Favorite parts of the process

[jrmy]

My bandmate and I are writing & recording new songs, and last week started a new whiteboard to keep track of everything, and what needs to be done to each song. This is one of my favorite parts of the process, because the songs are so new and fresh to us, and could go in so many different ways... some of them are just a riff or chord progression, some are 95% fully structured but need real/finessed recordings of parts, and a couple are barely more than a sound we dig.

Our shorthand for telling them apart (because almost none of them have real names, beyond the recording file name) always amuses me. My bandmate had me write down that one of my ideas was "Depeche Mode meets the Scorpions." Another song has a note that we need to "boost the spooky."

I'm gonna have to take a picture of the whiteboard at some point - they get pretty hilarious a little down the line when we start crossing stuff off and adding new things to the list.

And that's my story for today.

[1,2,3, Pull Out!]

That's a really good idea! MY band kind of did that but on a giant wooden board nailed to the wall. As you can image we ran out of room really fast considering we couldn't erase

[jrmy]

Ha! Yeah, I could imagine that would be a problem... though I suppose you could paint over stuff you were done with...

The whiteboard proved pretty necessary to us when we realized that our writing process was as much about the editing as it was coming up with the ideas... changing from a full band to a two-piece necessitated a bunch of changes in the way we approached the whole thing.

[1,2,3, Pull Out!]

It's really hard for me because there are 2 of us writing songs and we end up writing new songs before we finish off old ones

[jrmy]

Yeah, that's where constantly recording demos and keeping track of things has really come in handy for us. My bandmate has a log book where he literally keeps track of changes that he makes by the date that he makes them. I try to get as complete a garageband sketch as I can of my songs before taking them in to him for his 2 cents... but this is where not having a "full" band has really come in handy - back when we had a "regular" drummer and guitar player, we'd jam out ideas, and trust everyone to remember the stuff that we all liked. Sometimes mis-remembering things would result in something cooler, but more often than not, it would just slow things down. This way, we're able to have a more complete record and better idea of how the songs are shaping up as we write them. It also allows us to weed out the not-so-good ones before they get out-of-control bad... at least, to our ears...

[Ghost Hip]

i like the part when I'm at home and a riff clicks with me and I go "yes!". When it becomes a song and the lyrics/melody work perfect I'm set.

[bigchiefbc]

"the process" for me and my bandmate usually consists of one of us playing a simply melody on a synth, and the other one twisting away at knobs, and then switching off every 10 minutes or so. Then we get to go through 2 hours of recording and clip out 3 usable minutes of awesomeness

[dragline]

We didn't really have a process as such in my old band. None of our songs were under 6mins, I think, usually because they were formed from long extended jam sessions that we'd do, just guitar, bass and drums. We'd record all that, hours and hours to my four track, and I'd spend ages picking out cool sounding jams and bits that seemed to click, then we'd play them over and over and over and over in the studio to work them down into something ...."structured". It was a long, fraught procedure, but we ended up with some great songs. I still have loads of cassettes with our recordings on them, old jams and rehearsals, and it's really interesting to hear how a song progressed from the original improv session, to a full blown, studio recorded track.

[Ghost Hip]

My process is pretty simple compared to those stated, I pick up my guitar.... try to play something cool, hopefully I like it. If I do like it, I write lyrics or find old lyrics to sing over it. Make up a few more parts that go well with the riffs I have. Work out an order. Then take it to my drummer who makes it sound powerful and helps finalizing it, or tells me if it sucks.

[metalmariachi]

Mine is when that inspiration hits.
Like a lyric pops into your head and you can't stop writing.
Or when just fiddling around with scales etc and a chord or couple of notes turns you on and a riff, progression, or melody rolls out.

Finishing a final mix is satisfying, but it's anticlimactic for me.

MM

[01010111]

In my two man band, there are songs we write as a band and songs we write as individuals then bring to the band. The band songs always turn into jam sessions, we try to mix it up by adding different elements as the song progresses, but it doesn't really turn into anything all that great usually.

My personal method is to find a riff/melody/whatever via the usual guitar wankage and fill in stuff that would sound good around that. When I feel that chunk is done I write it down or record it. Hopefully in the future I can bring some of those musical chunks together to make a few good songs.

That whiteboard idea is really cool, I'll have to suggest it to my bandmate. We've been trying a similar thing with a notebook, but we usually forget to go back to the notebook to work on it. I imagine sometime in the future we'll find the notebook get super excited and forget to work on it the next time we have practice.

[jrmy]

That whiteboard idea is really cool, I'll have to suggest it to my bandmate. We've been trying a similar thing with a notebook, but we usually forget to go back to the notebook to work on it. I imagine sometime in the future we'll find the notebook get super excited and forget to work on it the next time we have practice.

Yeah, we run with both the whiteboard and the notebook - my bandmate uses a notebook to keep track of the microedits that he makes to individual song files (partially because we're obsessive about backups, so if we screw something up horribly, we have a log so we can figure out the last time that particular file wasn't horrible-ized, and can retrieve that version from the external hard drive), and the whiteboard to keep track of larger task-based stuff that needs to happen (i.e. "song 22 needs: scratch bass replaced, middle structure finalized, lyrics & vocals finalized"). It sounds kinda unromantic, but we usually only get together to write/record once a week, and we're both parents of toddlers so our short-term memories are SHOT.

If we didn't have this kind of a redundant system, we'd never get anything done...

[the raytownian]

"the process" for me and my bandmate usually consists of one of us playing a simply melody on a synth, and the other one twisting away at knobs, and then switching off every 10 minutes or so. Then we get to go through 2 hours of recording and clip out 3 usable minutes of awesomeness

Bwaha, this kinda sounds like what I do... alone... in the dark. *sigh*.

I have different and evolving processes for different projects, but the best part is being INSPIRED in general... Having the feeling of urgency and desire to do it. Any part of the process that makes me feel that way is exciting!

The process as a whole only loses its excitement when things become tedious (switching around pedals for 30 minutes, rearranging all my gear for the 15th time, spending an hour+ trying to edit tracks or arrange them, etc.)

When doing Noise, I usually get started by drawing out a setup (or lyrics, or whatever) on paper... That's what gets me "excited" at the beginning stages; me trying a new idea to see what happens with it.