Today I’m going to explore a couple of my writing processes. Recently I was asked my approach to writing songs; how I get inspired and how that inspiration ends up a completed recording. As the thought has passed through my mind a few times lately, I thought I might as well explore the process more deeply and share what I come up with. I’ve been writing songs for many years now, and although I’ve occasionally considered my personal writing process, I’ve never actually written out in any sort of detail the actual stages a song goes through from initial conception to a final recording. The process evolved naturally for me over the years, so I think I’ll gain a little insight from taking a closer look, and maybe you’ll gain something from this inspection as well.

The 5 Stages

The process isn’t always the same for me though. Sometimes the order of development changes, especially when collaborating with others. But the end result will generally have gone through most, if not all of the 5 stages at some point.

Stage 1: Basic Chord Progression and Melody

The basic chord progression and melody is where it all starts. This is the seed of it all and is generally the stage that determines the music half of a song writing credit (though not always). This usually starts with a simple melody that pops into my head, or a chord progression that emerges from just messing around with my acoustic guitar. Then I’ll feel this part out with the acoustic until the song structure starts to take form. I’ll often only have a verse and chorus structure at this point, though sometimes I’ll have a bridge, intro, outro of other possible part for the budding song.

This element of the song can also come about during a jam with the band, which I’ll elaborate on in Stage 3.

Stage 2: Lyrics

I often fully complete Stage 1 of the song without having any lyrics at all. I’ll usually just sing random gibberish to the melody of the song as I develop the vibe or the feel. This isn’t always the case though. Sometimes I have lyrics written beforehand, and the melody develops as a result of fitting the lyrics to a chord progression. Yet another approach, more common in songs influenced by hip-hop and related writing styles, is to write the lyrics last, fitting them to an existing song structure (possibly extending or reducing the number of bars) after a beat is basically completely written and recorded.

For me, the lyrics stage is often the hardest part. When I go to write the lyrics to a song, whether the chord progression and melody are already written or not, I often become overwhelmed with fatigue before I actually get anything written – I want to sleep (and sometimes do). But when I commit to the writing and move past the fatigue, I eventually get to a place where everything flows with energy and the song practically writes itself. The state of flow happens a lot quicker if the song starts from an inspired lyrical concept.

Stage 3: Flesh Out The Parts Through Rehearsal With Band

This is the part where we jam on the tune to put a nice rhythm track and backing melodies to the basic chord progression and structure of the song. Stage 1 can sometimes be connected with this part directly when a song occurs as the result of a jam, though usually when that is the case this stage will be revisited and the song tweaked after it’s more firmly structured to the lyrics and vocal melody.

Other times this stage is skipped altogether, like when a beat is developed on the computer directly or if the song develops from a drum loop or something similar within the recording process. When the song is rooted in an acoustic track though, this stage is far more crucial to the development of the song. Between this stage and the next we’ll begin introducing harmony, counterpoint, leitmotifs and the such.

Stage 4: Demo Recording

This is where we lay everything down on the computer and experiment more with vocal harmonies and other instruments that we may not regularly use when rehearsing. These may be various percussive instruments, keyboards, horns, strings, etc.

This stage can occur at various times throughout the developmental process. Sometimes I lay down a demo while still going through Stage 1 and 2 – to get an idea of what it sounds like from a listener’s perspective, or to just make sure I don’t forget it! More often we’ll demo a song once it already has a basic structure and is at a point where we’ve been rehearsing it. Other times, this stage is where the whole process starts, like when building a song on a drum loop and a cool bass line, or an interesting percussive part tied to a strong vocal harmony. Most hip-hop starts here, though I find I’ve written numerous non-hip-hop tracks this way.

Stage 5: Final Recording Process

Of course, the final stage! When all else is done, we lay down the final tracks for our “masterpiece”. We usually do this by starting with a ghost track where we all play together (usually to a metronome) so the basic idea of the song is on the computer. Then we redo each instrument one by one with more precision, accuracy and feel. Then we lay down final instrument overdubs and vocal tracks. And lastly, we bring it to mixing and mastering.

This is the final polish on the song that allows the audience to see it in it’s best light. The other stages will often get revisited throughout Stages 4 and 5, and final tweaks are made.

Different Approaches

As you’ve likely gathered by now, I don’t take the same approach to song writing every time. There’s certainly no right or wrong way to write a song – whatever works, works! I have, however identified a couple approaches I often use.

Acoustic First

One approach I have is to start with the acoustic guitar while developing Stage 1, and then progress through the later stages pretty much in order, though sometimes delaying Stage 2 ‘til the song vibe has more character.

Computer Based Beat Creation

With this approach I’m more likely to start off the creative process with someone else. We’ll drop down a drum loop or congas loop, add a bassline and then potentially structure the song with computer based edits adding extra instruments and creating different parts to the song as we go. This is basically Stages 1 and 4 growing simultaneously. Stage 2 will come in at some point as the song structure is finalized. Occasionally we’ll do Stage 3 after the demo is created, but often these songs have a very different dynamic or simply just don’t work as well when playing them live (especially with a 3-piece).

Also, the line between Stage 4 and Stage 5 is often blurred with this approach. Usually we’ll just use the demo as the ghost track bed and the song evolves more gradually, instead of jumping from stage to stage. I like that aspect of this approach, but it sometimes makes it difficult to call a song complete!

There’s also myriad hybrid versions of these approaches that I run into, but these are the main two extremes.

Well, this post has probably done me more good than it’ll do anyone else, but if you’ve read this far, hopefully you gained something from it as well. Maybe I’ll end up referring back to this post in the future as we share snippets of songs at various stages of development. Either way, I’m hyped to go make some music now! Cheers!!