Composing - how do you do it?

[Jimi75]

Hey friends, there are so many different approaches to composing, so it might be interesting to know how you do it.

Instrument of choice)
To me it was clearly the guitar for many years. It is the instrument I still play the best and know the best. But over the past couple of years my projects changed and more not guitar oriented music was added to my composing routine. I refreshed my piano lessons and I am convinced that the piano is an excellent instrument for overall composing.

Mind composing, inspired composing or composing by just playing)
To be honest, I rarely get inspiration by lets say watching nature or similar things. I am more of the kind who gets caught on a groove o melody in the morning while riding to work and getting hooked on it the whole day, then recording it at home and building something up out of it. That's the one part. Most of the time though I sit and play and try new chord patterns or I try to break out of harmony rules. I keep what sounds interesting. I'd say I am a 70% composing by just playing composer. This also works great for all ordered compositon we had to make in 2010.

What's your favourite way and approach?

[Katastrophe]

Melodies pop into my head. If they stick around long enough until I get to work it out on the guitar, it's a good one. When that happens, drums, bass and a vocal melody will usually fall into place pretty quickly.

In a band setting, I love to jam with everyone and see what happens. Sometimes it's a total trainwreck, sometimes it's awesomeness. I love that sense of unpredictability with other musicians.

I took piano lessons as a kid, but I didn't have any patience then, and I wanted to play guitar. I'd love to learn rudimentary piano now for composing purposes.

[jpfeifer]

For me, composing is one of those things that is a mixture of the Right brain (creative process) and the Left brain (logical process). I find it very satisfying when I reach the point of finally hearing the finished song out of the speakers for the first time. There's nothing like that feeling.

The initial ideas are where the first spark comes from. Usually these don't happen when I'm playing music, but usually happen when I'm doing something else (away from a guitar) such as driving, going for a walk, etc. And usually this is just an idea for song but not fully detailed. Sometimes it's just an idea for a groove or some kind of melodic hook. I often find inspiration from listening to other music. Normally, this is a very Right-brained process. Ideas can evaporate very quickly if you try to over-think it too much. The best thing is just to get that initial idea captured so that you don't forget it.

In order to take the idea to completion then I'll pick up the guitar and start working out chords, to bring the pieces together. Sometimes I'll try to capture the basic groove first using a drum machine, so that I can try different ideas to see what works over the basic groove. The process of refining the idea from the initial concept is usually more of a Left-brain process. Trying to find chords that fit together with the initial idea, working out different sections of the song so that it makes sense, etc.

Sometimes the song comes together very fast and other times follows the the %10 inspiration (capturing the initial idea), and %90 perspiration (spending time refining that initial idea into a finished song) process.

It's been a while since I've worked on any composing but I want to do more of it in the coming year.

--Jim

[Spudman]

I've come up with songs that have been completed in a variety of methods.

Some will start with just goofing around on bass, some I wake up from a dream and have the structure, melody etc, some from playing around on guitar and some from tinkering on the keyboard. I guess I just look for the muse wherever it may be at the time.

Often I've struggled to get something to come out by just sticking with the guitar. It was like I was forcing something to happen. I'll then put it down and mess around on the bass or other instrument and all of a sudden things start coming together, and it might not even be the same idea, groove, pattern or anything close to what I was endeavoring at before. Probably I follow my ear most of the time and if I'm lucky my ear is functioning in a productive way.

Also, like Kat, I can get in with the band and step up to the mic with a song just coming out at the moment sort of like it was already written. Those times are really fun and special.

So with me I don't really have a preference. I just go with whatever happens (if I'm lucky enough for that to happen). Once I have the initial 'something' I'll start building from that and if I'm lucky it will continue on until it sounds mostly complete. I scrap a lot of ideas too. I only work on them until I hit a wall then stop. I keep the idea but I don't spend any more time on it. Maybe in the future it will come back up and I'm able to add more to it or use it in something else.

[Monkus]

Composing....what a trip.

I agree with Spud and Kat on those special moments where it all comes together in 5 minutes, rhythm, bass, guitar and lyrics, all in an explosion of creative freedom. nothing like it. That's 0.01% of the time.

Most other times its fitting, replacing, rhythm changes, lyric changes and sweet frustration, when it all comes together its awesome. Most times I try to get the mood right, or as close to via chord or key changes, then add accents. Other times i get a lyric and run with that. The best times for me though, is when someone comes with an idea for a song on a notebook and we journey together to get it how it should be.

I've found that trying another instrument that you're not accustomed to, like violin, trumpet, sax, gets ideas flowing in different directions. These days I'm gassing for a Bb Clarinet, dunno why but maybe there's a song in there somewhere.

Sometimes setting a deadline works for me. I give myself a month to pen a finished song and see what happens. Sometimes its good, sometimes its iffy, but it all adds up to composing mileage. Out of that finished song, there will be dozens of ideas, hooks, lines, riffs to be used elsewhere, or modified. Creativity begets creativity.

I've realized that songs are of their own creation, and are interpreted in different ways by the listener. Most times what you intend is not what the listener gets. As long as they identify with something. I've stopped trying to make a hit, or squeezing every nuance out of a song. I try to think of the sound of the end result (if that makes sense), then plan the trip along that road, wherever it may go. I just try to make good music, if it hits, the more the better.

The creative spark can come from the strangest of places and sometimes the most mundane. A major part of composing, is being mentally and spiritually prepared to accept the inspiration.

The toughest part for me is knowing when to stop. A song is never finished, just abandoned.

[deeaa]

My problem is largely that whenever I either pick up, see or just otherwise learn or come up with a new chord, riff or just a scale or something, it always kicks me into making a dozen song ideas. The best ones I try to record as video on my cell phone and I have like two dozen ideas there right now. They usually come as rather complete songs too, complete with breaks and timing and all, and will not change that much in the process later, maybe add a part or change something small. Pretty much all Whobody songs came about like that.

It's really so that I shun from playing anything new or learning anything new because I feel like I should get some of the stuff I have waiting done first.

Another thing that makes me compose like crazy is a new guitar...a different guitar always brings up new ideas. Or, give me a nice sheet of lyrics and I'll just make a few different song ideas out of them. Or as with Spookbox, the bassist or someone plays a riff of a handful of notes, and we just play it and in ten minutes we have a new song. Like the 'Not What U think' I posted a while back. I even made lyrics for it when I sang it to record, just sang whatever came to my mind.

Once I composed an albumfull of music by hitting one note and then I just freely sung songs off the top of my head; recorded them and then I had to think of guitar parts to go along with them, and they turned out kinda stangely jazzy bluesy songs. It was a fun project.

But, I don't really compose in a strict manner...songs just come along more than I could ever play or record 'em. I've always said nothing is easier than making songs and music, the problem is making them so they don't sound too much like hit music or generic, and to make them sound a tad off the beaten path rather and not too appealing to general public. But, if you do by accident make too much of a popular sounding tune, you can add some ugly screaming parts to remove that aspect.

But...I guess I don't compose, I just make music from 'seeds' of any kind happens to be around.

[Jimi75]

I find it very satisfying when I reach the point of finally hearing the finished song out of the speakers for the first time. There's nothing like that feeling.


That's exactly the point that a lot of homerecording guys never reach. Their hdds are full of incomplete ideas. I think composing is also hanging in and finishing a song or project besides collecting snippets of course, which is our daily bread.

Also I collect ideas every time I plug in the guitar or put my hands on the piano, but painting the big picture is the most satisfying thing.

[Monkus]

But...I guess I don't compose, I just make music from 'seeds' of any kind happens to be around.

isn't that the definition of composing??? lol !?

[deeaa]

isn't that the definition of composing??? lol !?

Mm, maybe...I always thought composing a song meant doing it in such a way that you'd *think* about what you're doing, stuff like ok, it's in C so going this and this way and using this scale or transition I can achieve this, and planning out how you do it all along. I just more like close my eyes and just wing it. If I stop to think about chords and such, it gets locked in and starts to get difficult to continue.

Basically, what I mean is you can make a thousand songs with just, say playing D,C,G and nothing more, even if you restrict to using just 1/4th beat under it...I dunno if it can be called composing really...just mixing elements, rather.

[Jimi75]

Mm, maybe...I always thought composing a song meant doing it in such a way that you'd *think* about what you're doing, stuff like ok, it's in C so going this and this way and using this scale or transition I can achieve this, and planning out how you do it all along. I just more like close my eyes and just wing it. If I stop to think about chords and such, it gets locked in and starts to get difficult to continue.

Basically, what I mean is you can make a thousand songs with just, say playing D,C,G and nothing more, even if you restrict to using just 1/4th beat under it...I dunno if it can be called composing really...just mixing elements, rather.

Deeaa you can call it composing. The best songs are oftentimes the three chord rockers :-) The final result depends on so many things that you lay underneath those three chords. I think the most honest way of composing is to mentally break free and let go, although considering theory knowledge can bring you out of a dead end street. If you take a film score for example, I bet there's composers who just purely feel a "fear atmosphere" and there are the ones who exactly know the theory how to create a "fear atmosphere". Both ways are good as long as it sounds good and as long as the composition is finished :-) Nothing feels worse than a song ruin you stumble over thinkging "darn...one day I will finish it....":poke

[pes_laul]

I usually start with music first. It usually starts with me dinking around or I'll try to recreate a melody I thought of. Then when it comes to lyrics I like to just close my eyes and write about what it makes me think of.

[tjcurtin1]

Well, I've always heard that you should first lay down a layer of humus, then vegetable trimmings followed by a 'brown' layer - you know, old dead leaves and such. Then you - oh, you said 'composing'... never mind...