Why does everyone keep asking what i play?
Post replyMonday 17 Jul 2017, 2:21pm
I write songs. If i say i write songs...its because i write songs. I love lyrics and creating songs with lyrics in them (as i have done for a couple of years now) but no i cant play instruments. Or sing. And neither am i planning to learn...
What i dont get is why no one on this site or other sites can accept the fact that i love writing songs and want a band to write for: other people for the singing and instruments. It doesnt seem so difficult in theory but everyone who i respond to, or who responds to me, says 'but what do you play' or 'when are you going to learn to play'. I just want a bunch of lads and lasses thatll accept me as a writer, lyricist or any other word they want to use, so i have some buddies to jam with and make some good songs without me having to take up a profession that my heart will never be in. Is that so difficult? *i cant punctuate properly either, though that doesnt affect my ability to write
Monday 17 Jul 2017, 2:36pm
Do you only write lyrics, or do you write a vocal melody line to sing them to as well? And if you do, can you sing them well enough to get that across to musicians?
Tuesday 18 Jul 2017, 3:12pm
Not many want to play songs by someone else, unless that's covers. Sometimes one will ask for help with writing.
Say at the beginning that you're a non-playing lyricist. As for why they ask what you play, you'd need to ask them.
Tuesday 18 Jul 2017, 8:04pm
A lot of musicians struggle to write lyrics. If you offer to provide lyrics to other people's tunes, you may have more luck finding interest. However this does mean accepting their music as it's written and coming up with lyrics that fit with it.
Asking musicians to create the music for your lyrics (with no melodic concept) its always going to end up being more difficult to find interested parties, but you may be lucky if you are clear about what you want and if your lyrics are really good and capture the imagination. Judging by your ads you seem to be searching for something somewhat different to what you've suggested in this thread though.
You could just offer your services as a lyricist looking for musicians and producers to collaborate with.
Arguably you could consider that writing just lyrics, without a melody in mind, is more writing poetry or prose than an actual song, even if the lyrics take a song format. Without a melody there isn't really a song IMHO. I might get some grief here about rap being songs without melody lol
There are many stages to writing a song. Including writing lyrics, composing melody, writing harmonic progressions, coming up with the feel/vibe, arranging, producing, and of course playing/singing (amongst others - this is not an exhaustive list). Most of these can be undertaken in largely any order (with a few exceptions) or in parallel, and by different people, individually or collaboratively, or one person. So writing the lyrics, although often very difficult for many people, is only one small part of the total process.
However, whilst they all play their part in making the song, the only bits that have copyrights are melody and lyrics. And these really are the key elements of any song. After all, a melody and lyric can be passed vocally from generation to generation without any instruments at all. But nonetheless, when you ask people to write, create and perform all of the music for one of your songs, presumably meaning with instrumentation, you're actually asking for a lot more work and effort than you've put in yourself in coming up with a lyric. I don't therefore think it's realistic to require that you then hold copyright of the song unless you are paying for everyone's services. I wrote lyrics and vocal melody for a band's rock song once on the basis of joint copyright - the band having half and me having half. Although arguably I'd written 100% of the copyrightable content it seemed a reasonable compromise to make it worthwhile for everyone.
Although I write lyrics, I write melodies a lot faster and have a backlog of tunes I will struggle to keep up with and find time to write lyrics for. Good lyricists are very useful. But of course "good" is the operative word (as well as very subjective). So I'd encourage you to continue, but think about what you want to do, how you want to work, and then just be really clear about what you're offering and seeking, and you may get better responses.
Wednesday 19 Jul 2017, 10:49am
Calm down son ! your lucky in my youth people kept on berating me for playing with myself as a struggling new musician trying to find his feet and to nail down the art of good timing for a perfect climax. My old girl said it would spoil my eyes !! all that late night practice trying to nail a perfect rhythm whilst looking at inspiration before the ease of the internet came along and all was possible with a click of a button.
And musicians today complain about a few questions or casual responses.
We've become all too precious.
TD
Wednesday 19 Jul 2017, 12:15pm
Don't forget, TD, that you don't like being asked how old you are.
Wednesday 19 Jul 2017, 5:28pm
I have no problem with it you must pulled that one out of your hat son.
Although I know nothing gets your blood boiling like our Jess each time she mentions your age. Or is it just the thought of her ? .
TD
Wednesday 19 Jul 2017, 9:43pm
I pulled it out of your posting at https://www.joinmyband.co.uk/classifieds/acceptable-to-ask-about-a-perspective-bandmates-age-t996826.html and pasted below.
WTF ??
I'm not going to include the boy band genre or tenny bop enterprises in this question. I'm talking about the supposed real musicians man ! who want to make real kick arse couldn't give a damn music , apparently.
I'm tangling with it in reference to people who ask it before there has been a meeting a jam or even an exchange of sounds supposed to be music.
Time and again age is usually the first card on the table that needs to be turned over , these days it would be apparently illegal to discriminate or make it an issue in the conventional employment market yet on the music scene it seems a thing you can be openly agist where as few will be openly racist or sexist.
I'm not saying bands don't have the right to be discriminatory cause thats life but the old fella in the game should have a chance to do his bit be seen and judged as an individual musician and human. Because theoretically anyone can get on with anyone regardless ticking the right pre screen boxes and age is a number that looks like the wearer. Jet Black also proved you could make rebellious passionate music even if you only started doing it in your 40s.
People should be barred from putting an age bar on their adverts at least.
The Questions of our age
TD
Wednesday 19 Jul 2017, 9:44pm
I pulled it out of your posting at https://www.joinmyband.co.uk/classifieds/acceptable-to-ask-about-a-perspective-bandmates-age-t996826.html and pasted below.
WTF ??
I'm not going to include the boy band genre or tenny bop enterprises in this question. I'm talking about the supposed real musicians man ! who want to make real kick arse couldn't give a damn music , apparently.
I'm tangling with it in reference to people who ask it before there has been a meeting a jam or even an exchange of sounds supposed to be music.
Time and again age is usually the first card on the table that needs to be turned over , these days it would be apparently illegal to discriminate or make it an issue in the conventional employment market yet on the music scene it seems a thing you can be openly agist where as few will be openly racist or sexist.
I'm not saying bands don't have the right to be discriminatory cause thats life but the old fella in the game should have a chance to do his bit be seen and judged as an individual musician and human. Because theoretically anyone can get on with anyone regardless ticking the right pre screen boxes and age is a number that looks like the wearer. Jet Black also proved you could make rebellious passionate music even if you only started doing it in your 40s.
People should be barred from putting an age bar on their adverts at least.
The Questions of our age
TD
Wednesday 19 Jul 2017, 11:52pm
they want to connect your voice lyrics to instrument if not they will call you poet it still gets said of bob dylan
by the well ha ya know folk easy tiger,
Thursday 20 Jul 2017, 12:11am
[quote="x51WSH7N"]I pulled it out of your posting at https://www.joinmyband.co.uk/classifieds/acceptable-to-ask-about-a-perspective-bandmates-age-t996826.html and pasted below.
WTF ?? indeed , indeed.
I was making a general point that effects loads.
I'll leave you to ponder on the relevance and lack of it here.
TD
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 4:05pm
Hmmm so the general vibe (except getting at TD about age for no apparent reason) is that its a miracle if i find anyone to put my lyrics to use since im not a musician and have nothing else to offer them, so my own lyrics are poetry pretty much not songs?
In fairness i wasnt saying i cant find musicians...i can and have done in the past but they all turn out to be idiots that give up all the time. No one serious about using what i write ever responds...
In response to Profusia...you cant really judge off my posted ads, i post and then delete lots of differently worded ads for different things on different sites. Have before now put simply 'lyricist looking for band' and still not much joy. Maybe this post should say why cant i find a band instead?
And in response to Edwinmooney...if the way i make music puts me in poet territory with Bob Dylan instead of songs then fine by me! Sounds a fair cop of a life plan to be honest.
Original point being i dont understand why people assume lyricists all sing or play some instrument. Do most or something?
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 5:07pm
Stick some of you lyrics up lets have a look, let them speak for themselves.
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 5:32pm
No, A lyricist doesn't need to play an instrument or be able to sing to be a lyricist, and I'm sure many probably don't. But that kind of lyricist is going to find most joy and most work writing lyrics to musicians tunes, rather than asking musicians to create music from scratch based around their lyrics. That's not to say it's not possible or doesn't happen. But for a lyricist to ask musicians to compose to lyrics it's always going to be more of a challenge and any musical information, even the most awfully hummed melodic idea is going to help.
The confusion re your musical capability and your ads arose because you say in the thread opening post that you want some musical buddies to jam with, whereas in your ads you say you want online collaborations, and it's hard to figure how a lyricist who doesn't play and won't sing can jam (online or offline). So it wasn't unreasonable to assume that you might be able to grunt out some melodic ideas badly or shake a tambourine or something.
Okay, sorry if I touched a nerve with the poetry reference. I don't see poetry in a negative light (have written a few myself). My point was that songs are for singing and need a melody. Until you have a melody I don't think you have a song. That's just my opinion. Bob Dylan's songs had melodies even if he didn't sing them all that sweetly. If you can write lyrics at his standard you'll have no problem getting them turned into songs.
Why are the people you've all met idiots? Maybe they just didn't have the skills or ability to write what you wanted, or maybe your lyrics just didn't inspire them in the way you hoped. Why don't you try writing lyrics for people that have instrumental tracks that just needs some lyrics to turn them into proper songs? If that works out and you get some relationships going you'll probably find people are willing to flip it round the other way. But bear in mind the world is full of musos that can't write for toffee and patience and persistence are key virtues.
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 5:34pm
[quote="Arzachel"]Stick some of you lyrics up lets have a look, let them speak for themselves.[/quote]
Indeed Wouldn't hurt to see if anything you've got inspires any of us to write for it. On a shared copyright basis obviously! Lol
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 5:47pm
Profusia how do you think most song started in the western world it came from bored lovelorn youth putting music to the poems of poets. Our Scottish cousins have taken the poetry of Burns and added instruments later he was not writing songs he was writing poetry with no thought for music other then natures song. Most traditional folk music relies on old verses poems stories to create new music.
Also Elton John's wordsmith from what I gather does not know how to play a note but has supplied him with lyrics for the better part of 50 years they often worked in two separate room's and I don't think Bernie was writing in a music studio just like any other writer in his writing room. Elton had to boil the words down to fit his melodies.
Writing and music are two different skill sets sometimes one artist can master both bands like Zepplin obviously could not without ripping of old folk tunes or improvised black blues men. So they could have done with employing a decent wordsmith.
I agree you should post your lyrics. There are plenty of companies out there that offer the services of songwriters for a hefty fee perhaps send them a covering letter and some of your work they could employ you and that might be a way in to get into what your looking to do.
Also handing out cards at a local open mike where there sole performers who are just starting to experiment with originals if you can offer them song fit lyrics your going to be making their journey easier and perhaps ear yourself some cash for providing a service.
TD
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 6:01pm
What did I write that makes you imagine that I have any problem with the concept of someone writing music to pre-existing lyrics or poetry? I said it's quite possible, but will be more of a challenge to find musicians prepared to do it unless the lyrics are realy inspiring (as were the words of poets obviously!)
Taupin and John have had a truly phenomenal writing partnership, and are what you would call an exception TD, to produce such a catalogue of success based on a lyrics first approach. Again, if this guy can write at Taupin's standard he'll have no trouble getting composers to write music for his words.
So, are you offering to have a go a composing some music based around his lyrics?
Monday 24 Jul 2017, 6:21pm
Can see the point...i did start out as a poet myself.
I was a bit confused as to what people call 'having a melody' as i can tap out a rough sound on keyboard using literally one key, just as a guide...? Dont own a keyboard right now though.
Dont know what sorts of companies to message like that, open mic ive tried but general is that they all write their own and want to keep it that way.
The online was the last post and just a random idea i had, not a true rep. of everything i want to do.
Id really damn agree that some amazing folk songs are born of poetry, and other styles too. Lot of songs especially the folk and gospel i love are less about musical ability but about the words and stories they tell.
Should put some lyrics online i guess but i get worried someones going to use it without my knowledge...
Im bad at internet too, as in it be a good idea to post some lyrics as a response on this post? Someone clarify and might put an example out there, see the opinions
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