[rimash]

so anyone here ever tried,writing a song without chords or music till its done.(and then add chords to the melody) plz share ur thoughts.thanx

[Sing4me88]

As a non-musician lyricist - and a pretty dire one at that - the answer is yes all the time. I write lyrics to a melody in my head (when I read this is usually sung by a power voice like Ellie Goulding, Rihanna or Sam Smith). Whenever I pass lyrics on to someone with musical ability to lay down chords and turn lyrics into a 'song' however the problem is that they can't hear what I 'hear' in the lyrics as a 'read'. Not necessarily a bad thing though- JESS was able to put one hell of a melody to Strike 3 that I could never have dreamt up

[Neil C]

I've been on a course where this is an exercise to stop everyone being to comfortable with their instrument and restricting creativity.
Sometimes if I read someones lyrics then a melody comes to mind, on other occasions I maybe doing something else without an instrument and something comes into my brain. And I'll sing into into a recording app on the mobile phone.
 
Neil

[rimash]

it works for me so i think everybody need to try this method even people who play their instrument great

[Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra]

I'm working on recording one at the moment though it could be ages before it's ready. As neil said, it just came to me while I was driving so I sang it into my mobile and fleshed it out later.
Good exercise to not always work with the same instrument too, I find. I'm trying to learn jazz piano, so everything I come up with on the piano has all these weird and wonderful chords in, whereas the song that just came to me has nothing more fancy than a seventh.
Similarly on guitar I have to really try to hit on a chord that is more sophisticated than a ninth.

[Jess]

Not necessarily a bad thing though- JESS was able to put one hell of a melody to Strike 3 that I could never have dreamt up

jess needs to get back to composing the rest of our back catalogue!

[shortwhat]

Well I write for a band, so I usually just take the conventional ways of writing I hear and ignore it. As the 3 of us, we both sit in a room, our drummer taps on the walls according to what me and the bassist play, we're always experimenting and then we keep doing so until we find something that works, this usually takes about 20 minutes. After we've got a simple rythm I spend the following night writing lyrics and chords to it, then I'll send it to them via a desktop composer. It's kinda a long process, but we've got at least a quarter of our album written (5/17 songs) this way

[hardtwistmusic]

I wrote lyrics without music for almost thirty years before I ever wrote a lick of music.  I've written every way there is to write in terms of what came first.

I've written lyrics (often) to someone's existing instrumental (always with permission). 

I've written lyrics, then melody, then music. 

I've written music then added lyrics. 

I've written vocal melodies, then added either music or lyric....... 

I've sung existing songs to an alternate vocal melody still following the beat and structure of the original, then written new music to the new vocal melody, then written new lyrics. 

I have no CLUE why someone would restrict themselves to writing the same way every song.  Not only would it feel terribly limiting, but it would get boring for me if I did that. 

[jennifervasquez577]

Yes, I use to write the lyrics first then I will give the tune for it. I think when doing so I would get the full freedom to present my idea through lyrics rather than struggling in the already made music. It is just my opinion.

[S.T.C]

The secret to writing good lyrics,lyrics that work...is singing them to yourself during writing..i find when you add that vocal melody,,as long as you,ve got a musical brain..you will build structure in your writing..thus a song is born..even if it,s not had a base melody added yet....its a method i've discovered works for me.

[stavcoby]

I think my best songs, are those written from just melody, then adding music to it afterwards.  Only because I can get pretty hung up on chord sequences and repeat phrases ect if write music first.

[dtrain1235]

I can only write lyrics. Then I seek to collaborate with other songwriters to put a melody and music to them.