Painless Songwriting

Everyone has a style they feel more comfortable with when it comes to songwriting. Some of us like to do the arrangement first, then tweak it to fit some lyric they have sitting around, then perhaps even tweak the lyric to make it fit the music a little better. Some of us prefer to write a lyric as we sing the potential melody, then flesh it out with a nice accompaniment once we work the main idea out. Others do the whole thing at the same time. The important thing is to do it the way that is the most fun for you. If you are totally sick of dealing with egos and self-important types that cost a fortune and don't show up on time, costing you hundreds in lost studio time, you may prefer to work at home on your computer. Keep stretching yourself and trying other ways of doing your songwriting, but always start with what works first, then maybe once a month or so trying it some other way, even if it just answering one ad in the local music paper and trying to do something with a group using another format. One session isn't a lot, and you can always bow out gracefully, but you might find you like it better, and might even come up with a great lyric, melody or arrangement you can use in some other context, all because you bothered to do a tryout. You can even make it a habit, if you really would like to find a co-writer, and hold auditions, one a week or one every few days, whatever works best for you, just to hone your craft. You might find that perfect foil you've hoped for all these years on one of your forays. You might also try just writing by yourself if you prefer to write with others-you may find you write as good as the folks you have worked with, and can have a separate group of tunes you keep for song pitches they need never see to take out to gigs. If the band doesn't pay, you might find you can afford to keep going with it because you have that little bit of residual income from the song pitches you've successfully done, and it may be just the little extra that gets your band signed in the long run, since they can see there is

Go To Page: 1 2 3