Natural Riffing

Most songwriters know the best riffs are those that sound familiar, yet are basically your own. Nature is full of totally copyright-free sounds for the resourceful writer to utilize, if you just open your ears and take them in. Here are a few fun ones you might have not bothered to add to your arsenal just yet.

PLINKING PERCUSSION

Few things bug people more than a constant drip of a faucet or leak. Imagine that as falling into a metal or ceramic pot, though, and it can be a very irritating musical sound. It can be percussive or melodic, depending on whether you decide to use it just as a drum sound or as a melody line. As a soft undercurrent, it can come off sounding like a pleasantly leaking roof in a stable, and loud it can be an attention-getting and obnoxious way to move into the next part of the music. Change up the rhythm so that it is irregular, and it can come off like the trickling of a brook, and as an ascending or descending scale, is a popular rhythm figure in some current hit songs.

BIRD CALLS

Sure, songbirds and eagles are popular sounds imitated by many instruments, but why be ordinary? Why not use something hair raising like a peacock scream, an eagle's cry, or the screech of an angry, fussing parakeet? Try imitating that on your guitar or keyboard sometime. Many libraries and many online sites feature sound bites of popular bird calls, and a lot of exotic ones-some even show the notes used, if you need help figuring those out. You can always change those notes to be ones you like better, say, maybe a happy sounding gull or a sad turkey. Don't ever feel you have to be totally true to the sound you hear-you are an artist, after all. Have a little fun with it, and see what you can come up with, and make sure that recorder is catching it so you can recreate it later.

FUN SOUND EFFECTS

Sure, there are the usual ones. Squeaky doors, jets taking off, sirens, motorcycles being revved, and others sounds you can find in any electric guitar trick book. Why not the sounds you hear that catch your ear every day? How about a school bus stopping and picking up kids? Why not imitate the sounds of clinking glass, china and silverware at a family dinner or restaurant? How about a riff of boats thumping against the docks at a marina, combined with a few sea bird or seal sounds? Why not the uneven cadence of footfalls at the mall at Christmas, combined with a horrid mix of various public domain holiday standards? Just sit sometime in a favorite place, and listen-you will be surprised how many rhythms and melodic riffs show up-record them, take them home, and see what sort of song you can write with them, and then you can get both your proper dose of invigorating time out of the studio, but get in your daily songwriting at the same time and not feel guilty for taking a break.

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