Recording as a Songwriting Tool

Never be too hasty to give up on a song. Sometimes the process of recording can take it in new directions that elevate it to a whole new level.

To quote my songwriting idol….

A song either comes quickly…. and we can say, yes, we have or song…. but if it doesn’t come quickly I usually say forget it and move onto something else.

Freddie Mercury

Or, more generally, it’s often been said (not least by the late great Kurt Cobain), that the mark of a great song is a song that sounds great on just an acoustic guitar.

So who am I to argue in that company? I’ll at least try….

The non-professional songwriter

First off, not everyone is blessed with the outrageous god-given talent of Freddie Mercury (Or Kurt), let alone the time and resources of even your bog-standard professional songwriter. Most of us have day jobs, less time to work on this stuff, and that means fewer ideas and ultimately fewer songs to work on, so we need to maximise what we do have.

Don’t always trust the rule of the acoustic guitar

In my view, a great song is a great song, regardless of how it sounds on an acoustic guitar. It’s true that having a great song born on just the acoustic is a fantastic place to start, but if the acoustic is your primary songwriting tool, well, that sort of limits your output to broadly acoustic-style music, with mostly strumming or finger-picked patterns. Your song deserves more, and we’re better than that, aren’t we?

Give a song a chance

Songwriting is a funny old thing, isn’t it? They are no rules, no magic formula on what constitutes a great song, or for that matter a great melody. It just sort of happens. Not to get overly religious but I’ve always felt a song to be some sort of gift. It’s never, for me, constructed mechanically, It always begins with an idea planted into my head, from somewhere I’ll never know. For this reason, I tend not to bin songs at the first sign of trouble.

Recording as a Songwriting Tool

So we have a song, born yet again on the acoustic guitar, with the structure and lyrics to go with it. it’s OK, maybe not the instant classic, but it’s there. A lot of people would approach the recording process as going through the motions, to get the original idea onto tape, but what about using the recording process as part of the songwriting process?

Case in point and the simplest example: We already have the acoustic part, and some drums to complement it, but when you come to record the bass, there it is, a surprisingly inspired bass line that makes the song. You didn’t see that coming, did you?

Then you arrive at the chorus, and backing vocals, which provide harmony and/or counter melodies to your original (and now quite dull sounding) original lines. Glad you hadn’t binned it now aren’t you?

But what about trying different rhythms? Why not scrap the original strummy bore-fest for an interesting drum and bass-led groove instead? Or maybe go the whole-hog with keyboards?

Ultimately, of course, the recording process could lead you down a completely different path altogether, and a completely new song. I’m sure the song fairy wouldn’t mind would she? (he?). The bottom line is, you’re limited on an acoustic, it’s just 6-strings and the same old guitar chops, whereas in the world of the DAW (in my case Garageband), the only limit is your imagination.

The hardest part of writing a song is ……. writing a song!

In other words, you’ve already done the hard part, so the process of recording should be fun. We have a song, it’s precious, so instead of being too critical about your sometimes less than stellar efforts, why not use the recording process to give it the best chance?

What better way to thank the song fairy for their kind visit?