What's in a song? A step-by-step guide to creating music
Writing songs is my personal favorite part of being a musician. I want to let you all peer into a brief snap shot of the step by step process of writing a song and then recording it. For me, it starts with a melody. Ill take that melody and determine if its best suited as a verse or a chorus. When I write a song , I typically break it up into parts to make it easier for me to write and digest and deconstruct if need be.
1. The Verse
2. The Chorus
3. The Bridge
4. The Solo
5. The Outro
6. Sometimes an Intro
7. Sometimes a break
8. Sometimes a break-down
Once I figure out where the melody goes in terms of song writing, ill decide the mood of the song. I like to get into character with the mood and free hand write words as they come to my mind that feet the mood , feel and theme of what I feel I am going for.
Then , I decide on my Verse and my Chorus.
Then I take all the words and put them into full sentences and ideas.
That I write vocal patterns to the song and take the syllables of the words and sentences I chose and try to make it fit. This is where my vast knowledge of the english language comes in, ill replace words or write metaphors to get across my message and fit it into the context of the song.
I put the guitars together with the vocals and add a baseline to follow and accompany the rhythm guitars. Lead guitars I like to write to accompany the vocals and the piano. The drums are my favorite part to write and try my best to imbue powerful groove and feel into every beat.
After some time and labor and love and many more steps I end up with a full song. Its a lot of fun writing new songs, its like a purging of emotions, catharsis and it really brings out a great opportunity for me as a person and as an artist to relate to many people across the world in ways I never would have before if I did not write the song.
This about sums up my basic song writing process. I take pride in my songwriting and we Hollow Kings hope you enjoy our songs.