How long to complete a song?

[ibanez468]

Yep, I guess you could look at it like that too.

[cameron]

I think Wade finally put into words what I've been thinking all this time!I've heard Leonard Cohen might take 10 years. Elton John seldom takes more than 30-45 minutes, but of course someone else is doing his lyrics. My goal is one marketable song and demo per month (I have a day job) and that includes making a work tape suitable to send to the demo studio, assuming it turns out good enough. I picked one per month because that's usually the minimum that a staff writer is expected to produce. I started getting serious about this in July and so far I have five completed demos and one I'm still tweaking, so I'm about on target. During this time I wrote four more songs, but I didn't feel good enough about them to make demos, mostly because I don't think there's a suitable market for them.Cam

[southpaw]

"So, wouldn't the bad cold analogy make the ideas pouring out like snot from a runny nose???? " Well Anne, you know, one mans snot is another mans... Ok, sorry ibanez, not the best analogy. I know what your saying though!So i say let the snot run like the river rapids! Interesting comments from everyone. Cameron, i also shoot for the one very strong song a month. I try catalog all the song information as well (I.E. Chord progression, Bass notes, Song structure, Tempo, Key, and some production notes.) - so i can have it all to refer back to if later i want to change something. I just wish i started doing this a year ago, because it makes it so much easier for me to get back to where i left the song and mix decisions, but i still feel satisfied that i flushed out a strong song and learned new thing in the process. This is one of the reasons i like focusing on one strong song, instead of five potentially good starts. Again, strictly just my perspective at this point... Its likely to predict this will change at some point because everything does! Cheers.Jamie

[ibanez468]

Dec 13, 2008, 4:53pm, southpaw wrote:Well Anne, you know, one mans snot is another mans... Ok, sorry ibanez, not the best analogy. I know what your saying though!Aww...well, ya' know, I was just tryin' ta keep it clean!

[lindpop]

It´s very different for me how long it takes. Depends on the song. Normally it takes a few days a few hours a day to put together a song with melody, harmony and lyric, but the production part takes much longer. I guess about 40 hours or something to record mix & mastering, maybe more. Earlier I finished my songs but since a couple of months ago I´ve been more selective. Waiting for listings to submit to before I produce them. I also have to rewrite some songs I´ve written and now when I realise that, I regret I put so much energy on the production part.

[Mark Kaufman]

In my case it's always somewhere between an hour and 30 years.

[bigbluebarry]

hey Jamie, for me it depends on if I'm doing instrumentals or songs with vocals. If I'm doing a song with vocals, then 9 times out of 10 it's going to be a co-write with someone else. In those instances, I usually spend a few hours coming up with a track (soundbed) to send to the co-writer to see if anything "moves" them. Then we'll go back and forth with each other, moving parts around, coming up with lyrics and melodies, etc... I'm finding that just due to the nature of it being a co-write and having to work songwriting in between my "real" job and other songs that I do on my own, a co-write song usually takes a minimum of a week all the way up to a couple of weeks. As far as the number of hours go, umm... I'd say anywhere from 10 to 40 hours, just depends on the song.Now, for instrumentals that I do by myself. I'm averaging about 3-4 hours start to finish on those. I've had one that was two hours (a single acoustic guitar track) and then there are some that have been longer. But over the last couple of months, I've really forced myself to sit down and do a song in about a 4 hour span, that includes the writing, recording, mixing and mastering. I've gotten 3 forwards for two of the tracks that I did this way and have several more in the pending stage.That process however has only been a recent one for me. It started back in October when I had a 4 hour window on the night before a dispatch listing was due. I figured it would be a fun challenge to see if I could use those 4 hours to write a song, then record, mix and master it. If I felt it was strong enough then I would submit it for the listing, if not, well, then I had fun pushing myself to see what my limits were. I ended up submitting the song and it did get forwarded so i was pretty happy about that. Ever since then I've kept that mentality to some extent.But then there are times when the song I'm working on just doesn't turn out that great. For example, this past weekend I spent 4 hours trying to come up with a "Daughtry" sounding song for the dispatch listing that was due yesterday. After 4 hours, I had something that sounded OK but wasn't good enough to submit. So I shelved that song for now and then in a few weeks I'll go back to it and see if I "hear" anything new for it. I do spend more than 4 hours on some songs so my 4 hour rule isn't always in effect. I know it could be limiting on creativity by imposing a time limit on yourself but I've found it works good for me. I would guess that's not the case for everybody though. Without trying to sound arrogant, I just feel like I've really been improving in every facet of the songwriting process simply because I'm doing something every single day with it. If I'm not recording an idea, I'm spending time on mixing a song, or trying to get better at the mastering process. And in doing so, I'm becoming much more efficient. What used to take days now takes hours and what used to take hours now takes minutes. I'm really just trying to prepare myself for down the road. My goal is to be able to do this full-time and the quicker I can turn around HIGH QUALITY tracks the better my chances. I know I have a ways to go still, but I'm not giving up and I'm gonna bust my tail off until I get there.- Big Blue

[squids]

I've had some that took years and one that took 10 minutes. Recording took the longest fo some of them (the 10 minute one especially, that's the one Anne was re-editing fo me fo practice!). I honestly think it's far easier to write a song than to produce one. My count last year was about 20 songs but of them, I only recorded a few. All of them did really well though and got signed. I'm nowhere near as good as some of these folks and certainly not anywhere near as prolific. So don't go by me!!

[southpaw]

hey Barry, thanks for taking the time to share some insight on your workflow/techniques. appreciate it. The 'four hour' track -- master is rather re-inspiring (re-inspiring?) and reminds me of when i used to groove with my roland fantom that i started out on. And 'Clocking myself'in this kinda way seems like it could only help develop a faster turnaround time in any case.I used to just groove and get into instrumentals with my roland, i mean it was seemless - layering and i was just vibing with and bouncing along to the tracks the whole time.. Before i knew it, several hours or more had passed and i had a killer groove laid down. I kinda miss that since i moved over to the computer DAW...I mostly focus on vocals now, but kinda miss just running with an instrumental theme or feeling. As it stands, the sounds are just incomparable and, well really every other part of the recording/editing phases are much more efficient in my logic daw then on my fantom. But i forgot how much i enjoyed instrumentals, you have sparked a few cool ideas im going to try. Quote:I'm really just trying to prepare myself for down the road. My goal is to be able to do this full-time and the quicker I can turn around HIGH QUALITY tracks the better my chances. I know I have a ways to go still, but I'm not giving up and I'm gonna bust my tail off until I get there.Loud and Clear, Same here bro. Same here. Jamie

[ursulavon]

1 to 7 days..... I hate lasting too long to complete a song. I prefer doing the lyrics immediately after have finished the melody for not to lose the inspiration UV