The Song Fight Bulletin Board

i often don't bother writing lyrics.

Rabid Garfunkel wrote:-edit- Crap, this thread is for lyric writing only. Well, for me, the lyrics help to write the music, and the music helps to write the lyrics. It's just the way I write all these winning songs

I like your inclusion of the music part of it Rabid. I asked about that once a while back here

Maybe that deserves a poll as well if someone cares to start it.

Let me be the first to pick choice #5.

I can't write a decent lyric to save my life.

I answered pen & paper but I actually use a pencil. I do a lot of erasing.

Steve

For the music, I generally program my song into Band In A Box (even though I only use it for the drum part), and then do a screen print of the chord chart. When I'm laying down the drums, the BIAB cursor actually follows the chords, so I'll often play the basic rhythm guitar part while tracking the drums... then I'll print out the BIAB chord chart like this:



and use that while doing the other instruments. (Cool trick: if I'm going to capo a guitar, I can use BIAB to transpose the chords for me to the key I'd be playing with the capo on... i.e., if the song is in "C" I can transpose it to "A" and then play those chords with a capo on the third fret.)

For those not familiar, you program chord changes and tempo into BIAB and pick a "style" and the program generates MIDI drum, bass, guitar, keyboard and string/horn parts. Usually, I just use the drum part, although I've been known to keep the BIAB bass and/or keyboard parts. BIAB styles have two "levels" - the green markers indicate playing the louder "chorus" part and the blue ones indicate the softer "verse" part, and anywhere there's a blue or green marker, there's a fill going into that bar. The chords in red are rung or chopped or silent...

Charles

I've written my favorite lyrics away from the computer, using pencil + paper.

I used to write the melody down too, but had a strong chance of forgetting the exact speed, timing, or even pitch that I meant to use. Or I'd forget the exact melody halfway through writing it down.

So instead, I've been recording them as short audio clips on my cell phone or mp3 player. On the cell phone, I just have to hold one button down for a few seconds to begin recording a "voice note", which was incredibly easy.

The audio clips are approximations of the verse, either sung or spoken. Where chords are concerned, I'll either sing a harmony line after, or sing each note of the chord.

Then when I get back to a computer, I'll take the paper, and my "voice notes", and play it into Cubase. For the final draft, or when I need extra lyrics, I use some lyric tools like the Dillfrog Rhymer thing I wrote.

Plat wrote: I used to write the melody down too, but had a strong chance of forgetting the exact speed, timing, of even pitch that I meant to use.

What kind of notation were you using?

i just use a college-ruled notebook. sometimes i even write what chords i use in the song, but usually not. i should start though. i have no idea how to play any of my songs.

jute gyte wrote:

Plat wrote: I used to write the melody down too, but had a strong chance of forgetting the exact speed, timing, or even pitch that I meant to use.

What kind of notation were you using?

A pretty awful one: throwing letters of notes or chords above the lyrics. These notes were generally in the key of C, even if I meant to sing a few steps higher or lower, because I can translate them the fastest. This works okay, but it still takes time to figure out which key I wanted to play in.

I don't usually write down whether it's a whole note, half note, etc. Instead I'd draw long horizontal lines where I mean to hold the note for a while. Then if I had time, I'd sing what I wrote, to commit it to memory.

Keep in mind this is all done without being around any instruments; just pen/pencil, paper, and vocals.

It's all a bit haphazard, and a bit Darwinian -- if I repeat the melody a few times and still forget it, it probably wasn't hooky enough to deserve a spot in the song anyway.

I usually write the music first with a kernel of an idea for lyrics. Sometimes I write the lyrics first with a kernel of an idea for music. Every now and then they both appear in my brain at the same time. Either way I almost always write the lyrics on the computer and save it into a file called "lyrics.txt" in the song project directory.

On rare occasion I come up with a lyrical idea on the bus or whatever in which case I write it on my palm pilot. Unless the palm pilot is charged in which case I enter it into the palm pilot instead. Then I forget to charge/sync the palm and then eventually I lose them and either have to remember them or, more likely, I just forget that I'd written a song anyway. Sometimes I'll check my MemoPad database and then remember "oh yeah I wrote lyrics for that fight six months ago."

I switch between pen or pencil on paper and computer, depending on how I feel and whats handy.

i almost never can write lyrics when i sit down at the computer or with a notepad or whatever, and TRY to do it. so usually my first drafts are a few words or lines scrawled on a napkin or scrap of paper or envelope or whatever happened to be handy while i was at work or in the car or wherever.

while recording, i have been known to write out the lyrics on a dry-erase board, or with sharpie on paper which has then been taped to the wall, or sometimes typed up in a text file and set to a ridiculously large font so i can read it from across the room.

tviyh wrote:set to a ridiculously large font so i can read it from across the room.

I totally do that too. The only problem i get is when I'm on a roll and the page needs to be scrolled down.

I print my lyrics out when I record, and keep my back to the computer so I don't get caught up in looking at the arrangement which usually throws my timing off.

i write them in a text file on my webserver in a private directory, and they're all still in there, this way i can access them from home or work. also, i use vi to edit them.
-bill

I type them into my phone as text messages.

The only songs for songfight that I've written lyrics for beforehand (in a little notebook with a pen) were "Hiss and Hearse" and "Butterfly Massacre" I think. Maybe "I'm Warning You." Other than that it's all off the top of my head. Or like I'll have one line running through my head all day and then I'll sit down and improvise a song around it.