Original Songwriting

[Mikedrummer]

Hey guys. I'm posting this to sort of ask for advice on songwriting - me and a friend are starting a band soon, now i've written lots of guitar riffs and finished (but then scrapped) a few songs, and I use guitar pro a lot to demo stuff I come up with.

Basically I mainly listen to bands like Saosin, Say Anything, Thursday, Brand New, FFAF, etc amongst other stuff such as the smiths, and i'm wanting to do a project with a sound something in the vein of those bands, but I don't want to sound like a clone of any of them and I want any band i'm in to have an original style.

I'm wondering what you guys would suggest in terms of being original in songwriting, not using similar formulas to other bands etc, but also retaining those influences and making something I enjoy and can get into myself. I realise most bands just combine influences and try to write their own original stuff and that is essentially what i'm doing, but I'd like to know what to avoid doing too.

[Aaron]

The key to developing your own sound, I've found, is putting in the hours, both practicing and gigging. Practice helps you make the ideas mesh, and gigging tests if they're good ideas or not. Just keep at it, and it'll work out. :)

[Aus_rock_god]

Quote Rick Rubin (who was quoting someone else): "The only to develop your own sound is to pick 10 bands (not one or two, ten bands) that you like and RIP THEM ALL OFF. Eventually everything will mash together and you'll develop your own sound."

Quote Michael Akerfelt: "I listen to a lot of music, then sit for weeks and write. Most of what I write will be similer to what i've been listening to, and if I hear somthing that sounds too much like someone else I'll either change it until it doesn't or hide it somehow."

Personally, I jam on riffs over and over again, approaching it differently every time (ie: this is how Metallica wound play it, this is how Dimebag would play it, this is how Gilmour would play it ect.) and I'll keep the eliments that I like the most, and see where the riff wants to go from there. Then I'll sleep on it and come back the next day and keep whatever I remember, and repeat the process until I've got a complete song that I'm really happy with that doesn't sound like I'm ripping anyone off.

After you've done it for a while, you start to develop 'standard' things that you do, and that's how you get your own sound.