A Songwriting Method - Just Press Record

[Mark Kaufman]

I do this quite a bit these days: just press record and go from there. It's not the only way I write, but on those days when I want to write something, but I don't know what, this is what I find myself doing. For anyone who suffers from writer's block, this might be a helpful technique.Usually I'll start by coming up with a drumbeat...I'll just make up a rhythm I like, maybe just a few repeating measures, no more--then I copy it out for a few minutes worth of time. I know I can change this part later, so I do it as quickly as I can and move to the next step. This part takes maybe five or ten minutes. Don't think yet, you'll get a headache---just make up a rhythm you can live with, and make it easy. Maybe it's just boom boom chick, boom boom chick. Whatever.Next, I play along to it, aimlessly, with an instrument like guitar or piano...as soon as I come up with a short chord pattern that sounds okay--nothing elaborate, just a phrase of chord changes that sound okay--I record it. Sometimes that "phrase" is a whole verse, sometimes it's maybe a line or two. But once I have that, I'm ONTO something.Now I look for the next musical phrase...maybe an answer to the first, like a logical next step...or perhaps an interesting way to depart from that first musical idea...and I record that too.Now I have two parts and I begin to see the bones, the structure, the architecture that might house this idea. I think about how to lead this pattern into a chorus, or a bridge, or maybe it IS a chorus and so I work on a verse that could interact well with it. Now I'm off to the races.Sometimes I copy and paste my way to the whole song structure. Once I've recorded a whole verse and chorus, I can even copy and paste them where they should fit, so I can see and hear the whole sequence playing through the headphones. I can record it properly later...now's the time to search for melody and harmony and bits of a lyric. So it can be helpful to just whip it all into place and then just listen...and think about what to keep or sweep, to hum along in search of melody, to sing whatever words sound good in certain places. You might have two words pop out of nowhere that just sound good to you...and you start to write from there.I think you get the idea. You don't know where you're going...you find out along the journey...but you do know your goal: find the song.I did this last week with the song "Better Days", and I did it again today on something that's turning into a funk song. I used the same method on several others I've posted here in the last year like "Johnny Put Your Gun Down", "Better Believe" and "What Am I". Sometimes they're so-so, sometimes they're pretty good...and you go to bed that night wondering where that one came from.I love those songs that swoop out of nowhere and demand that you write them, and you can't get that insistent little sucker out of your head. But you can't always wait for the Muse...she's terrible at time management, just rotten. Sometimes you just have to hop in the car and see where it takes you.Hope this helps someone.

[matthoggard]

Great ideas!I do similar things also. I like to get a cool rythm loop tracked. like 4 mins or so and then just "jam" to it. It seems that rythms inspire chord progressions for me. I like the idea of getting the bones built and just keep moving. Good way to keep from getting bogged down.M~

[yarimurray]

I think some of the best songs can happen this way. When I've collaborated this is usually the way we've worked and we just "see what happens."I also love the songs that appear and demand to be caught. I just try to get out of the way and let that happen more often. (That's the hard part for me.)I see your doing FAWM this year. Me too. I'll be following your progress and you can follow mine at : http://fawm.org/fawmers/yarimurray/ I'm participating in a group collaboration and we'll be using the same approach almost exclusively.Michael