Since you all have a long weekend, it's time for one of our monster threads, I think. (I should point out that I don't have a long weekend; Audio Damage is perforce a 7-day-a-week job, and the majority of our customers don't recognize our Independence Day as a legitimate holiday, to their detriment, because this holiday inexplicably consists of blowing shit up, which is always fun.) In any event, here's the topic, and it's a doozy. How do you start writing a song? Speaking strictly for myself, although I've had a band for going on 20 years, I've never actually written in a band context, so I don't know exactly how one goes about it. But since the majority of the readers here are either "producers" or work-at-home-alone electronic musicians, we can sort of toss that whole concept out the window anyhow. I personally almost always start with trying to make an interesting drum part; once in a while (usually when we're working on the design of a product) I'll accidentally create an interesting bit out of some synth sound or whatever, but generally I start with the drums. Once I've done that, I do bass. If I'm doing a vocal track, it'll be real bass, of course, and then guitar. If I'm doing a Micronaut song, which is instrumental electronic music, it's synth bass, followed by synth. If I'm gonna add guitar, I generally do it after the song is mostly arranged. What's your method? Do you start with a melody idea? Or do you have a more rhythm-based method like me?

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