[pompeyjazz]

Interesting, interesting. So after reading all the stuff on this thread I decided to revisit my dreaded Motown nightmare and after discarding some keyboard parts and adding some more I might yet get a song out of it, but it might remain in the bin 

[shadowfax]

I always feel it's best to discard totally and move on, maybe i'm wrong

[PaulAds]

Each to their own, of course…but I’m sure that anyone as good as you (and all of the other folks in this thread) has a pretty good ear for music, so I very much doubt that any of the ideas that get binned are really a “shile of pite”

Quite possible that the songs (or at least parts of the songs) would be of value to somebody else who could expand on them…but who knows?

We could easily set up a soundcloud account for the specific purpose of being the songwriter forum orphaned ideas depository account, if it got any traction.

Anyway, to answer the original question, I fairly quickly dump an idea that’s not going to work. Sometimes, I’ve had to try and make something work, which is possible, but a fresh perspective from someone else could save it from being dumped in an unmarked grave. That would be a shame, really…as the writer must have thought it was promising to even bother powering up their DAW and starting work on it.

[shadowfax]

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree here but a song idea starts (with me anyways) with a chord prog or a particular sound that makes a boring chord prog sound more interesting, so I'm having diffuculty imagining how this would be of any use to another muso when they can easily put a chord prog together...am I wrong?

[MonnoDB]

My DAW is FULL of discarded songs…. But most at very basic demo stage… and there’s no way in hell I’d ever expose others to them…. 😁 (well with one exception - this poor Swede we all know gets to hear lots of such barenaked, tainted creations!!).

Interested to hear how this progresses though!

K

[Sing4me88]

Really interesting following the discussion in this thread.

Like others, I have a load of unfinished stuff - whether or not you'd call them 'dumped' is another matter. Sometimes I'll spend a while manipulating a loop, rearranging it, adding FX etc to make it my 'own' only to then get fed up with it and lose interest with it. Other times I've laid down chords, bass line and drums for a first verse etc with an intention to come back and further develop it into a fuller complete track but then lose the stomach to do so.
Nothing is ever deleted or discarded but I guess its dumped in the sense that it stays there in the faint chance hat I might revisit it at some point. Having read the comments of others above, revisiting some with a view to seeing if they'd work as a bridge or M8 for another track could be worth me looking into!

[adamfarr]

Dumping? What's that? We mustn't dump, we must HOARD! You never know when that riff or lyric will come good or find a twin to make music babies with.

I do push through if it's just a section or a line that isn't quite coming - in the end it will. If it's the idea as a whole I don't push it and squirrel it away.

[cowparsleyman]

@shadowfax - An interesting thread indeed, rather depends on the definition of dumping, I once wrote a song called She Shook Me Cold, I never liked it, in fact I still don't, but so many people do, can't understand why, I only released it merely because my daughter liked it...

I just keep the mixdown and delete the song, move on to the next one.

[Bankie]

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree here but a song idea starts (with me anyways) with a chord prog or a particular sound that makes a boring chord prog sound more interesting, so I'm having diffuculty imagining how this would be of any use to another muso when they can easily put a chord prog together...am I wrong?

@shadowfax  I personally don't start with a chord progression, but to answer your question, if you have a groove together but you don't have a direction to take it, someone could listen to it and be hit with an idea you didn't have, and be able to take it up a notch. It isn't just the chords that can inspire, but the styles and arrangement you use across your instrumentation.

[Bankie]

Pretty easy to do really - Just load all your individual stems into a shared drive - Give whoever is working on it the BPM and they can use / discard what they want - Maybe they just want to use the drum or bass track or a synth track. It's a starting point to play with some discarded music. I've worked in this way loads of times

@pompeyjazz I've been wrestling with your comment. Maybe I don't understand what kind of state most folk's stuff is in when they discard it, but the actual output from mine would be no use. For example, no one is going to be able to extend a guitar part I've recorded - their playing will be a different style and they won't get the same sound unless they use (in my case) Bias FX2 and I share the setup. Ditto for other instruments and soft synths. On top of all that, I'm not going to want to go to the bother of splitting out synths to different tracks - that's further down the process; at the beginning I need to work fast to get the ideas down.

[PaulAds]

John and I have done songs where he’s added melodies, new guitar parts and drums and written middle 8s to simple MP3’s I’ve sent him, and we even did a song where he played guitar and bass on the verses and I played them in the chorus…we patched and matched it together pretty well. It’s amazing what you can do these days…

I love trying to get stuff going from a simple spark of a guitar or piano part. It doesn’t always happen…in fact, probably not all that often…but I love collaborations with other folks too.

Some people are more keen on that than others, though, I guess.

[pompeyjazz]

Yes, agree with Paul. It really was quite straightforward to get together. It might just be a riff or a hook that is useful to the other writer or that sparks something off

[Sing4me88]

John and I have done songs where he’s added melodies, new guitar parts and drums and written middle 8s to simple MP3’s I’ve sent him, and we even did a song where he played guitar and bass on the verses and I played them in the chorus…we patched and matched it together pretty well. It’s amazing what you can do these days…

This is a fascinating approach to co-writing and collabing here! It sounds like a possible double edged sword; could get very messy if artistic differences enter the mix but could be uber rewarding and a lot of fun otherwise. I guess whether this approach works or not would depend on the chemistry and 'click 'between the people involved.
I'd be interested to hear if you - either collectively or individually - felt that you (or indeed the song) got something out of the collab where you each played a section that you wouldn't/don't get out of more conventional collabs.

[PaulAds]

Oh yeah…we love doing stuff together. I wish I was able to come up with more.

As I recall…on that song, John also wrote the music for the verses, and I wrote the chorus, but I think any kind of ego on either side would kill it stone dead.

The way I see it is that if I can’t actually write that whole song, is it not far better to try and write half of it? Or even just a little bit of it? Or would I rather see it go in the bin?

As they say “100% of FA always amounts to FA”

[PaulAds]

I’m speaking generally here…so I don’t mean it directly to you @Sing4me88 😀

The other thing, of course, is that “do you actually want to share a song idea with someone else, rather than keeping it to yourself, just in case it turn out awesome?”

There’s also the question of whether you think any potential collaborator would be able to provide anything of value to your idea…and, I suppose, seeing as the answer must surely be a resounding “well, judging by the ability of loads of the people on here, of course they could” then it’s perhaps a little surprising that there isn’t more working together on the forum.