If you think this sounds like philosophy, you should read some philosophy. That **** fries your brain.

GB - Yeah for sure man. I'm reading one about stoicism right now. I'm only like 1/10th through it and my head's in circles.

lecterz12 - If you make a song with words, I've been told that the best way to go about it is to make the words first. The meaning of the words is perhaps the most important element as far as your message of the music, so start with those. Then give the words a meter/rhythm. Then give it a melody. From there, figure out what harmonies support the melody which supports the meter which supports the words. What you'll then have is a piece of music that, from the ground up, is totally supporting the words and your message.

Another approach to this is to get a simple chord progression, and then improvise melodies on top of it. But this puts a large strain on your chordal progression.

Sung music, in a large sense, comes from poetry, and as such, lyrics are just like poems. If you start with the music, you're stressing the music and that'll be what people hear. If you start with words, your message will come out easier.

This all being said, start with what you can. If you get a nice chord progression, vocal lick, or guitar riff, start with that if you feel comfortable. Everyone makes music in different ways with different degrees of success.

Although many people do compose music in separate parts I wouldn't support it as a method of composition, but more of a crutch to aid those that can't compose a piece as an organic whole from the bottom up. If you're going to harmonize a melody or embellish a chord progression with a melody as an exercise it would better to compose a short phrase than an entire song, ironing out a melody that has been built with no harmonic considerations to try get it to fit over one will just be a complete waste of time, it would be more productive to find out where and why you ****ed up and move on.

I've wrote and helped write over 100+ songs. When I was in a band, what I would do is tell the members to play something, could be anything at all, and then create a line of lyrics to it. It can also go the other way. Soon enough a whole song will be made using this method. It is much easier to be in a band and write accordingly with them.

If you're by yourself however, you can write a simple chord progression and then write a line to it, play the same chord progression or move on to another one and write another line. But you usually want the chord progression to repeat or be in a pattern in verses and choruses. You will have the occasional song or two that changes chord progressions constantly regardless of verses and choruses. (Listen to some Coheed and Cambria, Mastodon, Periphery, and Tesseract) You can also have a line wrote and play a chord progression that fits to it.

Take it a little bit at a time. Also, take time to think on it. It is very rare a song will just pop up in 10 minutes, and if it does, don't expect it is the greatest thing in the world. It could be a week of thinking before a whole song comes together.

Make sure the words flow, and make sure the beat is real tight unless you're going for djent or progressive or some Enter Shakari, then the beat can change and do whatever it wants.

Also, don't write symetrically. When you make a riff, don't play it over and over again. Like four of the same riff to a progression and then repeat, put some pizazz and put your own character and little clink-clanks, boop-bops here and there that stray a little bit off of the riff but go right back in. A good example of symetrical writing was in the Classic Rock days and the Rock n Roll days. I'm not saying these genres are bad, but the norm today is to REALLY get down and dirty with creativity. If you're interested in Electronic music, listen to Skrillex, he usually sticks to a main riff but has many attempts to stray off a bit and do his own thing.

I have a few questions for Jazz theory -

When playing scales over chords, there are certain rights and wrongs.
What determines if a scale is 'legally' paired with chords?
If my chord changes (goes to the next chord in the progression), do I need a new scale, and therefor a new scale for each chord?
Is there an easy way to remember what scales go with which chords? Or is that just brute-force memorization?

Well you say that as if every scale has completely different notes. I mean typically chords within a progression are going to have quite a few similar notes making 1-2 scales applicable to the entire progression.

Im sorry but thats a terrible comparison. Comparing symetrical writing between classic rock 3-5 piece bands of the 60-70s to skrillex??? Not to mention the playing of each's respective music is done in an entirely different way.

So if you're using chords X Y and Z chords, and there's a scale, maybe the X-RezZ scale that fits within them, that's the one you use, right?

Also, I agree with RezZ's second comment. :)

I still have issues with time signatures. I usually just go off of feel and vibes. But I really want to work with some music theory on a more advanced level, and would like to work with varying time signatures.

Someone will tell me a song I'm playing is in 6/8 or 3/4 or whatever, and I'm still able to tap my foot while playing, keep the beat...but I've no idea really what they are. Which is kind of ridiculous because I used to actually play first chair french horn without every bothering to learn this.

i don't see the point of knowing all this stuff. if you are a true musician, you do it by ear because you don't need all the theoretical nonsense to tell you how to play music.

Honestly from the knowledge you have shown regarding theory I dont think anyone here is going to be able to help you out. If so my guess is it will be something you will already know.

All I could add is like a said above but also using lots of chromaticism. Not always playing perfectly within a scale but improvising based on what your hearing. If your trying to write a part...well then I have no clue.

Trolling or serious?