Ok Sup Forums, when writing music, does the music or the lyrics come first?

Ok Sup Forums, when writing music, does the music or the lyrics come first?

music

music

...

If you're actually writing a song that has meaning and not just crapping one out, lyrics, if you are crapping one out, music

either works.

Lyrics first is better because you can match the music to the lyrics at all times, and let the meaning of the lyrics inform your songwriting choices. As opposed to trying to write some lyrics to match the music, which just doesn't work as well.

Lyrics have a natural rhythm to them too, which you can take advantage of when writing the song.

It depends on your style and what works for you at that time. There is literally no correct answer to this question.

This

whichever comes to you first. there's no standard.

Thanks guys, another question, if lyrics come easily to me, but I can't play good music to save my life, should I just give up or is there still a chance of it being good?

focus on practicing. idk what you play but i sit around and just try to riff while watching tv, or i play along to the menu music of my spongebob DVD.

You could learn about how music works... that will give you some great tools to write really good songs. Its not too hard. Even with basic chords you can write great songs.

Music, and I try to match the lyrics, sometimes vice versa
Both work fine, doesn't really matter

I think of it kind of like writing music for a film:

Its easy to write music for a film becuase the images and meaning are right in front of you, and you have something to work from, and inspire you, and inform your decisions.

If a director tells you "write an hour long piece, I'll make up some story and cut it to your music" it will be much more difficult for both of you, and probably wont be as coherent. It may still work, but having the meaning first makes for better art imo

It "literally" wasn't posed as a right or wrong question.
Either contribute or go to Sup Forums.
Lyrics are always second for me because the music comes out before I even think about accentuating certain features to make it more poignant. I'm still bad at matching my lyrics to my music actually.

Listen to Rivers/Weezers episode of Song Exploder for an interesting perspective on this.

I write music first because I'm much better at writing music and than lyrics.

What do you mean by "how music works"

>lyrics

learn basic music theory. scales, chords, melodic writing. You dont really need much to write great songs. most songs use simple major and minor chords. maybe a major7th thrown in if you're lucky

I make the music first and then leave it until a later time when I've thought up lyrics that will fit.

music you fucking pleb