this may be the wrong board for this but ill try anyway.My band and I come up with good lyrics and riffs but when we put music to lyrics the melodys are off or sumthing,it just doesnt feel right or sound right.Any tips?

__________________

Just just cut and paste any old lyric to any old instrumental. My old vocalist used to do that, when we improvised something cool he rummaged trough his lyric book to find something that "fits". Long story short, that doesn't work.

Think of vocals/lyrics as another melodic instrument. Humm something to the tune of the music, or try and use a keyboard (single notes, you can't sing chords as vocals, unless your a choir )

When you have a nice melody for the vocals, THEN write lyrics.

__________________

kind of an abstract question but....

...think of it this way:

match accented words and/or syllables to beats, ex. you can put the lyrics to the chorus of Spawn of Possession's Church of Deviance to any 4/4 riff.

__________________

is it better to write music then put words to it or the other way around?

__________________

Depends. When you are just making something up/jamming, words to music work better. But music to words can work too if you have a realy good lyrical ability. Just make sure it doesn't sound too.. what is the word i'm looking for.. too much effort?

__________________

Record guitar tracks/drums.. then write lyrics/vocal patterns..

It really depends. For me I write the lyrics first then try and create a similar atmosphere in reference to the lyrical topic. Like if the song is about (just an example) being Slowly eaten alive I'm not going to write extreemly fast music I would write slow, painfully, DooM giving off the feeling of a never ending torture. It really depends. Sometimes I write riffs and then put lyrics to them but I feel writting the music based on the lyrical topic gives much more unified atmosphere and structure. I am currently writting about the film Eraserhead. Very bizzare film, so I wrote very bizzare lyrics. But in reference to the film they make sense. I am just figuring out the music itself. The film had a very slow, ambient, drone soundtrack/pace so I'd like something like that. It's an experimental film=experimental song. But it's different for different people.

__________________

Most of the time when I write a riff some cool, matching vocal pattern comes up. Then I just try to find a couple of lines that fit the pattern in the lyrics that the vocalist gives me, so you should think how many syllables you need for that pattern and write a line that has that particular amount of syllables.

I think that's the only way, really, to write a song perfectly, but to do it that way for the whole song takes a lot of time. So, if you don't feel like taking a huge amount of time to perfect the song, just try to make the lines that you already have somewhat fit the riffs (or drum pattern, for that sake).

it depends if u are writing a brutal cruddy riff song with gorey vocals then vocals but if it is a guitar song just ad lyrics that fit and if it is supposed to be a master of puppets thing then yeah you have to do music lyrics words music just try to emphazize certain parts and work from there or just lidten to some metal and pik up a guitar