Personally I loop the part of the song that needs vocals and then listen over and over untill I begin to hear something in my head that belongs in the music.

Since everyone here knows what sounds good (we all dig Dev's shit anyway) I was wondering if some of you could share your creative process in regards to vocals..... What I do takes forever. Do you just "know" what to do when it comes time to do vocals? Do you go through dozens of rough drafts before you are happy?? Are you happy with just making the vocal line doublr the rythm of the music ala Obituary??? Do you think it is best if the vocals are "on top" of the music vs "in" the music????

Thanks in adance for sharing......I'll post some of my shit eventually for your critiquing pleasure....

I do it the other way-- I hear the melody in my head, and try to form words out of it. This melody is supported by instrumental arrangements.

I do it the other way-- I hear the melody in my head, and try to form words out of it. This melody is supported by instrumental arrangements.

Soo... like....you hear a melody in your head and turn it into words instead of figuring it out on guitar....right?? And that would come first, before any riffs or groves or anything....interesting. I can't think that way or I would try it. Instrumental music always comes to me first and then I hear words.

Just curious how other people work. Any other different approaches out there?

How about letting the vocal melody be based on the chords in the other instruments, or even the overtones?

How about letting the vocal melody be based on the chords in the other instruments, or even the overtones?

That kinda IS what I do. My curiosity of what others do is based on the fact that 1) it takes me a LONG time to get my vocal melody the way I want it 2) A lot of people say they "just do it" as if the complete perfect melody effortlessly presents itself. That means either I suck, there is another (better) way i am not aware or capable of, or they are just so fuking good it I should quit.

As far as I know, Dev is the only one that is THAT good, so I'm just trying to get a feel for differnt ways of doing the same thing. Group wisdom if you will.

Just because it takes you a long time does not mean you suck. Everyone writes things differently, no two people have the same composition process. Just because it takes you longer does not make the end product any worse, and there may be other aspects which you are able to do more quickly

Thanks for the positive note fragility. I gues every musicain goes through frustration.

Don't worry zed10R, I have exactly the same problem.

I read in a guitar world magazine from 1996 Billy Corgan talking about the vocal melody being the most important part of a song because it is the part that people (especially non-musicians) remember. What I get from this is that the vocal melody is the part that needs the most attention.

Then again some bands are extremely melodic without melodic vocals (eg Swallow The Sun)

hey zed,
my band is going through the same thing at the mo...

our singer is new to the whole lyric writing thing so were kinda at a standstill. the guitars bass and drums are well on their way to being finished, but no words have been written as yet.

i think its got a lot to do with confidence - am i writing cheesy lyrics? does it even fit with the music? etc...

the way we see it is that we can give our singer a few pointers- a tune that may sound good when sung over the music - but we reckon its his responsibility to write the words and to finish the tune.

its gonna be very much like the way we put our songs together.
-trial and error until we get something we like.

-but we've come to a few conclusions-

we dont want to write lyrics for the singer that he might feel stupid/embarassed when singing.
we all listen to similar bands, were all heading towards the same goal.
there is no such thing as a perfect song-there is an infinite number of ways to do something-itll be good as long as we take the time to do it right.
we just have to believe that our work is of a high enough standard to sound good.
we'll try ideas, if theyre no good we'll just destroy, erase, improve.
but at the minute it is just a case of listening to the chorus/verse/whatever over and over and over again to try and get that killer tune.

I found the best way for our band is to have the general story of the song figured out. Then we just sort of hum along to the song bash around ideas and start to fill in the words after. Since the story is already there, the words end up having more impact and flow better, rather than trying to string a bunch of crap that ryhmes together. Some come very quick, other take a little more time.

heh. I just got beck from my lunch break and I just did something toatlly awaesome by accident. I LOVE those accidental things. I was singing a harmony, not words, jus tone, and I THOUGHT I went way flat for just a secod. When I played it back...... I got a whole new evolution of that song ready to come out of that one mistake.

I don't have sensible words yet, just phrasings that work, so I am far from done. I don't think WHAT the singer says is a s important as HOW he sings it. i mean, look at some of Dev's stuff. SOme of his lyrics and vocal perfomances are plain humerous if taken out of context. But as a unit, it's stunning. That's how I try to go about writing the words. What sounds best, not what really means the deepst thing...you know???

ANyhow, I am fukin exstatic that i finally broke that stalemate I had with my one song.

Thanks for your input guys. You ROCK!!

[djskrimp]

All I do is ask myself...What would Ty, Doug and Jerry do?

he he...and a hundred simulated bucks to anyone who knows who they are....

Vocals can be a bitch, and it´s so damn time consuming. Nothing worse than recording all night, just to find that what you were humming before that sounded so cool eventually turned to crap when recorded properly.
When I come up with vocalparts I just bounce ideas with the singer, humming, screaming, whatever works. Once the basic melody is set, it´s time to decide the theme of the lyrics. Words and the rythms of the phrases is way easier to come up with when you have a story to work around IMO.

All I do is ask myself...What would Ty, Doug and Jerry do?

he he...and a hundred simulated bucks to anyone who knows who they are....

Jeez dude. King's X...

C'mon, cough up! Pay up!!

Words and the rythms of the phrases is way easier to come up with when you have a story to work around IMO.

I agree, for the most part. I don't say to myself "I am going to write a song about government corruption" and then build everything around that. The music comes first, before any subject, and the feel of the music tells me what the song will be about. For me, the "story" begins with whatever the first line is. If the music feels mean, the first line is something a very mean person would do. If the music is violent, the first line is....you get the idea. After that first line, words don't come so easy. I write a lot of fragmented ideas and I can't draw enough out of them or explain them enough, so in the end I have kindof a riddle. But that's what practice is for, right??