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What should I start with? Lyrics or the instruments?


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This depends entirely on you. Some find it easier to start with a concept, a story they want to tell, some come up with a riff, some doodle with loops for hours on end.

 

However, anyone creating seems to respond most when something is off. Your dog has died. Or your spouse has left you. Or Peter Gabriel booked you as the drummer but told you not to use cymbals. Or you need to turn in 3:30 minutes of music in three hours. Or you take part in a contest to make a song entirely of kitchen items. Or you sit alone in a cabin in the woods with a bear sniffing around outside.

 

That's the kind of things that tend to get your creative juices flowing. It's *very* rare that the piece someone made just because s/he "was bored one sunday afternoon" is anything to write home about.

 

As far as actually recording it goes, it's certainly much easier to start with a rhythmic and harmonic backdrop so you know what and where to sing.

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When recording on logic, what should be first to make it easiest? Should i start with the lyrics, then continue with the background track or instrumental from there? Or should i start with the track and add lyrics? What do most artists do?

 

Thank you

 

 

Lyrics have no musical tonality.

Melody and chords that match to the melody do.

 

You can start with a melody then follow it with chorrds or you can start with chords and create a melody.

 

Here I Harmonized a melody and having some fun with Synthesizer V using your post as lyrics. :mrgreen:

 

Haha, thank you. Also that was music to my ears :)

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  • 5 weeks later...

Really? "Just start." :)

 

Somewhere. Anywhere. Put a lyric in your head and just start plinking-down a melody to it. Keep the Record button firmly mashed-down and record another "plinking" and then another and another.

 

(Go ahead. Your computer will never run out of memory.) ;)

 

"Pick out the best one ... for now." Cut-and-paste it into a new track. Develop it. See where it goes. "Not so much? Don't(!) erase it! Mute it! Try again. And again and again." You've got unlimited studio-time, and no one's paying union wage.

 

Ready to try chords? "1 - 5 -4" is "three chords and the truth.™" Start there. Just block it out. Don't like that? Mute it, copy it, try again. (Save periodically!)

 

At some point along the way, somehow, "something magic begins to happen." Whatever you do, "don't erase it." Just keep adding alternatives. Keep doing that until you fall asleep. (Time Machine: "Back Up Now.")

 

Next morning, and now with fresh eyes, review it. Review it all. Every "take," every muted track. Within all of this you will begin to perceive the pattern of a brand-new and original song.

 

As you continue "working it," just keep adding new things. Never throw anything away. ("New project?" Sure. Go ahead. Just don't trash the old one(s).) "Takes" can be your best friend as you try to work out the chord-progression (or, "whatever progression") to accompany a particular part. Feel perfectly-free to accumulate them, then keep all of them! Yes, every single one.

 

"From all this source material," you can then begin to construct "your song ... or several." Truth is, "there is no single answer." There's more than one way that any song idea could go.

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  • 2 months later...
I’ve been in a band for years so songs usually grow from jams and ideas you all play around with. When I record on my own I make songs just for a laugh, I can fart a melody out in my sleep and if you don’t take yourself to seriously you can write a song about anything. If it sounds good you can always rewrite the lyrics but at least you’ll have a full song to practise with. I’ve been releasing comedy songs over look down about everything from folk songs about being in my garden to psychedelic funk rock songs about invisible cobras. I find once you get some music down, ideas just flow into your brain and it quickly and organically becomes a different beast. But that’s just me!
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