Composing for Guitar: the Process
You can compose or write a song about pretty much anything. No actually not pretty much. You can write a song about anything.
The difficult part is building a cohesive and meaningful song, from start to finish. I have said that there are 3 ways that you can go about starting a song. I tend to follow the first two.
1. composing for a topic or a message
2. composing based on motif or phrase
3. composing based on technique
In the next few pages we’ll look at a song I wrote called "A New Flower." This is a song I wrote for my friend Kevin Flores. His last name means flowers in Spanish and he was getting married so I thought I’d write a song for his wife and him.
Anyway we’ll go through the thought process of the composition of that song. This is just going to be one way to do it. Hopefully it will give you an idea of how to go through the sometimes painful process of developing a musical idea to its completion.
After we look at the song, we’ll look at a few typical song structures. Then we’ll see a worksheet that helps us map out stuff to think about when writing.
And finally I’m just gonna give you a list of words that maybe will serve as ideas to write about. Have Fun!!