I've been saturating myself in classical musicians analyzing songs they've never heard before. The analyses always give me musical ideas.
I'm just going to have to throw myself into writing this album. I have a few song ideas and/or hooks now. It would be helpful if any of them resulted in a complete song. Or piece. Or something a child could play with 2 fingers.
Okay, there are those hooks. And a rambling thing I wrote one night when I might have had some tune in my head, but now I've got pages of lyrics, instead. The tune is long gone. Out to pasture. Chasing mares. The usual sort of thing one does when one is a tune in retirement, whatever that may be.
Meanwhile, I think I might have to use the old method. Not the really old method, where I get callouses and bang something out on a guitar until just before tendinitis sets in, at which point I realize it doesn't have a bridge anywhere, but I can play some ripping lead to it, when my fingers aren't aching.
No. The newer old method, where I start writing something on keyboards. This keeps me from playing lead all the time.
I kid you not, I write better tunes after a layoff than I do when my chops are up. In the latter case, all I want to do is play lead, and the tune suffers. In the former case, I have no callouses and wish to not play any lead guitar right now, thank you, so can we please focus and write the rest of this song before we bleed all over the strings?
If anyone wants to throw poetry at me, I will happily see if I can turn it into music. We can share a copyright. That, plus waiting 5 or 10 years for the royalties to build, might buy a cup of coffee. And by then you'll really want a cup!
