Songwriters do you write lyrics or the music first?

I write the lyrics first. Most of the time the music follows with the lyrics. It’s just trying to remember the tune after the lyrics are written down so that I can jot down the music. May be backwards, but it’s me.

@dubsrayboo I don’t feel it’s backwards at all! :D Just a different approach that I definitely want to give a shot. It’d be a new experience and probably inspire me further.

My recent trend has been to write the music first, and then pick and choose compatible lines from older poems and lyrics of mine to transpose over the music.

I have done both. Majority of the time I am writing the music part as I suck at singing. Other times an idea, thought, concept or feeling will inspire me to scribble lyrics usually on a Subway napkin to which I will later compose fitting riffs.

It depends on the mood I’m in at the time. Sometimes I could hear something like a line that might inspire me to write the words down and work out the melodies later…or I may hear a sound somewhere that I wanna use on a song or I may hear a series of melodies that strike a chord in me (pun intended lol) and then the words just come to me. It all depends.

Sometimes the lyrics and sometimes the music is first. There’s no definite plan when I write music. Usually it’s the lyrics, though.

It really depends. If I am planning on using the guitar, I often write the lyrics first. With the piano, I usually figure out the music first. My brain works differently with each instrument, so it changes my approach.

I think they can be interchangeable. It depends on what you’re feeling inspired to do.

I personally do both at the same time, it’s always been hard for me to separate the lyrics from the melodies and rhythms when writing songs because in order to get them to fit so well together I have to consider both at the same time. It does take a little bit of multi-tasking, but I think the end result is a more complete and coherent whole.