1. Waiting for inspiration is like waiting for a train; you only going to catch one if you’re in the station. Start by putting yourself in the vicinity of the Muses. Bring your rhyming dictionary along just in case. Forcing creativity and concentration are two different things, and I don’t really recommend the former except in the case of finishing touches, but don’t think you’ll just manifest a song
by sitting in front of the computer or hanging out with your friends.
2. Practice to competence, then practice a little bit more. Allot depends on the style of music you write. Certain generas require a high degree of technical competence like Jazz and Classical, others, like punk and (American) folk, you can get away with a whole song of power chords and barre chords. (this is not to say one genera is inferior to the other. Punk is based on an entirely different set of aesthetic values and is more lyrically and message oriented than Jazz or Classical. They really shouldn’t be compared but contrasted for this reason.)
3. If you are competent enough in the guitar to where you know all your major scales backwards and forwards use the guitar, especially if it is your favorite instrument and you have a goal like “master the guitar”. If not use a keyboard as the notes are more readily found and logically arranged.
4. If the two ever become so mutually exclusive that this actually becomes a serious question,I guess just scrap the song. I don’t see how it is even possible though. Lyrics are typically based on meter, like poems. Melody is based on rhythm. Rhythm and meter are really the same thing.
5. “It’s a wicked generation that demands a sign.” -Jesus
But since you asked heres somthing I wrote. Not a song just a freestyle I did
for something to do.
THE GROWN-UP TABLE
Still life and TV
Last Days, bad dreams
Come to the extremes
of Light and Dark
Dogs bark
as I run naked in the neighbors’
backyards
I can’t get you out of my mind
Stale beer breakfast
with a side of white lines
We pantomime, playing “house”
Played this whole damn scene out
In countless resurrections
And insurrections
Rhyming words for the sake of the sound
Feigning profound
But ever so shallow
Sitting at the Grown-Up Table
in some latter day fable
But our reality is Lazarus,
hit by a bus
Cut short for the second time
You see,
the tragic lost it’s black magic
Now I’m searching for meaning in the
slapstick
But if you put down the pipe
I’ll put down the needle
You stop playing mommy
I’ll stop acting so fetal
But it’s too late for all that
No tricks left in this old hat
Just a one way ticket
out of the Garden
Forgo the apologies
we’re way beyond pardon
I’ve also got a blog full of prose at
http://www.myspace.com/jewboi_oi
if you wanna check it out
Oh, and by the way: I’m not an American, I’m an Israeli waiting to happen.
And the only reason Bush thought Saddam had W.M.D.s is because he found his Father’s copy of the sales receipt.
