How to write a song? (Is there a magical formula)
Is there a magical formula about how to write a song?
You sit with your guitar and try to write a song, and you are continually wondering how do they do it, how does a real songwriter write songs?
You say real because you don’t feel like a real songwriter.
When you try to write little more on your song you get stuck with the melody, chord progression, and the song structure.
There are so many things with a song that you are trying to get the hang of it.
It always ends up the same way, another song idea to the pile of ideas.
The struggle to finish songs is something that you don’t know how to overcome.
If we go a little bit deeper to your songwriting it all can end up with a lot of ideas and no song is in no way near to finish.
But is there something we can do to overcome this?
What is the songwriting process?
Your songwriting process is excellent to have an understanding of. It’s easy to do a little bit of all when you write your songs.
You start with chords, sing a little bit of melody, and write some words down.
And to get a structure to your songwriting process is the one thing that is crucial to get more songs done.
If you always have a structure when you start writing a song, you will see progress to your songwriting.
A common roadblock to getting stuck is to finish songs from your ideas. And to get more songs from your thoughts do you have to see your songwriting process as a whole.
If you always start with chords and write lyrics last.
Do the opposite.
Start writing the song with the title and write your story from that. A song title is something that many songwriters put last in their songwriting process. And if you think about it, the title of the song often makes you listen to a song for the first time if the title is strong.
If you start with the title of your song, you will much faster get progress with your song. Because you will know exactly what the song is about and you will know where to turn if you get stuck.
To start with the song title is something that will help you to make progress.
The title does not have to be perfect from the start, and you can refine it further down the writing process.
What is important is that you get started with your songwriting.
How to write a song?
To write a song is something that you can get a system to and being confident with the songwriting process. Sure in a way that you know that you are going to get a song done every time you start.
Don’t mind the sample tracks and loops, the fantastic chord progression.
The amazing melodies you hear in your favorite songs.
How they do that is something you’re wondering a lot.
But is there a system to how a song is written anyway?
Yes, it is, and I will explain precisely how you can do it.
Imagine yourself to get a song done every time you start.
The way the most songwriters start their songs is with chord progression or beats, I put all loops and samples under the same roof, and that is beats.
If you have a structure to your songwriting and you know how to finish a song, you can start in any part of the process you like.
Is Music Theory important?
You can start as a songwriter without any knowledge of music theory, I did that from the start.
And when you learn music theory, everything becomes much easier for you as a songwriter.
If you see music theory as a language to speak, if you learn the language, you can much easier talk to other musicians and become better in the songwriting process.
Music theory can be overwhelming at the start, but if you start small and go from there.
One thing that is great to start with is the C-major scale, on a piano, it is all the white keys.
The C is found directly to the left of the two black keys, it’s the same in every octave. And when you start with the C major scale and advance from that, you can develop your knowledge in music theory over time.
If you start writing in C major scale and develop your music theoretically language, you will begin to see the patterns in every interval and how you build a chord.
When it comes to music theory, it is good to know the most common phrases:
Interval
An interval is a space between two different notes, you got two separate ranges, tonic. A tonic interval is two tones played after each other, for instance, c and e.
A melodic interval is two tones played together, for instance, C and G.
Triad
A triad is how a chord is built. You can create a major and a minor chord with just three notes. If you should create a C major, you use C-E and G, play them together and you got a major chord.
If you should build an A minor, you use A C and E, the third note that is a C defines if it is a major or a minor chord.
The number system
Every note has a number, the first note in C major scale is C, and it got to number one. D number two, E number three, F-number four, G number five, A number six, B number seven, and then it all start over again with C, but that is in an octave. Instead of using the numeric system, the Roman number system is used.
So you don’t get confused.
Song Title
If you start your song with the title of the song, you will be able to have a clear path where to go next with your song.
Maybe you think it’s a strange way to start, but hold on, and I will explain it to you.
First, you need to find a way to collect titles to your song, and that can be done pretty easy every day.
All you have to do is to collect titles in everything you see and read.
If you look at your favorite youtube channel, you can collect words and sentences from that episode. You should write down every phrase and sentence you like.
If we take this blog post you can find titles like:
Under the same roof
ends up the same
Everything you see
You can refine these titles later; the main thing is to pick a title and start writing a song about that.
Then you should start to outline the story from the title.
If we choose one of my song titles, Ends up the same and build our story around that.
Why does it end up the same?
What has happened that makes it end up the same way?
You can quickly outline a story from the lyrics:
Title: End up the same way
Chorus:
Why does everything end up the same way — A
Why are you not here in my arms right now — B
I want you to be here in my arms and stay — A
When will I be together with you and how — B
The goal with an outline is to make a draft of your song and refine it in the next step.
That way you will faster write a lyric to your song.
How to write lyrics for a song
Words are something that can be hard to do if you don’t have a song title to write your story around.
If you pick your guitar, play some chords, write a melody and try to write a song, you often get stuck with the lyrics because you don’t know where the story should proceed.
If you have outlined a story, you will know where to go next when you get stuck.
You can have different methods to write lyrics for a song; one is to have a rhyme scheme when you write.
When you use a rhyme scheme, you make a natural flow into your lyrics, and everything becomes much easier for the listener to digest.
And most of the favorite songs use a rhyme scheme to get the listener to continue listening to your song.
You can have different rhyme schemes to your song, one standard rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B, and you may wonder what that means…?
If we have a look at the chorus idea I had to my song “End up the same way” we see an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme:
Chorus:
Why does everything end up the same way
Why are you not here in my arms right now
I want you to be here in my arms and stay
When will I be together with you and how
The A sections end word rhymes with the next A section, and the B-sections end word rhymes with each other.
Song Structure
You can start with a song structure that is easy to understand:
A- Verse
B-Chorus
C-Bridge
If we start our song with the verse and build our lyrics from the outlined story.
Then when we continue to the chorus, B-section, we should mention the title at least one time in the chorus.
A familiar song structure is A-B-A-B-C-B, can you see the similarities to the rhyme scheme in the song lyrics.
You start with the verse, (A) continue with the chorus (B) start over with the verse (A) then a chorus (B) then comes a new element in the song that’s the bridge.
In your song, the bridge is the section of the song that differentiates itself from the other parts of your composition.
In the bridge you great way to move away from your song idea.
Your central song idea that you have in the verse and the chorus.
You can choose a melody and chord progression that different from both the verse and the chorus.
The bridge usually accrues between the chorus and the verse.
When the bridge is finished, the original song structure — either a verse or chorus — start again.
Write your melody
Next, we want to write our melody, and we can easily do that with the support of our lyrics.
Every time you start to speak, you start singing! Yes, that is true! If you don’t believe me try to start talking without changing any of your pitch and speak without lowering or fastening the pace or talking louder or softer.
If You do that, all you’re going to do is sound like a robot and monotonic.
When we speak, we use different pacing, volume, tempo, and pitch.
If you do that with the chorus lyrics I wrote:
Chorus:
Why does everything end up the same way — A
Why are you not here in my arms right now — B
I want you to be here in my arms and stay — A
When will I be together with you and how — B
Can you hear the melody that hides in words? It’s a compelling way to melody writing when used correctly.
Chord Progression
Why I have the chord progression this late is because of many songwriters start their songs by playing different chords and sing on a melody.
Sings different words and try to do something groundbreaking to the song. If we listen to every single hit song, the chord progressions are often repetitive and straightforward. They usually have four chords, and many songs have the same chord progression from start to end.
And that’s why I take the chord progression at the end of the song structure because you can use chords from another song.
You might think that you are stealing copyrighted material, but you can’t copyright a chord progression.
And for you, it’s relieving because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Different chord progressions:
C-G-AM-F
D-G-EM-A
E-G#M-A-B
The key is your melody and lyrics, not the chord progression. Because the chord progression should only support your theme, not be the main element of your song.
Read more about songwriting:
