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.

[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...

[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.)