only thing that will make you better. I would tell you to simply start writing something, anything to get the juices flow. You may be looking for something like Periphery, and missing out on something because you won't allow your mind to go there. You may end up taking something that sounds nothing like Periphery, but then be able to shape it there once you have an idea going. Like I said, don't think about it too much, just try to write something. Even if you write and country and western song, you will still learn lessons about songwriting.


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## anne (Aug 22, 2011)

Thinking too hard generally leads to losing perspective which leads to a total dud.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 22, 2011)

drgamble said:


> Stop thinking so much. Some of the greatest songs are really simple concepts that don't sound very interesting by themselves, but sound great as a piece of a much greater pie. I have always found that when I started to think too much, everything sounds like crap. Trying to sound like something imo requires too much thought. I usually don't get the theory stuff involved until I got something going and then say "oh, it's in the key of D minor, let me see what else I can do with this." Usually though, I will start with something and just build on it.
> 
> Experience is the only thing that will make you better. I would tell you to simply start writing something, anything to get the juices flow. You may be looking for something like Periphery, and missing out on something because you won't allow your mind to go there. You may end up taking something that sounds nothing like Periphery, but then be able to shape it there once you have an idea going. Like I said, don't think about it too much, just try to write something. Even if you write and country and western song, you will still learn lessons about songwriting.





anne said:


> Thinking too hard generally leads to losing perspective which leads to a total dud.



What's "too much" or "too hard"? I've always been under the impression that it's not the amount of thought that impacts the outcome, but rather how you allocate your efforts.


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## drgamble (Aug 22, 2011)

That's the way I write, you may find something more effective. I have just found for me if I start out with a pointed frame of mind, it is less productive than playing what comes to me. For instance, if I start out saying I'm going to write a power ballad in the key of Em at 89 bpm in 4/4 time, the result is probably not going to be that good. If I just start noodlin around, many times I come up with something that really strikes me and then I develop it from there. I try not to get in the habit of trying too hard to come up with something. Truth be told, most songwriters write a whole lot more duds than anything, it's just a matter of when it all comes together and is truly something special.


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## Explorer (Aug 22, 2011)

The OP was asking for ways to write material other than what he/she was spontaneously writing, and wanted to know what techniques people are using to get away from just noodling as writing.

There have been some pretty good suggestions from SW and SM, and I tossed in some things which have helped me advance beyond noodling and hoping I stumble onto something accidentally. 

I'm not saying that spontaneous creation isn't possible, just that such spontaneity was ruled out by the OP, who wanted to shore up Art with Craft....


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## nabster98 (Aug 23, 2011)

what i do is pick some chords that really express a mood that im feeling or have felt. then i base that sound off of it but try not to limit it to just those notes or even that one scale in that one key. come up with it in your head, then try to play it, you wont be perfect but it takes time and you will get better. also just play around with one time signature for a long time and see what you can get out of it. and i would have to agree that smoking a little something can help a writers block, but expect you shred speed to drastically decrease


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 23, 2011)

drgamble said:


> That's the way I write, you may find something more effective. I have just found for me if I start out with a pointed frame of mind, it is less productive than playing what comes to me. For instance, if I start out saying I'm going to write a power ballad in the key of Em at 89 bpm in 4/4 time, the result is probably not going to be that good. If I just start noodlin around, many times I come up with something that really strikes me and then I develop it from there. I try not to get in the habit of trying too hard to come up with something. Truth be told, most songwriters write a whole lot more duds than anything, it's just a matter of when it all comes together and is truly something special.


 
So you're saying that by setting parameters, you are limiting yourself. Fair enough. Writing a power ballad in E minor, 89 bpm in 4 pretty much tells you what the piece is aside from the actual melodies and lyrics, which are the hardest things to come up with. In that way, the description we've built so far is the musical equivalent of empty calories. There's no content aside from the things that I could make up in a fraction of a second - let's make it light rock in the key of A minor, 12/8, at 90bpm. Easy as pie, and we still don't know anything. I personally would start my quest looking for the good stuff. Since we're saying that it's a power ballad, I'm assuming that it's a love song, and since we're saying it's in a minor key, let's also assume that it's a sad love song. Well, that lets us go anywhere, really. There's all sorts of sad love: the unrequited kind, failed relationships, apologetic episodes, fears of the future, missed connections, revenge, hurt, the list goes on. In my mind, I would start with deciding on the subject matter and then figure out what sort of style, key and tempo I would need rather than the other way around. I'll choose something, say a relationship that didn't work out. That gives us an exposition. Then, I would examine something germane to that topic, say how one or more parties involved might have justified the effort put into the relationship. That gives us development. Lastly, I would come up with my decision, whether the time put in was commensurate with the result. That's the conclusion. In my mind, that paints a much more vivid picture than "power ballad, Em, 4/4, 89". This is all just an example of how I would focus my thinking: don't fuss about the little things, get the big picture first, give yourself a story before you design the set. The easiest part of writing music is writing the music - the part you have to really pour yourself into is creating the not-music.

Although, I will say this: I occasionally come up with music beforehand, but I'll only use it in the context of a song if I feel it appropriate to the subject. After listening to some gagaku for a few weeks, I had a lot of ideas in my head regarding Japanese pentatonics. Without getting detailed, I had also been working on a thought at the time that had an overall theme of loneliness. Lyrically and musically, I wanted something haunting and isolated. Oh, hey...



Clapping was a piece of imagery that I used in the story I wove, too, and the percussion at 0:18 here gave me a lot of musical ideas:



I did base my principle motives on the textural ideas I encountered in gagaku: a lone instrument, perhaps sparsely accompanied, playing long notes, venturing into realms of pitch that make me feel anywhere but home, painting a scene so serene that every microtonal inflection commands absolute attention, yet does not disturb. Oneness. I didn't make these choices until after I knew precisely what my story was going to be, though. I still only have a few bars of music, but the plot gives me infinitely more to meditate upon until I finish the work.


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## stuglue (Aug 23, 2011)

Interesting reading. If you are struggling to write a melody I would encourage you to start with your lyrics first, reason for this is that the syllables within the words will dictate the pitch if the melody. Take a word like something, we stress the first part whilst the second syllable is not emphasised SOME thing. You'll find that the words have their own internal rhythm which will dictate the flow of each line. Once you have your melody you can work out a chord progression that will complement it


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## SirMyghin (Aug 23, 2011)

I work much like Schecterwhore in this case and agree a key and a meter (and even a feel) is no information at all. One thing I do not do is set the topic for it, that part I have to figure out on my own. Figuring out the topic for my pieces can be pretty difficult as they are instrumental and possibly a bit abstract. Sometimes it comes to me during the writing process, others not until after completion. There is a large sub-conscious thing going on here, and it could be as I am rather an emotional repressed individual, who knows. 

Usually it only takes a riff to set your general meter and feel for a song. I am not big on abrupt sudden changes in music, I think they are a bit lazy, especially when they happen all the time (and here is where I get crucified). A lot of the 'djent' stuff that pops up here seems to thrive on these sudden changes, oh so shocking, so very lazy. If you can't carve a path to where you are going, chances are you may not want to go there, you can always use the song another time. Sure the odd one for feel/mood is good but every time, every song? I think not.

So aside from a half time feel or double time, I would say meter for a song should be pretty consistant, not 120 to 43 to 226 and finishing on 96. I did say song, and would like to stress that, with epics you get more leeway, as long as you set it up right. A meter provides a lot of expression though, will you drag it, race it, play off of it. Will you syncopate everything, only the melody? 

As far as key being a big limitter, seems to be a pretty common train of through around here. Key however is not a limitter in the slightest. Knowing when to break key, through use of chromaticism or the like are more important tools. Saying I have already chosen my 7 notes, everything is now too restricted, is a pretty juvenile (as in under developed) approach given the permutations available to you. Key is at minimum where an idea usually starts in my case, I don't explicitely choose meter, but it engrains itself.


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## PollutedSanctum (Aug 23, 2011)

Okay, so I've been writing progressive/technical death metal for about 6 years now. For no good reason other than hopefully your personal gain, I'll go through in detail my views on how to develop your writing style over time and how influences will slowly start to mold your sound. 

I started out with a few different influences. Necrophagist, The Black Dahlia Murder, and The Faceless are among the first real metal influences. Basically, I just wrote what my impression of stereotypical metal was from hearing those bands and also from hearing a lot of metal-core that the kids in my area listened to. I used stereotypical melodic two-step riffs to gain intuition for my harmonies and riff construction. Alternated between those, breakdowns, and sweeping sections. I should also mention I've been involved in classical music from a very early age, so my idea of stereotypical boring chord progressions might have been a little more varied than most.. But either way, I wasn't trying to incorporate influences. I was only listening to the bands a lot, thought that that's what metal should sound like, and ended up getting a blend of those bands in my early music.

I guess as far as adding influences, I came to like the sounds of Hate Eternal, Gorguts, Suffocation, and At The Gates a little later, and I wanted my songs to sound more like them. So I tried writing my impression of what a typical riff would be by those bands, then tweaking it to my liking. After a while, it all started to blend together, and I had yet another chapter in my writing unfold.

Later on, I became influenced by Spawn of Possession, lots of 20th century western art music, and jazz fusion like Alan Holdsworth and the like. So I just wrote my impression of what my music would sound like if these people had a say in writing it. 

So I guess what I'm taking a while to say is that you're never truely creating anything new, just writing your impressions of what your music would sound like a certain way. When you try to sound like an artist, your brain is just picking out what is unique about that artist and trying to recreate it. 

ALSO learn music theory well, train your ear, and try and learn about different artist's harmonic language. What section did you like? Did it sound dark? What made it sound dark? You can check and see, oh perhaps it was this chord. Find out EXACTLY what you need to add to the recipe. Treat music like chemistry of sound. Just take little things that you like from all music you listen to. Eventually you have your own style. 

I have a lot of experience writing and if you want, you can private message me and I'm happy to share everything I've learned about writing which I can't go over here, and I can answer specific questions. I'm extremely well versed in theory and I have tricks you can use and ways I can explain things better than you could read online you know? 

Anyway, hope I helped in SOME way... 

Edit: By the way, don't listen to anyone telling you anything about writing in keys or anything. Do NOT think about keys or anything when you write. TRUST me. Coming from someone with perfect pitch and extensive theory knowledge. It WILL limit you to think like that. Not to learn theory, as you really need to. But to try think of a key of a piece before and stay in the key? I modulate every half a measure or so. But I don't even call it that. Just write what you hear in your head. If you are talented enough, you will be able to work without thinking what scale you are using.


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