Guitar How-To

When you listen to other people’s songs you probably think that writing your own songs should be easy. But sit down at your keyboard or with a pen and paper. Wait for the ideas to come. Got any yet? I thought not. But do not despair because there are ways to start your creative thoughts moving and tools to make up for shortfalls in your language skills.

Let’s look at how you can structure your life as a songwriter starting today. First you need a goal. If your initial goal turns out to be too ambitious you can always adjust it later. Just think about how much time you think you can devote to songwriting and decide how many songs you will write in a week.

Having a goal is important because if you fail to meet it you will be immediately aware of your shortcomings and how to address them. Even if you don’t have a clue how many songs you can write, just pick a number and make a sincere effort to meet it.

Now that you are a songwriter you need to listen to lots of songs. Maybe you already do but now it’s with a professional interest. If you don’t know where to start, just go with the kind of songs you enjoy but here is a list of some of the greatest songs of all time: “Islands in the Stream”, “I Just Called to Say I Love You”, “Time After Time”, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Hey Jude”, “Bésame Mucho”, “Blackbird”, “Fixing a Hole”.

Writing songs can sometimes be just a matter of expressing something you are feeling at the moment or sitting down and waiting for the words to come, but that’s mostly for people who have actually practiced the art of songwriting. To start off as a songwriter, you need to have in the back of your head the basic structure of a song.

You don’t need to try to write your songs in this order but this is just a list of the basic elements of a finished song:

The Chorus. This is the central element of the song. It contains the catchy part – the “hook”. The chorus gets stuck in your audience’s heads and hearts.

The Verses. A song contains at least three or four verses. They carry the sentiment of the song. More or less. They don’t need to make a lot of sense or have rhymes in them. But they need to express something.

The Bridge. The bridge of a song relieves tension or creates interest. It’s a break from the main thrust of the song but should lead back into the chorus seamlessly.

You Were On My Mind is a great example of a song with very simple lyrics, the verses don’t particularly link together, in the sense of telling a story but they build up the listener’s anticipation of the chorus.

Creating A Winning Song Structure has some more information on the elements of a song plus analyses of some popular songs.

Here are some tools you may need to help you with your songwriting:

FREE Rhyming Dictionary Software for Windows

The Free Dictionary

WikiRhymer Rhyming Dictionary

And here is the Wikipedia entry on popular songwriting

Here is one of many great videos on writing songs that you can find on YouTube.

Related Blogs