TODAY'S SONGWRITING
ARTICLES:
 All songs exhibit a balance between what could be thought of as typical traditional songwriting structures, and innovative
elements. And this is quite a delicate balance; A song that has too
many traditional elements risks being predictable and boring. And a
song with too much innovation risks being just weird. It's a dilemma
because unless you can set your song apart from all the other songs out there, it just becomes one more song that no one listens to.
And yet, innovation itself often scares away listeners who already seem
to know what they like. How do you strike the right balance?
There is an aspect of a good song that has nothing much to do with actual songwriting skill; it's called trust.
An audience needs to trust you, needs to know that a new song by you is
going to be worth the listen. Once you've got an audience's trust,
you've got them where you want them. Think of it this way: are you
likely to go on a journey with someone you don't know and don't trust?
Not likely. But if that person is your friend, or someone you know
really well, you're more likely to trust that person, and more likely
to let them take you somewhere you've never been before.
The Beatle's music is a good example of this trust element in music. When they started in the business, Lennon and McCartney were followers, not leaders.
They were always trying to discover what the best performers were doing
that was so successful, and then copy it in their own way. Their
innovation was subtle: their sound, their hair and their rapport with
society. And very quickly audiences learned to trust the Beatles. Once
they had built this trust, their writing style became much, much more
innovative. Sergeant Pepper was an album filled with extraordinary
songwriting techniques - weird tape effects, orchestral accompaniments,
complex lyrics that few understood at the time, and more. And yet that
album was a pivotal, world-changing work of art. The White album had
songs that were just plain weird (Revolution 9, for example.) And it
has remained as one of the best-selling albums of all time.
But the issue here is that, if you're wanting to sell songs, weirdness only works if your audience trusts you.
If you're looking to build an audience, don't start with weird; start
with typical. If it's millions-selling songs you're looking to write,
you need to build an audience, and that means that you need to follow
this basic rule: In the balance between traditional technique and innovation, your songs need to lean more heavily toward traditional.
Once you've got an audience, you're in a better position to incorporate
innovative elements into your music, because your audience trusts you.
So if your songs aren't getting attention, consider the possibility that they're just too weird... for now. And consider this: If the Beatles first album had been Sergeant Pepper, I seriously doubt we'd even know who the Beatles were.
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
 Pachelbel's Canon in D
is undoubtedly one of the most instantly recognizeable pieces of
Classical music ever written. (Just pop "Pachelbel's Canon" into YouTube
and you'll get hundred's of versions to listen to). What's more,
it's loved by almost everyone who hears it; whether they love or hate
Classical music, it's hard to shrug off the beauty and elegance of this
time-honoured work. Technically, the piece is pre-classical, having
been written before the time of Haydn or Mozart, in 1680, the Baroque
era.
So why does Pachelbel's piece work so well? Believe it or
not, this Canon in D have some structural qualities and compositional
ideas that translate to being very practical for songwriters of almost
any genre. Consider the following:
1) The chord progression is beautifully balanced, a fantastic example of strong and weak progressions woven together, and would work well in pop, jazz, and even other genres:
D A Bm F#m G D G A
2) It's a canon because melodic ideas are passed around from one instrument to another. You might look at your own songs and see if it's possible to do the same with melodic shapes you've come up with.
3)
Because the chord progression repeats throughout, the bassline repeats
throughout. This makes Pachelbel's canon a "ground bass",
a musical form in which the bassline repeats continuously while upper
parts change. In a way, many pop, folk and country songs could come
under the heading of "ground bass" because many songs feature a
repeating bassline.
Pachelbel's Canon not only displays a constantly recurring bassline, but melodic ideas that get passed from one instrumental group to another, and this accounts for the mezmerizing effect it has on listeners.
If you're looking for this effect in your own songs, try this:
1) Create a chord progression. (Here's one you can try):D G A D G Em A7sus4 A7
2) Create a melody that works with this chord progression.
If you read music, it would help to write it out at this point. If you
don't read music, record yourself humming the melody with a guitar or
keyboard playing the chords. 3) Now create a second melody that not only works with the chords, but also works with the first melody. 4) Add as many other melodies as you like, and
you've now got what Pachelbel had: a repeating chord progression with
several melodies that are introduced one after the other.
As
you can imagine, you can only do this sort of thing once or twice in
your career. If everything you write is structured in this way, the
audience "gets it" right away, and they'll stop listening. But for at
least once, composing a song the way Pachelbel composed his ever-famous
Canon in D can result in a really attractive piece of music.
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
What's
the most serious problem that songwriters face when writing a new song?
There are many possible songwriting errors that can lead to a song's
failure, but probably top amongst them is audience boredom.
If the listener never comes back to the song, the song has probably
failed. Not all listeners will like your songs, because humans are like
that: we all have different desires and taste when it comes to the
arts. But if no one wants to hear your song, you need to figure out why that is.
The aspect of songwriting that pulls the listener in and makes them want to hear your song again is the repeating element.
When listeners hear things repeat throughout a song, it gives them a
satisfying feeling that they're on a musical journey that makes some
sort of sense. Repeating elements are a crucial part of a song's success.
Some of the repeating elements in songs are the obvious ones: the beat that the drummer lays down is a great example.
That constant pattern of alternating snare, bass drum and cymbal gives
the audience a groove that their musical brains lock in to. Constantly
shifting patterns, constant outspinning of new ideas without centering
on any of them creates frustrated and bored listeners.
A song's hook is another obvious example of an important repeating feature. As the listener hears that hook repeating throughout the song, it generates interest and helps give the song purpose.
When we talk about a repeating element within a song, the term we often use is motif. A motif is an aspect of a song that repeats, but perhaps not with the attention-getting characteristic of a hook. While a hook is obvious, a motif is subtle.
The drum's beat can set up important rhythmic motifs, but certain
shapes from the melody can be a motif if they repeat throughout the
song. A song with no repeating ideas, no motifs, quickly becomes boring because there's a limited sense of purpose and design.
The
best analogy to understand motif would be to think of the decorative
ideas within a house. For example, the dining room walls may be a pale
yellow with dabs of red. Picking up on that red motif, a designer might
then put a vase of red roses on the table. Someone coming into the room
may not be immediately aware that the walls and the roses are working
together to give the room this sense of form and purpose, but that
doesn't matter; it works.
It's true of songs. The rhythms set up
by the drums should be imitated to some degree in the piano and guitar,
and certain melodic ideas from the singer should be copied into the
other instruments, even if just in small measure. It helps give the
song a sense of shape and form that is vital to the life of the song.
Without a repeating element, listeners will stay away from your songs without even knowing why.
As you write your next song, make mental note of the aspects that
repeat. If your list is small, think about incorporating repeating
rhythms and melodic shapes. Suddenly you'll find your songs having
greater purpose and greater interest.
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
When we talk about contrast
in a song, we're talking about the existence of opposites: one part of
a song may be loud, another soft; one part may be loud, another soft.
The concept of contrast has been part of music composition for hundreds
of years, and so it doesn't matter what genre of music you write in, contrast is important.
Sometimes,
when trying to describe the importance of a certain musical concept,
it's best to talk about what a song would sound like that lacks
contrast. Maybe you've experienced this with your own songwriting:
- Your songs sound lifeless and boring;
- The melody is hard to remember after you've heard it or sung it;
- The chords seem to meander with no real purpose;
- The lyrics aren't really captivating.
Often,
these symptoms of bad songs can occur without us really knowing what
the problem is, and how to solve it. The truth is that lack of contrast is one of the main reasons why songs can be boring. So here are some basic songwriting tips to incorporate contrast into a song.
- If your song seems lifeless and boring, it's usually because too much of the song is too similar.
If you use the same group of instruments the entire way through a song,
you'll find that the dynamics (i.e., the basic volume-level) of the
song will be too similar. Solution: Try to vary the instruments you use; use certain instruments at the chorus, then drop them for the verses.
- If the melody is hard to remember, it usually means that it lacks contour.
Contour refers to the highs and lows of the melodic direction.
Solution: your song needs some moments where it soars upward, then
moves down. Think of it this way: a picture of a mountain is much easier to remember than a picture of a flat piece of land. The mountain gives the photo something to look at.
- If
the chords seem to meander and wander around, or just seem to not make
sense, it could be that you're using chords that don't fit the melody. Other problems can be: using too many different chords, or using chord inversions in a haphazard way. Solution:
It's hard to articulate one solution to this without knowing the
specific problem that exists, but generally (in pop, folk and jazz) you
will want to use chord inversions just to smooth out jumpy basslines.
Chords need to make sense, need to feel that they are moving from one
chord to the next sensibly. Check out charts of chord changes, and
you'll get a feel for what works.
- If the lyrics aren't working, it's often because lyrics can feel stilted or forced.
Though not specifically a "contrast" issue, lyrics need to be worked
and honed as much as melodies. The problem with honing lyrics is that
the more you work them, the more unnatural they sound. If you use words
in a lyric that aren't the kinds of words you'd use in your day-to-day
conversations, the lyrics will feel stiff. Solution:
Keep a scratch pad and reword your lyrics to come up with as many
different ways as possible to say what you are saying. You'll
eventually find the ones that really feel innate and normal.
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
 You
know that for most songs, you'll either be
writing in a major key or a minor key. But did you know it's possible
to mix the chords from major and minor keys together? Such chords are
called borrowed chords,
or modal mixture chords.
Here's how that works:
Chapter 4 of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” tells you all about
harmonies, and how they're created in any given key. When you take a C
major scale and build chords (triads) above each note of that scale,
you get the following chords:
C
Dm Em F G Am Bdim
If you build triads on top of the notes from a C minor scale, you get
these ones:
Cm
Ddim Eb Fm G Ab Bb
(The minor key chords assume the natural minor scale.)
Normally, when you choose to write in a major key, you use only the
chords from that major key. But it creates really interesting colours
to "borrow" chords from the minor, or vice versa.
Take, for example, this progression:
C
Dm/F G C
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
 An
important part of improving your songwriting skills is singing your
songs for others to hear. Not doing this is like writing in a vacuum,
and your artistic improvement will be slow and restricted.
Having someone else judge your music can be a very humbling
and unnerving experience. It takes a lot of inner strength to have
someone you care about, even someone you don't really know, tell you
what they think of your songs. But it's a very important step to being
a good songwriter.
So here is some advice:
- Don't just ask Aunt Martha.
Aunt Martha will always love your songs, because she loves you. So you
need to get your songs out there, in coffee shops, variety shows, and
other small venues, and perform for people who don't mind giving good
(hopefully respectful) advice.
- Log on to songwriting forums, and
provide MP3s of your music. Ask people what they think.
Most of the time, you'll find that people are very willing to offer up
exactly what they think.
- Don't take criticism personally.
People who write on forums don't necessarily have the gift of tact (or
even care to have the gift of tact). If someone writes to give you an
opinion, but uses disrespectful terminology, try to condense any
criticism into what the basic opinion is. My point is that even
disrespectful people may have a point.
- Just because someone doesn't like
some aspect of your song doesn't mean there's a problem with it.
But if many people mention the same thing ("The lyrics are too
corny...", "...too much guitar...", etc., it's worth considering their
thoughts.
The songwriters who
improve the most are the ones that listen to others, and get their
songs out there for others to hear. And consider this one other
important point: It's
important for you as a songwriter to listen to other people's music.
If you really want to know what's going on, and want your songs to
sound fresh and current, you've got to listen to what's fresh and
current.
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
So what's wrong with inspiration? Don't
the best songs in the world inspire us? And so doesn't that require
inspiration? The simple answer is: no,
songwriting does not require you to be inspired. And in
fact, if you are waiting for inspiration, that could be the
source of that pesky writer's block that keeps raising its head.
The
role of inspiration in the songwriting process is greatly overrated.
The songs that work the best, that really capture the audience and
keeps them humming, come from a firm understanding of how the various
components of songs work together, not
necessarily from a feeling of inspiration at all.
There's
a great quote I love to use when talking about inspiration, which comes
from the music critic Ernest Newman (1868-1959): "The great composer does not set
to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is
working."
If
you've written a great song, there may be elements within it that came
from some feeling of inspiration. But in truth, why the song works is
because you have a knowledge of how harmonies, melody, lyric, rhythm
and form all work together. It's your intelligence, your craft and your
musical abilities that all combine to give birth to a great song. The fact that you may have been
inspired to do it should not be confused as a necessary component of
the songwriting process.
In short, you need to be
able to write music whether you feel inspired to do so or not.
Think of film score writers, or writers that are fulfilling a
commission. They must write, whether they feel inspired to do so or not!
If
your latest song came from an initial wave of inspiration, you are
fortunate. But don't worry if you have to write songs, and you don't
feel inspired to do so. You will probably find, as Ernest Newman says,
that once you start putting all the components of your song together,
your sense of inspiration will grow.
It's far more important to develop your craft of songwriting, and if you're waiting for
inspiration, you're probably simply wasting a ton of time.
Gary's
e-books, including "The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting" show you every aspect of how to write
great songs: constructing good chord progressions, writing verse and
chorus melodies, how to write a bridge, an intro, outro, lyrics and
more.
Click here to read
more, and read about a free deal.
A
chord suspension involves playing one of the tones of a chord higher
than is usually found in the basic version of the chord. Suspensions
are found in all genres of music, from classical to folk to good ol'
rock & roll. And you can theoretically create them using any
chord
of your song. Here's how suspensions work:
A normal
3-note chord is called a triad,
and most of the chords you'll use in your chord progressions will be
primarily simple triads. For these simple triads, the three notes are
called the root, the 3rd and the 5th. A song in A major will use the A
major triad often. The notes found in an A major triad are: A-C#-E,
where A is the root, C# is the 3rd, and E is the 5th. Let's modify it to make it a
suspension.
The most common suspension is the 4-3
suspension. A 4-3 suspension means that instead of playing
the 3rd (C# in our example), you "hold it up" (quite literally "suspend"
it) so that you play one note "too high." That gives us the note D. Now
instead of playing a simple A-C#-E triad, you're actually playing
A-D-E. If you ever see the
simple indication "sus" after a chord, it's implying a 4-3 suspension.
Here's what it sounds like:
A simple
A-major triad (A-C#-E):
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