chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA
roboctopus wrote:
chunter wrote:

There is a thread in 8BC's bit bucket where Sabrepulse said he jams melodies on a Yamaha Portasound. I recommend having many other instruments to play with and on, even if you don't record them, because your composing will take a different approach. Even harmonicas and ukuleles are okay, they don't have to be expensive.

For more thought, please ask a more broad version of the question on a new thread, it is an important subject.

This is good advice.

I usually strum guitar chords and hum to find a chord progression and melody.

Or play my chord progression on piano and plink around on the keys to find a melody.

SketchMan3 wrote:

That's the good thing about having a portable device like a PSP or Gameboy or DS. If you find yourself humming a good tune while out and about, you can quickly jot it down. Or, if you have a phone, you can record the tune and track it out later. I do that all the time.

Ukulele, harmonica, or even a children's toy keyboard are great inexpensive tools for developing melodic ideas in a more organic and tactile way.

Auxcide wrote:

I write everything either on piano, microkorg, Yamaha sh101, or omnichord. My composition style changes depending on which one I'm on. If I'm sitting down at my setup I do some drum rhythm and chords in lsdj and compose off of that.

On the go, I have lsdj on my phone and a piano app. Or I can record stuff with the mic.

New topic for epic win, great justice, and awesomesauce.

VCMG
Offline
California

I sit down and listen to some ideas in my head until I find one that I like, then I build off of it.

Or I could just get struck by lightning outta nowhere and then write a whole song in a couple hours, but that happens significantly less often.

ant1
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uhajdafdfdfa

well i open the tracker and then i just sort of know which keys to press. maybe from having pressed the same keys before and knowing what it will sound like? i don't compose it in my head first but on the other hand i don't just press randomly either.

Victory Road
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Gosford, Australia

usually i start with a chord progression and work around that. if i think of something in my head i'm usually hearing the underlying chords at the same time anyway :v

Parallelis
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New York

i just noodle around in various channels until i find something that i like. then i'll transpose it to find a good chord progression, then i'll make variations, and then i'll build the song from there

herr_prof
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When I have a blank tracker.. its all zeros, and is an uncarved stone. I start chiseling away and the song appears. Once the stone tells me what it wants to sound like I use my experience with previous songs to add what i think will make the stone be what it wants to be. Occasionally I have trouble  with the song wanting to be something im not smart enough to do, or it sounds like music I dont want to make, but lately ive been forcing myself to at least finish it to the best of my abilities even if it sucks. Ive found that if you have really good taste in music, youll know if your song is good or not.

Chainsaw Police
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Sydney, NSW

I have a mega-shitty Yamaha PC-1000 keyboard sitting right beside my desk. There's no MIDI, no synth options - it's just a keyboard with cheesy stock sounds! But if I have an idea for something - or even if I feel like just messing about, I start jamming on the keys until I find something cool. I tweak it a bit, then once it sounds good I start writing it into FL (or Ableton, which I've been using more recently)  or track it onto LSDJ or Piggy, and go from there.
I sometimes find a pretty good chord progression, tweak it to sound good, then add a simple melody line. Although with the way my creative mind works it sometimes works backwards or in other directions. Just go with the flow!

I've been writing a tune in Music class on piano and guitar, then moving the chords to LSDJ. It's a very alien approach for me, but it's plenty fun!

I'm gonna echo what everyone else has said and say that if you're musically inclined in any instruments, just jam out on them. IF your instrument and music device both have midi in-out capabilities, maybe even hook them together and hear what it'd sound like in near-final form.
This cheap Yamaha keyboard is terrible for performance, but great for writing. I'd prefer using it to draft out melodies over the piano roll any day of the week!

Frostbyte
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herr_prof wrote:

When I have a blank tracker.. its all zeros, and is an uncarved stone. I start chiseling away and the song appears. Once the stone tells me what it wants to sound like I use my experience with previous songs to add what i think will make the stone be what it wants to be. Occasionally I have trouble  with the song wanting to be something im not smart enough to do, or it sounds like music I dont want to make, but lately ive been forcing myself to at least finish it to the best of my abilities even if it sucks. Ive found that if you have really good taste in music, youll know if your song is good or not.

One of the most true things I have ever read.

xylo
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Holland

I just ram the keyboard and happy modules role out.

Zan-zan-zawa-butt
Offline
AANABAY01

well i make sure not to touch the tracker until i've worked something out on keyboard. this doesn't always mean starting with a chord progression either, so much as looking for weird rhythmic clashes and quirks, or anything which slightly defies expectation. and after a certain amount of experience hunting for song ideas you'll start to gravitate naturally to comfortable ones, which is definitely a bad development, and you should try to resist doing your old stuff again.

my melodies still suck but you can't have everything

one way to find new stuff while jamming on an instrument is to do it while you're tired, because you'll mess up and miss chords and find stuff that might be new ground for you. i guess most people would have written "drugs" here

Last edited by Zan-zan-zawa-butt (Aug 18, 2012 9:34 am)

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas
herr_prof wrote:

Wisdom

I thought you were being sarcastic and making an overwrought Michelangelo joke, but then I realized how great this advice actually is. Way to go. You really do have to let the song be itself at some point, and be a mature enough artist to let it do that instead of trying to bend it to a preconception of what a song is or should be. Kudos!

Chainsaw Police
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Sydney, NSW
Zan-zan-zawa-butt wrote:

i guess most people would have written "drugs" here

I've never had the pleasure of tracking while high or drunk. I bet it's be pretty annoying though, what with my attention span already being that of a bottle-cap's

Saskrotch
Offline
Chicago IL

one note at a time?

Xuriik
Offline
Puerto Rico
Telerophon wrote:
herr_prof wrote:

Wisdom

I thought you were being sarcastic and making an overwrought Michelangelo joke, but then I realized how great this advice actually is. Way to go. You really do have to let the song be itself at some point, and be a mature enough artist to let it do that instead of trying to bend it to a preconception of what a song is or should be. Kudos!

I've had that feeling that my songs write themselves halfway through sometimes. I thought I was cheating/doing it wrong.

basspuddle
Offline
washington
Chainsaw Police wrote:
Zan-zan-zawa-butt wrote:

i guess most people would have written "drugs" here

I've never had the pleasure of tracking while high or drunk. I bet it's be pretty annoying though, what with my attention span already being that of a bottle-cap's

I bet it would be super frustrating using a tracker. I can barely use LSDJ anyway big_smile

Feryl
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basspuddle wrote:

I bet it would be super frustrating using LSDJ. I can barely use a tracker anyway big_smile

Fixed. smile