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Most songwriters I know write with an acoustic guitar but I am amazed at how many of them don’t record their ideas on tape but rely on their memory.
I set aside some time each day to just pick up my guitar and noodle. I just play whatever comes to mind and I always have a tape player handy so when I get a hint of something to develop I simply press record and play and put the idea down.
When I’m done with that I just go onto the next idea. The beauty about this process is that I am not under any pressure to remember any ideas that I may have conjured up in that time, I’ve already recorded them. If I forget them it doesn’t matter.
When I’m noodling I am also singing whatever comes into my head. It’s taken me a long time to just be able to babble rubbish into a tape player and not feel bad about it. When I am lyrically noodling I am only interested in the melodies and the rhythms I come up with.
The actual lyrics can come later. At this stage I am not even looking to finish a song, just gathering ideas, phrases, riffs and melodies and getting them down on tape.
After a while you start to develop a collection of tapes with your noodlings. An aural journal if you will. Once you have say, two or three 60 or 90 minute tapes full of stuff, it’s then time to listen back and hear what you’ve done.
Be warned, your inner voice is going to have a wonderful time telling you how bad it sounds and how awful the lyrics are but you have to ignore it and look at your ideas as just that, ideas that are not finished yet.
You will be amazed at how many ideas you would’ve forgotton. It would be like hearing it for the first time and it’s from this perspective that songs get completed.
Just think, with your ever growing list of possible song titles at your disposal and your musical and lyrical noodlings on tape, imagine how many more songs you are going to be able to write.
Exciting isn’t it?
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Source by Corey Stewart