Pump Out Tunes Faster: 6 Easy Ways to Do It

by Joel Falconer

Over the past year I’ve practiced and refined the technique behind my tuneback concept. If you don’t know what a tuneback is, it’s a song that is written, recorded and published online - all in under an hour.

Going five minutes over this time limit is cheating.

This made learning how to write songs faster a priority. While some of the first attempts often only played for two and a half minutes, a few months later we were completing five or six minute songs in the allotted time or less.

Here’s how we did it:

1. Set up a template

We use Apple’s Logic on a cheap home studio style mixer (analogue and low quality, but good enough for getting ideas and demos down before going into the studio). Over time we created a Logic template that opened a brand new project with all the instruments and channels we use already in place, including four guitar tracks, four vocal tracks, ReWire tracks as well as a track each for drums and bass.

We also have a series of general sound-defining vocal and guitar effects set up that we tend to use frequently.

2. Keep drum loops on hand

Not everyone’s a drummer, and while drums are really important to a song, they’re not always the lynchpin of the songwriting process (though, no doubt, catchy drum riffs have formed the basis of songs in the past).

When you’re looking to craft melodies and get them recorded quickly while the ideas are fresh, you don’t need to think about drums straight away. Get the ideas out first, or you’ll lose them while you try to choose the right kick drum.

Keep a varied collection of drum loops on hand that are well labeled and can be easily called upon in any situation.

3. Try it anyway

If you’re sitting at a computer with guitar or microphone in hand, it takes only seconds to try something out. Sometimes it might sound “almost-there-but-not-quite” on its own, but when you try an idea in the mix they frequently do work - if you take many of the most popular melodies out of their musical context they sound odd.

Try it anyway and you’ll find that your hit and miss rate is about 50% - enough to save some of the time you would’ve spent agonizing over perfection before you try something in the mix.

4. Put down the first words that come to you…

…and refine as you go. You don’t have to spit out the perfect set of lyrics first go and it’s easier to work with something, as opposed to a blank page. You can, at least, improve something, but you can’t improve nothing.

Get the gist of what you want to say out, and it’ll be much easier to morph those words into poetry.

5. Keep a rhyming dictionary on hand

Part of the reason why it’s easier to refine what’s on the page is because you’ll use a rhyming dictionary. Come up with some clever and not-too-cheesy rhymes, rearrange the words for rhythm’s sake and you’re 70% of the way there.

6. Never put away your gear

My wife complains about this all the time: “There are leads on your desk! And they run all the way to your guitar stand!”

But it’s my office and that’s the way I like it, because when the mood to write strikes, that riff can be recorded in only minutes (thanks to my Logic templates) and then shown to my band mates in their homes straight away - unless there’s an internet outage.

In which case you’ll be too busy freaking out to write songs anyway.

Where do we go now?

If you can't wait for more, explore the archives sorted by month via the links in the right-hand sidebar, or use the Category links in the same place.

If you'd rather we did all the hard work, you're in luck. Here's a list of articles that are related to this one:

• Midnight.Haulkerton’s Violence of the Soul album is going to Slay Demons!
• My favourite tip for songwriter’s block
• One Question To Ask Before You Start Something New
• How to Escape Your Creative Rut - The Editor’s Desk
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Twenty-one - Never throw your work away