My Composing Process

I first started writing music, I thought it would be easy. All you have to do, after all, is find a tune and play it, right? Wrong. My disillusion quickly faded, and I was left with the hard truth that creating music is not as easy as listening to it.

At first I tried writing one song every week. Then every other week. During that process, I tweaked my approach to composing, finally getting to where I am today.

Knowing When to Start

I don't push myself. If I did, I would be stuck where I was before, banging my head on the keyboard and only getting a cacophony of scrambled notes from it. I have learned to listen to myself, to be in tune (no pun intended) to what my heart and mind are saying. Sometimes I'll be playing the song I'm working on, then get the feeling, "It's time to find a new one." Every time I listen and obey that instinct, the song flows and is rooted in beauty. What you shouldn't do is, even when something tells you, "not yet," you try anyway. You may find a tune, but it won't be the same as when you listened and flowed with the timing. Instinct is almost always right.

Finding a Tune

When I know I'm ready, I start to find the new tune. Depending on the song, this is either the easiest or the hardest part of the process.

By tune, I mean the main melody that flows through the song, the one that creates the mood that flows from the keys.

To find it, I have to ask myself a few questions. Am I being led to write a happy or sad song? Relaxed or intense? Most of my songs stem from intense, locked-up emotions, leading them to be more on the dramatic side. If the song in mind is supposed to be happy, I play around with major keys. If sad, then minor. Whatever the mood, I try to match it to a major or minor key. The key determines the emotion evoked by your song, so try to listen to what your instincts are telling you.

After I find the right key (I'll know by a certain feeling of "This is it!"), I now try to take the abstract feeling in my mind and express it in music. To be honest, I can't explain this part of the process. I merely search, trying different things, taking bits and pieces I like and string them together. In composing, I feel like I'm discovering a song instead of creating it.

The Chorus

This might be the part of the song that came first. Many times, it is for me. Other times, the main melody becomes the chorus, once I realize this might be the best part of the song.

Think of your favorite song. When you first hear it, what is the part that you remember first? The chorus. That's because it is usually the most captivating part of the song, and it repeats several times. So when I come to adding in the chorus, I think to myself, "This has to count".

The chorus can be similar to the main melody, or it can be drastically different. It really depends on the nature of the song, and I have to think through this part carefully. Let your music instinct tell you what is appropriate.

In some cases, the song might not have a chorus. These usually are comprised of variations of the same pattern. For example, take Bach's Prelude in C. It flows up and down the keys, changing slightly, but not growing boring. The last thing you want is for the song to become stale. Take precautions when including repetition.

The Bridge

I love bridges. It's where I can pull a trick and wink at my audience, saying, "watch this." Not really, but this is a fun part. The bridge is the part of a song that links, as its name implies, one part to another, usually the chorus. The bridge can be similar to other parts of a song, a twist off a part, or simply something out of the blue.

Some songs don't have a bridge. They repeat the chorus again. Like any other part of a song, the bridge depends on the song. As a rule of thumb, include a bridge if you think your song is too repetitive. If it's fine without one, don't add one.

The Longest Part of the Process: Tweaking

Congratulations, you have the rough components of a song, and already they are shaping to form the next top chart hit! Before it gets there, however, you still have one last part of the process to cover: tweaking.

This is where you take your song and refine it, testing out your parts as a whole, up to speed. At this stage, maybe you'll find you don't like some combinations. Don't sweat... it happens all the time, but not as often as I forget parts. Play your song several times a day so it develops naturally and sticks in your head. I usually let this part of the process take two weeks, for good measure. I don't write my songs down, and it's a tragedy when I can't remember one of my newest masterpieces.

Conclusion

There you have it, an insider's view into my composing process. Feel free to take what I've given you and tweak it to your benefit. Everyone is different, so their creative processes are inevitably different, too.

One thing that you hopefully got from this breakdown is that songwriting isn't easy. If you start out thinking it is remotely so, you'll be crushed when you realize it is not. Don't live in that illusion. Sometimes you will have a break when a song comes to you already written, but most of the time you'll have to toil over it. For me, that's the whole adventure.

Have fun, experiment, and let your music shine!