doubleblade,
you seem to have no luck with meeting good drummers.
change your drummer. or get him a drumtoy. that'd silence him.
if you take a look around, quite a few drummers not only have a good ear, an awful lot of discipline, but are also fantastic songwriters.
phil's one, for instance.
songwriting, personally, also comes under the umbrella of preference. some use progressions, some come up with catchphrases, others just anywhack loadsa melodies and see which works. there are many other ways to write a song. each has its own pros and cons. and yes, C major is passe. i wouldn't use it, if i can.
i've tried several ways, to collaborate with others to write. ultimately, i feel too many cooks DO spoil the soup. not only that, the song doens't get done. and sometimes we have a certain concept and idea on how the final product'll sound like, but the others don't. so instead of having saliva war and pointless charade, now it's ONE man finish the song, present it the way he wants it to be, then the others comment and move on from there.
progression: your melody's confined to it and your creativity's bound by the progression's limits. esp Cmajor. it has no flats. that means the chances of coming up with something refreshing using that cliche progression(say C G Am Em), esp when it's been done over and over again, is close to zilch.
melodywhacking: good, no obvious restrictions but say if the person who comes up with the melody doesn't have relativepitch, he or she might end up with a tune running from C to F#maj7 - difficult for musicians to create a transition(ie progression) for it.
catchphrases: very much in the wagon now(singrap etc ie linkinpark), it might have been introduced because it's difficult to churn out good melodies these days without it sounding identical to some song from somewhere. maybe even zimbabwe. :? also maybe because gen Y is addicted to angst and adrenalin, much more than pple like us. :evil:
picking up jazz chords, IMHO, will aid quite abit. these chords have at least 5-7keys each, thus giving the writer more choices in terms of coming up with melodies.
