songwriting

I don’t know if this is the same song I started out writing. The words are all there, but somewhere between writing them, testing a web page, walking the dogs, and so on, I lost the melody that I’d originally had. Maybe. This could be it. It works in any case. I do have this weird feeling like I’ve rewritten a song I’ve heard before, but it could just be the inherent familiarities of this … Continue reading

Sometimes you just have to walk away from something that’s not working and come back at it with a fresh mind. For all the trouble I had with this one yesterday, the writing process clicked into place fairly quickly for me today. I gutted the initial chord progression and got rid of about 75% of the melodies I’d started with. I’m not 100% happy with the composition/melody, but it’s very close. Synth selection/programming and arrangement … Continue reading

The first instrumental track of the month, and certainly not the last. I’m unofficially trying to write a lot more vocal songs this month. I had a lyrical snippet show up while taking a shower , but it continued to elude me for most of the day. Procrastination was hitting me hard. I ended up in the studio around 6:30, intent on forcing the issue, but some funky weather hit and the dogs wouldn’t leave … Continue reading

Another song that started with a sound. The main metallic piano riff showed up while noodling with different sounds and I managed to overcome the inertia of noodling to actually hit record. That’s often the hardest part of any writing project: knowing when to just get to it. I looped 8 bars of the main riff, added the drums, and then started humming until words started showing up. But they were nowhere close the the … Continue reading

Whenever I listen to music, I frequently find myself trying to figure out what the key little thing is that inspired it. Sometimes it’s a lyric, sometimes it’s a musical hook, sometimes it’s just the beat, but you can often pick out that one cool thing that led to the rest of it. If I were doing that to this track, it would probably be the line, “Silent shapeless creatures crawl out of our sight.” … Continue reading