One of many ways to write music
Sunday, October 12, 2008
There are many ways to write music. There’s one in particular that has always worked for me. It’s really quite a simple process that makes for infinite possibilities.The first step starts with a smoke and a glass of wine. I like to call it the meditation process. Relaxation is crucial for building a good inspirational flow. This step opens every band meeting for me. Within this circle we start discussing ideas we’ve had over the last week for concepts. The ideas converge into other ideas. Sometimes one of us has found a riff we really like, or great lyric ideas.
The next step is what we call the microphone game. Everyone gets a microphone, and everything said while the microphones are on must be said into the microphone. One of us usually has a voice recorder to practice outside of practice with. The microphone game makes for some interesting playbacks on those voice recorders.
After warming up by running through some original songs, we start the inventing process. We either pick some chords and a concept, or a piece of something one of us came up with. This is where things either go horribly wrong or extremely smooth. Luckily for us things go really well. By the end of most practices we have at least one new song. Once a flow has been established the chemistry of our thoughts flow so quickly it’s hard to get it all down on paper.
Inspiration is everywhere. It’s on the news at night, in my late night religions class, people I see on the street that I’ve never met before. My inspiration is life. If you play the fly on the wall any idea is possible in music.
I’m the bass player for a Corvallis all-girl rock band called Neon Gypsies. We are entertainers of music, belly dance and fire dance. This is how we are inspired.
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