I'm starting to repeat myself.

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Is this how it ends?

Wrote a song for my dead friend the other day.
Nothing like a good old death to get the juices flowing.
Trouble is, those songs are usually crap.

"Old Shep"....

Ahem..


Worked on it again the next day, I knew it wasn't a keeper as such, but it was
ok. Probably allright for the drunken wake that will inevitably ensue (count me in ;-))..

Bugger was, even though it wasn't half bad, and neither half-good, the bloody opening line was exactly like a song I had just finished. Ok from years back, but it was the last one I did. I would have thought I would have remembered.

I'm going with it. It's working for now. I'm hoping divine inspiration will strike and I can hit another note or at least a transition to another note so it is not exactly the same. I mean, it's not like I'm selling the things to competing boy bands - says cheeky upstart Harry to cheeky comeback Robbie - Hey, those three opening notes are f******* identical to our three opening notes.

So it is not so much of a dilemma as a 'doh' moment. The rest of the song is ok, but I'm just wondering if this is indicative of a loss of the old juices that have been flowing so freely lately. I don't suffer from writer's block - more writer's overflow - in the form of a sewerage pipe that has just burst and there is *****... oh bejeebus you get the picture...

It's been good while it lasted. I'm not going to touch it for a week or two now just in case. I mean there are only so many notes in a scale and picking a chord from that scale narrows your options even further. I'm no Liberace.


Please Lord, I don't want it to end this way. I reckon it's better to have no ideas at all than end up repeating yourself. I'm not Rod Stewart ffs!

:o


Shoot me like you would a crippled horse if this becomes a habit.

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It's alright. False alarm. Thanks for your concern. The feedback was invaluable.

:lol:

I wrote three songs today.

One was more finishing off the hymn I wrote for my dead friend.
Two parts to it and then a left turn, just makes it spot on. Just what was needed. Happy with that, wrote it in my head on a beer run to the shops.

The other one was a dream pop bittersweet three/four chord trick broaching very heavy topics that can't even be mentioned here. It worked. Beautiful melodies.

And then. And then! I wrote the one. The song I have been trying to write my whole life. It's my 'Born to run'. I cried, I laughed. At the same time.
It's gonna need a bit of work though to take it all the way. But that's alright.


Yep, the sewers flowed again today.

They say that one man's **** is another man's ****. I would agree with that.


All the best! :)

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It's worse than that, I'm starting to talk to myself. But that's for another thread.

I just wrote a very low key thing today. I was on such a buzz of having written 3 such great songs in a flash, that I felt I couldn't go back. I would leave them to be worked on another day. I wanted that little 'buzz' again of writing a new track. Didn't have to be as great as the previous ones, but I wanted that 'feeling'.

I did it sort of, and that's when it struck again, the middle 8 is just note on perfect for another middle 8 I did in another track. Trouble is they change so quickly into something else, plus they are very different songs anyway, and they both work so well, and no one else is doing them - these are my songs.

So is that ok, a blatant 2-4 bar rip of one of your other tracks. I don't know anyone else that does this. It's a bug for now, but I'm thinking maybe it could become a feature. It's like a homage, but to myself. Is that allowed?

Does anyone know of any other songwriters that use parts directly lifted from their other songs and put into new ones? I don't. I mean, I could work it and change it a bit, but the devil in me wants to keep those 2-4 bars identical.
I've never heard it done before. There would be no legal ramifications if it is your own material soley written by yourself. And done soley in your own material. Is it possible to sue yourself? I suppose the publishers would find a way ;-).

I guess someone somewhere must have done this and I just missed it.


Any examples?



cheers.

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Perhaps all of us only ever have one song to say, we just have to keep recreating it :)

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don't overthink doing something different. Just do something different. If you know what you're doing the same, all you have to do is change it.

The thing is, is that when you first try something new, it usually isn't as smooth as it can be after perfecting it.. so you have to keep at doing that same thing for a while. Then when you get sick of that, change it. rinse repeat x infinity. After a long while you will have a large back of tricks to mish mash together. that's my opinion.

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Keith99 wrote:Perhaps all of us only ever have one song to say, we just have to keep recreating it :)
Perhaps you are right.

Right you are perhaps.

You are right perhaps.

Perhaps right you are.



Shit, it's just easier writing a new one!


;-)

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stillshaded wrote:don't overthink doing something different. Just do something different. If you know what you're doing the same, all you have to do is change it.
In a way, you are quite right. I just changed a few of the syllables (made them less) and it sounds very different already, plus it is already coming from another chord change, so it is just me being picky.

I'm hoping to mutate it a bit more though.

I think the fact that the lyrics are almost the same really shows me up too.
But they fit so perfect. But a little tweak there too. Sometimes you only need to remove a brick and the whole bloody wall comes down.


I'm happy enough with it now in my catalog - if I was selling them for big publishing money, I wouldn't be so cheeky.

I like it so I'll keep it. Maybe we do only have one good song in us. Or maybe two - the fast one and the slow one ;-)...


cheers.

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Cracked off another couple this affo.

Again one very nice, humble, low-key, never set the world on fire kind of thing,
nice though.

And the other one was where I became a lightning rod for the gods. Really, how is it possible to do all those things at once in synchronization and still make sense? I mean - play guitar, sing, sing in melody with harmony, sing lyrics you have never heard before, the lyrics are in tune with the guitar, the lyrics are not out of keeping with the harmony and feel of guitar. And not a thought enters your head, totally free of thought, as some talk of in higher states of meditation but I wouldn't be that high and mighty...


Speaking in tongues, glossolalia, great rock n roll lyrics you never heard no where before. WTF? I'm all for making beats and 'producing', but boy, give me a slightly in tune six string, an even more out of tune voice... and I'm in hippy heaven. Obviously in a minority here, so I'll quit while I'm almost not quite ahead ;-). Ahem...

I did here Melodyne inventor Peter Neubäcker talk about this in his wonderful documentary. How that all music exists outside of human existence and experience and we just discover it along the way. It might explain how I have auditory hallucinations with the full band going lyrics and all. And I can hear it as if I was in the room. This is not a 'thinking you can hear it' - it is a true hallucination - I can hear it - ALL. If I try to control it, it disappears. If I let go and 'enjoy', Bach turns into Aphex Twin in a twist. It's quite wonderful really. Yet again I don't know of another human being that has experienced it as I have. I am researching, but a lot of stuff is wrapped up with psychosis.


Possibly the wrong thread. Oh well, it was a dud anyway wasn't it?

:)

All the best.


EDIT:
This is the documentary with Mr. Melodyne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u573PyXo-pY

It's worth watching even just for his guitar making skills.
What a guy!

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As of you talking about composing flow I completely understand you, I think I have full shelf of unfinished songs/projects-experiments, I just can't seem to ever get to the end from so manny ideas I have and am so picky like am releasing a golden record everytime! Am trying hard to finish it and turn a new page! And it's working way better than I though just I just make an end and after some time I might not like it 100% but I'll know better next time coz am learnig, I mean down the road we all have to make crapy songs/EPs and records to reach where we want to be on the top mountain hill.

Anw as of composing all the intruments in you head I get that all the f***ing time!
No joke I play 6inrtuments, owning a drum set, guitars, pianos, synths, etc.
And i can hear them playing all at the same time.
Around 30% of the time if I try and controll them I manage but mostly I just let them flow within me, it's like my head is working for it's self creating things by it's self.

Yes about repeating specific phases in different song I do it too.
Sometimes on perpuse to emphasize the meaning, sometimes the concept, and sometimes I just think it be cool if I could do that part again but this time slightly different!
As of bands who do it there are not so many out there but I'd personly tell you to stick and listen carefully to Dream Theater.
They do the exactly se concept and it's Mike Portnoys work for his 12 step suite, his idea of fighting with alcohol problems he has so he put the 12step that people follow at AA to achive their goal to get rid of alcohol ofc! Hurp Durp moment.

Also listen to Savatage, specificly to the song chance and listen the vocal harmonies and melodies very carefully!

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