ok so me and my two other friends(were 14 by the way) are trying to make a band.At first all we played was other bands music so we tried to make our own stuff. Thats the hard part for us.My friend (the guitarist) tried to start it but all of us agreed that it kinda sucked. So i was wondering how do you guys make new stuff? Thanks!

Having a basic knowledge of music theory really helps; most people who have interest in songwriting can write great songs even with only a fundamental knowledge, but that little bit helps a lot by ensuring that things stay within a cultural framework. You can go outside of this framework as well but if you do not do so in an intelligent way most people won't bother to listen to it.

Take some lessons if you haven't, and pick up a book about song writing that will explain why the harmonic content of a song--basically, its chord structure--has a lot to do with how it "feels". You can use a good chord structure as a skeleton or frame in which to place hooks and riffs that make the song even more interesting; etc. Everything builds off of itself.

ok then i guess i could pick up a few books cus there arnt many places around here that gives bass lesons

I just found this for music lessons in your area. Link

To learn how to write songs, take apart songs you like. What do they have in common? What's different? Try writing some songs using what you learn. These aren't going to necessarily be the songs you decide to play in your band, they will be experiments in songwriting.

After you've finished your experiment stage, take the best parts of the songs you've written and combine them into your new super-duper songs.

I'm not kidding.

I'm assuming that you play rock. A couple of Ed Friedland's books (Building Rock Bass Lines and the Bass Method series) are a good place to get you started on how "music" is put togehter. If not everyone "reads" music, "The Nashville System" may be good place to start, but you would still have to understands chords.

Music is a language, like English, French or Spanish (or in Moot's case, monosyllabilic grunts). Take your band, go out to that part of town that doesn't speak English and talk to people. Same with music. If you don't know the basic "words" and "rules" (most of which were written by dead 16th Century Italians), you can't communicate. If "Key of C ... Four bar intro ... swung eights ... walk down from the IV with a stop on the I" (yes, capitalisation counts!) doesn't make sense to you, how do you communicate these concepts to the rest of the band.

OK, you don't have to know how to read standard notation (but you should), but everyone in the band has to be speaking the same language.

... or lay "Werewolves of London" over "Sweet Home Alabama". Works for Kid Rock.

Keep writing even if it sucks. Think about why it sucks (similar to Jeremy's suggestion). The greats didn't become great with their first songs.

Which part sucks, the music, the lyrics, or both?

Writing your own music is the hard part for everyone. With a name like Clash21, it sounds kinda like you're aiming at a punkish sort of sound. If that's right, think of something that just makes you spittin' mad & disgusted everytime you think about it, and got to town saying exactly what you think about it. Those are punk lyrics, and the more P-Oed you are, the more punk they'll sound.

Then put those in a medley with All Summer Long- works for my band......

Here are a couple more things to keep in mind. First, don't expect to go from playing a few chords to being songwriting geniuses overnight. It takes time, patience, and talent. Writing stuff that sucks is a natural part of the creative process.

So hang in there, be paient, keep trying. And, welcome to the forum.

Just tell your guitarist to chug out some low E, see where it goes from there.

Writing songs involves both musical composition & arranging (what you play) and lyric writing (what you sing).

Here are a couple of books that can be helpful if you have no idea how to start doing either of these things:

Songwriting For Dummies

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting

+1 Like anything else it takes practice

Lot's of good advice so far.

Just for fun, Clash21, can you list 3 songs written by others (covers) that your band (or you personally) like?

Other than the nuts & bolts for writing songs, there are also different ways bands write songs.

Some jam until something cool happens and then they develop that idea.

Some write as a bunch of collaborators, each contributing to the song.

Sometimes someone will throw out something -- an idea, song title, hook, chorus, riff, chord progression, etc. -- and the others will add on to that.

Some have each individual write songs and then present them to the band once they're done (or nearly done).