Writing

For months I shied away from the Fostex DMT multi track recorder, dreading the fateful day I'd be compelled to sit before it and record. There were parts floating around in the spaces between my ears, but none of them were so singularly arresting as to break my recording strike. I set deadlines for myself; "Thursday I'll write" or "I'll have a drum part and bass parts Saturday." Thursdays came and went, as did Saturdays. Finally, today, I forced myself to sit, program a drum part, and translate the bass parts I hear in my head. Never mind guitar; That will come later. I'm a guitarist; guitar is easy!

Surprise; I composed a nice 7/8 drum part, then I layered a bass line in 11 over that...it sounds wonderfully demented!! The writers block is done, I think. In no small part I owe this community for that, because without knowing that there are people willing to listen there doesn't seem much point in producing anything, at least of high enough quality that I'd release it.

I find writing vocals first to be the most challenging and most rewarding way;

A set of lyrics on a page suddenly becomes a tune. You play the tune using any keyboard voice at random, then set about working a drum pattern around it. Spaces open up for bridges, cadenzas and codas, and it's time to work out some basic harmonies.

This is always fun, as the voice line can suggest many harmonic variations, and you can simply throw one off-the-wall chord in there, and the implied harmonies all change.

Adding bass becomes even more fun, as you can alter all the harmonic expectations - but it starts to become a precision art at this point.

Now comes the colouring in - turning the harmonies into rhythm parts or simple lines, intertwining...

All the time, the drum track and bass need simultaneous tweaks to maintain the rhytmic, harmonic and (in the case of bass) melodic sense.

Then I add rhythm guitars and vocals. Often at this stage, a rhythm guitar part can colour a vocal line and vice versa, or a keyboard part will suddenly jump out as being more important.

Next vocal harmonies.

Sometimes I have completely stripped out harmony layers just to get the vocal harmonies I wanted. It's all sacrifice for the greater good!

Lastly, guitar or keyboard leads. These require little effort - the hard work is all in building up the overall picture that you're trying to paint. Get the cake right and it practically ices itself.

That's my "normal" approach, anyway... needless to say, I do it differently each time I write as it's more exciting that way - I never know what I'm going to come out of the studio with 

I like to start with the lyrics simply because I can then let them suggest the music - so the music expresses something in the words.

Obviously that doesn't work for instrumentals - and frequently I find that I write a nice lick or two for a song only to find that it works better in something else! I'd find it difficult to write words that express the music I write - there are too many thoughts co-existing in it simultaneously and I'd probably end up with babble. Worth a try though!

There aren't any cast-iron rules about it, of course - the best music understands but breaks the rules, IMO

Since I'm just a bassist, and I also own a keyboard (126 MIDI samples) and my dad owns a plethora of guitars (acoustic, electric, acoustic-electric), I'll often jot down stuff I come up with on music lined paper. Unfortunately, all our instruments are in one room, and our computer is in another, so it's a real pain to record...I don't have a band yet either, so that makes it harder, and I'd have to layer everything.

But that aside, I've written down pages of music ideas, most of them bass lines and "starting points" for songs, but quite a few are acoustic guitar parts. They're practically all in odd times too, and some go with each other...I just have yet to record them. But I don't have a drumset, and couldn't play 'em if I did...and I don't know how to program drums (I'm not even sure it'll do odd time signatures). As for lyrics, I find poetry often restricts the music. It's better to write music and lyrics together, so I have a notebook where I'll scrawl down any ideas, quotes, or verses for later use when I get a band. So really I'm just accumulating musical ideas for later, when I get a band.