Musician's Thread

It's alright having great melodies, my usual problem is having a couple of songs worth of lyrics and no tune to sing them to! :s

I've taken to having a light heart about this happening and just learn the song. If it is something that I think is worth having in the set - the band will learn it and then we go about re-arranging it (sometimes major rewrites, sometimes just little things like cutting a chorus or adding/changing a bridge section - or even bridging it to another cover song).

Recently I was playing in F and was hitting this really cool rhythm that ends on the 3 and kind of drags to the 4 - it ended up being Rewrite by Paul Simon. Rather than being disappointed - I ended up demoing the entire song in Studio One and mashing up a cool bridge section with the vocals of another Paul Simon song and a Talking Heads song, and adding more rock based outro - I am in the process of converting the project to Logic and getting real drums added and some more fancy guitar work courtesy of our guitar player throughout.

I love changing covers songs by mashing them with other songs or changing the rhythm - when I covered I'm Afraid of Americans by David Bowie, it started out with this punky 4 chord change for the verses and a country style stomp for the chorus (completely atypical of actual song) for an original song idea I was working on. Then I started singing I'm Afraid of American's over the chorus section for shits and giggles and it stuck. When I took it to a project file I started arranging it in a way that had that early 60s style of drumming and I started thinking about Bowie's experiments with William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin's cutup method of writing/painting in audio production. So I cut up Sound & Vision and Joe the Lion into the song (I even quote the riff to Beauty and the Beast in it although in a different rhythm and tempo).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZnlnHTqbw

Zenbane said:

 I never believed I could ever become an actual "rock star" in life - and I never fathomed trying. Music has always been a fun hobby for me; so in the end I took this one moment where I accidentally wrote a Napalm Death song as a personal accomplishment.
:)

I know the feeling - but I came to the conclusion a long time ago that being a "rock star" is not something I really want anyways, I mean all of my "heroes" were in it for the music and fame was just a side effect of the times. We tried when I was in my early 20s and even had some meetings with some of the bigger rep's in the industry in our country - though it didn't work out partly because of timing and partly because we wouldn't sellout our artistic vision. Now we keep making music because it is something we enjoy doing - and because we don't have to rely on the industry to be able to record and release music.

My sole objective (apart from to enjoy myself) when learning guitar was to play a gig before I was 40. I had a pub gig in mind - nothing special. I was 32 at the time.

As it was, I played my first gig in a warehouse as part of the 'house band' and was 38 - so I had achieved my goal a long time ago. Since then it's been for fun. Well, I never did it for money - always just for fun. Teaching was the financial gain bit, but playing was always part of just enjoying life. I love performing for others, though, especially when you get a good party atmosphere going.

Oh, as far as records go, I have never wanted to do that, either :)

Brixmis said:

It's alright having great melodies, my usual problem is having a couple of songs worth of lyrics and no tune to sing them to! :s

I have notebooks full of lyrics - I usually just use them when I come up with an instrumental song experiment in the studio and will use the cutup method to piece bits of them together in a way that is interesting to me whether or not they make total sense.

Of course I also have songs that come together with less work and the lyrics usually present themselves at the same time.

It really depends on how I am writing - if I am writing in the studio the lyrics usually come from experimenting with my notebooks (something I learned from Remain in Light by Talking Heads). If I am writing a song on guitar - or with the band, the melody usually presents itself first (usually in gibberish) and then the lyrics fall into place as the melody gets worked out and usually without the help of my notebook. These songs tend to be less abstract compared to the other stuff.

I envy you guys. I can write music all the time...but lyrics. I suck that much at creating good lyrics...I'm always too much in my head what I want to say or what concept I want to follow. 

That sounds cool Brixmis, I had possibilities to make it some sort of carreer but decided against it due to the enourmous difficulties and uncertainty in this business. Also I think you could loose the fun with it if you have to do much stuff just to get by. 
Playing in cover bands and touring with that or "playing" fake guitar backgrounds for TV programs are stuff that some of the professionals I know have to do...and that seems to me completly soulsucking. So kudos to you for achieving your goals. Mine are to release the music I wanna make in the best possible way I can. And if a possibility to play live with guys I like opens up I do it...but that's it for me.

I must admit, these days I often really struggle with lyrics. If I sit and try and think of lyrics, I often do really badly. Normally I think of something randomly, off the bat and then am worried I'll forget them before I get a chnace to write them down - so I sing or just speak them into my phone or tablet  (that's why I have the Voice Recorder Pro app installed on both).

Things just motivate me to write a tune - such as once, just after returning to the UK from Germany with nothing more than a bag of clothes (long story...) I got a grant from Social Security to buy new furniture etc for my newly rented bungalow (might add that I'm officially disabled, so I get help with some stuff of this kind - though now I have my own house).

I had to go along and sign the forms one evening, and while we were there, this guy comes in - probably in his 40's - and starts kicking up a scene about how they had promised him a payment on that day and now they were refusing and how was he supposed to feed his children? I felt sympathy for the guy, but thought he was a bit of an idiot when he started threatening the supervisor with mafia-style "your face is marked" type crap. He ended up being arrested by the cops, but that stuck with me and ended up coming out in a song called "Beans". A very nice little 12 bar rock tune - I have a recording of my old band playing it somewhere - have to see if I can find it, lthough the singer at the time used his own silly lyrics (but the melody he used for the lyrics actually sounded way better than my original).

Another time and for a while I used to listen to TalkSport radio when propogation allowed, when I was in Germany in 2003/4. In the evenings. They used to have this relationship advice program and the guy presenting it didn't mince his words. I just couldn't comprehend some of the crap people were coming out with. You know - the old "yes, he beats the crap out of me/shags everything in a skirt, but I love him and it's not really his fault". Are you fekking kidding me?!
Anyway, that resulted in the song "Never Forever".

My relationship with my Father was the motivation for another song, which has so far no music - that's about 4 sides of lyrics!

I did write a comedy song once, called "Barmy In The Army" and that is, I think, the only song I sat down and wrote in my studio - but again, that was based on my own experience in uniform.

When I was in my teens I had a very vivid imagination. I wrote a science fiction book when I was 15, but stupidly threw it away when I joind the army (at 16) - all 140 A4 pages. Really regret that - but I had a heck of an imagination. In the army they called me "John The Bodge" because I was always coming up with weird and wonderful, unconventional ways to fix things (like cars and stereos). But by the time I learned to play music, that imagination had dwindled drastically. Now and then I have brainwaves, but they are few and far between. Age and drugs, I guess...

Anyway, I'll post the lyrics for those later, when I find them.

Brixmis said:

My sole objective (apart from to enjoy myself) when learning guitar was to play a gig before I was 40. I had a pub gig in mind - nothing special. I was 32 at the time.

As it was, I played my first gig in a warehouse as part of the 'house band' and was 38 - so I had achieved my goal a long time ago. Since then it's been for fun. Well, I never did it for money - always just for fun. Teaching was the financial gain bit, but playing was always part of just enjoying life. I love performing for others, though, especially when you get a good party atmosphere going.

Oh, as far as records go, I have never wanted to do that, either :)

That's awesome that you got to achieve what you set out to do - nothing cooler than that!!!

I am 31 - for me when I started out at 13 and I only wanted to learn bass for fun, at that age I had no idea of what music really was other than what I saw on Much Music (Canadian MTV).

When I turned 15 I bought an album for myself with no knowledge of what it was, I just thought the cover looked cool. I bought The Soft Parade by The Doors - and it was that album that made me want to record albums.

Being in a band - live shows were just a given, I have played a lot of them over the last 20 years and nothing really beats the energy of a good one with a decent sized crowd and a good lineup of bands.

But that has always been secondary to me (besides our band plays pretty much daily - I don't really need a crowd to get enjoyment out of that). For me - the thought of painting with sound is the ultimate creative release. Which is why I decided to learn how to engineer music - so that I wouldn't have to rely on producers, labels, etc. to put music to tape. It is hard work though - thankfully I have a strong work ethic. :)

lord_of_shred said:

I envy you guys. I can write music all the time...but lyrics. I suck that much at creating good lyrics...I'm always too much in my head what I want to say or what concept I want to follow. 

That sounds cool Brixmis, I had possibilities to make it some sort of carreer but decided against it due to the enourmous difficulties and uncertainty in this business. Also I think you could loose the fun with it if you have to do much stuff just to get by. 
Playing in cover bands and touring with that or "playing" fake guitar backgrounds for TV programs are stuff that some of the professionals I know have to do...and that seems to me completly soulsucking. So kudos to you for achieving your goals. Mine are to release the music I wanna make in the best possible way I can. And if a possibility to play live with guys I like opens up I do it...but that's it for me.

I have been writing lyrics for about 6 years now - poetry, randomness and stories a lot longer. I find that if I approach from a point of abstraction the concept will find me as opposed to the other way around. When I started writing I took a very literal approach - and was never happy with what I came up with. When I started worrying less about intention I started being happier with the end results.

Biggest quotes I live by are:

"Forget about style; worry about results." - Bobby Orr

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”  - Stephen King

Both have had a lasting influence on my writing - when it comes to the Bobby Orr quote it helped me get out of my head and into my heart. When it comes to the Stephen King quote I have cross applied it to music - I listen to a lot of music, especially stuff that is outside of my comfort zone which has had a great effect on not sounding like a product of my influences.

As for playing in cover bands - or doing advert music, I could never do that to make a buck. Like you say it would be completely soul sucking. Besides I never cover anything in a traditional note-for-note way - because that also sounds like no fun.

Brixmis said:

I must admit, these days I often really struggle with lyrics. If I sit and try and think of lyrics, I often do really badly. Normally I think of something randomly, off the bat and then am worried I'll forget them before I get a chnace to write them down - so I sing or just speak them into my phone or tablet  (that's why I have the Voice Recorder Pro app installed on both).

Things just motivate me to write a tune - such as once, just after returning to the UK from Germany with nothing more than a bag of clothes (long story...) I got a grant from Social Security to buy new furniture etc for my newly rented bungalow (might add that I'm officially disabled, so I get help with some stuff of this kind - though now I have my own house).

I had to go along and sign the forms one evening, and while we were there, this guy comes in - probably in his 40's - and starts kicking up a scene about how they had promised him a payment on that day and now they were refusing and how was he supposed to feed his children? I felt sympathy for the guy, but thought he was a bit of an idiot when he started threatening the supervisor with mafia-style "your face is marked" type crap. He ended up being arrested by the cops, but that stuck with me and ended up coming out in a song called "Beans". A very nice little 12 bar rock tune - I have a recording of my old band playing it somewhere - have to see if I can find it, lthough the singer at the time used his own silly lyrics (but the melody he used for the lyrics actually sounded way better than my original).

Another time and for a while I used to listen to TalkSport radio when propogation allowed, when I was in Germany in 2003/4. In the evenings. They used to have this relationship advice program and the guy presenting it didn't mince his words. I just couldn't comprehend some of the crap people were coming out with. You know - the old "yes, he beats the crap out of me/shags everything in a skirt, but I love him and it's not really his fault". Are you fekking kidding me?!
Anyway, that resulted in the song "Never Forever".

My relationship with my Father was the motivation for another song, which has so far no music - that's about 4 sides of lyrics!

I did write a comedy song once, called "Barmy In The Army" and that is, I think, the only song I sat down and wrote in my studio - but again, that was based on my own experience in uniform.

When I was in my teens I had a very vivid imagination. I wrote a science fiction book when I was 15, but stupidly threw it away when I joind the army (at 16) - all 140 A4 pages. Really regret that - but I had a heck of an imagination. In the army they called me "John The Bodge" because I was always coming up with weird and wonderful, unconventional ways to fix things (like cars and stereos). But by the time I learned to play music, that imagination had dwindled drastically. Now and then I have brainwaves, but they are few and far between. Age and drugs, I guess...

Anyway, I'll post the lyrics for those later, when I find them.

Yep I never sit down and write lyrics as I am usually not happy with the results - I write in a similar fashion, I will either write it down in a note on my phone, or sing it into the voice recorder if I have a melody idea. Lots of the time it is the outside world that influences me - someone saying/doing something at work or in the supermarket is more than enough to spark creativity for me.

It is a shame you have lost your imagination a bit - but from the sounds of it you do have the tools to write without it. I've found as I've gotten older that the mundanity of life is my creative well so to speak and it is the abstraction of those experiences that has yielded me my favourite results. My earlier approach was to try and focus on surrealistic imagery yielded diminishing returns for me - but as I started approaching writing as an observer I was able to focus a surrealistic tone to more realistic subject matter. To that end I use applied abstraction and inflection as my tools of purpose rather than conceptual intention - I may not get exactly what I am thinking about, but it allows me access to what I am feeling which is usually more surprising even to me.

It is funny that you mention being unconventional in your approach to fixing things - I am very much the same way, I find that lateral thinking is an approach that can be applied to almost everything you do in life not just creative projects. It has been that approach that has led me to my biggest successes outside of music as well.

You know I just realised that my imagination started struggling when I settled down here. This is a very quiet place, near a very quiet town (a very boring town, has to be said). I didn't originally plan staying here, but met Mrs Brix and she wouldn't leave, so...

Before that I was always moving every couple of years. I had no patience, either - always had to be doing something. I've seen and done an awful lot around Europe - everything from being in a  diplomatic security service (for the USA, as it happens...) to sleeping on a park bench for a week. As a child I experienced my first war (as a neutral) at age 9. My old man was in the RAF and we went to many far away wonderful places. When I came back to the UK in 1996 it was to 'settle down' and finally get some peace and quiet. I was 31 and it was my 50th residence.

So it's not really surprising I had a vivid imagination all those years, and is quite telling that it fizzled out when I came here, finished with those things. It was actually an intentional change of lifestyle that caused me to lose touch with that side of my personality.

Life's a funny old thing :)

lord_of_shred said:

I envy you guys. I can write music all the time...but lyrics. I suck that much at creating good lyrics...

Same here!

I always felt that I 'should' be good at lyric writing, theoretically. I believe that I'm creative enough with music, and I can be a decent linguist. But then when I try to take pen-to-paper on a song... the result is horrifying.

I'll end up focusing on the wrong damn thing and somehow type something like:

Life is pain, you won't go far
So twinkle twinkle you little star

dafuq?

@Brixmis

I have moved around quite a bit in my life as well - I have lived in 3 major cities in Canada, and quite a few towns as well. No army living or wars or anything so my perspective is from that of just a lower middle class Canadian workingman - but I agree 100% that my creativity suffers when things get stagnant. I am only just in my 30s - so I haven't reached a point of wanting to slow down yet - well at least creatively slow down, lol.

@Zenbane

Focusing is half the battle - for me at least I find that when I lose focus and just let my mind wander I get results that are better. Also iteration is key - everything I write down usually changes by the time we get to recording it. I am not a great singer so I use tricks that help me get into character - I figure singing is like acting and the lyrics are the script, and as an actor I am open to interpreting the scene. The music dictates the melody mostly - and when I am writing I usually don't have that in mind, so when I sing I cut or add words depending on how they fit the perceived melody in the music.

Also - Gob is the best, I can't wait for Season 5!