Originally Posted by: hunter.kaneOriginally Posted by: faith83thank you.Write the song the way you hear and feel it. Don't worry about style -- the great ones crossed all styles and genres and a great song defies genre anyway.
Faith was on target with that feedback.
In the 80's, when I was more metal and hard rock, I tried to write songs that were like the songs of the day. I tried to force my writing to conform to the style of stuff that was going on at the time. The songs and lyrics were terrible (save one or two lyric lines). I was trying to write 'like' a certain style.....did I say terrible? Ok, there were a few acceptable riffs but nothing that would send a millions off to their practice amps.
Though I'm still working within the realm of writing in bits and pieces, the quality of material is much better. Mostly I just don't care about the style. It generally falls within Americana which is a little mix of classic-ish rock, blues and touches of bluegrass and country.
I'm finding that instead of the concept of 'Jeff must write awesome riff!', I start assembling ideas in my head on pieces and parts of a song and without some limit of a style or expectation. What comes to my head is way, way better than my psuedo-riffs in the 80's.
