Inspired by a comment by Britney Spears

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Poll #1936465]

Comments

My answer...

[seawasp]

I call up a better songwriter to do the work, ask them!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

No cats.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the song. A little over half the time, I'll work on melody first, but it's a pretty even split.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I write filks, so the melody is all written.

[deor.livejournal.com]

This.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I would steal both from the vocalization of cats...since modern pop music is then run through all sorts of electronics, no one is the wiser..

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Given that it's Britney Spears, I'm reading "inspired by" as meaning "did not actually use the words 'lyrics' or 'melody'."

[maruad.livejournal.com]

I used to invite a buddy over. We would drink beer and noodle around with our guitars. When we found something we liked then we tossed out ideas for a song topic and then write the lyrics. Whatever made us laugh the most would win.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I said lyrics first, but I have no vocal training and I'm a crap songwriter. I'm much safer sticking to chamber orchestra, thanks!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

They both kind of moosh together as they develop.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Wait, Britney Spears actually has something to say worth listening to about songwriting? You mean her stuff isn't actually the product of a conduit from anonymous latter-day Tin Pan Alley types to whatever it is they're calling Artist&Repertory reps these days to the Prepackaged Commodity™ herself?

...I'm still skeptical...

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Six people are credited on a lyric sheet posted by Spears today, and people have been laughing about it, but (IMHO) only because they don't realize how many musicians are usually involved in writing a song but don't get credited. A producer makes a suggestion here, studio musician there, and they're often left out of the credits altogether. In fact, Sebastian Ingrosso, one of the credited people, said "I just helped put together beats, I didn't write it."

Having spent a lot of time researching a 70s pop star who never credited people -- he was one of the "I'm the boss, you're my employee and I pay you, therefore what you create musically is under my name" types -- it's actually kind of refreshing to see credits like the ones Spears instagrammed.

But (a) I'm in the minority and (b) you weren't looking for an answer like this, anyway.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, a co-writing credit can mean anything from "wrote the song" to "the producer liked some of their suggestions for the second verse" to "it's in the performer's contract that they get a cut of the publishing rights." And ghostwriting, or ghostcontributing, abounds.

In a not-very-related example, one of the differences between Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton is that when Chaplin instructed other people to fulfill his general vision on an aspect of the filmmaking, and they went ahead and did the work, Chaplin gave himself the credit; whereas Keaton would hire a buddy to just stand behind the camera and tell Keaton if the shot went like Keaton wanted it, and then give the buddy directing credit because he thought hogging the credit was pompous.

[david wilford (from livejournal.com)]

There's also rhythm, which underpins both the lyrics and melody. (I Am Not A Songwriter, but that what some of them say.)

[mcbadger.livejournal.com]

a/ Though to be honest I usually end up shredding the paper and secure deleting any electronic versions

b/ Britney? Surely there should have been some other option of "well, the producer rings these other folks and..."

[jwgh]

It's a little complicated, but usually I do lyrics first.

One complication is that sometimes I have a melody in mind (which I may or may not end up using) while I'm writing the song. (Sometimes this is the melody to an existing song, other times not.)

Also, occasionally part of a song will come to me in a flash or in a dream; usually it's hard to separate melody from lyric in that case.

I should also note that I've been interviewing songwriters lately (for a podcast I started recently); this is a question which comes up frequently and the answers pretty much seem to be all over the map.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

My song-writing is primarily filking of existing songs, so coming up with music isn't part of my usual process. Coming up with an existing song to work with is more what I have to deal with. I'm not very satisfied with my own music composition when I do it. When I am writing completely original songs, it's always lyrics first, then music.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

My Person, who has written many, many songs, and done in my presence, always does both at the same time. Though sometimes lines appear -- not the entire song -- by themselves which say, "We are the core of a new song." And sometimes he gets to a point in the song, when it's not finished but he doesn't know how to, not yet. It can take a few years sometimes to finish when that happens. That happened with "Between Piety and Desire," which is on Kiss You Down South.

Love, C.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

It depends. When I've set others' words to music, I obviously have the words first. But usually I write the music and then, if there are going to be words at all, I write words to go with.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

In the only instances where I have actually participated in writing a song, I write lyrics and somebody else writes a tune for it.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

sometimes one thing, sometimes the other. But my songs are ditties for babies mainly.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

The lyrics provide the structure to hang the melody on. I've done it the other way a few times, though.

Actually, I've never quite succeeded in coming up with a song by myself. I can set lyrics to music easily enough, and write poetry easily enough, and put words to music now and then, but I've never managed to juggle words and music at the same time.

[kla10.livejournal.com]

>When you write a song

I generally don't.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I have perfect pitch and not a shred of musical talent* and found this poll unpleasant.

Also, no cats.




(*Oh, the gods were feeling so witty that day.)

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

... If you have perfect pitch, you can eventually learn to barbershop. It may take time. The only person I've ever known who could NOT do so had the exact opposite affliction - he could hear things just fine but could NOT sing on the same pitch to save his life. No perfect pitch there.

I ding this poll for no checkboxes, as several of the answers can apply - if I'm making someone else's song bit into a tag, it's with their words and one line out of four from their notes, before I start. If a song lyric hits me, the music can come second, or if I'm musicing an already-given poem (which I haven't done much since childhood). Filking, as noted, usually starts with the music given.

--Dave

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I don't have a consistent voice. It drops out in volume outside certain ranges.

I've had an awful lot of time to think this through, but thanks for trying.

--I AM able to write filk, given that I can hear the tunes exactly as performed.(My first was "This World Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us," based on "Small, Small World".)