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Songwriting

My Songwriting Process
Jul 16, 2002 - Contributed By Loki
My two cents on songwriting and how I do it.

Okay, as many of you know I write and play a very different style of music. It's a bit along the lines of gothic and industrial... I can't really explain it, you'd have to hear it. (Which will be possible soon hopefully).

Anyway, I figured I'd write a little article about how I go about writing music. The First step for me is often writing lyrics in the form of poetry. I will lock myself in my room, turn on some soft music very low, and let my fingers start to type. I don't like writing it out because my hands can't scribble words as fast as my brain can think them up. Once I have a rough draft of the song underway I leave it and let it sit for anywhere between an hour and a month...

The next thing I do is go back over the song and try to determine my state of mind, was I happy, sad, angry? This will determine the overtone of the music, and more often then not, which instrument will lead. (I'm not fond of using the guitar as the lead instrument in every song, as I feel it limits my creativity as a musician.) The next step is creating the music for it. Most of the time I will plug in my guitar to a distortion pedal and then sit on my bed with the lyrics in front of me, and play some riffs and sing the lyrics however I think they sound in my head... this usually produces the basic tempo and structure of the song.

Once this is done I do it again, this time recording it for future reference. I find the rhythm of the song the most difficult part, so it is done next. I will usually use Fruity Loops for rhythm. I listen to the recorded portion of the song and program the beats and loops to that. I then add this into the recording. At this time I do the same exact thing I did with the guitar, only with a keyboard. I then add that into the recording. After all this is done I have a recording which has the drums, guitar, vocals, and keyboards. I listen to it, make notes on it, then edit it some, like taking out the guitar during the chorus... things of that nature. After a few weeks of doing this I come out with one final product that I'm happy with.

That's the complicated way... Sometimes I'll be playing guitar, start singing, and just remember and not add anything to it, just call up a friend of mine to add a bassline to it, and another friend to add real drums and bam, there is a song. It all depends on everything.

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