Songwriting

Song Writing: Is it Hard or Easy to Write A Song?

I found this article on songwriting – it is a little bit dated, but the information is timeless. I pretty much agree with almost everything, but he seems to think its not as important to have great theory knowledge. Now, that may not be the case, but I definitely think it is important! However, he may think so too and I just read it wrong. Anyway, just read the article and take it in.

Song Writing: Is it Hard or Easy to Write A Song
By: Peter Edvinsson

Do you feel that it is easy to write songs? Can anyone be creative? A song is the end product produced by stimulating your song writing powers in many different ways. Let’s take a look!

Here are some tips on how to stimulate and develop your song writing abilities:

Listen

An obvious tips of course! You have to listen to songs to find and develop your taste. But don’t just listen to the music you usually listen to. Listen to things you don’t normally hear on the radio. It will help your unconscious to create more interesting songs.

I recall that John or Paul in the Beatles talked about the music they heard on the radio when they were young. The radio channels in those days played many different types of music and they were inspired by the melodies heard on the radio like evergreens, jazz, folk music and classical music and so on.

On commercial radio channels nowadays you’ll often find very niched music but I think it is important to find music that differs a lot from your normal taste. All these musical ideas will hopefully mold into interesting new melody lines. A form of fusion music.
Chord progressions

Sit down with your guitar or at your piano just playing chords that loosely seem to fit together. Don’t worry about the quality of your progressions. It is important to have moments when you play without evaluating things, otherwise you will not dare to take the step into the unknown.

Song melodies

Humming melodies as you play chords on your guitar or piano in a relaxed manner will stimulate your creative powers. If you find it hard to improvise melodies, it might comfort you to know that it is a talent but also a skill that can be dveloped by practice. It can become a form of meditation that will clear your mind, stimulate your imagination and improvisational skills.

Lyrics

Well, what do you expect me to write here? Right, humming melodies with nonsense lyrics is a great way to stimulate and actually write a song. Nonsense lyrics might not be the apropriate term as every word you sing can trigger ideas that will lead you to a phrase that might be the beginning of a great song.

Documentation

A very boring and bureaucratic word indeed but somehow you have to find a way to remember all nice words and melodies. A recording device like an mp3-player, mobile, digital recorder or tape recorder might do. The simpler the better. You can of course do as I do, write sheet music and lyrics on scrap paper. However, this requires you to know sheet music notation unless you have invented your own notational system.

Using a computer

Personally I have discovered the advantage of using a word processor at this final stage of creating the song lyrics. I usually write down the text with a font size that will fill a printed page. This makes it easy to see the text on the screen and taste the lyrics with my heart.
This might sound a little weird but I guess that you want the listener to feel the same as you feel when you sing the song. You have to be touched by you own song first.

When you have the lyrics on your computer you can change a word here, a word there and and read the words over and over. One day you will realize that the song is complete and you can relax and be proud over your creation.
A song is not a song until it is sung

Well, this means that you have to give your song a chance to shine by singing it, working on your way to perform it and learning it by heart. By singing a song often, even in front of other people, it will most likely mature and the performance will develop and convey the message of the song better and better.

About the Author
Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

(ArticlesBase SC #65643)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Song Writing: Is It Hard Or Easy To Write A Song?

I hope you enjoyed the article? Did he do a better job at explaining things?

I’ll Write You A Hit Song

If you are looking to write a hit song today, I will give you a solid starting foundation in about 5 seconds. It is really simple and you will be amazed at your own awesomeness. I will give you the perfect chord progression that has proven time and time again to be the perfect chord progression. So, without further delay, here is the marvelous, amazing, hit-song chord progression:

And there you have it. I expect at least 50% of the royalties for helping you write your new hit song. If you or your singer cannot sing in that key it is easily transferable to other keys. In all reality though, this is true many hit songs have been written of the same few chord progressions. Check out the Axis of Awesome if you don’t believe me.

What Method Is Best To Start Writing A Song?

There isn’t a set way that you have to write a song. It comes to people in many different ways and even then, you won’t write a new song the same way everytime. Songs can come to you at anytime (even when you don’t have an instrument). I will give you four short examples of ways to start writing a song.

Start with lyrics

Lyrics can set the overall mood for the song. Some people find it easier to create a melody if they actually have a sheet of words to sing. Keeping a notebook with you at all times helps you write down your thoughts and lyrics that might come to you at anytime. This is the method that John Lennon use to use a lot. He use to take a sheet of lyrics and peck at the keyboard until he found a progression that fit the words. Remember, when using this method you don’t have to have all the lyrics written to structure a song – a simple verse and chorus will do to get you started!

Start with a melody

This is considered a less common method in today’s modern music – unfortunately. You start with a melody that you have created and then you find a chord sequence to fit behind it. When using this method, you are free to create a beautiful melody that could stand on its on. If you start with chords first, you are limited to what you can do as far a melody goes. Again, this was another popular technique for The Beatles and many of the bands around that time.

Start with a harmony

This is probably one of the most common approaches. Basically, you get together a chord sequence that you like (or use one that is proven to work) and then you construct a melody over it. Like starting with a sheet of lyrics this method can also evoke the mood of the overall tune. It doesn’t take much to strum a couple of chords and then put something over the top of it melody wise. This is a very common technique for guitar players especially.

Start with a rhythm

Starting with a rhythm is something I use a lot. Of course, by the time I am finished writing the song the rhythm is something completely different – most of the time the song is completely different! Just start with a drum machine, or however else you are going to get a rhythm, and then construct the music over it. You can even add a bass line over the drum track before starting – it is a fun way to write.

I hope you find something that helps you. These are just some of the ways to start writing a song and just very general overviews. You can talk about any of these methods for days! I would encourage you to find whatever it is that helps you write and do it. More importantly, I would encourage you to stray away from it as well. The only way to get better at something is to get out of your comfort zone and try it. If you can only write starting with lyrics, try starting with a rhythm track. It might not goes as quickly, but you will be happy with the results!

Quick Songwriting Tips

To follow up with yesterday’s post on beginning song writing I thought I would through in a couple of more tips on getting started and getting better. Song writing can be a delicate process and can take a long time – but it can also take 5 minutes and be a number 1 hit! Here are a couple of more quick tips from me on improving your skill.

1. The best advice I can offer is to listen. That’s right, what you have been doing your whole life – listen to music – just listen differently. Instead of saying “Yeah, that was a great song!” listen to why it was great. Where were the chord changes? Were the on a strong beat or a weak beat? How did the melody change? What was the structure of the song? I would strongly recommend listening to various genres of music! Even if you only want to write country, a little funk influence might freshen things up!

2. Stop waiting for that magic “inspiration.” Just write and write every single day. It doesn’t matter if you think it is stupid or goofy, just try to create a new idea everyday and use techniques you haven’t tried or mastered yet. The best part is when the real “inspiration” hits, you will have all the skills to create it perfectly!

3. Carry a notebook or voice recorder with you. You never know when your big idea is going to hit you! Luckily, most phones allow you to make voice notes – use it!

4. Know to whom you are writing the song. If you are writing a country song, I don’t think they are going to be in to being gangsta (…although, they may). But more significantly, if you are writing a mainstream pop song, don’t use chords and instrumental melodies that will take away from the vocal melody. Don’t over complicate things with tons of time changes – just set the metronome at 112-132 bpm and go with it.

5. Hook your listener! If your chorus doesn’t hit somewhere in the first minute of the song, they usually won’t be interested.

6. Use catchy phrases, but not cliché ones. Give people something they can relate to their own lives. Write about your experiences with love, hate, tragedy, loss, feeling good, etc. Most everyone can relate to these topics.

7. Learn from others. If you haven’t noticed, I am big on finding what is already out there and successful, how it is done, and how it could be better. Read books, ask questions, attend songwriting classes, study music pieces, and search the internet – whatever it takes to help make you more knowledgeable about song writing!

These are just a couple more small tips to help you out. I am sure I will have more in the near future, so keep coming back to the site and subscribe to the feed!

Where To Start – Songwriting

If you want to learn how to write effective “hit” songs, you probably feel overwhelmed and think that you just cannot do it. Well, fortunately, you can do it. Now, I will define a “hit” song as a radio friendly song or a song that sells thousands if not millions of albums and downloads. Songwriters and publishers are the ones who make the money in the music industry – and the best part is someone else (band/artist) does the work for you! Of course, you can use great song writing for you own band to “make it” as well! So, if you are ready to be on your way to writing great commercial songs, then let’s get started!

In this post, I will just start from the very novice person – the one who doesn’t have a clue where to begin. What you will need to do is find a popular mainstream radio song that you like (in whatever style you are comfortable with). A Good place to find current radio songs is Billboard.com – they have rock, country, R&B, pop, and many other charts for the songs on the radio. Once you have the song you like picked out, download it if you don’t already have it. (If you have the sheet music for it too – even better.) Now that you have your song picked out, let us continue.

This is purely for practicing songwriting, so do not take your finished product and try to use it as your own – the melody and lyrics are already copyrighted. What we are going to do is take your song your picked out, which has already proven as success, and learn the techniques used, learn new, useful habits, and to help you learn “hit” song strutcture. When you get done with this excercise, you shouldn’t even be able to tell from where the song came.

Okay, well listen to your song a few times and try and learn the melody while writing out all of the lyrics. This will help you later – figuring out how the syllabuls and the melodies match up. Once you have done this, figure out what the chorus to the song is and locate the hook line. The hook is usually located at the beginning or the end of the chorus and in the title of the song – but not always! Now that you have the hook in mind, rewrite the lyrics to the melody. Make these lyrics something you want the song to be about (common themes are love, hate, tragedy, etc.) and remember, you are rewriting the lyrics not the melody! Once you have a good solid, catchy hook line with your own lyrics, continue own to write the remaining lyrics to the chorus – and again just rewrite the lyrics and keep the original melody. (Make sure the rest of your chorus matches up with your hook.)

Look at you! You have your first chorus. Next, you need to write some verse lyrics over the verse melody. Verses usually tell a story, so try and relate them to the chorus while telling a story of how it got to whatever your chorus is about. (You can repeat these steps for the ‘bridge’ section of the song – your bridge, most of the time in my opinion, should paraphrase the story, so that if that is all the listener heard, they would know what the song is about.) Now that you have completed all the new lyrics, lets change the melody up a little bit. (I would start with the chorus.) Take the words you have written and just read them out loud one line at a time. Pay attention to how you say them – differences in length of words, annunciation, and pitch. Now, take how you say the line and exaggerate them and do this until you made it through the song. Once you get the first line, listen to the original song and notice how the lines variate in melody and do the exact same thing with your melody. (If line 1 is like line 3, then your new melody should have line 1 like line 3.)

Congratulations, you just made it through learning how to start writing a song! You got your own melody and lyrics and the original song should be hidden. You can also change up the chord progression – if you would like – but you don’t have too. You have learned some new techniques that the professionals use! I would recommend doing this several times before jumping into actually writing a song. In doing this, you will learn more techniques and get your creative juices flowing! Remember, this exercise is just for practice and the lyrics and melody of the hit song are copyrighted. Keep up the good work!