How do you write?

[Mrsix]

Just curious! For me, it generally starts with sitting down with the acoustic and strumming til I play something that catches..
Occasionally I dream of a tune and wake up with it in my head.. and it'll be swirling around all day til I get home from work and record the bugger!

I seldom write on the keyboard these days unless it's a heavy piano-laden track

How about you??

[Composer]

Originally Posted by Mrsix

Just curious! For me, it generally starts with sitting down with the acoustic and strumming til I play something that catches..
Occasionally I dream of a tune and wake up with it in my head.. and it'll be swirling around all day til I get home from work and record the bugger!

I seldom write on the keyboard these days unless it's a heavy piano-laden track

How about you??

Im oldfashioned, so I compose everything by hand. And without instruments..

[MaestroX]

I compose by hand and using my piano depending on the situation. Usually for melody writing i will compose at a piano but for harmonisations i will use pen and pencil.

[ttw]

Several methods, usually at the same time. I try writing a melodic idea, perhaps a rhythmic figure, a broken chord, or something.

Also, I like to set out a harmonic skeleton; some sequence of chords that implies a key, (I,V,I,V or I,vi,ii,V or I,ii,V,I, or I,V,V,I in a major key.)

Of course, as the piece progresses, all the initial sketches get modified (or discarded.)

I also try to get an overall structure of the piece. For the tangos that I posted, I tried to create 16-measure phrases with a 4+4+8 structure (called the bar-form in German, it dates to at least the troubadors.) Sometimes I use a 8+8 (but I haven't been able to get a good 4+4+4+4 yet.)

Then it's a matter of extension, revision, correction, repeateadly.

[Silhouette]

I dream of a tune and wake up with it in my head.. and it'll be swirling around all day til I get home from work and record the bugger!

Haha i'm the same, its so frustrating when you wake up in the middle of the night frantically searching for manuscript! Only, half the time i wish i never bothered it sounded better in my head.
I also find discovering a poem you like and writing music to it helps, because the music and syllables match and you can draw inspiration from the poem itself to create a nicer style of music.

[Aron Alexandrine]

I happen to be i'm a poetry club so writeing a song for me is a snap but i don't make it so poetic no i make it modern and it all rhyms.
after the word are finished and i feel happy with what i have written (feeling happy is important BTW) then i do the hard part which is composing the music on my guitar.

[reith]

I tend to write much away from instruments and on paper - let's face it, pencil and paper are always on hand wherever you are. But I do check and sometimes amend or expand things at a piano.
It usually starts in my head.


With the songs as I've written (not many), they've been for ensemble where the voice is an equal part - sometimes dominating, sometimes subservient or just part of the harmony. I have yet to try something popular.

Reith

[tawei82]

Sometimes the melody come to my head during dream. For many times, I just forgot when I come back from work. (no enough time to record).
Sometimes the melody come when I play the keyboard for fun (no rule, control by my head and hand).
For song with lyrics, usually I must come out with one melody together with one sentence of lyrics, then I will try to catch the full image of the melody and try to elaborate to form a song.
Sometimes elaborating is quite hard, will get stuck. sometimes take months to complete the song, very difficult moment as every day have to capture the feeling and force myself to elaborate.

[ScreamQueen]

I tend to play around on the guitar a bit to get the riffs sorted out, while singing stupid nonsensical words just to get the vocal melody in my head. After all the guitar is worked out and written down, I make up the words based on the tune in my head!
It's strange how everyone writes so differently... I do have those nights where I wake up with a tune in my head though. I tend to leave a blank tape in my tape recorder and just record it straight there, so I can make sense of it in the morning.

[gravehill]

I usually record improvised passages directly to computer and work it from there. I am also able to write away from computer but I do it only away from home as I prefer having all my gear available. One reason for that is that I'm usually easily inspired by the sounds themselves and hearing them usually helps to take the piece to the next level fairly easily. I'm also blending lots of non-classical elements in my stuff so it makes the gear aspect even more important.