03-04-2011, 06:01
Thing to remember, when you decide to write something, is: - what is it? What kind of music. The idea that one can just sit down and , yknow... play what you feel or whatever nonsense, is direly insulting to real musicians.
You have to enter the field somewhere. Blues, country, jazz- all have conventions, and are based on the work of thousands of people over decades. There is no real musical category called pop music, and words like folk are nebulous in the extreme, as are the artificially-created genres like alternate, grunge, techno, etc. etc. These are styles, or at best, sub-genres of one of the main music categories.
Since Jimi and rock music appeared, exactly one new category has appeared - electronica, and it's a weak one, more referring to the instrumentation rather than the actual musical content.
Pick a basic category and write there for a while. Just try and write a simple three-chord country song and see how easy it is. Chasing current pop trends will always lead you back there anyway.
You have to enter the field somewhere. Blues, country, jazz- all have conventions, and are based on the work of thousands of people over decades. There is no real musical category called pop music, and words like folk are nebulous in the extreme, as are the artificially-created genres like alternate, grunge, techno, etc. etc. These are styles, or at best, sub-genres of one of the main music categories.
Since Jimi and rock music appeared, exactly one new category has appeared - electronica, and it's a weak one, more referring to the instrumentation rather than the actual musical content.
Pick a basic category and write there for a while. Just try and write a simple three-chord country song and see how easy it is. Chasing current pop trends will always lead you back there anyway.