Songwriting tip of the 21st century
November 17, 2008
This is mostly meant for other songwriters but it also gives you some insight into my songwriting process if you’re interested.
Most times I pick up a guitar or sit down to a piano, I come up with several melodies, chord progressions or rough sketches of song ideas. More often than not, I walk away without noting it or recording it in anyway except for what is locked in my brain..if it hasn’t been completely forgotten. When I come back and try to play it again from memory it is always different, it has to be, and always seems to be dwindled down to something less interesting than what I had originally created.
The reason I thought of this at all is because I recently got a small recording device which I love called the Zoom H2. It records great quality audio and can be used alone or as a USB mic with Garageband or whatever. I’m not selling anything here (except my music, wink) so I’ll let you read more about it elsewhere-it’s beside the point.
The point is, the importance of documenting the song throughout the process whatever tools you use. The original idea of a song is almost always the most original and visceral thing you do, like I said before, I think our brains subconsciously try and bring it back to something more familiar.
Also, having an easy way to record and listen back immediately gives you a third person perspective as opposed to the first person you would get from playing from memory. This added perspective makes you weed out the weak ideas and expound on the great ones much faster than you would normally.
The ability to use it with Garageband or Protools makes it great for adding additional tracks and fleshing out the idea even further. I’ll try and post some recordings I’ve done with it the last week or so.
I love all of you. Write me soon to say hi. okay?
aron
It’s cool to see how songwriters are using technology!
Thanks for sharing.
I am a non-traditional (old) college student in my last semester (Yea) and I also write songs and play guitar, etc. I was browsing the WordPress blogs and found yours. Very good suggestion! I used to have a 4-track cassette recorder mixer and used it for that very reason. I still have it but don’t really have a place right now to record in, so it sits in my bookshelf. When the semester is over I hope to get it out and use it. Right now, though, I am too tied up with schoolwork to get a lot of quality practise time in. I would love to hear some of your music sometime. Mine is mostly Gospel music, because that seems to be the only thing that really excites my inspiration lately.