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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
writing your own harmonica songs?
writing your own harmonica songs?
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walterharp
1360 posts
Mar 30, 2014
3:57 PM
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Hi all,
I was wondering how many of you write your own songs and what the process is?
For me it is playing around on harmonica and getting a cool lick (hook) to build off of. It is basically a melody based approach, but sometimes groove. Then once the music is there, try to come up with an idea for lyrics and melody (usually same as harp line, but sometimes different) that fit the feel. It is kind of weird how sometimes they just flow out.. and then how sometimes they are a dud and others take off. Band in a box really helped me keep track of counts, chords and all that other stuff that helps communicate ideas to others, but that only happens once the core idea is solid in my head. It is very harp based. Many of them are blatant ripoffs of standard blues ideas, but that it the way it is in the blues, just gotta add your own twist.
how bout the rest of you all?
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nacoran
7666 posts
Mar 30, 2014
4:49 PM
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I write a lot of songs, but I was writing lyrics and melodies long before I got into harmonica, so my process is mostly reversed. Usually it starts with (what I think is) a clever line and a bit of melody. I try to remember to keep a recording device around so I don't have to interrupt the flow to right lines down. I'll keep trying lines until I get something I like. I'd say 90% of my melodies and at least a verse and chorus are written before I think about the harp (that said, I write harp only tunes which obviously start and end with harp).
Once I've got the rhythm in my head I'll sometimes stop singing and focus exclusively on the lyrics. That sometimes leads to some stilted sounding lines, so I'll have to work on some syllable fixes when I get back to the music.
For me, the melody comes out of the air somewhere in my brain that I don't have full control or access to- little snippets of scales and such, a note that sounds like it needs to resolve a certain way. The words are laborious lists of rhymes, ideas for verses, puns, scraps of poetry and emotion, alliteration and whatever else I can throw at it, and the rhythm usually flows out of the words, from the whole cloth of speech patterns and some other part of my brain that isn't on speaking terms with the melody. The result is often lyrics that are very hard for other people to sing (and often for me to sing as well). Usually there is a recording somewhere that sounds like the words fit, and I spend weeks trying to hit the exact meter again.
Then, the most important part... I let it all sit on the shelf for a while and revisit it when I've fallen out of love with it. If I still think it's good, I try to polish it a bit. If not, it languishes on the hard drive.
When I have it right, it's the best feeling in the world, but I often have to be dragged kicking and screaming to that place where I write.
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Nate
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jbone
1574 posts
Mar 30, 2014
8:50 PM
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The process has changed for me some over about 20 years. Used to be my mind would just race with ideas which I had to write down at that moment or lose. I would collect all my scraps of ideas on a sleepless night and lay them on the table with a yellow legal pad and see if i could find some stuff that would make a song. Plenty of duds. A few good ones.
In more recent years I have had a partner to bounce stuff off of. Used to be I'd write a song and have to wait for jam night and try it out live with sometimes total strangers. This forced me to learn to explain a song. "Muddy meets Tbone Walker, they get drunk and jam" kind of stuff.
Having a partner has made it easier one way, I can bounce an idea off of her quickly. Other hand, my creative juices don't flow like they once did. We have a cd's worth of fresh material right now that we've got written and arranged. Trying to figure out how to get some personnel behind us and get them recorded. Money talks!
I know this. If you want to front a band you need to sing and it also helps if you have material you can bring to the table when forming or joining a band. IF that is, it's understood that you will front or share front duties! It is really great when this works out and you get to do your songs with guys who will make it shine.
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Sarge
390 posts
Mar 31, 2014
6:48 AM
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I have written several songs(lyrics and music) over the years, but only two purely harmonica songs; no lyrics,just a tune for the harmonica. On those two songs, I just came up with a tune in my head then played it on the harmonica and "presto"!!! a harmonica song.
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Wisdom does not always come with old age. Sometimes old age arrives alone.
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isaacullah
2701 posts
Mar 31, 2014
8:06 AM
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Most of my song ideas come from just noodling around until I hear something I like. The looper really helps with that. Often times, I'll start with a looped beat and/or chord rhythm, and then just start to free play stuff over that until something pops out to me as an "idea" that could become a melodic line. I'll then usually start working with that idea, doing various call and response stuff, until I feel like it's suitably fleshed out to make something of song-length. That's when I'll bust out the recorder and start doing takes. It's usually not until the fifth or sixth take that I feel like I've gotten something worth holding onto. That's when I put it up on YouTube or Soundcloud. I'll then listen to the recording a lot. I mean like over several weeks. During this time, I might noodle around with the main riff or melody a bit, but I don't try to play the whole song. After a reasonable time has passed, and I've listened the recording probably a hundred times or more, then I go back to it, and try to play it from scratch. Usually, it comes out complete at this point, and I consider it "done". Sometimes it still doesn't feel finished, so I shelve it some more. I've got a lot of stuff that are really just "song sketches", and they are sort of waiting around for me to do something with.
I don't sing or write lyrics, though, so this is all an instrumental process. I mainly am concerned with groove based music that's heavy on hooky riffs, and I think my approach to these kind of tunes works pretty well. I do, however, write melodies from time to time, and when I do those, I usually just work them out slowly over time "in my head" and on the harp. I don't usually record these until they I feel the melody is complete. Needless to say, i've got quite a few incomplete melodies kicking around in the old noggin by now! :)
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mr_so&so
798 posts
Mar 31, 2014
2:03 PM
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I'll chime in too. I've written maybe half a dozen original tunes and added verses to several pre-existing songs. Of the originals, I've come at both ways, with lyrics first, and with music first. My process is just to be open to working with whatever comes along. Some don't work out, but I've found that most do. Strangely enough, I find 12-bar blues hardest to deal with musically. I've written a few 12-bar blues song lyrics, but I feel like I need a band behind me to make them work musically, not just harp. Other songs that are more melodic I can usually work out a nice harp accompaniment.
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Last Edited by mr_so&so on Mar 31, 2014 2:04 PM
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catochan
34 posts
Apr 01, 2014
8:50 AM
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I like the Willie Nelson school of thought, if you come up with something, put it aside, and it comes back to you, then it is probably something memorable. Songwriting is my main focus, I could talk about it for a long time!! Pat Pattison's book, Writing Better Lyrics, is one of the best I've ever come across. I think a really simple song can be the hardest to write. I spend a really long time on lyrics and editing, and usually start with some words attached to a melody. I think that starting as a harmonica player as a teenager helped my sense of melody because you think of phrasing in ways that you might not if another instrument was how you started. I think harmonica melodies can have a really big impact just on the note choices and order alone.
I write everything in my head, without an instrument to play along with. These days I'll write lyrics on my phone or computer so I can play around with the order more easily. Then in the editing and arranging phase I'll use a guitar and see if I can make more interesting chord progressions that still fit.
To me, a memorable melody is just about the most exciting thing I can think of, although lately I've been writing more drone based blues music….I'm still working on crafting songs in that style, and figuring out how to order songs in a set. I like that people have different songwriting approaches…..and over time it is good to try out different ones so you don't get in a rut. Some songs come out really easily and others take a lot of work…..but I think putting in the work is what helps you to be able to know your own process and what works well. It can help mitigate frustration if things aren't working out like you hope on something you are working on. To me the biggest sign is when you can trust your editing process, and feel comfortable cutting good stuff to make room for truly the truly devastating (in a good way!). And ordering stuff so that it will have the biggest impact. Can be hard work, but super rewarding!!! And good to think about! Sounds like you have a good start, walterharp, and really interesting to hear everyone's thoughts!
Last Edited by catochan on Apr 01, 2014 8:57 AM
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Shaganappi
102 posts
Apr 01, 2014
9:57 AM
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Have not tried to write much but the couple times I have succeeded, I was totally into the groove and have a definite subject matter / point of view that I want to express and it just spilled out so easy. Easy in one way, but yes, it still was hard work overall and a lot of revisions but easier than what I thought it would be at least. Very satisfying to do it.
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mr_so&so
800 posts
Apr 01, 2014
10:31 AM
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@catochan, melody is also what excites me, and my lyrics will usually come from that or vice versa. It's useful to think of the harp as a second voice. I also concur that keeping it simple produces the most powerful songs (and it's a difficult process to pear ideas down to their simplest form). I love Blind Willie Johnson's songs for their simple power, for example. I often work with voice and harp staying close to the melody, then after I've played it for a while, I let the harp lines become more chordal, rhythmic, and decorated. And I try to move the harp lines around the octaves to cover the whole harp, and experiment with different positions. My favourite songs allow enough space in the lyrics for harp fills.
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Last Edited by mr_so&so on Apr 01, 2014 10:33 AM
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nacoran
7671 posts
Apr 01, 2014
10:32 AM
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One thing I miss was a writing partner. The trick there is you have to have a good give and take. You both have to be willing to see the song go a different direction than you had in mind, and both have to be willing to give up lines that you contributed.
I tend to be into writing around a tight theme, so, for instance, we have a song called Caiman Went, where all the lines are comparing a woman to a hungry crocodile. We use lots of crocodile and gator references throughout the song, but aside from the pun in the title we didn't really know much about our reptilian friends, so we Googled them and wrote down all the cool references we liked and then worked them into the song.
We did the same things with highways, cars, dogs,...
I've picked up a couple observations, little things like, you can put more syllables into a line if it's a funny line (as long as you can say the line fast enough and on beat) and aab is a nice verse line, that blues songs often repeat the first line of the verse...
One thing I really miss is we used to have a songwriter's circle in town. The young lady who ran it moved and it collapsed. I tried to pick up the torch, and ran a group for a year or so, but we couldn't seem to get group attendance up enough to guarantee a good turnout. It was fun though, and more importantly, it meant I was churning out songs regularly. We met twice a month and we had a suggested topic for the songs people wrote (which helped some people with writer's block) but really you could write about anything. The first group would use a random word as a writing cue, our group would pick a topic, like 'a historical place' or a lullaby.
Another thing I've done a lot, for inspiration, is make a list of songs that every band eventually writes about and try to check them off the list. It's half joke, half serious. The idea is, if every band writes about it, it must be something universal. You get a breakup song, a first love song, a sexy lady song, a car song, a song about rock & roll. Some of them are garbage, but sometimes they aren't.
When I have enough lyrics, I put them in order, cutting and pasting the verses. Sometimes it's quick and the order is obvious. Sometimes it's not. I've got one song I probably put a couple hundred hours into, and others I've written in 15 minutes.
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Nate
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mr_so&so
801 posts
Apr 01, 2014
10:43 AM
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@Nate, Yes, doing your research if necessary, and also avoiding cliches --- try to say something, perhaps on one of those universal themes, in a new way. My last song I used an extended metaphor through the whole song and also loaded it with sexual innuendo. That was a lot of fun to write.
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nacoran
7672 posts
Apr 01, 2014
2:40 PM
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Mr so&so, last year I hit the sexual innuendo by whipping out a triple entendre!
One of my biggest frustrations with pop music is cliches. Some songs are just strings of cliches. That said, there is what I like to think of as the reverse cliche, when you take a cliche and use it to mean the opposite of what it usually does, and those can be really good.
Another trick I liked to use, when I had a songwriting partner, was I would listen to a song I liked on a loop and write new lyrics to it using the melody. That would help me with getting the meter and flow down. Then I'd hand then lyrics off to my friend, and without knowing what I'd written it to he'd write a melody. I think it helped me with the flow, and it meant I didn't have to feel melodically inspired as long as I had some lyric ideas.
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Nate
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walterharp
1361 posts
Apr 01, 2014
4:37 PM
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but isn't blues about ripping off other ideas? you just gotta ad a unique twist to it.. but one could argue the blues is more forgiving of cliche and it is actually part of the formula. listen to muddy waters, little walter, jimmy rogers and wolf among others and the same lines and riffs just keep popping up..
Last Edited by walterharp on Apr 01, 2014 4:38 PM
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jbone
1577 posts
Apr 01, 2014
8:18 PM
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Here's my take on that walter- there are three topics in life: Like in literature, there is man against man, man against nature, and man against self. all other topics fit in there someplace. even women. Addiction. The boss. etc.
In that sense writing songs is a recurring theme, but the saving grace is, we all have a different way of expressing the same ideas and feelings. We're all unique and some are fortunate enough to appeal to a body of people.
I write to satisfy my own self but sometimes this matches up nicely with other people.
The commonality of experience and feeling about life, work, her, them, whatever, makes a lot of blues songs very relate-able to a lot of people.
Another really cool feature about writing songs is the ability to sometimes transmute sadness or grief into joy and peace.
Even if the only person you write for is yourself, and those songs never see the light of day, if you feel better afterward, it's a worth while effort.
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