Tips on becoming a solid songwriter.

[Bellringer]

When I began learning to play guitar, the thing that made you cool was being able to play covers note for note. Of course that was always a good exercise and would get you gigs as a teen (high school dances and parties). I see these years as the time where you are gaining your chops. Learning to play your instrument by mimicing your heros and maybe some lessons.
I have many friends who have become great players but everything they try to write sounds like a cover by their main influence. So as you get more serious about playing, how do you find yourself? How do you avoid being trapped in the cover world?
So lets hear some tips on what you do to be original.
Here are a few of mine: 1. Experiment with blending together styles that normally do not blend well. You might be the person who finds the key!
2. Never be afraid of writing a bad song. Sometimes it will take writing a lot of bad ones to learn to write music you are proud of. Remember that you are not a bad songwriter just because you haven't written someting you like yet.
3. Make sure you allow yourself to be influenced by anything and everything. The sounds of the city make great rhythms. A quote from a book or movie might trigger some great lyrics.
4. If it seems like a song is almost there, try changing key, tempo, or mood with different chord styles ( add a 7th, minor, etc.)
So. What are some of your tips?

[Professor Riffs]

My advice is, shut up and listen to what's in your head. If you have a cool riff, jam it, and stop and think........."What should come next?". I'll often record a riff, then listen to it, and keep listening after it finishes playing. What do you hear coming next? Chances are, it's the right part. Listen, figure out what you hear in your head, win a grammy or 52.

Also, having band mates that aren't afraid to say "hey that sucks" helps an awful lot. Jam with people that care enough to have an opinion on the matter!!!

[Nubus]

write in the morning. even if your morning is 11 PM, whenever you get up and are fresh is the best time to write.

[dolivas]

I would echo all y'alls points. The big thing for me is that you got to get rid of any hangups or stop taking yourself too seriously when writing music. If you do all of that you become like the Onion headline said:

Experimental Band Theoretically Good


Just finding a way to relax and go with whatever flow is floating your boat along is the best way to write. You can tackle a serious subject with sincerity by using simple terms you understand, no one wants to hear some Shakespearean word-play if we can tell you don't mean it. When all else fails if you dig the sound of the song but can't find the words... make sh*t up, hell early Pink-Floyd, the Beatles-psychedelia, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno all put nonsense words together and made great music because of that. I know I struggle doing this but I've seen that when I do manage to do all that some pretty great stuff gets saved on the hard drive.

I forgot to add, if you're really into lore and mythic sh*t write about hobbits and the like. Hell look at Zep and early T Rex! that's all they did and they were rich and famous...

[dagosto]

I stopped actively listening to music a while back. I think this keeps me original.

[Whoopysnorp]

I find it helps to listen to a whole lot of wildly disparate stuff, so you wind up putting influences together that don't normally go together. Also if you're naturally weird, that causes your stuff to not come out sounding quite right, so it's at least kinda original and unique sounding. That seems to be the case with me.

[mikegee]

Originally Posted by dagosto

I stopped actively listening to music a while back. I think this keeps me original.

i can relate to that, i did that too, sometimes ya need to take a break from others' music, but aso, listening to other peoples music gives u new ideas, and then you can let those tunes swim around in your brain, and it subconciously gives you new original song ideas, like, 1 idea feeds another... kinda like a music forum! heehee

[mikegee]

i wish they would do an experiment, like, for originality, ala; original music: like if they plopped a baby human on a deserted island with a slew of musical instruments, what kind of music would be created without any musical influences, (and albeit, no lessons...) makes ya wonder just what would come of that hmmm i would think that would be truly original music

also, i wonder, if they ever taught monkees to play instruments? anybody know?

[DreamwaveMusic]

My approach to making original music has been pretty successful. Most of the compositions in my band were created by studying recordings of our improvised jamming and then collectively discussing and arranging. We get down into the detail of rhythm, polyrhythm, theory, dynamics, and tone and then compose. the compositions are always evolving too. this is really how i prefer to make music and by far the best musical project ive been involved in in ten years

[Caturtle]

Humans beings are chimpanzees. Monkeys already play music.

And as far as songwriting goes, it always helps to suffer. If that sounds cliche it's because cliches are rooted in fact.

It's important to extend the boundries of your experience by exposing yourself to emotional, physical and environmental extremes; allowing you a wider emotional pallet to write from.

Writing good music may be conditional on the idea that one has to let go of the idea of writing "good music". Maybe it's more important to live a life worth living? Maybe songwriting falls into place after that? I think it's important not to flounder in your ideals, and better to know where you stand and why you stand there: Either will affect and be expressed by the music.

Practice helps, but it's overrated: Don't go overboard or you might turn yourself into a jukebox. Johnny Greenwood (radiohead) said in an interview that the only time Tom Waits picks up a guitar is to write a song, and that he (Greenwood) has adopted a like philosophy. No one wants to be the best at practicing.