"How do you write music?" I've been asked this question so many times and to this day, I don't really have a good enough answer. Any good riff, chord sequence or lyric is born out of a moments inspiration, that rare moment when you have genuine calm around you and this is as rare in my life as it is in anyone's. When I get to genuinely relax and get the time to just sit down with a guitar it's quite easy for riffs to appear as I'm noodling my way on the guitar and in my case challenging what my fingers can already do. This is why some rock and pop stars are wrapped up in record company cotton wool, the hope that they get that inspiration time a lot more often.
The hard part is finishing the bloody thing off! This is my argument to people who suggest that the more you learn the more you lose the natural musician. How can you complete a song on inspiration alone...where do you go musically? How can you stop repeating yourself? In my opinion (very careful to say that) this is probably the reason why I think some artists, who I'll not mention can come up with flashes of utter brilliance and then the rest of the song is nowhere near as good. Peter Gabriel is a great example of using musicianship, the wise old man of music has got better at songwriting as his musical ability has improved, check out 'Signal to Noise' from the album 'Up'.
Before anyone grumbles, I'm still a Clash fan and I love The Velvet Underground but more because of the moment that they represent, I'm not really a Jimi Hendrix fan but love the time he represents.
Within Mr. So & So the creative process is an odd one, initially there is a kind of unmuttered vote for our favourite riffs or chord sequences when they are presented at a rehearsal, generally a tune is very naked and it's just the bare bones so we can still adjust things before any of becomes attached to the tune. The ones that we keep going back to are the naturally selected tunes. Beyond this point we play with the tune like kids with playdoh, eventually shaping it into a solid piece if music, this is something that we are all involved in as we all influence each other I'm the process. It has to be said that we each occasionally present complete songs, but it's not as often.
As someone who is currently in the process of songwriting, I appreciate the blog post, Dave.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, thank you for reading it :)
ReplyDeleteI find a good starting point can be identifying with a lyric whilst listening to another song...whatever that spurs in you can lead to your own spin based on your interpretation and feelings based on what you heard. Being inspired by a track your listening to, you may think would lead to copying it but it never works that way for me.
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