Hello. I pose this question mainly to Dev, but anyone else who writes music as well.

Writing music is always a difficult process for me. I typically come up with a fair riff, and build on it a little without straying from the original riff too much. These parts typically flow together fairly well. However, one thing I'm bad at (and one thing that Devin is particularly good at) is entirely changing the direction of the song -- Color Your World off of Ziltoid is a wonderful example of this, and an even better example is basically the entirety of Ki. Devin seems to be able to magically transition songs in any particular direction, going from one key, to chromatic, and then to another key afterward with amazing fluidity while switching in between clean guitar sounds and high gain brutality. What makes this all that much more wondrous to me is that I have absolutely no clue how it is he's able to do this.

What is the writing process like for you guys? Where do you start, how do you add dynamics and whatnot to your songs? When you want to change directions, do you have an end goal and try to work toward it or do you just let it happen? How do you do it? Even if you like to keep your songs simple I'd like to hear from you.

One thing I've been trying to experiment with (keeping in mind that I'm a fairly untrained, inexperienced musician) is kind of "letting the song go where it wants to." That language seems a bit vague and maybe kind of meaningless, but all the same it seems to help. In other words, instead of trying to force a song to go from clean to brutal, just kind of guide it in whatever direction it seems to be going in. If it just so happens to want to get brutal, let it go that way. However, this may not yield the intended outcome, which is always a little annoying. It's one thing to let a song develop organically, but it's an issue when it develops into something you don't want.

Ki has inspired me to try out some more clean guitar tones, so I'm trying to write a song using those. However, I'd like to shift the song into crazy ass bullshit and I'm having a hell of a time doing so, so I figured I'd ask you guys and maybe get some ideas on different ways to attack this problem (ideas about ideas). I'll post a link to the unfinished product if you guys are interested, but for now I'm just trying to get some ideas.

Anyway, this is pretty long. I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say!

Sorry to reply before the Dev, who's the person from you wanted an answer in the first place. I really don't know much 'bout musical theory, so it's just the inspiration to me. I'm in, I never got the image of what kind of song i want to make most of the time, the melody just comes to my head and the song goes it's own way, i don't think in the changes, scales or stuff like that...
But there's some time when i do want to make a certain kind of song, like heavy or calm, so i recommend you to pick up your intrument and use a prove/mistake system. I don't know if it can help you, sorry if it didn't.

There's three options I can think of.

1 - Study composition, use what you know.
For example look at the modulations that classical composers, The Beatles, Steely Dan, the jazz standards in The Real Book and other prolific writers have used. Either use something because you already know what it'll do, or use one of those modulations in a way that is different from what you learned.

2 - Go with the flow
One way to do this is to simply play the song up to where you've reached, and then try to just keep going and see what you come up with. Another is to use something like guitar pro or reason or protools to go measure by measure, and once you've reached the end, try to imagine the next measure, work on it until you have it, and then go to the next measure.

3 - Pervert the existing ideas of the song
For example, I have a song that uses the same chord progression in the heavy sweeped intro that uses a choppy rhythmic pattern over 4/4, then later in a slow but heavy palm muted part that is 4/4 quarter notes with an ascending arpeggio pattern, and again in clean chords for the jazzy solo section. Another thing I might do is take a pattern/rhythm/technique that is used in one part and try to repeat it applied to a different chord or key. Taking a major 7 pattern and turning it into a minor 9 a third down, or whatever (I wonder how that sounds.. gonna check now!) The names and theory don't matter if you understand the sound of the changes you're making.


For me it's a combo of 2 and 3, and it can take years! It helps to get yourself going by writing more and more, but eventually you can become TOO comfortable with a writing style!

It ended up sounding really cool just as a riff! Will try as a modulation sometime if I can find the right context.

One final thing is just trying to fuse ideas I came up with separately. It works once in a while.

I don't have a writing style, and I never will.

I just do it. But it sometimes takes me a while to finish a song, if i ever get it done in the first place.

Just go with the flow. Get some riffs together and try and bridge them. Or start with one riff and play it over and over and then just progress into something else when your comfortable with that riff.

I guess I write better when there is a drummer around. If i get drums behind what I'm doing, I can jump into something different, improvise, and it just feels more natural.

[swervedriver]

I usually have some sort of preset idea whether I want a song to be uptempo / a ballad / brutalspeeddeathmetalpop and try to come up with something that fits into that, either by fiddling around on guitar for a while or sometimes something just pops into my head. If I like the idea enough I'll continue working on it writing verses/choruses/bridges and all that. What I find most important is that any transition in there sounds logical (even if unexpected) and that's usually the point where I scratch about 95 % of my ideas. If I can't connect riffs/pieces in a way that I like I have to try something completely different.

In rare cases I'm able to write something as it progresses. Right now I'm in a bit of a pickle though because I've been writing a song like that except I discovered that it doesn't have a proper beginning or ending yet, and it's kinda hard to work my way back in such a song. Won't give up on it though because I've been working on this one for about a year now (on and off).

On a side note, I find it interesting to read how everyone else thinks about composing songs. Do continue.

What is the writing process like for you guys? Where do you start, how do you add dynamics and whatnot to your songs? When you want to change directions, do you have an end goal and try to work toward it or do you just let it happen? How do you do it? Even if you like to keep your songs simple I'd like to hear from you.

I'm not so great at the music aspect of it, but I like to try anyway. Personally I start out with some sort of poem; I'd never create a song around words unless they were something worth repeating. When I have my basis for the lyrics of the song (basically a subject matter), I start experimenting with potential key signatures for the first verse by playing arpeggios at random. Sometimes; if I feel the lyrics aren't coagulating with the scales, I re-tune my guitar (I'm liking drop B at the moment, open C and E are nice too, D modal suits my vocal style when I feel like applying remotely complex fingering). So I decide on the dynamics of the verse based on the rhythm of the lyrics I've written so far. I'll often decide on definitive lyrics after that based on how the flow of the song is and sometimes roughly plot it on a stave or in tab form if I don't have a theory book handy.

Mostly I'll end up with a verse chorus verse structure with a pretty generic riffs and a simple enough mode. Usually I'll play these songs for a little while as I get used to the technicalities of them and gradually become bored with them. Then I forget entirely about them, because they weren't great anyway. But sometimes I come up with something really special, which I end up playing again and again and I end up liking quite a bit. It's a hit and miss method, but well worth it when you make something beautiful.

Of course, I'd recommend that you find your own way! I reckon songwriting shouldn't really be forced or you can end up with very pretentious songs which are technically floundering...

Bridges, bridges, bridges..... they are the key to smoothly getting from clean to heavy, and they are the hardest damn things to write imo. They just kind of have to materialize, you can't force them.

But, hey.....what do I know? Seriously......Music is such a free art form, don't let anyone ever tell you how to do it. Just FEEL it. If it feels right to you, thats all you need. I tried to learn all the "rules" in Music Theory early on, and I DID learn them. But, then it took me a few years to remember how to just write a damn song. I guess it depends on your intentions.

I think what Dev said in that interview about ALIEN makes sense.....it ended up being a paranoid record cuz he was worried about making certain people happy. Now he can write Deconstruction without that worry. Just keep experimenting until you're happy!!!

As a beginner, it's interesting to hear how other people write music. I only started writing music a couple of years ago, after playing guitar on and off for years. I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to find what works for me, and what doesn't, listening to artists I like, finding out what elements in their music that I like, and trying to replicate them in my own stuff.

My current writing method, is to record any riffs/ideas that come up when I'm practicing, and save them on my computer to build up a library of ideas. I then come back to them much later (sometimes weeks or months later), when I can listen to them more objectively, and sort out the genuinely good ideas from the ones that are complete shit.

When it comes to writing songs, I generally have an idea in mind for how it will begin, but then I pretty much just let it go wherever it wants as I'm recording, regardless of whether or not it suits the idea I had originally (unless the original idea is really important).

Personally I think learning music theory is really helpful. It gives you a set of rules that you can then choose to follow or completely break, for some people (like me) that's a good thing, because it can give you new ideas when you're stuck for inspiration. For me, it's easier and more entertaining to break the rules when you know what the rules are in the first place.

That's true, is good you can do stuff without knowing theory, but it is very important. With the things i said above i'm not opposing to learn theory, but in my situation, nowadays is kind of late to me, so is gonna take a while 'till i get involved into that kind of learning. As you said, the rules of theory can really help you, i can barely do a solo!

Writing music is something that I find happens involuntarily. I am always composing music in my head, but the actual process of writing it means that by the end of the writing it is not the same idea I first had. Ergo, in a practical sense, I tend towards learning in a rather structured manner, involving time periods for reading, studying technique, replicating techniques, warming up with chromatic and scale runs,, stretches, learning of new chords, scales, and songs, then free association, each within a fractional time period relevant to the whole, but recording the free association wherever possible for moments where I "just play" and create something channeled instead of constructed, then learn to play it in retrospect.

This is also an inversion with how I write music on the stave, as in such a scenario I generally construct something very logically, looking at progressions, inversions, timings, and even numerology, but there is no free association whatsoever. I still have to go back and learn to play what I wrote in retrospect, though, and I find I write things without regard for my own level of aptitude towards the playing of the thing, merely the fact that it works together "as it is", so that must be how it is when finished, regardless of the length taken to achieve this.

The writing itself comes very naturally, but then I hear music in my head literally constantly, so I have to write it to stop it drowning my thoughts, but the problem is I am never satisfied. If left to my own devices, I could quite easily see myself modifying one song ad infinitum due to real or perceived errors in the transition from formlessness to form. I can construct a piece, but I cannot leave it be. It has been said great art is never finished, but only abandoned, and this is something I feel with my own work, even if I do not always see it in the work of others. Whenever I finish something and present it, I always feel that it is less than it could have been. Always. Language or text is an inadequate means of expressing emotion, and music or vibration is an inefficient means of conveying narrative, and whilst I can use both for their converse strengths, I find it hard to meld one with the other when my poetry has too much structural convolution to negate wanting to change a riff each word in order to convey the fact and my music has too much emotion to be bound by the constraints this puts upon it in regards to altering itself to conform to stanzas, at least in my own head.

In reality, this often boils down to my music being beneath my writing, due to the latter being what I consider to be my strength. And this is another useful point: one should always favour one's strengths, but learn to address one's weaknesses. I feel I am better at tremolo picking than string skipping, so I utilise tremolo picking more in my music, but learn string skipping in the hope that I can integrate it more fully at a later date. This is also extremely important in regards to musical taste. In all honesty I'd say hte music I most understand and have spent the most time listening to is the varying strains of Black Metal due to saturation during my teenage years, although I also listen to a rather large variety of genres, as my preference in artists probably shows. This means that I am working from a BM grounding, and experimenting in the other styles by which I am interested of my own accord. What one must push one's self to do, is to listen and learn to music outside of one's comfort zone to allow for proper growth. If I had never listened to Drum and Bass because of the culture that surrounds it in England, I would never have found Aaron Funk, one of my favourite artists. Similarly, if I was to refuse to learn funk because I saw myself as a "metal guitarist", then I would be depriving myself of some of the most important rhythmic training out there. Overall, I'd end up making the same music over and over, just like Slayer.



tl;dr? - Buy the Guitar Grimoires. Always warm up first. Have a structured training/learning regime and learn everything you can, especially the things you don't want to. Record jams for those "out of nowhere" riffs. Make everything work as a whole, and leave anything which does not. Even if it took you ages.

I can only make gay ambient music on GarageBand, so I can't help you. But I commend everyone for even being able to play guitar or whatever it is that you do, and being able to write actual progressive (meaning with different movements and such, not actually "prog") music. I've tried before and I sucked something awful.

This isn't meant to be a spam but i think i can barely do it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uk4Y_AYw3M&feature=channel_page

Don't mean to speak for Dev, but I tend to write very differently when jamming with my brother (drummer) or just writing myself. The best songs come when I write a ton of riffs or vocal melodies and then step it up with my bro and hammer out the transitions.
You can instantly hear if the transitions are gonna sound like crap or if it is the kick-ass little dynamic shift you were waiting for. My band's music is way more complicated dynamic and transition-wise than the stuff I write myself. I tend to write like a guitar-player unfortunately.

Very much like this.....
Main Riff
Bridge Riff (to make it seem "progressive" when I go back to it later)
Verse
Prechorus
Chorus
Main Riff
Verse (Maybe either amp up or cool down the verse 2nd time)
Prechorus
Chorus
Bridge Riff
Solo/Instrumental Thing
Main Riff
Chorus
Chorus

Yeah...very formulaic, but when I sit down with another musician, things instantly shift. We can try nutsy little stops and fills and "add a bar of 2/4 or 3/4" to make it sound fucked up and it doesn't destroy the feel. The song is a living thing and can change without fuckin' it up. So long story not so short.... It helps me personally throwing ideas around to others, regardless of their "attachment" to the song.