That was a neat way to present it. For me, it's always started with the melody, often suggested by a line of a lyric as it forms in my mind, and the chords are the last piece of the puzzle, pretty much as he suggested in the video. A few days ago, I decided to try something else for a change. I took  the chord progression from a song I love and played around with it to see if it suggested a melody. Eventually it did, and I'll keep working at the song, but I don't think I'll adopt this approach in the future.

I agree. When I'm writing, I usually start with a melody and some lyric idea then tack on the chords after the fact. However, when I started working with John, I had to get comfortable doing things a little differently. He usually comes to me with a near-finished arrangement and then I need to find a melody and lyrics to fit that arrangement. We then tweak the arrangement to fit song and subject (like, if I want a bridge or more or less space between vocal parts, a cleaner ending, a shorter intro, etc). It's been a complete reversal of how I was used to working. In many ways, it's limiting in terms of what choices I can make in a song, but in other ways, it extends me in terms of forcing me to make creative choices I've never made before. Either way, it's thoroughly enjoyable.

Another method for me is to just sit down at the piano or pick up the guitar and start playing...anything that comes to mind. I find a cool theme and then start arranging around that theme. Often times a lyric line comes to mind when I do this. I guess you could say that I'm not really a one way kinda gal. It's whatever works on the day.

J