The songwriting process...

Ohhh yess!!!! 

Interesting topic.... I'm agree with Sambo and Billy M : DAWs fool us, or "new technologies"! But nowadays we have to make a lot of the process by ourselves and it's becoming hard to manage all the stuff involved, and it's very heavy when U are at the very start of the process.... In a way we have to seperate the steps in the process : let the mixing stage after arrangement or sound designing, write the song structure before etc etc...

work in more than one way 

I love writing and I find getting a decent demo down is important then I live with it for a while before I rerecord it all. Trying to write whilst I record keeper versions rarely works for me. I find Reaper is great for getting ideas down - I cut and paste verse sections, bridges, choruses together and colour them differently which is good for getting the right shape of the song down. But I don't worry about perfection because, apart from anything else, it makes sure I rerecord it properly! I do find my best songs come with a guitar and a notepad and a pencil and no other technology. If they are good ideas you'll remember 'em. Then get down a demo, live with it, then do a keeper.

Side note... my explanation to never finish anything is neurosis... as long as the music is a "demo" of what could be, it hangs in a sort of limbo... neither good, nor bad... and it defies judgment... and you are safe from critique... No. Has to change. I want to move on, make real music, not "demo" music... One bit at a time may be the ticket... talking arrangement and performance here. I'll try that in the future.

Good posts Billy M. I agree 100%. That Rundgren story shouldn't go unnoticed. Myself, I write chord structure, arrangement, lyrics before hand. I demo it to find key and tempo - but I spend zero time on demo quality, any more than one take is wasting my time. Usually it's just singing and playing to a drum machine into my ipad, and I'll fly that to my DAW, set it in a track, set the tempo in the DaW and make an arrangement map. That's usually the last time I ever hear the demo. Over demoing is just a form of procrastination. That being said, I may record a scratch vocal early on, but even then I try to do a good job and may keep all or some of it. I do that so I am always aware of the melodic flow every step of the way. If I don't have a production approach in my head at this point, I roll it around in my head for a few days until one pops in there. Usually it comes out of nowhere - I'll be listening to a cool vibe in my head and I realize it's the song I'm working on. I solidify the main elements in my head that are making it work and start tracking. I don't track until I get a cohesive idea. That's what saves me from endless demoing. If I can get main elements jamming in my head, I have 90% of the song done right there. I rarely do a session where I'm not attempting to record keepers. Sometimes I will retry something at a later date if I don't get the vibe in my head right, but I know what I'm looking for at that point. I still have happy accidents in sonic textures, and bad ones too, but I'm almost always moving forward at a good production pace. When you are laying down sonic textures, you are doing so in relation to what you've previously recorded. If what you have already recorded is scratch, then what are you doing? Listening to lots of music is critical. I spent a lot of time listening to my fav writers. Stevie, Bacharach, Ellington, Lennon...and their nuances have become part of my musical dialect. My subconscious pulls from those songs. I also listen to a lot of modern indie stuff for production ideas. As much as I love modern electronic stuff, I get no actual songwriting knowledge from it. Only production approaches. The art of the song is a little lost these days IMO, but the production tools are incredible. Try to get the music in your head before tracking, at least the basic elements. It's not the only way to do it, but it makes for productive sessions.

The problem i used to have was wanting to put more and more into the melodies, it ended up sounding WAAAAAY too crowded. Lyrically, if i couldn't think of what to write about, i didn't force it out. In my personal experience, if i forced lyrics out, they were never as fluent or coherent as I wanted them.

You have to love making music, or else it will be like a chore to you. That means loving the entire process of creating music, not just the instantly gratifying parts. If you don't love it then you're doing it wrong. Or maybe you should take up another hobby/profession.

The demo:- The track:- ns

That's cool nightscope, thanks for sharing! Love that band