Breaking Out Of A Writing Rut

Many of us find we write in the same key most of the time. Think--what is the first chord that tends to come to your fingers or pen? Sure, you can always just write the song that way, and just transcribe it to another key later, but why not just start from a fresh starting point? Here are a few pointers to get you moving in a different direction.

GET OUT THE CHORD DICTIONARY

Open the chord book or plop your hands down on your instrument with your eyes closed, and use that as a starting point. Try to find what the rest of the chord circle is that you would use in that key, and change it to minor if it is still too familiar to you, just to be mean to yourself. Play around with acceptable other chords and not just the usual I-IV-V stuff, too, and use your ears to come up with something that sounds good, not just whatever would be theoretically correct. Again, flip those pages and find some chords in that same family that would work in each case, and compare and contrast each to feel your way through what would be the more interesting fit. This is a great approach if you have been critiqued as having songs that are too bland and ordinary, and can quickly add the sonic interest your music might have been lacking until now. Practice, practice, practice, too, and you might just find you've added some new fun riffs to play with when jamming next time around.

THROW IN A NONSTANDARD GROOVE

If you like using drum loops to write against, or programmed bass lines, here is your chance to break out of that rut, too. In many cases, you can change the last bar, note or whatever in a program, if you just get out the book and find out how. If you have a live drummer, see if you can get them to try a slightly different instrument for that last riff or toss in a jazz bit, do nothing, change instruments, add some back beats, anything but the same old thing. Listen to bits from other artists you like and see how they change things up to keep them interesting. Have drums or bass handle the melody or anything as long as it isn't what you usually do. One fun way to do this is to mix and match different drum loops and see what it turns out like. One of the most fun songs I ever programmed used metal, soft rock, jazz, and salsa loops combined into one weird sounding mess, but once you removed keyboard lines and gave the bass lines all the same instrument, it only needed a few tweaks to sound like something that belonged together. It just goes to show how much many song styles are alike, if you just blenderize them enough.

Go To Page: 1 2