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I've been reflecting on my own writing process lately, and I've come to notice a few things:
- First off, most music I write now is acoustic-based. In the last year, I've written maybe one or two songs on an electric guitar while I've written probably a dozen on acoustic. This seems to stand at odds with the countless hours and ridiculous money I've spent on pedals/electric gear. Even when it gets to the tracking process, I find that most of the time I don't use an electric guitar at all. I typically end up just running a microphone through pedals if I want to get effects on a track.
- The second thing I've noticed lately is that when I sit down with an electric guitar (esp with pedals), I find it harder to call anything I play a 'riff' or a 'song'. When I've got my board going, I feel like the main things I come up with are reductive/simple riffs that I attempt to fit to whatever sound I have dialed in. Or I end up with a massive celestial ooze of frequencies that sound cool, but I can't really imagine building on as a 'song'. I have countless hours of those kind of jam sessions on my computer, and I guess I hope to go back and maybe take bits out and either make some sample-based music with them or find a place to add them in to a later idea...
I was able to write my first album almost entirely using electric guitar (I think only one out of eight songs was written with an acoustic), but I guess the super loud fuzzy guitar sound isn't something I feel... comfortable(??) writing with anymore. Like, I love to sit down and crank up the gain and jamming some big shoegazey sounds, but now I feel like it's all too cliche to label a 'song' if you understand what I mean. And I guess what makes me so confused about the whole thing is that what I end up writing on the acoustic isn't even more complicated or (ugh forgive me for using this word - I mean it in only how it feels, not to reflect actuality) original. But I just identify with it more immediately I think, and can more easily hear a song materialize around it.
I guess sometimes I just feel silly having all this nice gear and ending up using it for maybe 20% of my creative process, while I do the other 80% of the work with a $40 acoustic guitar and a drum kit I got for free. But I know I enjoy playing with it too much to get rid of it. Do any of you other gear hoarders have similar experiences? Or what is your process like - when do you feel like you can turn a riff into a song?

Given that some people would argue against what I do as 'making songs', I think the big thing is to have an idea.

I mean, if it's easier to write on an acoustic I don't know that there's anything wrong with writing on an acoustic. There are fewer distractions, so to speak. Think of it as a sketchpad versus a stretch canvas, if that helps or makes sense.

baremountain wrote:I guess sometimes I just feel silly having all this nice gear and ending up using it for maybe 20% of my creative process...

Maybe you should take a step back, then. Using gear *just* because you have it would be like incorporating sweep-picking into every song you write because you learned how to sweep-pick. How do you feel about the music you're writing? That's probably the most important metric.

Adamadamadam wrote:Maybe you should take a step back, then. Using gear *just* because you have it would be like incorporating sweep-picking into every song you write because you learned how to sweep-pick. How do you feel about the music you're writing? That's probably the most important metric.

Yeah, that makes total sense, and probably pinpoints why I've been writing on acoustic lately. I actually am thoroughly enjoying the music I've been writing, probably more proud of it than I have been about anything before.
Perhaps another factor is frustration -I'm moving next weekend and haven't had my studio set up properly because of that. I have a bunch of ideas but my workspace isn't optimized to make them come into fruition.

baremountain wrote: I guess sometimes I just feel silly having all this nice gear and ending up using it for maybe 20% of my creative process, while I do the other 80% of the work with a $40 acoustic guitar and a drum kit I got for free. But I know I enjoy playing with it too much to get rid of it. Do any of you other gear hoarders have similar experiences? Or what is your process like - when do you feel like you can turn a riff into a song?

I've always done it the way you do: I write on an acoustic guitar or piano. I don't think I've ever written a decent song with an electric guitar, and I don't know why either. All the effects and toys and software have been for fleshing out arrangements, sound design, and mixing.

That said, per my existential crisis thread, I've been hating everything I write using this normally effective way recently, so I'm trying to expand what I consider to be an acceptable starting place for a song. The other day I made a weird bassline out of a weird noise synth patch, and started to build a song from there. The thing happened to me that always happens to me when I try to write a song like this, which is I get bored halfway through expanding and developing the idea and feel like the song doesn't really go anywhere. But at least I made a little half-baked snippet instead of nothing? I guess?

To answer just the topic title: with my cock.

I mostly write on clean guitar (electric because I don't have an acoustic) or piano. Just seems to make more sense. I just got out of a year long thing where I could only seem to write unplugged and now I'm finding I can write on electric with some effects again. Nice to have more options.

I write on an electric with some effects and stuff. It all depends on what you want to do. All the gear you own is just tools to accomplish something specific. So yeah, ideas.

I tend to stumble on a riff or chord progression I like, spend half an hour or so fleshing it out, start coming up with a melody that fits, realize I'm just playing a Tom Waits song, get frustrated, lather, rinse, repeat.

Really, though, most of my at home noodling takes place late enough in the evening that I'm just playing an electric guitar unplugged, or maybe run into a very quiet clean amp. I've always liked writing without effects, then start messing around with them once I get comfortable with the tune and start to visualize how the arrangement will come together.

I feel like I write the most interesting variety of stuff when I make an effort to change up my instruments. I come up with different things if I pick up a bass, or a ukulele, or start fucking around with something that's well outside of my comfort zone (within reason... not gonna start humiliatingly trying to write on a trumpet, for example).

That and recording every idea I have, when the idea hits—which means using Voice Memos on my phone a lot. I lost too many ideas waiting to record them later, so now I just play whatever I have to play, or just sing a melody. Helps tremendously.

I channel my spirit animal

I sing or hum melodies and noises into the voice notes app on my phone.

Ditto what Popvulture said. I set up some limitation (only use two pedals, only play the low E, D, and G strings, all chords move up the scale two steps then come down one) just as a mental exercise to get started. There's just too much out there otherwise.

Lately, I've been starting with sequences that I know are impossible replicate in strings. Then I write to those, and play weird rhythmic patterns that are polyrhythmic or uncomfortable over the top (on drums, usually). Speaking of drums--same logic applies. I flip the snare and play the reso head, or grab a popcorn snare, or play the bell of the crash...whatever. Just ignoring the first butt-rock-esque impulses.

Opportunistically.

Edit:
To elaborate, I'm a bricoleur. I will use whatever is available. Sometimes it means beatboxing or drumming fingers on a table. Early on as a kid I'd get melodies and rhythms stuck in my head as opposed to lyrics. Popeye cartoons def had something to do with it. How he would just be scattin to himself, walking down the street. I kinda ran with that.
With such a mentality I first got into samplers and drum machines before any *proper* acoustic instruments. So I approach creation as if there's a block of marble in front of me and I'm chipping away to see what's inside of my imagination. Whichever tools or element I have to work with provide the cornerstone and I just try to coax out what I think sounds good to me, catches my ear. I feel like with time I can make something happen with anything.

popvulture wrote:I feel like I write the most interesting variety of stuff when I make an effort to change up my instruments. I come up with different things if I pick up a bass, or a ukulele, or start fucking around with something that's well outside of my comfort zone (within reason... not gonna start humiliatingly trying to write on a trumpet, for example).

That and recording every idea I have, when the idea hits—which means using Voice Memos on my phone a lot. I lost too many ideas waiting to record them later, so now I just play whatever I have to play, or just sing a melody. Helps tremendously.

Invisible Man wrote:Ditto what Popvulture said. I set up some limitation (only use two pedals, only play the low E, D, and G strings, all chords move up the scale two steps then come down one) just as a mental exercise to get started. There's just too much out there otherwise.

Limitations are the key for me. Sometimes that means just noodling around on acoustic or unplugged electric.
But sometimes trying to sculpt something out of a certain delay setting is just as much a limitation as using
an acoustic.

When I find my hand gravitating to the same spot on the guitar neck and playing the same kinds of stuff
I try to mix things up by starting from an unfamiliar point. Such as playing tenor ukulele or bass, or banjo (back
when I still had one).

I never took lessons when I started playing guitar. I just had a few rudimentary bass lessons about scales
and since I wanted to play guitar I just looked at songbooks and tried to piece things together from the
chord books with what I'd learned about the standard scale on bass. So I like to recreate that sensation of
being lost and "feeling my way" towards a sound or a song.

I also sometimes tune my guitar (electric usually) to an open tuning. That way all the chord forms are
"new" again and I have to struggle to find what I'm "looking for". A lot of the time the song I arrive at
through an alternate tuning or using a ukulele is very simple and similar to what I could have come up
with on guitar... but the experience, the journey in finding it, feels different, and is therefore inspiring.

Here is an old song I put together using DADAAD tuning:
https://soundcloud.com/caesarshift/asparagus