How has your song writing proliferated over the years?

[bill5]

For example, did you have a year where you wrote a ton, then little to nothing for a couple years, then several years of moderate production, etc.

 

Although I've always had snippets popping into my head most of my life, I really only got serious about songwriting about 8 or 9 years ago. It started slowly the first year or so, then I hit a steady stride of (on average) about a song a month for years before trailing off to maybe one a year now. Which is just as well as I have a ton to work on, I don't need more lol 

[KuruPrionz]

It's never the same, I don't know where the songs come from but they do appear.

I've learned to always have paper and a pen or pencil, always. 

I wrote a bridge and 3rd verse on the roof of my car in a parking lot once, the song started coming to me as I walked from the store to the vehicle. 

 

I have no idea how many ideas were lost before I started doing that. 

I'll write a song, play it, record it and sometimes at some point I'll find a better word or line. 

Others come out of nowhere and seem completed at birth. I'm not obsessed with "perfection", as a friend once said to me "It may not be a perfect circle but it's a perfect whatever it is." I heard those words and I never obsess with trying to make everything "just so and no other way", that is self-defeating in my experience. 

 

Usually for me, the story comes first, then the lyrics and then I start putting music to it. I have a ton of "starts" and every now and then I visit one of those and finish it. 

Or, something new will just rear it's ugly head and become. 

[nursers]

Yep highly variable for me as well, long breaks then 6-8 songs in a few months. Wish I could predict it  

[KuruPrionz]

On 12/11/2022 at 4:35 PM, Dr Nursers said:

Yep highly variable for me as well, long breaks then 6-8 songs in a few months. Wish I could predict it  

I'm just grateful that they come at all. It's like they just fall into my mind somehow. 

[MortSahlFan]

I used to be strictly a one-man band, doing instrumentals, using my Tascam, Shure microphone, and instruments. No computer.

 

Well, after almost 2 decades of that (while playing in a few bands, mostly overseas), I thought I'd try my hand at brass/orchestral arrangements to improve older songs, or for new ones.. I also wrote a few songs with lyrics and found a woman to sing, although I usually just have her sing vocables... I also have started to use Audacity, but won't add any effects except reverb (to hide the low quality of my instruments, but I was burglarized, and it's that or nothing). I do like editing on this more because my buttons on my Tascam DP-01FX need to be pressed so hard, and you can see the waves on a computer, but there is a detachment I feel takes away from the playing. I try to do as many takes as possible, and say I'll take bits from each, but I wish I could find a producer, or someone willing to trade off.

 

Unfortunately, my brother passed away a few months ago. I have a few of his notebooks and have mixed some of his music and will hopefully complete it one day, but I've been looking for musicians my entire life - North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and think I'd have a much easier time if I wasn't a drummer first and foremost.