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I had some training in high school and a little in college, but for the most part I am a self-taught musician. I've probably had more vocal training than anything, but I've taught myself guitar, drumkit, piano and bass. 

I would rate myself on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being a superstar) as follows:
Bass - 4
Drumkit - 5
Guitar - 6
Vocals - 6
Piano/Keyboard - 7

And I've been playing piano/keyboard the least amount of time, compared to the rest of the instruments, but it's my favorite so I put a lot more practice in on that one. 

So I would consider myself a decent musician. 
And because of my love for all things technical, and tweakable, I have learned the ins and outs of computer-based music making. And I've done some live sound a few times, so I've got a good experience with mixers and mics and setup. 

Anyway, I've wanted to write songs for a long time. 
And I've tried more than a few times. 
I've tried several approaches. Sometimes I'll take a melody in my head and try to develop it. Sometimes I'll take a beat and add a bassline, and try to build it up. 
Sometimes I'll take some lyrics and try to come up with a melody that fits. 

Every attempt I've made winds up sounding either boring, or bad, or unoriginal, etc. 
I've never been even remotely happy with anything I've ever come up with. 

Now when it comes to cover songs, I can do a pretty decent job of mimicking someone else's work. So I know I have the chops to play everything and sing it well, and mix it all together. It's just coming up with ideas for songs that I draw a blank every time. 

I know what a good song sounds like. And I like a wide variety of styles of music, and with any style there are songs that are just blah, and songs that really sound good. 
So what gives?

What I'd like to do is just give up, and instead try to find a good song-writer who lacks all of the skills I have, and collaborate with them. 

I have heard song-writing is a skill like any other that has to be practiced and developed. But it seems like it really just comes naturally to some people. 

What do you guys think about the subject?

Hi there, nice post! I see myself as kind of the opposite. I'm not saying the songs I write are great but I do manage to finish most things that I think have some interest/value. I have no training whatsoever and only really learned some of the 'rules' of writing in a key (with regards to chord sequences etc) by buying the AutoArp Rack Extension and seeing the I, II, III chords etc.

Yet, I had still written a lot of songs with Reason before that and a few people seemed to like them over the years... started using Reason in Dec 2001 but only bought it in 2012 (quite a few fallow years in there and I never felt good about my extended "trial period" but if it wasn't for Reason I would have never made any computer music and I feel I have made up for it now having spent a lot on REs etc)

I got my 1st guitar age 15 and knew quickly that I was never going to be a good player. I stuck with it though as I found I was interested in finding chord shapes and riffs. I never bothered learning anyone else's music apart from a few Metallica songs from a book but did like making my own "sequences" some of which I guess you could call songs. I got an acoustic before going to uni and just carried on doodling with that over the years until about 2 years ago when I decided to have a go at recording some stuff and bought myself a fender tele.

I have written quite a few guitar based songs but only a few remain on my Soundcloud page as I feel most of them need improvement and I want to get them right. My main issues are mixing for this kind of genre (Alt. Rock / Metal/ Rock/ Indie) whereas I feel fairly comfortable mixing electronic stuff. Also, I can't sing very well at all and my guitar playing is intermediate at best I think. Then there's the drums... I feel fine sequencing but I'm not as confident setting up "MIDI kits" for this genre. Real played drums would be a real boon. I was lucky enough to hook up with a real drummer, vocalist and bass player for my song "Broken Lights" (on my SC page) and that remains a real high for me but I don't think we'll get around to working together again unfortunately.

So... I'd definitely be interested in forming a collaboration with someone like yourself Maybe check my Soundcloud page and see if that's a two way street? Feel free to PM me if so and I'll send you my email address. No worries if not. I do have a pretty crappy internet connection at the minute but I'd find a way to make it work.

It's the same thing as a screenwriter not necessarily being a good actor - they are two different disciplines that only overlap slightly IMO.

I've worked with great songwriters that can't sing or play well at all, and many musicians can't create their own music. 

Reminds me of my take on the old guitar player joke:
How do you get a guitar player to turn down? Put sheet music in front of them!

The opposite is often true of "trained" musicians, so I turn the joke around and say:
How do you get a string player to play softer? Take away their sheet music!

This actually happened on a session where I asked a very talented violinist to improvise a section, like a violinist at an Italian Restaurant would play. He had a blank stare, so I described it in more detail. Then I played a mock up I had made, and mentioned I had written out that part as a reference. He then snatched up the sheet music and proceeded to play it exactly as written. As good as he we, he was paralyzed at the thought of "just playing", though there are string players that can do this with ease (about 1 in 100 in my experience!). These are usually the "songwriter/composers/arrangers" that also happen to play an instrument.

So not everyone has the "complete package" when it comes to not only composing, but arranging, performing, and even engineering their music. But the good news is that you CAN improve on any talent IMO, starting from where you are and building on that. Obviously someone with more talent starts further along the way, but don't let that discourage you!

On thing I've observed is that structured "writing classes" don't really make sense to me (but might be valuable for others). What has worked well for me is to become a student of creativity. When I hear an interview with other artists and they speak to the idea of "creating", I always listen and take notes. In fact, this works with any art, from screen writing to sculpting, choreography to poetry.

They all follow the same basic arc: start with nothing, end up with something! Many of us struggle to get past that first stage, but there are "tricks" to get started as there are "tricks" to finishing. Not all tricks work for all people, which is why I keep reading interviews, biographies (Reading Brian Eno's at present), and listening intently when ANY creative type describes their creative process. Sometimes I don't learn anything specific, but still get inspired by someone else's struggles with the basic artist issues like the "blank page". 

Additionally, there are plenty of writers here that will hopefully give more specific feedback. But everyone does it differently - the key seems to be picking and choosing from all the available options to see which of them work best for you!

Zac,
Thanks for the reply!

I'll definitely check out your soundcloud. 
I am actually not asking this to fish for collab partners, but if a few spinoff of this thread I wouldn't turn down the opportunities. 

I guess I am mainly asking, is there any hope for me as a song-writer? 
Or should I just focus on what I'm good at instead? 

Selig,
Thank you!

This is a good explanation. 

I have seen people on Youtube create a song from nothing using nothing but a mic and a looper pedal. 

I am not bad at improv on the keyboard, just playing chord changes that sound nice together. It's just moving it beyond that into a structured song that I struggle with. Being self-taught, I'm not constrained by most of the music rules. 

I recently bought a looper pedal, and I am thinking about playing around with that for song-writing practice. 
I could do so much more with Reason, but it's a lot faster and simpler to use the pedal at least to get an idea going. 

Some thoughts on songwriting (note I am not a good songwriter myself but I did work with a lot by now)..

Working from a melody to a song mostly doesn't yield a great song, if the logic is not coming from the chord progression you don't get a good song, it basically stays a nice melody and nothing more. A good progression / general bass line (whats Generalbass in english?) on the other hand can become a lot of great songs.

Remind yourself that you're a musician. You might think that a certain chord progression is "unoriginal" or "boring" but in fact the most successful songs have and always had basically the same chord progressions. A good song is more than harmony and melody.

Coming from that, work with your song and put a good eye on the rhythmic part. Just dangling on one note with all instruments can be very interesting if you get the groove and rhythm right. Especially people who are experienced musicians but only start out writing their first songs sometimes try to overdo it on the "music theory" side. Also, properly arranging your music can bring out the actual song you didn't even expect in the composition

So this all might be true for you or not, I don't know. Its just some things that I picked up and try to remind myself of when I start doing music. But as Giles indicated, you have to find your way to get some output going.

keeverw wrote:Selig,
Thank you!

This is a good explanation. 

I have seen people on Youtube create a song from nothing using nothing but a mic and a looper pedal. 

I am not bad at improv on the keyboard, just playing chord changes that sound nice together. It's just moving it beyond that into a structured song that I struggle with. Being self-taught, I'm not constrained by most of the music rules. 

I recently bought a looper pedal, and I am thinking about playing around with that for song-writing practice. 
I could do so much more with Reason, but it's a lot faster and simpler to use the pedal at least to get an idea going. 

A good composer/arranger/writer not only creates good ideas, but knows how to recognize them "in the wild". But you don't have to create from scratch! Someone with creative talent can use something like GarageBand to create very interesting music, because they look at it differently. They go through the loops and recognize relationships - hey, this loop would sound cool with this other loop. They recognize relationships where others may see limitations: hey, I can't write 'serious' music with loops! They simply take what's in front of them and create something out of it (not the same as creating something from nothing, but 100% creative IMO). So it's not about how you create, or the tools you use.

It's about how much raw creativity you can muster when needed, and that's as much about feeling free as anything. And for me the way I accomplished this freedom was to completely STOP judging what I did as I did it. When I am 'creative', I treat myself as a kid from school bringing home an art project - it goes straight to the refrigerator with tons of praise. Once I'm out of raw ideas, it's ONLY then that I begin to judge what I created, and switch from a care-free 'anything goes' stage to a more analytical "puzzle solving" stage, using all the "pieces" I created to build a more complete structure.

Anyway, it's one approach and it works for me - try it and see how it works for you!

You may find this conversation about lyric writing interesting too:
http://www.reasontalk.com/post/writing- ... 1286062464

Of course there is hope! And, it seems you already know one key element----practice. My first couple dozen songs or so were awful, but eventually I had enough practice to know what worked (for me) and it was lot easier to put the pieces together.

Biggest piece of advice would be to simply write your feelings. Play your feelings. Find sounds that match your feelings. The lyrics don't have to tell the exact story, but give a general impression, and sometimes open ended lyrics (may mean one thing to listener A and another thing to listener B) are better than a straight up "this happened to me and it happened in this sequence" sort of thing. But, keep the feelings.

The more lyrics you write, the bigger bank of lyrics you have for mix and match scenarios-- I very often find that a story I want to tell is a little "thinner" than I would like, so I dig into my resources and find something else to add or go along with, changing up as needed. It's all a Very Big Experiment.

As for playing... I took piano lessons for about seven years. I wasn't a fabulous pianist, and could never accompany anyone. Also I didn't practice, much. Couldn't play anything not written on the page, and had some sort of mental block against the Bass Clef. I'm a soprano-- have sung in choirs all of my life, and played saxophone-- so the treble clef was EASY to look at and instantly translate to my hands... But the bass clef... Ugh. I almost always got it wrong. With practice, I could play Clementi's Sonatinas, a few of the simpler classical piano pieces, some pop music from a book... But that was about it.

It wasn't until I was an adult, married to a very good guitar player, that I finally taught myself to fake. I picked up a few jazz and standards fake books, and eventually a Beatles fake book (recommended, given the interesting chord combinations used by the Beatles). I found it very easy to visually see a guitar chord chart printed for the left hand (rather than trying to translate bass clef in my head) and, of course, for me, the treble clef melody was simples. It was teaching myself to fake that made all the difference to me. I could sit in with anyone now-- I wouldn't be GREAT, but I could sit in. Especially if someone yelled out a progression to me.

Learn to fake to the point that you know which chords "go together" (or study relative chords charts and stuff... Whatever. Learn it). Write your feelings. Keep writing. Accept that not everything you write will be worthy of studio time. Try anyway. Keep going. Figure out how to turn an 8 bar idea into a full song. When you wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, write it down. Wherever you are, whenever the thought strikes (even if not fully formed), write it down. Develop it as much as you can. Keep going.

Keep going.

Oh, I just really read what Selig wrote about creativity... I am also a ceramic artist. I have several "identifiable" designs that people in the studio would often copy-- like, I cut part of the rim on a thrown bowl into a thin sliver and squiggle it into the interior of the bowl as decoration, and a make these giant draped and pinched/ruffled pieces that look like something from the ocean floor-- One day, one of the younger students asked me if I minded if they copied me... I surprised MYSELF when I said "No", but I had come to see that people will like what I am doing, try to copy it, and end up with something similar, but Different.

Even in imitation, your own instinct will come through if you let it. And that makes a new thing. Inspired by. But different.

Hi.

IMHO, if you already play all those instruments, you have a good set of tools to work with. The only problem is that music is the idea, and the arrangement is secondary.

As Selig said, playing the instruments does not make you a songwriter.

From an arrangement point of View, the more instruments you play, the better, because you will understand each instruments capabilities and limitations, and it's purpose on the music genre you are creating your song. This "capability" is important for the arranger, the producers, and sometimes, the songwriters fail in this.
But then again, it all starts with an idea, and if you get that idea with a guitar and a vocal onto a cassete recorder, it wont be a lesser music in the end.

Maybe the problem is that you lack in the idea build, and the way to get to the main idea, is a very personal thing.

I'm creating music a long time ago, most of it to myself. That's not a bad thing per se, but i doesn't avail much for what i'm saying. And i also play a lot of instruments, but did it help me to make more and better music? No, because i found a creative process that doesn't use them all to create music. I use a keyboard and Reason (and my voice if the song has lyrics) to lay my ideas, and only the arrangement part will benefit from the other instruments if i feel the need to include them on the song.

So maybe the question is what is you creative process?

This is a great thread! I used to go out with a classical viola player and she said she could never write something as beautiful as some of the classical composers, so she wasn't interested in writing music... For her performing something great beautifully was the main goal...
For me, since I'm mainly self taught (with just a few years of classical vocal training), it's more interesting to create something... Playing around and see what happens... As well as trying to express what I feel... Those are the things that mainly drive me...

D.

Yeah this is the real Juice. I sometimes think i am in the wrong forums, as i am primary a songwriter/composer (or at least i would like to be ).

Selig, Lunesis (and the rest of the admins), would you Guys consider a Section for music/song writing, and maybe production? It could have a couple of sub forums like Arrangement, Lyrics, etc...

keeverw wrote:Zac,
Thanks for the reply!

I'll definitely check out your soundcloud. 
I am actually not asking this to fish for collab partners, but if a few spinoff of this thread I wouldn't turn down the opportunities. 

I guess I am mainly asking, is there any hope for me as a song-writer? 
Or should I just focus on what I'm good at instead? 

Yes, I kind of picked up on the collab part and ran with it. I'm sure you'd much prefer to find a way to writing your own songs. As others have said in some great posts there is definitely lots of hope!

I do tend to work from a chord progression most of the time but not always. I find that using inspiring sounds is important for me (I can't just write in midi then fill in the sounds afterwards). I liked Selig's posts and have gained from his forum advice I feel. Having fun without pressure is important. I save most of my Reason doodles even if I don't see any value in them at the time because moods change and what harms a few Mb going to do?

Like others have said, just keep going and if you get stuck or frustrated just move on... Or try sending it to someone for a colllab j/k. Great thread, all the best.

mcatalao wrote:Yeah this is the real Juice. I sometimes think i am in the wrong forums, as i am primary a songwriter/composer (or at least i would like to be ).

Selig, Lunesis (and the rest of the admins), would you Guys consider a Section for music/song writing, and maybe production? It could have a couple of sub forums like Arrangement, Lyrics, etc...

Well, here is a thread on lyrics:

http://www.reasontalk.com/post/writing- ... 1286162691

I think that these subjects could warrant their own threads, but as their own forums I think they would be pretty dead. Things have actually slowed down quite a bit, and one thing I really want to avoid is having dead sub forums. That and, the more sub forums we have, the more work the mods have to do to keep everything organized.

Well, but as it is, things either go on to the kitchen or are misplaced.

That lyrics thread passed by and I didn't see it... Maybe adding 2 sub sections to the reason music section could be done (song writing/composition and production). It would not clutter things and it would be a placeholder for that stuff. As things are, I don't know if those subjects shall be in the reason forum, the tutorial sub forum, in the kitchen or the bathroom...

GeorgeFeb wrote:Please define musician!

Somebody who makes music, duh ;p

GeorgeFeb wrote:Please define musician!

normen wrote:
Somebody who makes music, duh ;p

Well I like that. In my mind I'm not a musician as I'd struggle to give a decent performance on stage. I guess my early pre-conceptions and live (none sequenced) music snobbery (which I have long since dismissed!) still haunt my self-esteem.

Well, I .................try to be a musician. Mostly I feel like I've been trying to be a producer. It sux when it's all you and you're the singer/songwriter/recording artist/recording engineer/producer/mixing engineer/guitar tech/coffee boy/etc. I think the worst part is keeping an eye on your levels whilst trying to throw some passion down on the mic, all the while doubting your abilities on everything. Yyyeah. No bueno.

Last Alternative wrote:Well, I .................try to be a musician. Mostly I feel like I've been trying to be a producer. It sux when it's all you and you're the singer/songwriter/recording artist/recording engineer/producer/mixing engineer/guitar tech/coffee boy/etc. I think the worst part is keeping an eye on your levels whilst trying to throw some passion down on the mic, all the while doubting your abilities on everything. Yyyeah. No bueno.

You are a musician and songwriter, no doubt

Good feedback!
Thank you all!

I would define a musician as someone who takes part in music creation, or performance. 
But I realize that's probably not a common definition. Usually it's just the performers who get labelled as musicians. 
But what would they perform if not for the creative people? So two sides of the same coin, IMO. 

I don't have much time right now, but I am going to take all of this in and try to put some of it in to practice the next time I have a few hours to play around. I think part of what trips me up is not being intentional and organized in the time I have to write. 
I will waste a bunch of time trying to find a sound or something, instead of just getting the idea down with any sound, and then worry about that later. 

keeverw wrote:I would define a musician as someone who takes part in music creation, or performance.

So in short someone who makes music, right?

All the best with your future attempts!

Well for me it turned out to be really important to collaborate with other people.
I had the exact same problems as you seem to, except I only play piano and a bit of percussion. But I started to realize what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. In short, I'm good at patch design, creating FX chains and coming up with melodies over existing progressions. So basically in order to create somwthing worth listening to (something longer than 16 bars) I need someone to write a progression (allthough I can sometimes do that myself) and someone to write lyrics, also someone who plays the instruments. Someone who arranges it all to make it interesting enough over a period of time and someone to mix. Of course one person can do all of that, so I don't need to find three hundred people to make a song. But it is important to know your limitations and collaborate, where you can't continue alone. That is not to say don't practice to get better, to the contrary, but I believe that by watching show omeone else does it, you can get inspiration on what to try and work on, plus the songs will be more interesting, if more people work on it. When somebody hasn't heard any of my music for years and then hear a song of mine, they'll immediately be able to recognize my signature, because it is blatantly obvious. When collaborating, the signature will be able to blend in perfectly, so people will recognize it, but not from the first bar on...

keeverw wrote:I would define a musician as someone who takes part in music creation, or performance.

normen wrote:
So in short someone who makes music, right?

All the best with your future attempts!

I don't know. 

When I hear "makes" music. I am thinking more of the song-writing end of things. 
Not so much performance. 

When I play a cover song on my piano, I don't think I am "making" music. Just duplicating it. 

But it's semantics, really.