Songwriting 101


Here's one for the musicians.

As I was working through our e-mail this morning, I realized I get asked this question a lot, so I thought I'd post my response here. This week's assignment is to write a bad song. I think creativity runs across disciplines, so all you photographers might want to spend a couple weeks seeing if you're musical too.. bet you are. I'm off to finish up a toby mac collaboration, which incidentally, toby put awesome vocals on. Hopefully, see you at lifefest.


In a message dated 6/11/2004 6:14:32 PM Central America Standard Time, Ichangedthename writes:

"I needed to know what's the best way to get started on making a song. I have some words, but I can't figure out how to make the music"


well that's not something you can learn in one e-mail.  but here's some tips.  Incidentally, almost anyone can write a song with a little effort, and it's not as mysterious or difficult as it looks.  I am still however trying to write a really really good song and haven't succeeded yet.

here's an easy way to get started, assuming you're a beginner.  I hate to give formulas like this because a lot of times, the people who don't know better end up making brilliant uninformed music and something like this could mess them up.  So if you're brilliant and uninformed, go figure it out yourself.  If you're more like me and need a starting point, read on.

it helps to play a melodic instrument, like piano or guitar.  Even bass is possible.  If you play any other instrument, you can use it like a bass.  Start out by stringing chords together.  Use a metronome or just keep time with in your head.  If you can't play the chords, than just play the notes as a bassline.  Count to 4 and change chords every time you get back to 1. 

Start with a chord you know, count to 4 and than change chords.  See if you like it.  If you don't like it, go back to your 1st chord and try another one.  Do this till you have 4 chords strung together that you like.  It's also OK to repeat chords or hold them for 8 counts.  The classic chords that go together on a guitar are
G
C
D and E if you're feeling saucy.

So to be redundantly clear, it could sound like this

G G G G D D D D C C C C C C C C

(I can feel the northwestern music majors mumbling about nobody reading music anymore and the general dumbing down of america, but we'll just ignore them.)

If you play guitar, make a point to learn the power chords because by using the power chord, you can fake almost everything.  Power chords make up a lot of popular music, ie Nirvana's smells like teen spirit and every superchick or punk song.  Have a guitarist show you a power chord.  They will probably be snotty about it as it's easy to play.  Ask them than to solo for you and act appreciative and all will be good.

If you play keyboard, if you have trouble stringing chords together, than play the bass notes and imagine the chords.  If you have a $50 keyboard from kmart, most likely it has an auto accompaniment feature that will let you play chords with one note.  This will make it easy to string  chords together, although the sounds won't be very good.  Don't bother with expensive keyboards for now though.

So now you've got 3 or 4 chords that go together... that's half the battle.

Now take your micro-cassette recorder ($20, every songwriter should have one)  and record your little musical number.  Play it a bunch of times in a row, you'll see why later.

Once you have your magnum opus recorded to tape, play it back.

Now, here's the fun part.

As your music plays, start humming along.  Hum a little melody.  There's not a write or a wrong, just a rhythm and a set of notes you like.  Keep doing it till you kind of like what you've got.  On any given song I'll write 9 or 10 melodies till one really sticks for me.  But don't worry too much about it.  Just work on it till you like one.

OK.  Now you've got music and a melody.  Now you need to put words to your melody.  This is like writing poetry.  Except it's with music.  Or you could think of it as thoughts that rhyme.  I always feel like I am trying to express socialogical concepts as a haiku...  but whatever floats your boat.

So what do you write about?

Pop open your journal.  (you do have a journal don't you?  as a writer you should be free writing and collecting song writing thoughts from somewhere.  You should free write every day.)   With your journal as inspiration, and your music playing, fit thoughts from your journal into your song.  Eventually you should have some words that go with your melody.

You can start out by recycling other words and thoughts from other songs, but as soon as you can, try to start putting things into your own words and your own viewpoints.  Please be especially aware of the frankenstein worship song, which is a worship song made up of parts and pieces from other songs.  This isn't always bad, but at some point, you want to move past that.

OK. now you have some music, and a little melody and lyrics, basically a section.    Now you want to repeat the whole creative process and create another section.  When you've done that, see if you can string the 2 sections together.  Repeat until you have a song.  there, you're done!

If you don't play an instrument at all, there's always the casio keyboard to get you started or some software alternatives.  Garage band comes with every mac and is pretty easy to use.  ACID is a similar program for the PC.  Garage band and ACID come preloaded with ideas to string together to get you started.

Go ahead and write 10 bad songs to start with, just to get them out of the way.  I'd play you my first 10 songs but than I'd never work in the business again, they're so bad.  So go ahead and get your 10 out of the way just to get used to how it works.


Here's some other tips.

1. Listen to other music and figure out why you like it and how it works.  Ask other musicians to explain songs to you.  Learn what roles each instrument plays.

2. Master your instrument and music in general.  My Dad told me if I was going to be in music, I should have theory lessons.  I didn't think he knew what he was talking about.  Years later, I regret deeply not having theory as I'm trying to learn it now.  Always be learning and always be practicing.

3. Every day, write something.  Even 15 minutes a day will get you a lot farther than 3 hours on saturday cause saturday never comes.

4.  Learn the basics and foundations of your instruments, but also feel free to break the rules.  Matt Thiessen from Relient K plays with this thumb instead of a pick.   Weird.. but it works for him. 

5. Be honest in your songwriting.  Don't wrap things up in a little bow.  If you struggled with something and aren't done struggling with it, don't pretend that you're done and it all worked out so great.  Our honesty is what helps other people realize that we're not alone.  The greatest lie out there is that we're the only ones.

6. Be careful who you show your work to.  A single critical comment can change the direction of your writing for a long time.  Try to find a very very supportive friend who will cheer for you and really want to hear your stuff.  If people are critical, don't show them anymore.  You must incubate your art.

7. Be wary of excuses.  Anything that stops you from writing is an excuse, not a reason.  We all have 15 minutes a day we can spend and we can all save up for a $50 keyboard on ebay or borrow a guitar or something.  If you're not playing or writing every day it's because you're afraid and no other reason than that. 

8. As an artist you will learn how negative it is to be critiqued.  So here's a sign of maturity.  Quit being critical.   Every piece of music holds a lesson in there for you to learn.  Start looking for it.

9. Have fun.  It's only music after all.


If you want to be in the biz, songwriting is one of the best ways.  There will always be people who play or sing better than you, but you're the only person in the whole world who has your viewpoint.  If you can learn to express it, the whole world is open to you.  I'm not that talented a musician, but by being honest and never giving up, I've been blessed with a amazing opportunities.  You can too.   Good luck!

peace and brotherlove
max

For extra credit, read and implement "the artists's way" by Julia Camerin.

Posted: Thu - July 8, 2004 at 02:49 PM          

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