Just A Little query folks? Does anyone else have songwriting surges. This last week ive written 6 songs ,some from just little throw away lines to others when inspiration has struck.A few months ago I couldn't write for love nor money.
Funny old game this songwriting

Yep I often draw blanks even composing melodies. On a roll lately though














ngng melodies

I Was a few months back furry but ive just completed 6 songs in 4 days lol.Dont know if there any good but its a great feeling to finish them
take care
Brad

Well....
Since the early 70's to present I've written about 50 songs....maybe a bit more.
Most of those were written from early 70's through the early 2000's.
In the last ten years or so I've written/completed about six to my satisfaction.

I have a total of (30) songs recorded on my personal DVD originals anthology.
Four of those are one's finished up in BIAB and I'm satisfied with the outcome.
I'd have never finished them if I hadn't discovered BIAB about (4) years ago.

Simply put, I don't write nearly as many from year to year as I used to but I think my songs are better.
Yes....I go through a dry spell then a subject matter rears it's head that piques my interest to get going on.

I'm a failure.....only (3) albums worth of recorded music in over 40 years of songwriting and recording.
Prince did 40 albums....Rolling Stones have released 30 studio albums, 23 live albums, 25 compilation albums, three extended play singles, and 120 singles.

I'll never catch up .....back to topic.

I have sperts of inspiration. I may write 4 or 5 songs in a week and then struggle to write one song over the next month. I've learned, for me at least, the best thing is to just go wth the flow. If I try to force out lyrics it's not nearly as good as the ones that come naturally.

Biglad,

Absolutely. As grueling as it is though, I try and write every day and save everything and every idea and snippet neatly filed away, not expecting anything is going to happen on first try.

It is all different.

Sometimes I will find a cool riff on the piano and it takes a week to turn into a song, sometimes a month.

Sometimes a lyric will sit around for a month waiting for a chord progression, sometimes it is the other way around.

Sometimes I grab an acoustic and it all comes at once, but that is rare.

The point is I try and write every day and file everything. Most songs get finished at midnight when I pop out of bed and say "got it" and go switch the lights back on in the studio.

As an FYI, the last song I posted Fall Apart came together after sitting on the shelf for 12 years. The chorus had eluded me for 12 years--and I woke up in the middle of the night, and said "I got it." Loaded up Band in a Box and had it posted three hours later.

Yes, it is a weird business.

Every February, 14 songs as part of the February Album Writing Month challenge

I don't think there's a musician alive who can say they don't relate to that. It's part of the creative process - sometimes, you're overflowing with ideas! Other times, you got nothing. It's the name of the game in the strange business that is songwriting.

No discussion of the creative process would be complete without remarks about fundamental processes associated with the conscious and the subconscious mind.
Dr. Freud's sensational conclusions based on investigations using narcotics and hypnosis have been largely supplanted by new theories and technologies which currently discourage short cuts that artificially stimulate either, relegating such practices to voodoo and the occult.
What is currently suppposed is that the two aspects of awareness are common to us all, in constant operation, and, with practice, can be conditioned much as any other asset, with practice and guidance. That is one of the principles of mind training -- Zen, and otherwise.
Before anyone supposes I am going off into space, here, let's say when the mind is concentrating on a math or business problem, the conscious mind is in play. On the other hand, when a music listener leans back in his chair, his eyes rolliing back, he has likely activated unconscious processes.
You see, it is not all that complicated. The hardest thing to grasp is the fact that it is so obvious in its presence. What stands in the way is the utter difficulty of harnessing the two forces in such a way as to establish a control. It takes work.

I see it all so clearly now. Band in a Box should hand out Tarot cards with each new purchase.

Gosh, it was right there the whole time!!!

I try to do the same david,this software has giving me the opertunity to do so many things .listening to seasoned pro like your self has really helped me in my eyes .THANK YOU so much
cheers Brad

Good one, David!
Charlatanism is said to ebb and flow, but never completely disappear.
When I was a kid, I had this rabbit's foot that seemed to work.

Not tarot cards.......

LAVA LAMPS!

Everyone knows that a lava lamp in the studio lets the creativity loose like those gobs of whatever that stuff is in the lamps..... right?

The fruits of a mis-spent youth.
If I were to say there two ways of breathing,
(1) automatic, unnoticed, and
(2) controlled by will,
would that seem esoteric?
Sometimes, the plainest things go
unnoticed by consciousness, but
definitely register. That's a subject
I've been interested in for a long time.
I hope this does not take us away from
the topic of creativity and song writing.
It doesn't have to.

[quote=David Snyder]Biglad,

Absolutely. As grueling as it is though, I try and write every day and save everything and every idea and snippet neatly filed away, not expecting anything is going to happen on first try.

It is all different.

Sometimes I will find a cool riff on the piano and it takes a week to turn into a song, sometimes a month.

Sometimes a lyric will sit around for a month waiting for a chord progression, sometimes it is the other way around.

Sometimes I grab an acoustic and it all comes at once, but that is rare.

The point is I try and write every day and file everything. Most songs get finished at midnight when I pop out of bed and say "got it" and go switch the lights back on in the studio.

As an FYI, the last song I posted Fall Apart came together after sitting on the shelf for 12 years. The chorus had eluded me for 12 years--and I woke up in the middle of the night, and said "I got it." Loaded up Band in a Box and had it posted three hours later.

Yes, it is a weird business.

thanks david for the input .im like you I set myself a goal and try to achivece it

Ive had a song I wrote while brick laying (when I was an apprentice)
around 1980/81

that I might get back too

the lyrics were( please remember I was 16)

They found you lying there
face down on your bed
A drugs over dose
at least that's what the
papers said
gone before your time
and presidents with shaken heads


oh Marilyn
where have you gone
oh Marilyn
what have you done

Dear "Biglad"...

Every single song that I've conceived and completed "came to me" when I was NOT thinking about songwriting AT ALL, in any shape or form.

Go figure!

LOREN

What a great topic.
I definitely have song writing spurts.
I hear a phrase I store it away in my pea brain till something else comes along that I can add too.

I find it best not to force my self to write and from time to time have to give song writing a break.
I find it best to be relaxed when writing.( a few beers help)
Im trying to be humble when I put this down but I have written over 1000 songs most of which are pretty crappy and most of which you guys have had to suffer through here.
My best songs I write in my sleep but never wake up in time to record them.
You should here some of the great Beatles song I have written while asleep.
Wish I could recall them myself
Rob

I can relate tho this rob ,my latest Midnight Blue was beer induced lol. I carry a little note book around with me because someone somewhere will say a great line .
brad

Dear "Rob4580"

I'm hearin' ya' loud n' clear about the song ideas that come to you in your sleep.

For me, those ideas bubble up to the surface of my mind as soon as I wake up.

As far as getting those ideas recorded in some sort of temporary or permanent medium, I use the voice memo feature of my Android phone to sing the music, lyrics, whatever.

LOREN

I can almost always write an instrumental as I sit around and plunk on my Yamaha acoustic several hours every day and I usually come up with something that's workable. Songs with vocals don't come quite as easily as I'm very moody with that. I also write novels, so a lot of my "word creation" goes there. So far, 4 novels completed and 4 in the works.

Between 1978 and 2004, I wrote about 20 - 25 songs. Since then I've written over 700.

I get ideas for lyrics from the strangest places, in addition to the more traditional sources. I was driving south on Interstate 55 between St. Louis and Memphis several years ago and saw a billboard promoting a Southern Baptist church. It said "Get the gospel as you enjoy our Southern hospitality." The song that came from that: "Southern Gospetality".

Another billboard advertised a local loan company. It read, "We can't be your genie in a bottle, but we can get you through until the end of the month." My song: "Looking For Jeannie In A Bottle".

When I lived in San Antonio, Texas, we had a 5-piece group and played most of the local joints. AT a place called "The Elbow Room" a guy was so drunk he fell to his knees on the dance floor and tried to continue dancing on all fours. Someone stepped on the poor guy's fingers. My song:

CHORUS
Don't dance when you're drunk, keep your butt on the stool
'Specially when the Jim Beam lingers.
Don't dance when you're drunk, don't be a barroom fool
'Cuz someone will step on your fingers

So, my inspiration for lyrics comes from some unusual places. Another good place is the back pages of the newspaper where they have a lot of short human interest stories. I've gotten a few from there.

Right now I'm trying to come up with a lyric for two musical beds I've written. We'll see what happens.

Interesting post!

Alan