Well, since I already wrote about writing guitar solos specifically, I suppose it would make sense to write about songwriting in general. Again, these are just my thoughts since I am not paid to do this, but I do it quite a bit and there are things I have discovered that I will share here and update as I go.
Difficulties in Songwriting
Writing the Lyrics
First of all, I think the hardest part about writing songs is coming up with lyrics. When I sit down to write a song, I don’t necessarily have anything I wanna talk about. I just want to make some music. Once I have the music down well enough I can decide what the feeling in the song should be, but that doesn’t help as much as you would think. Say the song has a mysterious feel, I have to ask myself, “when was the last time I felt confused or especially on edge?” and that does not always have a clear answer.
Chords/Riff (Not as Difficult)
But that normally is not how the process begins. I normally start with a riff on the guitar that sounds cool to me, and then I try to figure out the chords that would go with it. This is somewhat simple as writing the chords seems to mostly have a right and wrong answer. Or at least, it has a few right answers. Once I get the chords down based off of the riff, then I try to come up with a melody.
Side Tangent
Now I will say, I think this is kind of an unusual way to do it. I think most people probably start with a melody. I would also say that I don’t do it exactly the same way every time. I have also heard from successful songwriters that it is not always the same every time. Some may have a formula they use consistently, but I definitely don’t think having a template you go back to every time is necessary, and there are interviews with great songwriters to back me up.
Writing the Melody
With that tangent out of the way, I will return to my (typical) process. After I have figured out the chords that go with my riff, I try to find a melody for the vocals and this is usually my first sticking point. It just seems like there are too many routes to take. I try playing notes in the scale on my guitar, but I am often left uninspired. For the most part, the melody just hits me one day while I am strumming the chords, but I do not have a good way to make sure that happens in a timely manner. You can see me try to write a melody in the short linked here.
Writing the Bridge
So, once I have a riff, some chords, and a melody, that’s pretty much the song. It just needs to be combined with lyrics. Sometimes I will add a bridge and/or guitar solo. I have written a different article about writing guitar solos, but writing a bridge is actually a bigger deal to me than most would probably think. It’s like writing a whole new song. It usually involves coming up with different chords, different melodies, different words, different everything. But it still has to go with the rest of the song. Other than Young Hero, my songs don’t really have bridges and that’s probably why.
Tricks I have Learned to Help
Trick for Writing Lyrics
So then it’s back to trying to figure out lyrics. One trick I have learned is that once I come up with one line, I just try to rhyme with it, and write the rest of the next line from there. For example, when I wrote one of my favorite set of lyrics, Ice on the Roses, I wrote “I wasn’t born to reign, I wanna leave the castle,” I then just had to rhyme the words “reign” and “castle.” To be honest, I probably already had the word “hassle” already in mind for “castle” because I’m not sure what else I would use. But then to rhyme “reign” I used my trick, which is go through words starting with every letter of the alphabet until something makes sense (and you can pretty much skip the vowels.
ain, bane, cane, crane, dane, fein, gain, hain, Jane, kane, lane, main, nain, pain. PAIN!
“pain” and “hassle” to rhyme with “reign” and “castle.”
“It’s worth every ounce of pain
But never worth the hassle
I wasn’t born to reign
I wanna leave the castle.
Obviously, in this example I wrote the second line first, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. Again, there is no set of rules you have to follow every time.
Trick for Writing the Melody
And then I still have the issue of melody. A good trick I heard from Ed Sheeran (or maybe I heard this from someone analyzing Ed Sheeran’s songs) is to use the same couple notes over and over to get the melody into the audience’s head. Rather than stringing note after note together and hoping you get a powerful melodic phrase in there somewhere, you think of just one good melodic phrase, usually consisting of three of four notes. With the right combination of notes and the right rhythm this can be very catchy. You know right away if it’s catchy because it’s only a few notes, and it can play over in your head many times quickly. Then you repeat that phrase a few times, move it up one or two intervals in the scale every now and then, come back to the original phrase, and you’ve got yourself a melody.
Tricks for Writing Chord Progressions
As I said earlier, if you already have a riff and/or a melody, the chords sometimes write themselves to an extent. You can definitely play around with different chords as much as you want. try swapping the root for the minor 6th, try swapping the minor 6th for a minor second. If you are on a specific chord for a whole measure, try playing the diminished chord one half step below it for half of the measure. Try swapping out a chord for its negative harmony. There are a lot of tricks.
Conclusion
Finally there is the riff. I don’t even think about my process for this too often, since it is normally the first building block that starts the whole process. I think of it by randomly messing on the guitar, while I’m driving, in the shower, etc. However, I do have some thoughts on writing riffs that will probably be another article. Thank you for reading this one!
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