This step-by-step guide will take you through the process of writing lyrics and melodies for all genres of music. You'll learn how to use hit songs as patterns for writing original songs of your own. Plus, you'll find information on collaborators, chord progressions, and a special section on rap songs.

Robin Frederick has composed and produced over 500 songs for record albums and television series. She is a former Director of A&R for Rhino Records and a recording artist with releases on Virgin/Higher Octave Records and Sound Experience Music. The information in this article is from Robin's workshop "You Can Write Hit Songs."

There's something magical about songwriting. No matter how many songs I write or how much I know about songwriting, I am still amazed and a little awestruck that it happens at all. How does a song get started? How do you know where to go next? How do you know if your song is any good? Well, I'll answer the first two questions in this article. The third question - How do you know if my song is good? - is answered like this: A song that expresses what you feel is a good song, even if no one else thinks so. A song that expresses your thoughts and feelings in a way that reaches other people, helps them feel something deeper or understand something better - that's a really good song!

What is songcraft and why do I need it?

Good songwriters use songcraft to give their songs emotional impact and make them memorable. The song-building tools and techniques we call 'songcraft' are not arbitrary; they weren't invented just to create formula songs without depth or originality. They exist because songwriters have found that they help listeners to understand and remember the message at the heart of a song. A successful song needs both emotion and songcraft. If you have emotions but no craft, people will not understand you. If you have craft but no emotion, people will not care.

In the following article, I'm going to show you how to find a title and turn it into a lyric, after that you'll learn about melodies, rhythm and chords or, if you only want to write lyrics, how to find a collaborator. These techniques and hands-on exercises apply to ALL styles of songwriting from rock to rap, from country to R&B. There are other ways to approach songwriting but I know this one works. I am also going to show you how to use an existing hit song as a guide to lead you through the process and help you create a strong song with good structure. Here we go!

How does a song get started?

This can be one of the most difficult tasks in songwriting - getting started! And it's also one of the most important because if you start well, you'll have a lot less trouble down the line. Once you get past this point, a song tends to dictate where it wants to go - your job is to keep it on course. Like the captain of an ocean liner you probably won't have to make many sudden turns, just watch out for icebergs. Still, getting started is a tough business because - just like an ocean liner - you've got to overcome a lot of inertia. You know you want to write something but you may only have a vague idea or a feeling about what it is you want to express.

So what DOES come first - lyrics, melody, or chords? The answer is... none of the above!

When you look at a CD cover, before you even play a song, what do you see? When you go into a record store or online to buy your favorite song... what do you ask for? When a DJ reads a dedication - something they don't do much anymore, unfortunately - he doesn't say, "This one goes out to Gloria. It's that song about this guy who's wondering whether his girlfriend still loves him 'cause she's acting like maybe she doesn't care anymore." No, he says, "From Steve to Gloria, here's 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling.' " The title says it all. That's what comes first... the TITLE!!!

Don't start writing a song until you have a title that moves you. The title is going to be your chorus, your hook, the heart of your song, so it must be a phrase that rings true in your ears. Something that makes you say, "I've got to know more about that!" Because if YOU want to know, others will want to know. The title is going to be the thing that everyone remembers (hopefully). Most important: It's going to define the message of the song. It will be your guiding principle, your beacon, your pole star.

So start looking around for good titles that have energy for you. Action words, images, or short phrases make good titles. Attention-grabbing newspaper headlines are full of good titles. Here are a few from this morning's paper: "A Dream On The Edge," "The Great Divide," "The Same-Old Same-Old," "Easy Does It." Or try listening to yourself. Write stream-of-consciousness style: write or type as fast as you can, trying not to think or make judgments, then go back and look for good phrases. When you listen to other people, to the television, or read a magazine, always keep a little corner of your mind alert for phrases that capture your attention. Start making a list. You'll end up throwing out most of these or using some for lyric lines, but others will become the titles that drive your songs.

EXERCISE: Start your title list right now. Pick up a book, magazine, or newspaper and start scanning for interesting phrases (one to five words in length). Write down at least five phrases. Mix and match words between phrases, substitute your own words, change the pronouns. Try to come up with at least one phrase that makes you want to write a song. Keep looking for more phrases until you have something you like. Draw a big circle around that phrase!

How a title becomes a lyric.

The best way to demonstrate this is to give an example. Let's say I'm interested in writing a song called "California Girl." (The title occurred to me one summer morning when I was sitting on the beach in Santa Monica eating sushi for breakfast, feeling very much like a California girl. You never know when a title will hit ya!) Okay... I don't know what this song is about yet or why this phrase interests me but it does, so I need to find out more.

First: Ask Questions. Start by asking the questions this title wants to have answered. Let's say your title is "I Drove All Night." What questions need to be answered: "Where did you drive?" and "Why did you do that?" Now apply this idea to '"California Girl": "Who is she?" and "What is she doing?" How I answer those questions will determine what my song is about. Now, you may answer them in very different ways than I do and that's just fine. There could be several songs written with the title "California Girl" and they would all be different. My "California Girl" is no longer the teenager of the Beach Boys songs. I want to know how her life turned out, what she thinks about when she remembers those long ago golden summers. This has a strong emotional pull for me so that's the song I should write. You might want to write a party song or a song about young lovers on a beach. Your choice will depend on which of those ideas has the strongest emotional appeal for you - THAT is the song you should write.

Notice that I didn't start this song by wanting to tell a story or relive something that happened to me. Instead, I am just following my feelings. This is how songwriting (or writing poetry) teaches you about yourself. If you already know what you want to write, don't write a song, write an essay. A song is about DISCOVERING! 1.

Second: Make a list of words, phrases, or images suggested by the title. "California Girl" obviously makes me think of sun, waves, playing, warmth, ocean, paradise, beach, sand, etc. Sand makes me think of flowing, changing, so I add the words "flowing" and "changing" to my list, then try to think of things that flow and change: time, water, dreams and add them to my list, too. After you have a list of related words, make a list of words, phrases, and images that are opposites. My list would include: cold, night, dark, sadness, loss, lonely, etc. this is a kind of free-association game. Don't be judgmental, just write down whatever comes to you. If you'd like to hear how these related words and phrases become part of a lyric, listen to my song "California Girl" (mp3 Lo-Fi Play mp3 Hi-Fi Play) or read the Lyrics.

EXERCISE: Go back and look at the title you circled. Does it suggest any other words, images or thoughts. Make a list. Write them down quickly, in single words or short phrases. Don't think about rhyming or making sense at this point. Then, make a list of opposites. Write as many words as you can think of.

 

Lyrics are not poems. Using ghost melodies.

Many inexperienced songwriters begin by writing a lyric that looks like a poem, complete with nice rhymes and a regular, sing-song meter. What you get when you write lyrics without music is usually bad poetry. So, let's say you want to write a song but you don't play a musical instrument, here's what you do: Pick a song that already exists and write new words to it. Call this pre-existing song the ghost song because you are going to use it as a pattern on which to base your lyrics, then it's going to vanish completely! If you have a favorite artist in the genre you'd like to write your song in, use one of their songs as the ghost song. Play the song until you are familiar with the melody and can hum it to yourself.

EXERCISE: Choose a hit song as a ghost song. Make sure it's a song you like and one that moves along at a tempo (speed) that suits your mood. Do you feel like writing an angry or happy song with lots of energy? Then you want a song with a fast tempo. Want to write a sad song or sensual love ballad? Than you want a slow tempo. Become familiar with the ghost song. Learn to hum the melody line.

Song Forms

The advantage to using a ghost melody is that the song form or structure is already laid out for you. The most common contemporary song form is verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge / (verse) / chorus. The other common song form is verse / verse / bridge / verse. I don't have space here to explain why we use song forms; for now let's just say that it's what all us listeners like to hear and what we respond to emotionally. A couple of useful definitions:

Verse: The verses all have the same melody but different lyrics. The verse lyrics give us information about the situation, emotions, or people in the song. In the verse / verse / bridge / verse song form, the title is usually in the first or last line of each verse.

Chorus: The chorus is the section in which both melody and lyrics are repeated. The chorus lyrics give us the heart of the song. The title of the song almost always appears in the chorus section and may be repeated two or more times.

Bridge: The bridge has a different melody, lyrics, and chord progression from the verse or chorus. It provides a break from the repetition of verse and chorus and is sometimes an emotional turning point.

Writing chorus and verse lyrics to a ghost song

Look back at your title, questions to answer, and your lists of related words and phrases. Think about the title, hum the ghost melody in your head and try to fit your song title into the chorus section. See if you can use it two or more times. BETTER YET... choose the ghost song first before you look for a title, then find a title you can comfortably sing in the same place where the ghost song title is. Fill in the rest of the chorus lyric by answering the questions and using some of the words and phrases from your lists. This will keep your lyric focused which, in turn, makes it emotionally effective. Don't make a big effort to find rhymes (unless you are writing for animated films or musical theater); it's more important to say what you feel at this point. If you happen to find something that rhymes, and says what you want to say, that's great but don't distort the message to make something rhyme. Keep things conversational and honest.

Once you have a chorus, try writing the verse in the same way. Again, try to use the questions and related and opposite word lists. If you used them all in the chorus section, go back and create another list. With each verse, try to give the listener more information. You don't have to tell a linear story but there should be some development. And remember, the listener knows nothing at all about your situation or about you. Let us in! Here are some questions you can answer in your verses: What are you feeling? Who are you feeling it about? What is the problem? How will you solve it? How did it begin? How do you think it will end?

EXERCISE: When you're listening to the car radio or playing music around the house, make up new lyrics to hit songs just for fun. Once you feel comfortable with this, then choose a ghost song and find a title you can comfortably sing where the ghost song title is; make sure it's a title you want to write about. List two or three questions suggested by the title and make your lists of related and opposite words. Write a chorus lyric using some of the words on your lists and answering the title questions. Play around with phrases and ideas to fit them into the ghost song melody. Keep the title where the ghost song title is. After you finish your chorus, write your verses the same way.

What happens next?

If you play an instrument and you're going to be writing your own melody and chords, you only need to write one verse and chorus lyric at this point. That's enough to give you a feel for what this song is about emotionally. You can finish the rest later when you have the final melody. If you're going to be looking for a collaborator to put music to your lyrics, then you should go ahead and finish your lyric using the ghost song as a guide for the whole song. Filling in the rest of the lyric while sustaining the emotional tone of what you've done is a tough job but if you've gotten this far, you can do the rest. Don't twist words out of order or keep a lyric just to make something rhyme! Forget about rhyming if it bends your lyric out of shape. A 'vowel rhyme' (rhymes like love/enough or mine/time) will work just fine. (This does not apply to songs for musical theater where perfect rhymes are a MUST.)

Work on your lyric for short periods of time. If you're not getting anything usable, walk away... literally. Take a walk and let things settle for awhile. Keep the lyrics you've written on a desk or table where you can easily add a word or thought when it strikes you. Keep the ghost melody in your head. The most important thing (and the most difficult) is to keep the emotional integrity of the song intact. Don't settle for anything less. There are times when you'll lose your way. Stop working! Go away and come back when you're fresh. You'll be able to see what needs to be fixed. Keep working on the lyric until you are genuinely moved and excited by it.

If you DON'T play a musical instrument and want to look for a music collaborator, read... "Where to find collaborators."

Chords, melodies & rhythm made a lot less difficult.

Of course I wanted to call this section "Chords, Melodies & Rhythm Made Easy" but I didn't want to mislead anybody. Writing melodies and chord progressions does require some basic skills on keyboard or guitar. You need to be able to recognize chord names and play them - that's all. No note reading required. There are 'instant' piano and guitar courses you can take that will teach you to read and play chords. If you are going to take lessons, be sure to tell the teacher you want to learn to read and play chords. Otherwise, you'll waste a lot of time learning things you don't need. In general, songwriters aren't great musicians. We know chords, we know songcraft, we know how to follow our emotions - none of this has anything to do with how many blues licks you can burn through on your Les Paul.

First, a word about chord progressions

Many songwriters begin their songs by strumming a chord or two. Without really thinking about it, they let the chord progression lead them through the song. The downside is that we tend to use the same chord patterns over and over. How often have you caught yourself going to the V chord at the end of the chorus just so you can resolve to the I chord that habitually begins your verses? Your songs are probably sounding less than fresh but you don't know why. There are lots of exciting chord progressions that use the basic chords within a key. Think about starting your verse on the II min. or the IV chord. Shifting to a new key at the top of the chorus is a great way to grab the listener's attention at a crucial point in the song. So how do you start writing these new chord progressions if they're not already part of your existing vocabulary?

Fortunately, CHORD PROGRESSIONS CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED. Lots of songs have the same chord progression and no one even notices. Melodies and lyrics ARE copyrighted, but chord progressions are not. C-Am-F-G belongs to everyone! What this means is that you can use existing chord progressions in your songs! I am going to suggest that, for now, you do just that.

Let's say you like Avril Lavigne or U2 - the chord progressions in their songs are not hard to learn; you can put their albums on and play along pretty easily on either guitar or keyboards. Same with country albums. Rap songs often have big melodic choruses these days. Grab the chords to the chorus. The verse may be just one or two chords or just a bass line - play along! Your best teachers are all available on CD. There are also "fake books" available with the chord progressions for hundreds of hit songs. (See sidebar.)

Writing a new melody to a ghost song lyric

So, since we know it's okay to use an existing chord progression, let's make things a lot less difficult and just use the chord progression from the ghost song. Good. Got that out of the way. Now for a new melody. Several people have told me that once they've written a new lyric to a ghost song, all they can hear is the ghost song melody. That's true. Until you start writing a new melody, the ghost song melody is all you will be able to hear. How do you start a new melody? There's a very useful trick I've learned for writing a melody to ANY existing lyric, whether it was written to a ghost song or not. Start with the natural rhythm and melody that is embedded in the words.

Read the following phrase out loud in a normal tone of voice: "I don't love you anymore." Read it again and put more emotion into it: "I don't love you anymore." Notice how the rhythm and melody of normal speech starts to become more exaggerated. Now read it again and raise the high notes higher, make the low notes lower, and put even more stress on the stressed words: "I don't love you anymore." Now sing it to a melody that preserves the high and low notes and stressed words: "I don't love you anymore." This is a melody that sounds natural AND conveys the emotion that is inherently in the phrase.

EXERCISE: Try speaking the first line of your chorus out loud a few times in natural, relaxed tone of voice. Then start to exaggerate the pitches - raise the high words higher, low words lower. Exaggerate the rhythm of the phrase, emphasizing the stressed syllables. Now, turn those high and low pitches and stressed beats into a melody. This is the hook melody and lyric of your song, so you want to be sure it's emotionally 'true'. Using this method of deriving a melody, you can be sure that it is.

Continue to alter your melody in this way. When you have a lyric that is emotionally neutral, try doing the opposite of what the ghost song melody is doing. If it goes down, you go up. If it goes up, you go down. If it's moving around a lot, try remaining on a single note. Play around with the melody until you like it; YOU are the one who decides what sounds right for your song. (Remember that the ghost song melody is protected by copyright law. Check to make sure that your final melody is different from the ghost song melody.)

Writing the melody first

If you are not a lyric writer, you will want to create melodies and chord progressions on your own and then have lyrics written later by a collaborator. Again, I'd like to suggest using a ghost song as a guide; it will provide you with good song structure, built-in contrast between sections, and a chord progression you can later change to suit your taste. Writing a new melody to an existing song structure and chord progression is also the best exercise I've found for picking up good melody writing tools in an incredibly short time. You might want to approach it solely as an exercise or you may end up with good melodies you can use for completely original songs. The ghost song is there to keep you on track, like training wheels on a bicycle. But ultimately, when you get the feel of it yourself, you will let go of the ghost song and your decisions will come easily and naturally.

The best place to start is with the songs you like. What you like is what you should write. That's in italics because it's important, very important. There are a lot of people who try to write "hit songs." When you ask them what a hit song is they get a look on their face like they just ate something rotten and tell you it's that piece of **** on top of the charts this week. But one must earn a living, even if it means writing songs you hate, right? Wrong. Jeff Barry, a writer of many, many classic rock songs and winner of multiple Grammy's, once made an observation I have never forgotten. He said: "How can you write a song you don't like? How will you know when it's done? When you don't like it enough?" This is brilliant songwriting advice and I remind myself of it a lot when I'm writing.

It's important to find ghost songs that you like and admire. Don't choose a song just because it's a big hit. If you don't like any hit songs, then choose something else but be aware that if you select an artist's idiosyncratic, self-indulgent album cut, you'll be limiting your chances of reaching a wide audience. That artist's large fan base was created by their hit songs and you yourself probably discovered that artist because of their hits.

EXERCISE: Make a list of hit songs you like. (Hit songs almost always have good song structure and form.) If you are interested in writing songs to sell in today's market, make sure this list includes contemporary hits. If you find that you are not familiar with current hits, go to Billboard.com and look at the charts. Then go to a music download site like iTunes, listen to the audio samples of the current Top 10, and buy the ones you like. Learn the chords and play along. After reading the next section, try writing a new melody to the chord progression.

Writing memorable melodies

It has been said many times that no one can teach you how to write a great melody. This may be true but there are a few tricks that will help you write a memorable one.

Memorable, emotionally powerful melodies use repetition and variation. A melody with no repetition sounds unfocused and weak, as if it's wandering around with nowhere to go. Listeners quickly lose interest and tune out. A melody with too much repetition is boring. Good melodies walk the line in between - mixing repeated phrases with variation.

When we think of melody, we usually think of notes only - the changing pitches - but melodies also use rhythm and phrasing. A melodic phrase has a beginning and end. Often, but not always, a lyric thought begins and ends with the melodic phrase. (Contemporary singer-songwriters frequently 'slip' the lyric so the thought begins and ends in the MIDDLE of a melodic phrase.) You can feel where melodic phrases begin and end; there is a natural break there. Melodic phrases can be one bar, two bars, four bars or even eight bars long. Varying the length of your melodic phrases is a good way to keep your melody interesting. For example: try starting a verse with two four-bar phrases followed by two two-bar phrases before going to your chorus.

Melody also makes use of rhythm; notes are long or short, creating a pattern that can be repeated or varied. You can repeat the same rhythm pattern but vary the notes. Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" is a great example of this. The first line begins with a short phrase (Phrase 1: "Yesterday...") followed by a long phrase (Phrase 2: "all my troubles seemed so far away"). The next line repeats the rhythm of the second phrase but changes the notes ("Now it looks as if they're here to stay") followed by a new phrase (Phrase 3: "Oh, I believe in...") The last phrase has the same rhythm and lyric as Phrase 1 but the notes are turned upside down! (The ends of the second and third lines are variations of Phrase 1.) This verse is a great example of the use of repetition with variation and it's the reason why we can all remember this melody.

EXERCISE: Choose a hit song you like and learn to sing or play the melody. Identify the melodic phrases. Identify the number of bars in each phrase. Notice which ones, if any, are repeated exactly - rhythm and notes. Notice which ones have the same rhythm pattern but use different notes. Using the same rhythm patterns and phrase lengths, write a new melody with different notes.

Writing rap and hip-hop songs to a rhythm track

If you are writing rap or hip-hop, much of the info and many of the exercises in the lyric writing section will be useful. Obviously, rhyming plays a much greater role in rap and hip-hop than it does in pop, country, rock, or pop/rock. But the advice about writing from a title, staying focused by answering the questions suggested by the title and using lists of related and opposite words all apply. The fresh rhymes are up to you!

You are going to need beats to write to. If you don't already have software like Fruity Loops or Reason (See sidebar), look for midi files of rap songs you like - there are lots available on the internet. You don't need anything but a computer with its own internal sounds. OR download an inexpensive (or freeware) sequencing program that will allow you to open these as standard midi files. Mute everything but the percussion parts and use these as your rhythm track to write to. You, or a collaborator or producer, will need to create new beats later if you are going to commercially release the song but, for now, this track will give you something to write to.

Rap songs do have a verse / chorus song structure, some even have a bridge. The crossover urban hits of Destiny's Child and Usher break out in big melodic choruses then return to spoken rap for the verses. Street and gangsta rap have a spoken chorus that consists of repetition of a hook/title lyric. ("Drop it like it's hot / Drop it like it's hot...) Often, rap songs will open with the chorus (Usher's "Relationship" or Kanye West's "School Spirit"). You can use rap songs as ghost songs for creating melodic choruses and framing general song structure. Melodic choruses have a chord progression you can use. Verses usually imply a chord if they don't actually play it. You can use the chord progression or change it to suit your taste. Be careful that you don't use the melody or lyrics of the ghost song - these are copyrighted.

EXERCISE: Get a rhythm track together using one of the above methods. It can simply be a repeating loop but make sure it lasts about three minutes. Find a rap song you like and create a chorus lyric using the information in Writing chorus and verse lyrics to a ghost song. To write a new melody, read Writing a new melody to a ghost song lyric.

Where to find collaborators

So let's say you now have this fabulous lyric (or melody), it's got emotional integrity and good song form but you don't play guitar or keyboards - or you're a musician who doesn't write lyrics - and can't take it to the next step. Time to look for a collaborator! But before you do that.... write out your lyrics or record your melody. Indicate which section is the chorus, verse, and bridge. If you used a ghost song, BE SURE you did not accidentally use any of the lyric or melodic phrases from the original song. The lyric and melody are copyrighted material and you must NOT use them. Besides, that song is not your song; it doesn't say what YOU want to say. Once you have done that, forget you ever met the ghost song. Do not mention it to your collaborator.

And speaking of COPYRIGHT...

Before you show your lyric or melody to too many collaborators, enter it in contests, or otherwise spread it around, you may want to copyright it with the Library of Congress. To do that, lyricists, you'll need to fill out Form TX; melody writers, you'll fill out Form PA. You'll find a printable form and instructions at Library Of Congress - forms There's a fee for each form you file, but you can register groups of lyrics or melodies on a single form. Songwriters, you'll also use Form PA.

Back to the hunt for collaborators...

Idea #1a: There is an excellent site for songwriters called The Muses Muse with a great e-newsletter and very active message boards for songwriters. You can get feedback on your lyrics and look for collaborators. The Great American Song Contest has a category for lyrics only. The John Lennon Song Contest accepts instrumentals only in their dance and electronica categories.

Idea #1b: For rap and hip-hop writers, there is a very active forum for collaborators at the Fruity Loops web site for users of Fruity Loops software. For dance and trance writers, the forum at ReasonStation and the Propellerheads web sites are excellent. Obviously, it helps if you are already using the Reason or Rebirth software.

Idea #2: Go to the clubs and concerts in your area that feature local bands. When you find a band playing the kind of music you are interested in, ask if they are willing to work with an outside writer. When they tell you they write all their own songs, tell them you'd like to collaborate on songs you can sell to other artists. They'll be interested, believe me!

Idea #3: Check out the local music store. They usually have a guitar or piano teacher or will put you in touch with one. The teacher might be interested in writing with you or may know a student who is looking for a collaborator.

Idea #4: The music department in any community college or university will have a bulletin board. Post a message that says you are a lyricist looking for someone to write with, include the style of music you are interested in along with your name and contact info. (I prefer an email address rather than a phone number.)

Idea #5: Visit the Songwriter Resources page on this site for some useful links to online songwriter forums, message boards, web sites, and contests. I was contacted by composer Scott Michael when a song of mine was in a competition at MakeaStar.com. It took him a couple of emails to get my attention but it worked. He sent me a gorgeous instrumental track called "Man Without Reason," completely recorded and mixed. I added a lyric, melody, and vocal to it and it turned out beautifully. You can listen to streaming audio by clicking on one of these links:

Man Without Reason Hi-Fi play (broadband)

Man Without Reason Lo-Fi play (56K modem)

I liked Scott's title so much that I kept it and simply wrote the lyric around it. We collaborated long-distance (Ohio to California) and have never met face to face. I wrote the melody for the lyrics as well, so it helped that I was able to record a vocal and send it to him. Home recording studios can be put together very cheaply these days and you may find it worthwhile to invest in one. But more about that later. Right now... go write a lyric!

Getting it on tape... well, CD

While you're working on your song, you'll need to record the melody so you can remember it, work out alternate lyric and melody ideas, try different chord progressions and see how they sound. When you have written a compelling song with a memorable melody, emotionally evocative lyric, and good structure that keeps the listener's attention, you'll want to make a demo to show it off. Advances in recording technology have revolutionized home recording. It is now relatively easy and affordable to put together a home demo studio. Although a course in home recording is beyond the scope of this article, here are a couple of ways to get started...

HOME MIDI STUDIOS: There are now a couple of inexpensive software programs that include both midi sequencers (for use with midi keyboards) and audio recording capability (to record vocals and guitar). Cakewalk Home Studio 2 (Windows) will record unlimited audio and includes realtime audio and midi effects - all for under $100! For Mac users there's Garageband from Apple. It is included in the iLife software package for under $80. You will need a midi keyboard for use with both of these programs. Apple has one for under $100. Yamaha makes a good inexpensive keyboard. (See sidebar for links to these products at Amazon.com)

PORTASTUDIOS: If you are a singer-songwriter who plays guitar, you might want to bypass the world of midi music entirely and record vocals and guitar direct to disc using a digital Portastudio. This is great for making rough demos and working out your song. Later, you can take your CD-quality tracks to a project studio to add drums and bass when you are ready to submit your song to publishers or producers. Digital Portastudios are now very affordable and sound great. The Tascam 8-Track Digital Portastudio allows you to dump your tracks directly to computer for use with Protools. (See sidebar.)

SONGWRITING SOFTWARE: There is a unique software program called Band In A Box (Windows/MAC) that I personally recommend. BIAB is like having a song collaborator who never tells you your ideas stink. It will create a chord progression or you can type one in or play one on a midi keyboard. It will create a drum, bass, piano, guitar, and string arrangement based on your chords. You can select from many styles - finding one that sounds good can take a little while but you only need one or two good styles. It can play the arrangement on the internal sounds in your computer or a midi keyboard. (The guitar parts are terrible so mute them. Drums, bass, and piano are all quite good.) BIAB will even create a melody and a title. Melodies tend to be a little generic but you can keep the bits you like and have it create new melodies as much as you like. It's inexpensive, fun, creative, and a great place to start a new song from scratch! If you have a sequencer or software synth you like to use, you can export BIAB files as Standard Midi Files and import them into other music programs. This software looks dorky on the surface and there's definitely a learning curve but it's the best all-in-one creative tool I've found for songwriters! (See sidebar.)

OTHER RECORDING RESOURCES:I like to be in control of the final sound of my songs, so I record and mix EVERYTHING in my home studio. But this can be very time-consuming and it does take away from the time you can spend writing songs. If this is a bit more than you want to take on, never fear, there are some alternatives. Go to your local community college and talk to someone in the music department. You'll find a half dozen students with home recording facilities who will either be willing to collaborate with you, record your song for a nominal sum, or do it as a school assignment for credit. There are studios in many cities that specialize in arranging, recording and mixing demos. You can find them in the phone book. Most local bands know someone with a home studio, so ask around at the clubs. Meet as many people in the local music scene as you can. You'll find resources, collaborators, and information that will be very helpful.

When you have a few songs recorded, you can go to GarageBand.com and post them. If you review other people's songs you can earn credits toward posting your own songs for FREE. Listening to the songs and demos on this site is a great way to get a feel for what's going on in the world of indie artists and songwriters. Chat with other musicians and songwriters on the message boards. Expose yourself!!! (Well, only if you feel like.) For some useful links, check out the Songwriter Resources page on this site where you'll find links to online songwriter forums, message boards, web sites, and contests.

One last thought...

Of course, all I have given you here is a door into songwriting. There are other ways to approach songwriting but all are just other doors. Once you go through the door, that's when you really begin to learn. Everything you need to know is right there in your CD collection. Study the work of your favorite artists to learn what they are doing. Thankfully, you don't need to reinvent the wheel every time you write a song. Stand on the shoulders of giants; use what others have discovered and build on it. Don't worry that you will end up sounding like someone else - you will always sound just like you. No one else has your voice, your experiences, or your talents.

There IS one more thing I'd like to add. It's a general observation that applies to all artists: Set up a situation in which you will actually be motivated to work.

The "Buddy System"

One of those guys who wrote about 500 standards and made a pile of money from ASCAP, was once asked which came first... The melody? The lyrics? The chords? "None," he answered, "The phone call." This is still true in Nashville where professional songwriters ply their craft. Let's say Reba McEntire is looking for songs for her new album. The record label calls the publisher, the publisher calls the songwriters, the songwriters call each other. Then the songwriters get together and hole up until they've got a nice up-tempo love song with a killer chorus.

But singer-songwriters tend to work alone and strictly from their emotions. This can be a problem. What if you're not feeling anything this week... at least nothing worth writing about? Do you wait until you feel something? It just might be awhile before Big Love comes knocking on your door and you suddenly feel inspired to write "The Long And Winding Road." (Now THERE'S a title!)

I like having a deadline just so long as it isn't five minutes from now. (I wrote songs that way for television for many years and I don't EVER want to do it again.) But knowing there's someone who expects you to write and deliver something does help, otherwise writing tends to take second or third place behind, oh... sharpening pencils and walking the dog. So give yourself a deadline. Or, better still, find a friend who's interested in writing and set a mutual deadline. Promise to show something to each other once a week or twice a month. You can do this via email or in person. Although it seems like a simple thing, it can make all the difference in whether you actually write or not.

 

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Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE