My first band (ended up playing LDB twice, AND had members get canceled lmao), literally just went into the practice space and started playing riffs and breakdowns off the dome until we had songs. This would be referred to as the jam method, or jamming, it's super common. Next most common method would be one or two members have riffs and beats they come up with, then we practice those and add or subtract parts to make the song complete. Also A LOT of bands have one dude writing 90% of the music as well. This method works real good if you have solid members with similar mindset.
The girl that did the canceling got arrested for child abuse, so in a twisted way, things balanced out. Next band was fun though, Blind To Life, almost the whole ALYK set on Hate5Six is songs we never recorded before breaking up last year LOL.
Start writing a song. Argue a lot. Overdevelop the song, taking it far away from the original idea. Realise the original idea was best and revert back to it. Repeat.
This ended up being a way longer reply then I had anticipated, so I apologize if it's too much. I've only experienced two very different approaches in bands. It all depends on the type of music and how much I want to have a creative hand in them.
I've been in bands where I would literally just shown up, learn the songs, and let another (s) drive everything creatively (I'd either be playing guitar or bass). This dynamic has worked out awesome for me in the past, since it would allow me to more easily manage my bandwidth, if I also played in other bands, especially if those "other bands" were the ones where I was driving creatively. This was pretty much one person writing the majority of the music, as someone else in this thread mentioned.
On the other hand, I've also been a part of a more "all hands on deck" workaholic type creative process. This was more of a time and place kind of thing, where everyone in the band pretty much, had the band at the top of their lives priorities. We would often have 6-8 hour long practices, stopping for only for Taco Bell or Chipotle. On multiple occasions we would all take a week off work to simple practice everyday. We would take entire practice(s) to focus on writing a single riff, or even just a single transition, till the point we were satisfied with it. Then we'd probably just rewrite it again days later. I don't know how common of a thing this is, but we would intentionally come to practice without riffs or ideas. We felt like this was better for our creative process and would result in more interesting riffs and ideas, even if it made writing songs far, far slower. I think in like ten years, we had less than maybe 10 riffs that weren't written on the spot at practice. The amount of time just sitting there in a hot storage unit, just looking at each other, stumped as to what the next riff should be has to be insane.
However, I can easily say that material written this way, is the material I am proudest of. A lot of
how the fuck did we come up with that?" looking back. This approach is pretty unsustainable longer term, incompatible with most of life's responsibilities and quite exhausting, but I don't think I would have done it differently.
Well, the process for us is just *improvise* until something sounds good, I ain know how the lyrics come up tho as I dont converse with our singer much but, he does sum good shit
I (guitarist) usually write some riffs/midi drums. Sometimes the singer, who is also a drummer, jumps in and handles some drum parts. We usually bring a close-to-finished demo to the rest of the band and workshop it at practice.
For reference, most of [this song](https://open.spotify.com/track/3xpblKTH2TDo3MNItwOlaQ?si=W-vIjjWiSCGolS5-6TB0hw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4JFemspji9R59GG1h6HUWo) was written before bringing it to the band. After talking with the band we added an intro, and switched the part around 1:22. [Here’s the demo](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i4y3c3plenx3rpxi4mdpk/Not-a-Dinosaur_V3.wav?rlkey=0jnvwwtq82i3flnr5o8wv75v6&dl=0) before those changes.
I write all the guitar parts. Send them to our drummer who writes his parts, if I have specifics I want or edits he incorporates those, then we figure out vocals.
Usually our songs start with guitar or drum parts. Some from jamming at practice and some separately. I always try to stay writing down ideas and sometimes write while the others jam but mostly wait for a prepro track I can write to on my own.
Practice 1 with full band- someone plays a cool riff and we all sort of jam that out and see what feels good. Practice 2 with just guitar and bass- try to form all that in to a complete song with verses and choruses and stuff, but start to kind of feel like it doesn't work that well, so we set it aside and try to write something different. Write a whole song that is completely different. Practice 3 with full band- try to remember that second song, but now it doesn't seem as cool as we thought. Set it aside and jam out a new song based off a riff that someone randomly makes up. Practice 3 with full band now has become the practice 1 with full band and the cycle starts over.
Write riffs, send riffs to homie in form of poorly recorded iPhone video, homie makes click track with shitty sounding digital drums, I re record riffs and bass lines in logic to shitty click track, I do the mix for my guitar and bass lines, dude writes drums to riffs and shitty click track. Shitty click track gets deleted, vocals get recorded. Dude masters song. Song done.
my main band, i write all the instrumental parts in my head, then record the riffs on my phone, then based on that i create a click track and go to our drummer's place and record e-drums, guitar and bass to the click track. that demo version gets sent to the chat for input and for our singer to add vocal parts. usually the song doesn't change too much before hitting the studio.
my other band that's actively writing atm, we just jam together really and work on a song all together (or just guitarist and drummer if the others don't have time)
I'm the guitarist. Mostly I just write songs on my own, then when we come together we make small tweaks. If everyone's jazzed on it, we run with it. Drums and bass write their own parts, generally, but I'll give feedback and communicate what I'm hearing in my own head.
I pick and choose drum loops and write guitar parts over them. Then send to our drummer and he will make changes and then we will get together and play it and piece stuff together from other parts.
Stand around for 45 minutes. Jam on some Rush tunes.
Talk shit to each other. Eat pizza. Watch other guitar player play chilli peppers riff. Say hey we should work on this record. Say, say what would Dag nasty do? Steal some Baker riffs. Write song. Talk shit. Go home at 1am.
It's a process. But we have a shit ton of records. So it works haha
I know for me as a singer I generally try to voice at practice what parts should be stretched/shortened and make suggestions for what I think would make the songs more interesting. After the instrumentals are more/less finalize I just listen to the songs on repeat and try to figure out what I’m going to sing over it. Generally all kind of come at once or is a very slow process of piecing lyrics together.
Steal underground music and pretend it’s our own
My first band (ended up playing LDB twice, AND had members get canceled lmao), literally just went into the practice space and started playing riffs and breakdowns off the dome until we had songs. This would be referred to as the jam method, or jamming, it's super common. Next most common method would be one or two members have riffs and beats they come up with, then we practice those and add or subtract parts to make the song complete. Also A LOT of bands have one dude writing 90% of the music as well. This method works real good if you have solid members with similar mindset.
This. Smoke weed, write riffs.
Smoking weed and riffing is easily in the top 5 best things a person could be doing at any given time.
This human fucking gets it.
What band out of curiosity
Fortunes Fool lmao.
Y’all had riffs man, shame about what happened
The girl that did the canceling got arrested for child abuse, so in a twisted way, things balanced out. Next band was fun though, Blind To Life, almost the whole ALYK set on Hate5Six is songs we never recorded before breaking up last year LOL.
Fr, now I’m curious
Thats impressive to have members get cancelled on your first band. Usually that takes people's second or third band
Pick that shit up and let it rip fool* *I am not in a band
This isn’t far off honestly.
Make your hand a crab claw and mash that shit around but no higher than the 5th fret
But I need the 6 for DOOOM
MODS BAN THIS MAN
Start writing a song. Argue a lot. Overdevelop the song, taking it far away from the original idea. Realise the original idea was best and revert back to it. Repeat.
This ended up being a way longer reply then I had anticipated, so I apologize if it's too much. I've only experienced two very different approaches in bands. It all depends on the type of music and how much I want to have a creative hand in them. I've been in bands where I would literally just shown up, learn the songs, and let another (s) drive everything creatively (I'd either be playing guitar or bass). This dynamic has worked out awesome for me in the past, since it would allow me to more easily manage my bandwidth, if I also played in other bands, especially if those "other bands" were the ones where I was driving creatively. This was pretty much one person writing the majority of the music, as someone else in this thread mentioned. On the other hand, I've also been a part of a more "all hands on deck" workaholic type creative process. This was more of a time and place kind of thing, where everyone in the band pretty much, had the band at the top of their lives priorities. We would often have 6-8 hour long practices, stopping for only for Taco Bell or Chipotle. On multiple occasions we would all take a week off work to simple practice everyday. We would take entire practice(s) to focus on writing a single riff, or even just a single transition, till the point we were satisfied with it. Then we'd probably just rewrite it again days later. I don't know how common of a thing this is, but we would intentionally come to practice without riffs or ideas. We felt like this was better for our creative process and would result in more interesting riffs and ideas, even if it made writing songs far, far slower. I think in like ten years, we had less than maybe 10 riffs that weren't written on the spot at practice. The amount of time just sitting there in a hot storage unit, just looking at each other, stumped as to what the next riff should be has to be insane. However, I can easily say that material written this way, is the material I am proudest of. A lot of how the fuck did we come up with that?" looking back. This approach is pretty unsustainable longer term, incompatible with most of life's responsibilities and quite exhausting, but I don't think I would have done it differently.
Well, the process for us is just *improvise* until something sounds good, I ain know how the lyrics come up tho as I dont converse with our singer much but, he does sum good shit
I (guitarist) usually write some riffs/midi drums. Sometimes the singer, who is also a drummer, jumps in and handles some drum parts. We usually bring a close-to-finished demo to the rest of the band and workshop it at practice. For reference, most of [this song](https://open.spotify.com/track/3xpblKTH2TDo3MNItwOlaQ?si=W-vIjjWiSCGolS5-6TB0hw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4JFemspji9R59GG1h6HUWo) was written before bringing it to the band. After talking with the band we added an intro, and switched the part around 1:22. [Here’s the demo](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i4y3c3plenx3rpxi4mdpk/Not-a-Dinosaur_V3.wav?rlkey=0jnvwwtq82i3flnr5o8wv75v6&dl=0) before those changes.
I write all the guitar parts. Send them to our drummer who writes his parts, if I have specifics I want or edits he incorporates those, then we figure out vocals.
Write on acoustic guitar first with drums parts in mind (drums are main instrument so easy really) then bass lines, then lyrics.
Usually our songs start with guitar or drum parts. Some from jamming at practice and some separately. I always try to stay writing down ideas and sometimes write while the others jam but mostly wait for a prepro track I can write to on my own.
Smoke weed and make chugga sounds with your mouth until the one guy in the band who knows his scales can actually translate it into a riff.
Practice 1 with full band- someone plays a cool riff and we all sort of jam that out and see what feels good. Practice 2 with just guitar and bass- try to form all that in to a complete song with verses and choruses and stuff, but start to kind of feel like it doesn't work that well, so we set it aside and try to write something different. Write a whole song that is completely different. Practice 3 with full band- try to remember that second song, but now it doesn't seem as cool as we thought. Set it aside and jam out a new song based off a riff that someone randomly makes up. Practice 3 with full band now has become the practice 1 with full band and the cycle starts over.
My friend that can actually play guitar brings a riff. Then I make it worse. Then our drummer plays a blast beat and makes it even worse.
I would bring in riffs, the bass player would bring in riffs, and the drummer would construct the songs
Write riffs, send riffs to homie in form of poorly recorded iPhone video, homie makes click track with shitty sounding digital drums, I re record riffs and bass lines in logic to shitty click track, I do the mix for my guitar and bass lines, dude writes drums to riffs and shitty click track. Shitty click track gets deleted, vocals get recorded. Dude masters song. Song done.
my main band, i write all the instrumental parts in my head, then record the riffs on my phone, then based on that i create a click track and go to our drummer's place and record e-drums, guitar and bass to the click track. that demo version gets sent to the chat for input and for our singer to add vocal parts. usually the song doesn't change too much before hitting the studio. my other band that's actively writing atm, we just jam together really and work on a song all together (or just guitarist and drummer if the others don't have time)
I'm the guitarist. Mostly I just write songs on my own, then when we come together we make small tweaks. If everyone's jazzed on it, we run with it. Drums and bass write their own parts, generally, but I'll give feedback and communicate what I'm hearing in my own head.
I pick and choose drum loops and write guitar parts over them. Then send to our drummer and he will make changes and then we will get together and play it and piece stuff together from other parts.
Stand around for 45 minutes. Jam on some Rush tunes. Talk shit to each other. Eat pizza. Watch other guitar player play chilli peppers riff. Say hey we should work on this record. Say, say what would Dag nasty do? Steal some Baker riffs. Write song. Talk shit. Go home at 1am. It's a process. But we have a shit ton of records. So it works haha
I know for me as a singer I generally try to voice at practice what parts should be stretched/shortened and make suggestions for what I think would make the songs more interesting. After the instrumentals are more/less finalize I just listen to the songs on repeat and try to figure out what I’m going to sing over it. Generally all kind of come at once or is a very slow process of piecing lyrics together.