venjacques

GB - Yeah for sure man. I'm reading one about stoicism right now. I'm only like 1/10th through it and my head's in circles.

lecterz12 - If you make a song with words, I've been told that the best way to go about it is to make the words first. The meaning of the words is perhaps the most important element as far as your message of the music, so start with those. Then give the words a meter/rhythm. Then give it a melody. From there, figure out what harmonies support the melody which supports the meter which supports the words. What you'll then have is a piece of music that, from the ground up, is totally supporting the words and your message.

Another approach to this is to get a simple chord progression, and then improvise melodies on top of it. But this puts a large strain on your chordal progression.

Sung music, in a large sense, comes from poetry, and as such, lyrics are just like poems. If you start with the music, you're stressing the music and that'll be what people hear. If you start with words, your message will come out easier.

This all being said, start with what you can. If you get a nice chord progression, vocal lick, or guitar riff, start with that if you feel comfortable. Everyone makes music in different ways with different degrees of success.

__________________
It's just another day.

Rubato

Although many people do compose music in separate parts I wouldn't support it as a method of composition, but more of a crutch to aid those that can't compose a piece as an organic whole from the bottom up. If you're going to harmonize a melody or embellish a chord progression with a melody as an exercise it would better to compose a short phrase than an entire song, ironing out a melody that has been built with no harmonic considerations to try get it to fit over one will just be a complete waste of time, it would be more productive to find out where and why you ****ed up and move on.