(In a manner of speaking)
OK, so that's being a little extreme, but geez, he must be confident that he has some intense emotional connection with his lyrics to create that stuff.
If you're not an Elton John fan, try listening to the song Tiny Dancer or watch the Lion King. Maybe it'll become your cup of tea.
But I mean, It's so freakin' weird how people come up with songs and and I'm not exempt from that strange aspect either.
Honestly, the place that I come up with the meat of my tunes is in the shower. I'm running that shampoo through my hair and running my vocal chords the whole time too. I find the germs are much more willing to relocate in this fashion.
I know that one of the melody lines for a previous band I was a part of, Let All Prevail, was thought up while I was conditioning. I think the song was "Boom".
On a side note, if anyone is interested in purchasing a past LAP album, I got boxes of our album, More Than it's Worth, and you can basically name your price. Hit me up on my contact page for more information.
But I started singing a melody, I remember it when I stepped out and dried off, so I immediately plugged in my guitar and started putting the chords together.
You see, for me, I have a different definition of what a "song" is compared to other "song writers" that I know. My definition of a song is a set of transitioning chord progressions with a vocal melody over top. Without the vocal melody, you can't call it a song. You can call it a tune just to be fair.
That also leads me to my next point of what the most important part of the song is and I'm gonna say 8 times out of 10, it's the vocal melody. Yea, if it's metal, hardcore, hip-hop, or rap, the monotonous timbre of the voice draws most of the attention to the instruments' composition, but for every other genre (besides instrumental) that involves singing melodies, it's the vocals that count.
For example, there is a chord progression that just about every band has used at one point or another. I call it "The Emo Progression" and it's made up of four chords. Now, the chords will change depending on the key of piece, but the path of the progression is always the same.One example is: B, G, D, A
The guitar tab for this in standard tuning is:
e-|-------------|
b-|-------------|
g-|-4-----7-----|
D-|-4--5--7--7--|
A-|-2--5--5--7--|
E-|----3-----5--|
Examples of where this progression has been used:
Ending of Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional
Chorus of Going Away To College by Blink-182
Chorus of both Buried a Lied and Rum is For Drinking, Not for Burning by Senses Fail
Chorus of The Great Escape by Boys Like Girls
I used to have a whole list of songs with this progression but I must have lost it or thrown it away, but you get the picture.
Other progressions that I've labeled include "The Pop Rock Progression", "The Screamo Progression", and "The Melodic-Metal Progression". I won't list those at the moment since I don't want to ruin every song that you've ever listened to.
But how does this knowledge tie into my song-writing?
1. I come up with a vocal melody with pseudo words.
2. I place fitting chords behind the melody while trying my best to AVOID the progressions I've labeled. Therein lies my originality.
3. Refine the transitions and lead licks.
It's as easy as 1-2-3!
And if I don't have a strong enough vocal melody for a tune, that song doesn't get put into circulation. It's as simple as that.
For any other song-writers out there, I'd love to hear your methods to creating a tune. Let's have a discussion :]
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Bever
And hey, maybe someday you'll put this knowledge to use. haha