How do you write music?

[Seance]

And here are some super simple things I wrote on the ukulele. I animated the visuals for the first one in Adobe Flash.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGVh--RbtPg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YaGDwIyMa8[/youtube]

[rustywire]

I see a lot of myself in your post on the prev page @Seance
That's how I've also approached guitar to try something different, feel it out.
Speaking of which, earlier today I posted about working within the context of delay times to tighten up and use as a launchpad viewtopic.php?f=42&t=53529&p=1126798#p1126798

[Seance]

I see a lot of myself in your post on the prev page @Seance
That's how I've also approached guitar to try something different, feel it out.
Speaking of which, earlier today I posted about working within the context of delay times to tighten up and use as a launchpad viewtopic.php?f=42&t=53529&p=1126798#p1126798

Yeah. Delay, and playing with delay times, can shift perspective so new horizons open up.
Sometimes massive amounts of reverb or specific flavors of it can shape how I approach things
since I feel like I have to leave room for decay and space. Which is good for me since I tend to
embroider every open space with more curlicues.

Someone mentioned playing something and then only later realizing that you've just "written"
through inadvertently arriving at something by one of your favorite bands.

About fifteen years ago I was visiting a friend and we were in his recording garage and he
was playing drums and I was playing some chords that had been stuck in my head and we
started recording it but I didn't know "where to go" from the part I was playing. Then after
about 15 minutes of recording this same part over and over again I started to have a sinking
feeling that it wasn't something that I'd "come up with". Later that night as we were having
a beer I realized that I'd inadvertently "arrived at" the guitar part from a song that I loved.

The song was "To the Ground" by Bedhead. Especially the bit about 39:30.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dFlnHDZNdo[/youtube]

And then there was the time I thought I'd come up with this super cool guitar part, and it
turns out it was an organ riff from the song "Chest Fever" by The Band.
It starts at the 32 second mark:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoRq73Hnwrg[/youtube]

[rustywire]

Heh. Soon as I read "To The Ground" I knew which part. I have WhatFunLifeWas on like...every format. Powder is a song I return to and respond emotionally every time. I even bought the Bedhead vinyl box set to replace a well worn Transaction De Novo. And grabbed the live record as well. Such a limited catalog and solid the whole way through, a clinic of songwriting and progression. The Kadane bros in particular have def had a hand in helping steer my musical approach.

[Seance]

Heh. Soon as I read "To The Ground" I knew which part. I have WhatFunLifeWas on like...every format. Powder is a song I return to and respond emotionally every time. I even bought the Bedhead vinyl box set to replace a well worn Transaction De Novo. And grabbed the live record as well. Such a limited catalog and solid the whole way through, a clinic of songwriting and progression. The Kadane bros in particular have def had a hand in helping steer my musical approach.

I love Bedhead and The New Year. The Kadane Bros' style of interlinked guitar parts is so satisfying.
I totally love that kind of stuff and probably try too hard to shoehorn that technique into every song.

In 1995 I tried to start a band with some childhood friends, both of whom had been in bands before.
So I made a mix tape of kinds of sounds I wanted to explore. The tape included "Bedside Table" by Bedhead
and "Good Morning, Captain" by Slint and the drummer said that he didn't "get" those two songs and
found them totally "boring". I should have known then that it wasn't going to work out. We basically spent
a year working on one single song before drifting off in different directions.

Ah well.

[rustywire]

"Not getting" Good Morning, Captain is a red flag fo sho.
I was introduced to Slint & that song when a cool girl loaned me the KIDS ost. That song blew my mind & the riff has been stuck in my head ever since. Lou Barlow also made quite the impression. I can understand people not getting into Bedhead...it takes the right rainy day commute, car trip or weird mood in solitude for it to click and make sense. Sometimes numerous listens, but then everything just keeps sounding better and better. It's subtle magnificence.

[Seance]

"Not getting" Good Morning, Captain is a red flag fo sho.
I was introduced to Slint & that song when a cool girl loaned me the KIDS ost. That song blew my mind & the riff has been stuck in my head ever since. Lou Barlow also made quite the impression. I can understand people not getting into Bedhead...it takes the right rainy day commute, car trip or weird mood in solitude for it to click and make sense. Sometimes numerous listens, but then everything just keeps sounding better and better. It's subtle magnificence.

I think "Good Morning, Captain" is an example (at least for me) of something where the pieces fit so well together
that I don't even know how they came up with it. Such songs are inspiring but also off-putting, since they draw
me in, but don't always provide easy clues about how to utilize those lessons in my own music.

Which is why listening to a wide spectrum of music (for different moods) helps expand my own approach to things.
Some songs are tight and precisely laid out. Some are fervent and seemingly came into being through a fever-dream
exploding into reality. Sometimes three chords are all you need. Sometimes two. Sometimes one.

[rustywire]

Hella.
Variety: Melange of life.
I, too like to keep a well-stocked spice rack. It makes for matching flavors with mood.
I prefer to find the pairings and blends which work together in harmony, opposed to taking another approach and using them all in every dish.

I worked in a specialty sandwich shop with hot & cold specials every day. A local business owner would order lunch a few times per week; every cold sandwich came with a request for extra mayo/lettuce/oil/vinegar/salt/pepper. Cold cut combos of heavily salty cured meats or chicken cutlets, seafood...whatever. It satisfied this individual's taste. Later I learned about the segment of the population who have very weak tastebuds, their supertaster counterparts, and everyone else who has average in-between sensory perception. It was revelatory. I realized connoisseurs of anything can be similarly characterized and some people just gotta have more cowbell on everything.

[friendship]

first I bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy diggy and usually wrap things upwith the boogy said up jump the boogy

[friendship]

Does anyone record all their noodling and then sift the recording for something usable? I have hours and hours of MIDI piano recordings but the thought of having to listen through my own messing around sounds exhausting.

[rustywire]

I had 20gb+ of recordings, my deep dive into learning, exploring, feeling out pedals and electric guitar basically from day 1.
Also foray into ITB digital/tracking, a span of 3.5 years & the transition from bass to guitar.

I had a nice collection of accidental, incomplete greatness...cherry picked out of recording everything from tuning until putting down the instrument. I would mostly make time marker notes when playing, to isolate immediately after hitting stop. 20 minute chunks each producing 1-3 *something there* ideas were more common than not. I was working toward something longform and so much for best laid plans. It was all on the 320gb hdd lost last year
Backup your backups.

Presently I'll roughdraft/scratch pad the ideas as they manifest and hit record without archiving the entire process, even if it's just a few sec lofi smartphone recording to see where the riff takes me when revisited, usually when my fretting hand feels better.

[D.o.S.]

Yeah I'm a firm believer in the Can method of recording everything if you're in a live band.

[rustywire]

^
Furthermore if you're a performer, it is invaluable to record yourself performing to find areas for improvement. if your desire is to effectively get better in sports or the arts, then study and reflection benefit all levels of talent.

[friendship]

I'm used to studying my recorded performances of rehearsed material, but I completely skipped the studying-my-improvisation. Maybe it's time to focus on that. I do the same rough-recording thing of ideas, but then I just end up with a whole bunch of poorly recorded/executed ideas that I forget how to play.

Christ I'm a shitty musician.

[D.o.S.]

Me too. Turns out that doesn't mean more than what you make of it.