SLMC

Fable Sinatra · Joined: 13 Sep 2007 Posts: 255 Location: Englandshire

I wasnt sure where to post this honestly...

I'm a really new musician, I have been playing guitar for 3 years and singing for about the same. Though i know theres alot of people in SL that really like what i do, i know im not a very good musician. I'm totally self taught and don't think im naturally musically inclined.
I started writing my own songs about 2 months ago, and i only have one fully complete one. I find it very difficult to write lyrics and compose music. Since writing that one song about my son which i know alot of people now know as ''Sunshine'', I have been working on others and have about 5 half complete ones. I get so far then get stuck. Now i KNOW practice is they key and this is something i really want to do so i really am trying.
But i was wondering if anyone has any tips to writing songs, i know theres loads of great song writers in SL and i guess this post even may seem silly to some. But I'm sure also there are some who may have been in my same situation when they started out and maybe even other people here feeling the same.. so any help would be apprechiated Wink

Thank you

Fabs x

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:03 pm Post subject:

Metaphores, lots and lots of metaphores!!

and also mention things that couldn't possibly happen, like Jupiter dripping and a lord buying a Mercedes Benz.

Laughing

I suck at lyrics too.
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Silas Scarborough · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1184 Location: Rhode Island

Fable, you can get more useless advice on how to be creative than maybe any other subject. You really answered your own question already: practice, practice, practice.
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luketemplar · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 314 Location: United Kingdom

Consider a collaboration if you are not very good at lyrics. I certainly know a lyricist/poet who is looking for someone to collaborate with. IM me in world if you are interested in contacting her Smile

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Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 1:44 pm Post subject:

you can ask the paperclip in microsoft word. start to type one line in the lyrics and wait for it to pop up.

"It looks like your writing song lyrics... need some help with that?"
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Vincent Merricks · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 15

Hi Fable! I've been writing songs for years and I've gotten a lot of help in making my songs better from some forums dedicated to songwriting and music. The forums allow you to post lyrics or mp3's and the other writers will give you advice on what works and what could be changed to make the song better or more commercial. There's a long-standing feud between the first 2, so don't mention one site's name in the other. Smile

I visit both sites often and have posted a lot of my lyrics for critiquing. I've also listed a few other non-forum sites that contain useful tidbits of wisdom for songwriters.

http://www.jpfolks.org/home.html This is the site that Kaklick and I are members of and he has started a chapter in SL. The group is Just Plain Folks. JPF covers all styles and includes members from all areas of the music industry.

http://www.tunesmith.net/ This forum concentrates on commercial songwriting and 'making it' in Nashville. Other styles are represented and accepted by the forums, but the emphasis is on country music in all it's forms. The members include people from all aspects of the music industry, but is composed mostly of songwriters.

Here's a few other forums or sites that I don't visit often, but contain useful info on songwriting:
http://www.musesmuse.com/
http://www.songwriterpro.com/
http://www.thesongwritersforum.com/
http://www.johnbraheny.com/index.html

There's lots of resources for songwriting on these sites. I'm hoping that the SL chapter of JPF can attract enough members to where the songwriters can get together for meetings/collaborations.

Hope you find some of this useful!
Vincent Merricks aka Todd Cody
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Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
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ka-klick · Joined: 12 Sep 2007 Posts: 234 Location: Central Iowa (USA)

Maybe we need to get a shotgun meeting of JPF to kick things off.

Shotgun: meaning, I called it, so here's what we're going to do, and if it doesn't work for everyone, someone else can call "shotgun" at some other point. (Like calling "shotgun" to get the front passenger seat in a car).

Bibi Ballinger · Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject:

"I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wasting time." by Otis Redding

Fabs--You never are at a loss for words! At least you can tell us about all the men (and women) you are in love with.

Thaumata Strangelove · Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 41 Location: Chicago

i think the first thing to writing music or any kind of creative expression is to remind yourself that it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it. if i write with this in mind, i tend to be less critical of myself and more likely to get creative.

i cannot sit down and write music on command. i wish i could but my brain doesn't work that way. instead, when i feel like i'm stuck, i sit and learn new things. new chord progressions, new scales, new covers, new techniques. by expanding your musical vocabulary, you might find the notes to express something you couldn't say before. it's kind of like laying a trap for inspiration.

lyrics can be hard for me sometimes. my rhyming dictionary rarely helps me produce rhymes that don't sound completely ridiculous and corny to me, but it does occasionally produce phrases that stick in my head and turn into other things. i'm kind of a semantics junkie, and i have a lot of foreign friends - both of these things often lead to me thinking about an old idea in a new way, which helps break things up when i get stuck.

other things: i've taken some poetry and creative writing classes, and spend a lot of time examining what kind of poetry and language speaks to me and why. also, i've had some songs that just weren't working for me, so i applied them to a completely different style of music, and they took on a new life of their own. (like, ballads into rock songs, etc.)

but mostly, just keep trying. and keep a record of your songs... i'll find an old minidisc once in a while with me twittering on it and i'll say, "holy cow, i almost forgot about that!"
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Amiee Jacobsen (RL)
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Komuso Tokugawa · Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 88 Location: Tokyo, Japan

There are skills that you can learn by bashing away at things for a long time, and then there are skills that you can learn by being more efficient and productive in the way you go about learning and practising.

After long experience doing method 1, I now prefer method 2 [though I still do method 1 for the pure fun of random exploration and stress relief]

http://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/ for very focused practical advice on the craft and discipline of songwriting.

http://www.chordwizard.com/products.asp is a great tool for guitarists.
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