Where do songs come from?

Inspiration is a difficult process to describe. An idea for a song can be triggered by other creative work or happenings in the news. There is not one single point of inspiration.

The main idea behind a great song can be triggered anytime, anywhere. And I need to be ready to capture that moment. Most of the time I get stuck within an idea as I don’t have any instruments around me.

For example while cycling, running or when I am asleep the best ideas for a song arrive. I must say that waking up in the middle of the night is a bit hard, but it’s worth it.

An important factor in catching these ideas is my mobile phone. When a moment of inspiration arrives I grab my phone and whistle or sing the melody. I capture it to work with it as soon as I have my guitar.

That’s what makes working with Audient’s Sono Guitar interface so amazing. Besides having access to top notch recording quality for both guitar and vocal, I can easily record simple ideas and demos in Logic.

Also I can process the recordings with the dedicated Torpedo Wall of Sound and Two-notes plugins that are an essential part of the Sono offer.

Now I can save the presets in Audient’s Sono hardware and take this to the professional studio to record the same sound in a premium environment.

Before booking a costly professional studio it will need to pass our quality control to deliver only exceptional work to artists, producers and DJs. Recording with Audient Sono in a home environment makes this possible.

It starts with a melody, a feeling!

Not all the ideas are great, unfortunately. Many are just mediocre and will not pass my minimum requirements to proceed.

Out of this database of ideas, basic melodies and sketches I only select the ones that match a certain feeling. When focussing on mainstream music, it is important that I can connect this feeling with a large audience.

I ask myself how the audience will react when this is played on a main stage of a festival. Only the sketches that raise a certain feeling and I can connect to a large audience are suitable for the projects I do with John Dory and popular music. The question I’d like to answer with my music is can it be carried out by many people.

Jamming converts a melody into a song

It is very important to take the basic idea of a song out into the open. It has to be tested. That is why I start every song with playing it on my acoustic guitar.

There is where the idea becomes a song. Usually first I let it hear to my son who is 6 years old.

As I teach guitar to many young musicians this is an important place for me to test my ideas. As they are the most eager and fresh. Still not yet stuck in technique and habits.

Therefore I consider them the best audience to play and improve the basic ideas of the song.

Adding lyrics makes it human

As said previously I connect melodies with feelings. To make the human connection between a melody and a human is adding lyrics.
Lyrics are for me the bridge between the concept of music and the story of people. I always try to connect the feelings I get from a melody with a couple of basic words or titles.

It starts with the melody and the feeling that is triggered by it makes the words that are connected to it.

As I am a guitar player, I now come to a phase where it becomes relevant to invite other songwriters to take the basic song to the next level.

Challenging each other in the creative process

I like to invite other musicians and writers to jam my ideas. I think that multiple sets of ears and brains provide better results. This sometimes means that we take it into an entirely different direction.

Usually my main focus is to write a radio edit.

Not with the intention to make the most money, but with the idea to trigger as many people as possible. A raw recording can exist only out of a verse, a chorus and a melody. The more basic it is, the better a producer can take the arrangement of the composition to a complete modern song.

The song I intend to write in this phase is the song that can be played at a campfire during summer evenings. Basically I create a raw demo version of the song with guitar and vocals. It is important that during this process we record and playback.

We improve and match the lyrics and melody with the power of a mic, audio interface and computer. In the end we want to deliver a high quality demo that can be pitched towards producers, labels and publishers.

Write songs, produce tracks

The main difference between a song and a track is for me that we take the basic song to the studio.

The producer now takes the next steps by building the arrangement. Adding elements and layers and optimising the sound and listening experience.

Most of the time I work with two different demos. One is the pure and raw recordings of the basic song.

The other is a processed track arranged by a producer to give it a modern touch and feel. It totally depends on the party we are going to pitch to.

As an example I can provide you the specific song that started as Shifting and ended up on Massence Records as Up To You by DJ Rob Styles and Aidan O’Brian.