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GMC Forum _ PRACTICE ROOM _ For Instructors....
Posted by: lcsdds Jul 15 2009, 10:49 AM
How long did it take you to write and record material for your albums??? I thought I remember Emir saying that he took a year to write and record Sevdah Metal......I could be wrong on that though. I've always wondered this.. 
Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jul 15 2009, 11:46 AM
hmm, around 2 years to complete songs and record them I think, but could be longer for some songs, not sure.
Posted by: Emir Hot Jul 15 2009, 12:49 PM
I didn't have a strict deadline in my contract so I was writting my songs slowly whenever I got some inspiration. It took about 1 year. There were more ideas but I cut some songs and parts that didn't really fit into the whole album concept. I ended up with 10 songs that work like one story. As you know, writing music is not a 9-5 job when you get up in the morning and say "let's write a song". Sometimes I don't get ideas for a whole month but there might be times when I write 2 songs in one day.
Posted by: Sensible Jones Jul 15 2009, 12:56 PM
Did you know that this is how Paul Simon works? He gets up in the morning and goes to his office and sits there working on songs and then goes home after 8 hours or so!!!
Posted by: audiopaal Jul 15 2009, 01:16 PM
I'm currently writing and recording demos for my first album.
I've probably spent 5-6 months already, but I'm far from done
I've got most of the songs ready, but there's always things to change when they get in a full band setting opposed to just me playing them on guitar. Maybe I'm being picky, but I want it to be good
So hopefully I'm done in another 6 months, but I'm not rushing myself
As Emir said, sometimes I just can't come up with anything good and other times songs almost write themselves.
Each musician probably has his/hers own way of approaching songwriting, but we all have in common that it takes time
Posted by: lcsdds Jul 15 2009, 01:30 PM
Thanks for the input guys.....very enlightening to see how much work goes into making music....
Posted by: Emir Hot Jul 15 2009, 02:23 PM
Well this wouldn't work for me
Posted by: Sensible Jones Jul 15 2009, 05:07 PM
Nor for me!!! I was quite surprised when I saw that in a Documentary!!
Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Jul 15 2009, 05:18 PM
With experience so far , 2 year period to write all the songs and have them recorded was a case in a band I play with.
But this is really subjective , I guess 3 months is a period to prepeare and record an album and have everything done.But for composing it can be really anything , from a week to few years - only creativity will decide.
Posted by: sted Jul 15 2009, 08:29 PM
i can even imagine the work that goes into an album! One song nearly killed me!lol!
Hey post no 1000! 
Posted by: lcsdds Jul 15 2009, 08:31 PM
Hey post no 1000!
That's what I am seeing......especially when you have no idea what the heck you are doing......
Posted by: steve25 Jul 15 2009, 10:25 PM
Writing stuff is the hardest thing for me. I've been trying to write for about 2 years and i haven't even got 1 track. In fact i'm not even past 1 riff i just don't have the talent to do it. Maybe it's something that i just can't do and won't be able to do but i can't see any way that i can improve on it. I know what kind of style i want to play but it never comes out more often than not any riff i make gets thrown away.
How do you all actually start a song that seems to be the hardest thing coming up with the initial idea or an intro?
Posted by: lcsdds Jul 15 2009, 10:44 PM
How do you all actually start a song that seems to be the hardest thing coming up with the initial idea or an intro?
I think a lot of times we are our own worst critics. We don't think anything we play is good enough so every idea we come up with we just "throw away" thinking we can do better. Just my opinion of course.....
Posted by: Emir Hot Jul 15 2009, 10:54 PM
There is always better from better but you gotta start somewhere
Posted by: lcsdds Jul 15 2009, 11:00 PM
The enemy of good is better......
Posted by: Muris Varajic Jul 16 2009, 12:19 AM
Year or two, not sure.
Thing is, musicians very often use some old ideas (even several year old)
to put on the new record so it's kind a hard to track the time
and duration of whole composing process.
Well yeah, that's very true BUT don't throw away those ideas,
record them and let them stay as long as it takes.
You might come back after a while
and when you listen to those takes you might get whole lot of new ideas from those old ones.
I heard about that and in some way I like that approach, really,
he wants to have his time filled with work properly!!
What's good or bad from all that, that's another story.
Posted by: lcsdds Jul 16 2009, 01:07 AM
I think if I were a musician this is how I would work.....I'm methodical like that....
Posted by: Santiago Diaz Garces Jul 16 2009, 06:21 AM
It took 2 years and a half to write, rehearse, and record all the songs of my bands' 1st album. It was a great experience working all day long in the studio. I hope this time, with the 2nd album, won't take that time.
Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Jul 29 2009, 08:24 PM
Sounds like the best and most efficient way of doing it to me!
I with I had my music office to go to 
Posted by: Conrad Harpham Jul 29 2009, 08:55 PM
it took me about 2 years to do my current album...the most important thing is to distribute it as widely as you can, to get to as many pairs of ears as possible!!
Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jul 29 2009, 10:53 PM
This is definitely the primary goal, I agree.
Posted by: Daniel Realpe Nov 30 2009, 07:04 PM
Sometimes old ideas sounds so good when you listen to them after months. I liked an article that said that you must spend 33% of your efforts on the the product production and the rest on the commecialization of it.
Many of us don't do that,
Posted by: Marcus Siepen Dec 1 2009, 06:03 PM
It depends, basically you have all the time you want to write your first album, at least until you sign a record deal ;-) And studio time of course also depends on the budget that you want to spend. Our first album was recorded in about 3 Weeks, while A Night at the Opera took about 14 months.
Posted by: intemperateControl Dec 1 2009, 06:43 PM
These days I am just trying to improve my insight and skills on guitar, but I did
write about 20 songs some years ago. I would take one riff that sounded
good and build on it, hum to it and add words, create a solo, outro, and finally
I would go back to the beginning and come up with an intro. Strange method?
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