Common problems writing instrumental music...

TheInstrumentalist

Hi All,

I have been writing instrumental music for quite a while now (in the vein of Satriani, Vai, Petrucci) and was wondering what common problems other people have when writing instrumental music. 

Do any of you find it difficult to sustain interest when writing, or perhaps even just finding a starting point, or writing a great melody?

It would be great to hear what you guys find difficult.

mellowsun

I find starting quite easy, but developing an idea and sustaining interest is hard!

bluechargeboy

My band is exclusively instrumental (acoustic and not Vai/Satriani-like), and we tend to jam it out and save the good bits. We like to build songs up using "lego bricks" of parts, so we have a virtual box of riffs and melody fragments that we use when we think they fit.

The main difficulty I reckon is maintaining listener interest without lyrics. Songs can start to sound alike so you almost need a ridiculously exaggerated range of styles/feel/key/tempo.

Although I play instrumental music I don't really listen to it as it does not hold my attention enough really. Hence the pathological desire for variety!

DulcetJones

I've written several solo guitar songs in the vein of classical, flamenco and Celtic styles and found that I tended to get 3 ideas going at once thinking they'll all be different songs and then I discover they all fit together to make one song.  This happens a lot, even when I write the weird spooky stuff I'm into now.  And that's another thing:  once my daughter convinced me that all of synth/guitar multi-instrumental music sounded spooky I started aiming for that and it got easier.

TheInstrumentalist

Thanks for the feedback guys. Interesting point by DulcetJones about joining together seemingly disparateideas - this happens to me quite often too. I guess sometimes the subconscious is working behind the scenes creating ideas and it is only when we take a step back that we realise we can fit them together!

I have also found that it is best not to over analyse the writing process, although sometimes to develop an idea I go through different technical options and then leave it for a while until my brain pieces it all together.

Regarding MellowSun's comment about sustaining interest, when I was studying composition I realised that there are only really three things a piece of music can do: repetition, contrast, development. Whenever I get stuck, I just think about which of those three things the music is leading towards.

Phil_aka_Pip

Interesting thread

Sometimes I come up with a tune which is (IMO) really worth using, but can't think of anything to put with it to string it out, or to complement it or develop it. And definitely don't want to write any lyrics for it. I've had such a tune for nearly 3 years now, but can I make a proper track out of it? Can I heck.

kin

This is a good example imo of how to keep an instrumental piece interesting, even without the movie going on in the background