TedEH
Cromulent
I've started going into a sort of writing phase, trying to come up with some new material, and I'm curious a bit to hear what people use to write with. As in, do you sit down with a guitar, hit record and improvise? Or do you plan on movements in your head ahead of time? Or do you program out something in guitar pro or similar to start with?
I'm mostly thinking this because I was considering taking a different approach than usual. I normally would just noodle with a guitar and collect bits that I like, then expand on them later by sitting down and recording guitar scratch bits, chopping them up a bit, etc. But instead, a couple of days ago I had some free time at the end of the day while waiting for someone, where I had an idea but no guitar available so I started sort of blocking stuff out in Reaper using nothing but superior drummer and ReaSynth. I sort of has a moment of realization that it's incredibly easy to create looping midi items and move them around to change/repeat/alter arrangements in a way I would have had to re-record or splice together the way I did it before. An idea to change something takes maybe 5 seconds to implement this way instead of several minutes. It's a small thing maybe, but it seems like this could easily encourage experimenting with ideas that I wouldn't have tried before for risk of screwing up the project I have going so far. In this way, I'm focusing on the actual melody, progression, and arrangement instead of just the "texture" and feel of the song like I normally would, leaving the arrangement to just improvisation.
What do you do?
I'm mostly thinking this because I was considering taking a different approach than usual. I normally would just noodle with a guitar and collect bits that I like, then expand on them later by sitting down and recording guitar scratch bits, chopping them up a bit, etc. But instead, a couple of days ago I had some free time at the end of the day while waiting for someone, where I had an idea but no guitar available so I started sort of blocking stuff out in Reaper using nothing but superior drummer and ReaSynth. I sort of has a moment of realization that it's incredibly easy to create looping midi items and move them around to change/repeat/alter arrangements in a way I would have had to re-record or splice together the way I did it before. An idea to change something takes maybe 5 seconds to implement this way instead of several minutes. It's a small thing maybe, but it seems like this could easily encourage experimenting with ideas that I wouldn't have tried before for risk of screwing up the project I have going so far. In this way, I'm focusing on the actual melody, progression, and arrangement instead of just the "texture" and feel of the song like I normally would, leaving the arrangement to just improvisation.
What do you do?