How do you write a song?                                                                                                            This has always been a question I get asked by many people. Some musicians will tell you it’s a long arduous process, some say it just comes to me or it’s in my head, some don’t have a clue. For me it’s the one in the middle, for the most part I either have an idea or hear a sound or sit down and bang out a riff on the Bass Guitar and start from there. It’s always been a free flowing process for me, sometimes it sounds great and I continue and sometimes it goes to the save file for a future development date. As I develop the foundation of the song, now my mind starts to go into overdrive for the different layers, melody, sounds and ornaments  I can add to the developing song. A guitar riff, a synthesizer sound, a percussion instrument, this is what I hear in my head as I listen to the new project over and over again. Sometimes I have lyric’s on the ready and develop the phrasing to those lyrics to go with the music, sometimes the lyric’s just come out as a natural progression to the song. In all of the above, I am consistently burning CD’s and on my drive to my day job (in which it takes me on average about an hour and a half to get to work) I listen to the developing song over and over and over again.

Think about it? A 3 minute song played in an hour and a half car ride is played approx 30 times –ONE WAY! The only problem I have with that is, I want to tweak the song right now, in which obviously isn’t going to happen. So I must store those tweaks, changes and additions in my puny little brain until I can get back in front of the mixing console. Thank God I have a good memory and Alzheimer’s hasn’t kicked in as of yet. Song projects has always come pretty easy for me and I can usually, not disturbed, write a song within a few hours. What takes the time after the song is written is the refinement of the song and mixing down of the project to make it all clear, balanced and worthy to release and to be proud of. Be it released to just me for my own listening pleasure or to you my friends and fans, I take pride in making a good song. I have so many songs in my repertoire that are experimental that I do not release, as snippets of those songs can be the beginnings, middle’s or ends to new projects and songs. I never throw anything out as it may fit in and or be used later on. Many times I’ll come back to a riff that I laid down months or years ago and say-“Shit”–this is great and start to develop it into a song. The creation of music is such a fulfilling joy and I can only hope that it will continue until I’m pushing dirt!

Hope you will agree!