Songwriting?

[Nas]

Are there any songwriters on the forum?  I was just wondering! In one of my classes last semester, we had to write a song for our final, and it had to have uke, guitar, piano, and vocal parts. It was kind of cool, and I was thinking about writing songs for fun! Does anyone have experience with that? 

[Former Empath]

I do not have any experience writing actual songs (just song lyrics that I would be waaaay too shy to share here).  But I will say I am nigh-on desperate to find someone who plays the guitar or piano and enjoys collaborating online to make music together.

I was part of a guild back in 2008, and I met someone there who loved to sing.  We did two "long distance" duets together, by downloading karaoke backings, and then she'd sing her part and record it, then email it to me, and I'd sing my part and record it, and piece it together with Audacity, lol.  Good times. 😃

[Rook]

I can make up some pretty good songs in my head but I've never actually wrote them down so maybe we could do a collab

[Heathcliff]

I don't, but I've always wondered how people do this! I'm tone deaf and know nothing about music, though like writing words. I'm interested to see who responds.

[FadedRose]

This is actually my assignment this week for guitar lessons! Not to write a song, but a full on chord progression.. which I’ve never done before. So, it’s probably gonna be bad. The circle of 5ths just doesn’t make sense to me when writing music.. but I’m in a way glad my teacher is pushing me out of my comfort zone

[Nas]

17 hours ago, Empathic Mystery said:

(just song lyrics that I would be waaaay too shy to share here).  But I will say I am nigh-on desperate to find someone who plays the guitar or piano and enjoys collaborating online to make music together.

I'd love to be a supportive audience if you ever felt inclined to share! I suck at guitar, but I used to play a lot of piano...but never really got good at playing it in a contemporary way. I failed one of my projects last semester and it was to create a piano cover of a song/provide a piano accompanist. So, I would be down to try collabing sometime especially to get better bc that was v embarrassing.

 

17 hours ago, Empathic Mystery said:

piece it together with Audacity, lol. 

OH MY GOSH, AUDACITY  I have a question for you: where did you download that? Someone from my university ended up with a computer virus trying to get it for our aural skills class!

 

9 hours ago, FadedRose said:

This is actually my assignment this week for guitar lessons! Not to write a song, but a full on chord progression.. which I’ve never done before. So, it’s probably gonna be bad. The circle of 5ths just doesn’t make sense to me when writing music.. but I’m in a way glad my teacher is pushing me out of my comfort zone

That's so cool! A lot of modern music education now incorporates composition/encouraging people to be creative. It helps bridge the gap between informal and formal learning, and I wish I had more of that, looking back. There's always the ol' I vi IV V progression  The circle of fifths is helpful with finding related keys & can help you transpose too. I hear it helps to start writing with a bassline and then picking chords that harmonize that. That sounds cool, and I wish I could play guitar well. (I took a beginner guitar class and was awful at it).

 

One of my issues, besides having a NotGood singing voice, is that I can never find a good melody, and then I end up giving up.  I hear so many indie artists who use Major 7ths super well, and I get blown away by how creative so many people are.  

[monochrome]

I write songs! I'm definitely not good enough at it to be a music producer or make money or anything (and I'm really bad at singing), but I know my way around music notation/music theory. If you ever want to bounce off ideas or collaborate, I would be happy to do that!

23 hours ago, FadedRose said:

The circle of 5ths just doesn’t make sense to me when writing music..

Same, I've never actually found it useful when writing music. It's cool to see it applied to other people's works, though.

On 8/15/2019 at 8:31 PM, Empathic Mystery said:

But I will say I am nigh-on desperate to find someone who plays the guitar or piano and enjoys collaborating online to make music together.

I play piano (and can also instrumentate guitar on my computer which sounds rather realistic) if you ever want to record something together. ^_^   

[Former Empath]

On 8/16/2019 at 4:18 PM, Cecilia said:

I'd love to be a supportive audience if you ever felt inclined to share! I suck at guitar, but I used to play a lot of piano...but never really got good at playing it in a contemporary way. I failed one of my projects last semester and it was to create a piano cover of a song/provide a piano accompanist. So, I would be down to try collabing sometime especially to get better bc that was v embarrassing.

 

OH MY GOSH, AUDACITY  I have a question for you: where did you download that? Someone from my university ended up with a computer virus trying to get it for our aural skills class!

Feel free to message me here, and we can talk more about collaborating!  

As for Audacity, I can't seem to find it on my computer anymore, but I think I had downloaded it from CNet, so it was pretty reputable.  I'm so sorry your classmate got a computer virus trying to download it!

 

14 hours ago, monochrome said:

I play piano (and can also instrumentate guitar on my computer which sounds rather realistic) if you ever want to record something together. ^_^   

Definitely message me, if you're comfortable; I'd love to talk more about this!

[SleepingPhlox]

A great software to download if you're into songwriting is MuseScore.  It's free, and you can write your music on the screen and then play it back.  It has a bunch of settings for different instruments and you can play it back as you're writing and hear how it sounds immediately and tweak it if you need to or just export the audio and boom, instantly recorded music!  I mean, of course the "instruments" are electronic approximations so that's a limitation but honestly I love that program to bits.

[Former Empath]

On 8/16/2019 at 4:18 PM, Cecilia said:

OH MY GOSH, AUDACITY  I have a question for you: where did you download that? Someone from my university ended up with a computer virus trying to get it for our aural skills class!

I finally found the link I was looking for: https://download.cnet.com/Audacity/3000-2170_4-10058117.html  You used to have to download a separate codec to be able to export files as .mp3 but it looks like they integrated that now, so it should be all in one file.  The codec might've been where the person from your uni ran into trouble.  Hopefully this link helps anyone who is looking for Audacity. =D

 

On 8/26/2019 at 1:57 PM, SleepingPhlox said:

A great software to download if you're into songwriting is MuseScore.  It's free, and you can write your music on the screen and then play it back.  It has a bunch of settings for different instruments and you can play it back as you're writing and hear how it sounds immediately and tweak it if you need to or just export the audio and boom, instantly recorded music!  I mean, of course the "instruments" are electronic approximations so that's a limitation but honestly I love that program to bits.

What a great tip!  Thank you, Phlox!