The Songwriter Forum - songwriting reviews, tips and chat
Songwriter Forum => The Writing Process => Topic started by: Hooded Singer on July 11, 2016, 08:24:58 PM
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?
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Between 20 minutes and 6 months.
If that's infuriatingly vague (I know it is!), here's a wee breakdown: I usually capture the melodic idea for a song (verse & chorus) in 5-10 mins. Then I'll spend anything from a few hours to a couple of weeks (sometimes more) getting the arrangement right, fiddling with the melodic details (phrasing and such) and writing a bridge/ other section.
Lyrics are the hard work for me. I'm really particular about how they feel to sing, and of course what the song is saying. I can spend anywhere from a couple of days to 6 weeks on the lyrics. Sometimes I'll finish the lyrics, but after singing the song in public a few times I'll realise it's not working (songs feel different when you play them to strangers) so I'll come back and fix them sometimes months later.
Once in a blue moon a song will fall out of me fully formed in the aforementioned 20 minutes. I'm very happy when that happens!
What about you?
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I try to write something once per week or two weeks, though not always a full song, sometimes it comes out as 2 minutes length rather than typical 3:30. But that's more to not fall out of the hobby and to keep my youtube channel active more so than trying to write something brilliant.
I know of some famous bands that have wrote for two and a half years coming up with 12 tracks for an album.
A lot of what I write is me just experimenting or coming up with a verse I like and then thrashing out something around it. It's really just a fun hobbyist thing that I try not to take super seriously or have feel like work.
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To be truthful my thoughts start with so many words, at the beginning my thoughts is not a song just words that im writing and then reading back something poetry happens then i pick up my guitar and the poetry becomes lyrics, its a free flow, no rules no regulation no guide lines just a free flow.
How long, i wrote a few of them within an hour but some took a few days to sort the flow out and i know theres one maybe two that i haven't finished yet so ill say years as well, but i enjoy every minute of it, still do, keep writing and keep enjoying even when it starts getting a little bit serious :)
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It's never the same......as short as 20 minutes and, from beginning to completion, several years. The muse comes and the muse goes and when it's gone things can sit at a standstill for a long time. Changing horses often helps......start something new if the something old is stalled. Try to write something everyday, or at least spend some quiet time thinking about writing. It helps me, even if it's just a line or a phrase that seems to have some promise.
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Agree with anywhere from 20 minutes to 6 months. What I've found is that the ones with shorter gestation periods tend to be better. My songs that end up taking 6 months tend to be not worth the wait!
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Last night I wrote one in 5 minutes. I'm also struggling with one I started 2 years ago. Can't answer you, it depends on when and how inspiration strikes.
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I would say roughy 2-3 weeks from idea to finished. The actual completed melody, harmony and structure and sometimes lyrics usually comes a lot quicker than this, which I would generally consider the song written but producing it and mixing it I would say works out at about the 2-3 weeks.
I do have a song for my son though that I started writing when my wife was pregnant with him. He turns 15 this year and it's still not finished. Similar with one for my daughter which is about 80% there after a mere 3 years.
I don't get chance to write all the time so I reckon I average about 4-5 songs per year.
Yodasdad
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I'd say usually two weeks or so...
Something will spark an idea...then about a week to sort out lyrics and melody and a week to get a recording done.
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Last night I wrote one in 5 minutes. I'm also struggling with one I started 2 years ago. Can't answer you, it depends on when and how inspiration strikes.
This is exactly how I work.
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Yeah depends a lot on the song, but I tend to let songs play in my head on repeat over the course of months in most cases. I usually will go from thinking of a song idea to having a finished product with lyrics in 3 months minimum.
I rarely jump on a song and try and finish it fast, I just tab/record a little idea and then let it breath and form in my mind at its own volition.
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This last post resonates most with me. I can spend as long just listening to the song in my head as I can with the guitar in my hand or at the piano. Or at the computer where the temptation to fiddle with inappropriate sounds is high.
I take a long time to get a song done, though the initial phase might flow freely.
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Yeah depends a lot on the song, but I tend to let songs play in my head on repeat over the course of months in most cases. I usually will go from thinking of a song idea to having a finished product with lyrics in 3 months minimum.
I rarely jump on a song and try and finish it fast, I just tab/record a little idea and then let it breath and form in my mind at its own volition.
I´m completely the opposite. As soon as something gets in my mind I have to get it down as soon as possible, otherwise it just stays there pestering me.
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I must be in between. I have to get it down as soon as possible or it's gone!
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About 12 cups of tea and four whiskies... :)
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In my teens and 20's, half an hour. Now, much longer, but that's because my standards are higher.
I agree in general though, anywhere between 20 minutes and a decade on average. ;)
I'm a writer by trade, and I find that's true of all writing though...
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A decade feels quite short to me. The last song I posted here, Song for the Brave wasn't really finished until a few weeks ago. I started it in 1987. Sometimes you just have to let a song mature a little and sometimes it takes a while to find just the right word or two.
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It really varies, sometimes they flow out in a continuous stream in a couple of minutes, then I sit down with the words and a guitar and allow the melody to develop, and put chords to it (I'm not good at bar chords so they tend to be fairly simple chords) Sometimes though, like with my first song, I wrote it as almost a 12bar blues, then about two years later I started learning bass and the bass line I came up with was begging to be with those words, then a friend suggested a couple of chords, and there it was, my first presentable song !
Usually it's a fairly quick process though, strike while the iron's hot, and I don't try to write them if I'm really not feeling it, it just doesn't work