Stay Away From Your Guitar!!!!!!

[thelonius74]

You don't have to really....this is just a piece of knowledge that has helped me more recently in my songwriting. I shared it with another forum recently but they didn't seem too interested.


I usually get a spark of an idea for a song and then I just take it from there, grab my guitar and see where it leads me. Where it usually leads me is playing a bunch of Queen songs and noodling about on the guitar. And that spark is not developed, or else it is developed slowly or forced unnaturally.

What I decided was to start writing the melodies and lyrics totally away from the guitar. Until I have about a 80-90% complete song.

It helps if you can write notation BTW. If not...have a small tape recorder (best I think), or a good memory (which I don't) or sometimes I even have developed my own shorthand for writing down melodies.

What this also does is eliminate the limitations of us as players on our instruments. While most of us I'm sure are decent players at our respective instruments, the mind moves faster than our fingers. And without as many bounds.

So if you're in a slump..just an idea to think about.

[dminus0]

One thing I've noticed is when I don't pick up a guitar for a while, except at band practice, I'm usually full of ideas once I do pick up one up.

It happened at a friend's cook out this past weekend. He got sick of playing and handed his acoustic over to me. Next thing I know I have a new song.

[sansunzeste]

I know exactly what u mean!! I have that happen to me all the time! (mostly cause my mom takes my guitar away grrr because she gets tired of me playing it all the time.) lol once I get it back I can't stop playing I have all these ideas. Then she takes it again cause i'm playing so much.

[SomeGuyNamedRob]

Originally posted by dminus0
One thing I've noticed is when I don't pick up a guitar for a while, except at band practice, I'm usually full of ideas once I do pick up one up.

It happened at a friend's cook out this past weekend. He got sick of playing and handed his acoustic over to me. Next thing I know I have a new song.

My mopst prolific period was after not picking up a guitar in weeks. 5 songs in 3 days.

[tramampoline]

I find the guitar being both a hindrance and a good tool for getting melodies. So is my voice (it's more often a hindrance though). Bah, oh well, just gotta practice singing the melodies in my head more often.

[nin4269]

I like to use a probram called tabledit (found on www.tabledit.com ) to come up with new melodies and such.

The demo can do up to 16 measures, and you have lots of tracks, of MIDI instuments including drums... so I can try bass & guitar parts together etc. The sound quality is MIDI, so it's not the best, but the timeing is perfect.

It is a notation/tab creator, so you can write in notation or tab. It's really great and helps you associate lots of things in the song writing process.

[thelonius74]

Originally posted by tramampoline
I find the guitar being both a hindrance and a good tool for getting melodies. So is my voice (it's more often a hindrance though). Bah, oh well, just gotta practice singing the melodies in my head more often.

Exactly...in my case, the melody I can come up with in my head is better than the one that I stumble upon singing.

[jbh]

Some of my best songs were ones that came to me when no guitar was around. I went over the riff or melody in my head over and over again, usually with some lyrics, and then went straight to the guitar when I got home to play it.

However, when I come up with ideas or riffs when I just goofing on the guitar, I quickly forget. Or, later they just don't seem to work into anything.