I hope I am not the only one with this “issue”, but whenever I pick up my instrument (most of the time guitar) with a specific genre or style in mind, I struggle to write just something like that.
To give a little background info: I listen mostly to blues rock, hard rock, and alternative/garage rock I’d say. But for the longest time my music leaned more towards the blues rock side; slower (e. g. 80-100 bpm), very focused on the blues scale. These days, I want to create songs more in the vein of Guns N Roses, Van Halen, Motley Crue and the like but I struggle with the general feeling of those styles.
What are your tips regarding this? When I look up some actual songs, it’s just I-III-IV power chord stuff or basic pentatonic scales again. So why do my powerchords not sound like that as well? Phrasing it that way makes it sound ridiculous, but I hope you get the point. It feels like I am missing the point that distinguishes let’s say sleaze rock from classic heavy metal. Maybe I’m m overthinking it but it annoys me that my writing process seems to be very trial-and-error.
I don’t listen to those bands much so I can’t give you specific answers, but I’ll try to give some general advice -
The slow but steady way is to learn as much music in that genre as possible. Eventually you’ll start to naturally sound like what you’re learning/playing. If you’re goal oriented, do your best to learn an entire album inside and out. Be able to play the entire thing by heart. The real goal here though is the journey, not the destination. When it’s not fun anymore, quit and move on to a different one. Maybe come back to it later.
If you want to accelerate the learning process, transcription and analysis will take you a long way. For example, what are the chords? How are they voicing them? How do they change and move from one another? What is the key? Are all the chords actually in the key? How is the melody structured? Is it busy or sparse? Outlining chord tones? What is the tone/timbre of the guitar? Of the other instruments? Of the song as a whole? How does that affect the song? Would the feeling of the song change with they changed? What is the rhythm of the guitar/melody/drums/bass. What is the instrumentation? The tempo? The arrangement? What emotion does this song make you feel like and why? What is the songs identity? For most of these questions, if not all of then, there are no wrong answers. Right answers only require a good faith argument and evidence to back it up.
When you’ve found answers to some of those questions for a handful of songs, what are the similarities and differences? How significant are they and how do they affect the song?
With all that being said, remember -
- This is not a quick process at all
- No matter how hard you try your songs will sound different. That’s not only completely fine and expected, but its encouraged! Take ideas from your fav songs and mash them up. Do random shit on top of it. Experiment! Be different!
- Again, not a quick process at all
- These things should be fun, and don’t do them if it feels like a chore. Music is fun! That’s why we play! Don’t lose sight of that with some arbitrary goal like this in mind.
I know that’s a bunch of word vomit so if you’d like me to expand on any of this I’d be happy to.
TLDR; learn more songs and try to articulate why you like them :)
Thank you for the detailed reply! You might be right about learning more cover. I am kinda lazy in that department so I try to discover everything “by myself”. That approach might not be the best for everything that isn’t obvious just from listening to it though. I do like the idea of learning a whole album from start to finish.
Layering? Minimum 2 takes per guitar part and get a good pedal emu like PG BIAS, research what those bands where using and copy it with BIAS. Also helps to jam straight with BIAS with the band sound, makes it easier to feel like you are matching the vibe, it’s mostly about the sound.
I’m not sure if this will be of help since I don’t listen to/write 80s-style hard rock/metal tunes. But generally speaking, I’ll learn a couple songs from my favorite bands in the genre(s) I want to write a song in, and then experiment with different chords and keys until I get something original that I’m happy with. I’ve picked up on a handful of techniques that I’ve since started to employ more in my own songwriting from using this method the last few years, and it’s really satisfying once your noodling starts to click and you belt out a more-or-less complete song out of nowhere.
YMMV of course, and you’ll probably still wanna work on your material with other instruments and musicians to really round it out, but that’s what’s worked for me.
Sounds reasonable, I guess I have to sit down and do a considerable amount of covers again. I am really no fan of learning covers if I don’t want to even play them live or something, but I guess its the process here that counts. Thank you for your reply!
i’m not sure if you’re asking more about writing or the sound. the different bands and guitarists probably have a lot of differences in gear and guitar settings used (not to mention production, on officially released records) that contribute to how they ultimately sound, beyond knowing the chords or notes. but in terms of writing, i’ll just offer up listen more often and learn to play more covers in the style you want to play and write in. that’s the only way i can think of getting a literal feel for something on the guitar. by literally playing it over and over. good luck. if you figure it out, come back and tell us how you did it.
