• From: BELGIUM
  • Registered: 2007-01-27
  • Posts: 3,403

Topic: composing: wich instrument to use

Why this topic?
If you look at the songs here, you are able, even if you are a beginner, to see a difference in chords, sometimes so called easy songs are very complex. Most of the "chordians" are guitar players I think, correct me if I am wrong, and you can see very clear if a song is written using a piano versus using a guitar.
QUESTION: If I am in the mood to create a song, I USE ALLWAYS MY GUITAR, easy, because I don't have a piano. HOW DO YOU GUYS CREATE A SONG, WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY YOU? Do you use your guitar, or are there musicians using a piano, or BETTER a kind of synthesizer, like ROLAND, YAMAHA, there is so much choise, and I know that if I had the money now, I would purchase a full option synthesizer, to "mimic" or "adding" other sounds, bass, drum, harpsicord (listen to the beauty of some songs written by the Rolling Stones, using hapsicord, like LADY JANE, or on the Voodoo Lounge: New Face.
So what instrument do you use to "fabricate" a song? GUITAR??? classical-electrical-acoustic, is guitar for me.
By the way, if I should buy me a non guitar instrument, I love very much, the sound of a harpsicord, on one hand it looks like a piano, on the other hand it sounds a bit like a guitar.

[color=blue]- GITAARDOCPHIL SAIS: TO CONQUER DEAD, YOU HAVE TO DIE[/color]   AND [color=blue] we are born to die[/color]
- MY GUITAR PLAYS EVERY STYLE = BLUES, ROCK, METAL, so I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY IT.
[color=blue]Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.[/color]

gitaardocphil's Website

  • From: BELGIUM
  • Registered: 2007-01-27
  • Posts: 3,403

Re: composing: wich instrument to use

In fact the question is more simple than I wrote.
What instrument is used most to compose songs. If I tell that it seems harder to compose a song using a guitar, am I right, or not????

[color=blue]- GITAARDOCPHIL SAIS: TO CONQUER DEAD, YOU HAVE TO DIE[/color]   AND [color=blue] we are born to die[/color]
- MY GUITAR PLAYS EVERY STYLE = BLUES, ROCK, METAL, so I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY IT.
[color=blue]Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.[/color]

gitaardocphil's Website

  • From: Almancil, Algarve, Portugal
  • Registered: 2006-09-02
  • Posts: 6,205

Re: composing: wich instrument to use

Hi Phil,

In my opinion the instrument you use is the one that you feel most comfortable with, be it guitar, piano, tin whistle or what have you. However the most important thing is your brain. You know without playing any instrument which notes go with which chords and what chords follow another smoothly for the effect that you want.

I generally write the lyrics and then the chords and then play my guitar or use a programme called Band-in-a-Box to write a backing track. Some fine tuning and alteration may take place then but most of it is done beforehand.

Others I am sure work differently but that is my way.

Roger

"Do, or do not; there is no try"

Roger Guppy's Website

  • From: Murphysboro Il
  • Registered: 2007-02-10
  • Posts: 292

Re: composing: wich instrument to use

When a song comes to me sometimes lyrics, sometimes music, sometimes both, I usualy know if it's a guitar song or a piano/keyboard song. So I sit down to the instrument and write the song. I usualy record the rythem guitar or piano as well as the vocals. if I have a mate with me like Jason I'll also record the drums with it or if my wife is there I might have her play a bass line otherwise I use the drum setting on my keyboard and maybe go back and play the drums over it. Then come the overdubbs. Lead guitar, possibly strings or organ or something. The main thing for me is to make sure the song can stand on it's own with only one instrument and vocals.

"Nobody paints by ear so why would I play guitar by sight?" hmm

5 Reply by jets60 (edited by jets60 2007-05-15 02:24:27)

  • From: Hendersonville, NC USA
  • Registered: 2006-03-04
  • Posts: 2,521

Re: composing: wich instrument to use

I use my guitar but I want to write for my mandolin as well once I learn to play better. The last song I wrote I had in my head all the way driving home, just a line, both words and music, that eventually became the chorus: I use to be indestructible. I thought of how to fill in the rest of the song around that idea that fit with how I heard the line in my head. Anyway that's how I did that song and I used my guitar to figure it out.

J  E  T  S
...and yet a Washington Commanders fan (unless they change their name again) ...long story...HTT...C

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