Many of my best song ideas seem to “happen” during brief windows of creativity, moments where I lose all “thought” and self awareness and just imagine what this unborn song sounds like, trying on different moods, tempos, vibes and vocal sounds. Typically I will have some rhythmic thing or riff on the acoustic guitar, and then just make up vocal sounds that seem to reflect whatever the music is conveying. I don’t bother with real words, just nonsensical stuff, sometimes just vocalizations of syllables.
What I typically do is just let my portable recorder run, and then go off for several minutes on the idea. Stop listen play back see if there are any bits of gold to be found. Once I have essence of something I really like, then I may spend weeks or months trying to polish that vision. But the best part has already happened, the idea has been born, and often times the non-words weird sounds vocal stuff is more appealing to me than actual lyrics, because it is that much closer to pure instrumental expression. But this is coming from someone who hears the music first and lyrics second practically always, and I know there’s a strong camp for the opposite.
Anyway. Not that this is that important. But in the past I would have to setup my laptop to record any small stupid idea I had, and then I bought a crappy dictaphone, which works at least to capture something so you don’t forget the rhythm or whatever entirely next time you sit down to play it. But what I use now is this neat and inexpensive recorder called the Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder
Sometimes I’ll write out ideas on staff paper so I don’t forget them, but this is usually too tedious for me, since my music notation skills are truly rusty and were never that good anyways.
What do you guys use to capture your rough ideas?
For rough ideas, I just use whatever I have to write on. Sometimes it’s a Blackberry, sometimes ink and flattened old growth. My kernels are usually words and they hit me wherever, most often when I am far from a guitar. Then, when I get a guitar in my hands, I dig up my snippet, and start fooling. If I can come up with something, I jot the chord changes above the appropriate words, play the “tune” a bazillion times and hope I remember it later. If I forget it, it probably wasn’t very good.
Jeff Shattuck
http://www.cerebellumblues.com (a shameless plug for my music blog!)
I actually use the Zoom H2 as well. It’s great for recording practices with the band or just sitting by myself. However, most of the time I just pull up garage band or logic and record using the mic on my portable. It’s nice to have options when the mood strikes.
I actually use the Zoom H2 as well. It’s great for recording practices with the band or just sitting by myself. However, most of the time I just pull up garage band or logic and record using the mic on my portable. It’s nice to have options when the mood strikes.