Something that can be very helpful is to understand that any melodic. Motion can be used on any form

To explain what I mean imagine key of C major

And a tonic/ Subdominant/ tonic progression .


Cmaj6/ Fmin7/ Bb7/ Cmaj/

CEGA/ FAbCEb/ BbDFAb/ CEGC

The IV minor progression uses ( F melodic minor )
Here .

So if we look at our available notes for each part .

First chord .
CDEF#GABC C6
2nd chord and 3rd chord
FGAbBbCDEF
Last resolving chord
CDEF#GABC Cmajor

The momentum pushes through the chords .

Now , that is the form .
We can create any type melodic motion we want .
Low to high
High to low
High then jumps down to low
But finishes high again
Any contour you want .

Here is a Melody I'm thinking of for it .

GECA,G#A#G#F,G#CDF,EGCA

Here another common progression in C major KEY

F#dim7/ Fmaj6/ Emin7/ D#dim7/ Dmin7/C#7/C6/

It has a chromatic descending bass motion
First chord is the #IV progression
Next 4th degree
Next tonic Emin7
Next #IV again
Next Cadence to C Maj

AF#D#C,DACF,EGBD,CD#AF#,FACD,FDBG,ACEG

 

Last edited: Oct 22, 2019

Idk man, just try to make what you feel. Try to paint a picture of whats in your mind with music. It should come naturally that way. Hope this helps good luck

 

the difference with the pros however, is this happens much less often than with others, and most of it comes with experience and practice

 

Last edited: Nov 16, 2019

Sorry Oly but this is a question that every wannabe musician should ask himself, Do I really have musical talent or I´m just for the stardom lust no matter what crap I compose to sell to the mass? In this context my comment is valid no matter the disagrees or nasty dislikes it gained. All in all it´s just a loop in a Daw. Love you all.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2019

When I get stuck finishing a tune, I save it as a different version then I just mess around experimenting until it's completed. It depends if you already have a rock solid idea but if your distracted or your brain switches off because your looping a certain part too much to the point of irritation or your just stuck of ideas while working on the fly then take a break!!!! . Just save and do something else 'off the computer' - then come back to it later or the next day. It works wonders taking a break from constructing as sound production is bloody hard to do!!!! So you get fatigued quickly regardless of how experienced you may be.

 

He left the track and went to another
is not good to force the ideas flow better leave
Listen new experimental music with sounds or just stay away a while music until the ideas become one

 

That's the million-dollar question. Personally, I listen to some music by favourite bands, do something else I like and let my song mature indirectly in my brain. It doesn't always work of course. I have a load of unfinished songs, myself.
In the end, it depends. Try some of the suggestions in the comments above and see what suits you best.
Hope you finish your song.

 

it's called loopsyndrome

 

We've all been there!
Finishing a song is nothing to do with "real musical talent". Like all creative process' writers block can hinder the direction or ground us completely. I find writing alone this happens to me more often as I don't have someone else to bounce ideas off.

It's the drawback of getting to bag 100% of the publishing royalties i guess!
I try to impose a "finish it today or bin it" policy these days.

 

Last edited: Nov 16, 2019

If you met a poet which couldn't complete finished spoken sentences would you have faith in their
Talent?
Luckily music has a structure to it that once learned it's language nobody ever has to have it go unfinished again ( exactly like how our spoken languages work to complete sentences )

If you break songs up into functional progressions you don't have to ever have writers block


If you spend a few weeks reverse engineering thousands of popular songs you can see the patterns music follows in it's forms it's super quick and easy
And once you have form creativety can be unlimited after that.

IMHO just finishing a song is a requirement to even be labeled a music maker .
Just a to speak English ( even badly )
Requires to at least complete badly spoken sentences
It really is step 1
( Step 2 is being a bad musician )
You need to write hundreds finished songs to start getting good enough to write good ones
But if it's your passion and destiny your going to make music because you have no choice .

 

Last edited: Dec 1, 2019

With your spoken language you think of an idea and instantly can speak hundreds totally different sentences about that topic effortlessly.
It's because as s child you spent years decoding the way that language worked .
Then you got so good at it became ingrained in subconscious mind .
We call this fluency .
Music is the same way .
It is a language with specific way it works .
And the entire process is the same .
In couple days of study you get initially get a lot going then with studying everyday for years you can follow that process you did with your spoken language , after a while you will become fluent being able to compose in realtime high quality music just as I speak to you this moment off the top of my head directed entirely by the topic itself.

 

Last edited: Dec 1, 2019

Well good for you. I hope your talent is as strong as your narcissism.

 

When I sit down to write an actual song I usually finish it. My greatest issue is to get through it's infancy. Unless from the get go that I have a total positive feeling and that I intellectualize that it is on par with the rest of my catalog, that I am building on previous work, I'll just not go forward with it. It is usually not the musical side of it, the melody or chord structure, et al, but rather the lyrical side of my endeavor. Most of my songs are deeply personal even though they might not seem so and I have a tendency to keep things bundled up until they foment, bust up my gut and get me into a bit of trouble. I've been working on this and the last song that I wrote isn't at all about me but rather about my neighbors buying a caravan and hitting the open road.

 

Is narcissism that someone holds a different view to yours now?
You expressed that " musical talent "
Has nothing to do with the ability to finish a song.
I simply expressed a different opinion about that area, that being able to finish a song does not automatically mean it's a good one.
( Yet it is a requirement )
Just as being a talented public speaker , requires that you know that language good enough to speak finished sentences .
( To be a talented public speaker , you have to be many levels higher than the ability it takes to finish or complete a spoken sentence. (
I mean think about it .
To say
The talent of a surgeon is not dependant on them being skilled enough to complete a surgery.
Whatever area of expertise a human being is in is absolutely dependant on that person to even be Able to complete the task at all.
The talent of a wedding planner who cannot complete the planning of a wedding a questionable .the talent of a cook who has never accomplished the ability to cook a complete plate of food.
None of this is narcissism as you put it.
This is about where we set the bar in a chosen area of expertise.
The reality when it comes to music is just like every other area of expertise.
You having an opinion then me expressing a different one is called Democracy .
Freedom of speech.
Pluralism is not narcissism.
I gave the information for everyone to finish a song .I gave them a way to overcome that hurdle
And to my actions are narcissism?
If expressing different views then sharing information for how people can finish songs
Comes across to you like that.
This means you are very intolerant to anything different then the rigid views you hold.
Is that a virtue?
I'm not sure that it is.
Nevertheless , I posted a way for yourself and anyone to never need to write incomplete songs again .

This is because my philosophy is to share with anyone anything I understand so they can do it also.
I spent a lot of time explaining things in my comments so not to be misunderstood .
This I whybi talked about spoken language .
If you weren't at the level yet to be able finish spoken sentences fluently. And you were talking to a person who was , would you automatically accuse them of being narcissism, simply because they expressed that being able to finish spoken sentences is a requirement to being a talented public speaker?
( While they shared several sources of information in easliy digestable way , for anyone to learn how finish spoken sentences )
If it was me in that boat my impression would be that the person has made the topic nothing at all about themselves they just sharing a view and trying to help by sharing information.
I'm just wondering why it's any different just because the topic is music related .

 

Last edited: Dec 1, 2019

You cut yourself some slack and do not beat yourself up about it.
A few well known and successful songwriters made a mindset statement that makes a lot of sense.

It went something like: Try and remember how you felt and what state you were in when you wrote the piece and try and put yourself back into that state of mind and serenity.

It sounds like a form of meditation in a way and if so, perhaps that is not a silly idea.

 

I set fire to a small animal. NO!! NO!! KIDDING!! REALLY, KIDDING! As far as you know. Probably kidding.

 

Oops wrong place .

 

Ha!!! Brilliant.

I co-wrote a top twenty album in Australia in the 90's employing a set of those (given by Eno to the other writer)

Some of it was hilarious. Some of it was just silly. Some of it actually worked a treat!

However, my advice to the OP is to go for a long, long walk. Often works for me, Ill be thinking about something else entirely when a melody or solution will make itself known to me.

Really interesting how this works.

 

The trick with the Strategies is the effort you make trying to work out how whatever comes out fits into your work.

Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency

The mistake is to treat it as a kind of Tarot deck and do whatever the card says without thinking twice. The problem with composing is often the creation of boxes you have to then think your way out of. Eno claims to have 'internalised' the Strategies and no longer uses the cards. Sounds like a good explanation why so much of his later work is endlessly, droningly dull.