The order in which the song is written is completely unrelated to the order in whoch the song is heard.
When training/practicing/drilling or when "not inspired" - start with one given aspect and generate the rest from it - and yes, this part will be boring, but that is just the drilling and practicing. Do that starting from every aspect to all the others.
When following inspiration, you have ways of getting around stuck points.
The essence of music is melody. Especially if one considers groove, riffs, and basslines as melody. Melody is not justa selection or sequence of pitches - it's a sequence of sounds in time. Melody is sound and rhythm - pitch and rhythm
Harmony is texture and relationships between simultaneous melodies
But when you are not just practicing, but sitting down to write a song - start with what you have, whatever catches your attention and then follow some rough steps...
- Start with your inspo
- Can you get a concept from it?
- If so - write that down - it's your North Star (or Southern Cross if you are from the Southern Hemisphere)
- If not, just continue with practiced craft to come up with other aspects
- Do you have an idea of what kind of structure you want? AABA? Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus Chorus? Whatever it is - write that down and start rough sketching a blueprint/floorplan
- Has a concept appeared for you yet? (keep checking in with yourself here - the sooner you get a concept and title down - the sooner your song will take shape and be cohesive - it's your gravitational center - the sooner you have that - the sooner your space dust will coalesce into a world)
- Remember you aren't starting with a finished draft - you are gathering some playdoh to work with. Coming up with placeholders and scaffolding is highly encouraged. When crafting a melody it's okay to use gibberish. When crafting lyrics - your first pass can just be words filling in the part of the concept for the song section you are working on.
- Using the blueprint/floorplan you can "divide and conquer" focus on a section at a time to prevent overwhelm.
- Anytime inspiration appears and tugs you - follow it where ever it leads
- When it leaves - don't fret - just look at what it gave you and use craft to get back to work.
- Play around with what you've been giving to come up with new stuff - do not fear rewriting - think of it as exploring
For the above graph - the red dashed lines represent "informing" or "keeping in mind", while the solid line represents derivation paths and methods that can be practiced.
i.e. Always keep the concept and title in mind when doing each part - when writing a real song.
When practicing an isolated skill - you'd focus just on the "solid line" bit.
The title to lyrics line is in reference to writing chorus lyrics (or refrain if writing a Dylan style AAA song)
Solid line bits
- Lyrics → Melody
- Lyrics ← Melody
- Harmony → Melody
- Harmony ← Melody
- Harmony → Groove
- Harmony ← Groove
