I heard this question the other day and it got me thinking about my own song writing process.
When I was a young lad I started many songs by noodling on the guitar. Webster’s dictionary describes noodling as the act of playing with chordal or melodic ideas in the hope of finding something compelling to play and possibly start a song from.
In fact, I can remember my first song was written within weeks of my first guitar lesson. It was based on the tuning of the guitar’s strings at the 5th fret. I showed my guitar teacher and he was mildly interested and seemed to want to get on with the lesson. Not a hit unfortunately.
For most of my career as a songwriter who fronted bands, I started and worked up songs on the guitar by noodling with ideas. I always looked for odd but melodic sounds as a rule.
Shifting Sonic Perspective With Alternative Tunings
I started making up alternative tunings early on to help with getting different results. They weren’t standard alternative tunings. I would tune my D string to a C. That opened up some really interesting chordal possibilities.
I found another alternative tuning by accident when tuning up my guitar at a band rehearsal. I accidentally tuned the G string to F#. Many songs were developed out of this tuning for quite few years.
Takeaways: Noodling around with ideas will often help you stumble upon the start of a song. Throwing an unknown into the mix (like an alternative tuning) will open up new sonic perspectives. These little sonic ideas are threads. You find one and then you pull on it. You then weave that thread into your own song.
P.S. Make sure you record your noodling on your phone. You might stumble on a 5 second thread which will disappear if you don’t have a record of it happening.
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