Songwriting

Define :

• Musician : Who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented.
• Composer : Who writes music, especially as a professional occupation.
• Composer + Song writer : Music creator

Job :

• Musician : Music performance
• Composer : Write music (for many genres : movies, games, songs,...) and focus on music (no lyrics)
• Song writer : Only write songs (music + lyrics, or just music for the song)

Relationship :

• Musician is not necessarily a composer
• Composer has always been a musician, but not necessarily a song writer
• Song writer (songwriter) is a form of composer
• Song writing (songwriting) like me just write songs for fun...

There is a difference between Musician and Composer, a musician is any person who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented. Whereas a composer is someone who creates music. There is a lot of confusion regarding the terms as they are most commonly used together. This leads to people assuming that the words have the same meaning and can be used interchangeably. However, the truth of the matter is that the terms have two different meanings which overlap, which is why a musician is sometimes called a composer and vice versa.

A musician

A musician is any person who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented. Whereas a composer is someone who creates music; in fact, the word composer comes from the Latin ‘com’ + ‘ponere’ which literally translates to "one who puts together". It should be noted that composers would obviously know music and would be somewhat musically talented. They would also likely play a musical instrument, on which they would compose. Hence, a composer is a musician. Yet it is not necessary that they be performers as well. Their role is to write the music, but they won’t always perform it in front of people themselves.

A composer

However, it is not necessary that a musician would also compose or write music. It is possible that they just sing or perform music and songs that are written by someone else. Therefore, while a composer is always a musician, it is not necessary that all musicians be composers. Still, there are musicians out there that do compose their own music. Consequently, they can be called either as per their preference, but are often styled as Musician and Composer. Furthermore, while anyone who writes music is called a composer, the term is often associated with someone who writes classical music as opposed to modern or pop music. In this case, the term songwriter is often used as the music takes the form of a song. Similarly, if a person writes lyrics for a song, but not the music, then they are referred to as a lyricist.

A songwriting

Elements of Songwriting

Songwriting is a very personal process, and no two writers work exactly the same way. Some compose music in their heads and only later adapt it to fit an instrument. Others write with an instrument in hand. However, in many popular music genres, writing songs on the guitar is among the most established approaches. Indeed, some of the most legendary songwriters have been guitar players by trade-from folk-based guitarists like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, to rockers like Pete Townshend and James Hetfield, to country pickers like Townes Van Zandt and Brad Paisley. For these and other artists, the initial guitar choices-the riffs, the strumming pattern, the tempo-serve as building blocks for the entire composition.

A song generally has five major elements :

1. A melody
2. A chord progression
3. A rhythmic pattern
4. Lyrics
5. An overall structure

Except for lyrics, all of these elements can be created using a guitar. In addition, a guitar can be used to craft the song’s arrangement: the supplemental elements (like harmonies and riffs for other instruments) that can be layered onto an existing song.

3 Basic Guitar Chord Progressions

Some guitar genres tend to value complexity. For instance, progressive rock and heavy metal often feature multi-part suites with endless chord changes and rhythmic shifts. Jazz fusion songs, meanwhile value polyrhythms (more than one rhythmic pattern playing against one another) and challenging harmonies. Nevertheless, a great song can be remarkably simple, and this simplicity is often considered a virtue in genres such as folk or blues. Indeed, countless folk songs have consisted of merely three chords. To kickstart your songwriting inspiration, try experimenting with these simple guitar chord progressions. (All are in 4/4 time, with one chord per measure).

1. G | D | C | C |
2. D | A | Bm | G |
3. Em | D | C | B |

Basic Song Structure

Most popular songs contain some or all of the following structural elements :

• Intro (and Outro): This section is usually instrumental, and may incorporate elements of the chorus.
• Chorus: This is the foundational element of a song, and typically repeats at least once both musically and lyrically. Often, the chorus is more intense than the verse in terms of emotion and musical elements.
• Verse: This section moves the story, thoughts, or ideas of the song forward. While all verses may use the same melody, each verse usually has distinct lyrics.
• Bridge or Middle Eight: This section typically employs a unique melody and lyrics that contrast with the rest of the song.

While there are many ways to structure or arrange these components into a song, one of the most common and classic pop song patterns is “ABABCBB.” After an intro, this song structure proceeds as follows:

• Verse (A)
• Chorus (B)
• Verse (A)
• Chorus (B)
• Bridge or Middle Eight (C)
• Chorus (B)
• Chorus (B)

How to Write a Song in 3 Steps

To start writing your own song, you can begin with any of the elements listed above: melody, chord progression, rhythmic pattern, lyrics, or overall structure. Then, follow these three steps.

1. Improvise. You don’t need to know advanced music theory to begin writing music on guitar. In fact, many songwriters start by improvising. This could mean strumming chords on an acoustic guitar while fashioning a vocal melody to fit over those chords; creating a riff on an electric guitar and choosing chords that complement the riff; or scribbling down lyrics and improvising a melody that sets them to music.
2. Add variety. The best songs tend to have at least some variety in their chords, riffs, vocal melody, or all of the above. Instead of using only major scales or major chords, great songs also feature minor chords, dominant 7th chords, and even diminished and augmented chords. Melodies tend to progress in stepwise motion (i.e., successive notes no more than one tone apart), with occasional leaps to higher or lower notes. These leaps are often the most memorable passages, but take care not to over do it.
3. Get creative. Many great songs have three or four sections, and sometimes even more. Consider a song like The Beatles classic, “I Am The Walrus.” The song begins with an instrumental intro in the key of B, then modulates to the key of A for the verse before modulating yet again to the key of E. The verse and chorus repeat before the song shifts to a different feel and returns to the key of B for a fourth section, the bridge. Verse and chorus return before the song concludes on a fifth section - an outro featuring wordless lyrics and tape samples. In just 4 minutes and 33 seconds, the song covers immense musical territory. Obviously not everyone can simply pick up a guitar and write an original song like “I Am The Walrus,” but take note that it partly succeeds on account of its continual variety from start to finish.

Tips for Songwriting

Guitarist Tom Morello, who has contributed his distinctive guitar style to Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, The Nightwatchman, and more shares his insights on songwriting

• Harness inspiration. Inspiration can come from anywhere at anytime, and Tom believes it's important to document and preserve ideas whenever they occur. Inspiration is as simple as choosing to make a sound or play specific notes a certain way.
• Hone your craft. Craft is the process of arranging sounds and notes to create verses, choruses, and all the other building blocks of a song. The arrangement gives a song its form and structure, but it’s the inspiration-the creative choices you and you alone make-that transform the arrangement into something original and new.
• Recycle your ideas. Never throw away or censor a songwriting idea. For instance, Tom wrote the main riff for Rage Against the Machine's "Bombtrack" when he was 19 and playing in a cover band, but years passed before he found a home for it. While your ideas might not result in a full-fledged song right away, you may find a use for them down the road.
• Be authentic. What Tom discovered is that there’s no great mystery to songwriting. If you can hold a guitar and play a couple notes, you can write a song. In his view, it’s not even necessary to know the names of the strings or the specific notes you’re playing. What’s more important is authenticity: if the song comes from inside you, then it’s personally and artistically a success.

Herbie Hancock is a pianist by trade, but his bands have featured guitars, along with the requisite rhythm section, woodwinds, and brass. Hancock reflects on his own songwriting process :

• Be vulnerable. For Herbie, the songwriting process is about sharing your own life experience with others through music. Honesty is of the utmost importance. This can be a difficult way to work because it’s not always easy being honest with others about who you are and where you come from.
• Look at the big picture. Songwriting is about more than money and fame. Instead, songwriting should be part of your process of growing as a human being and leading a fulfilling life.
• Start with your feelings. Not sure what to write about? Try focusing in on a feeling, image, or experience before you sit down with your instrument. As you start to write, work toward creating musical interpretations of what’s inside of you. That’s how Herbie wrote his best known song, “Watermelon Man.” The funky piano rhythm represented a sound from his childhood: the wheels of the neighborhood watermelon seller’s cart.
• Work through writer’s block. The process of writing a song for guitar or any other instrument can be intimidating. Everyone, even Herbie, suffers from writer’s block. If the blank page daunts you, just put a couple notes down. It doesn’t matter if they sound awful - the trick is to get yourself started and let those notes lead you to something better. Eventually, a song you can be proud of will start to take shape.
• Treat the song as a living being. The process of composing a song doesn’t have to end after you’ve performed or recorded your songs. Let your compositions evolve over time: you never know where they might take you or who they might reach. Always imagine your songs as having infinite potential and being able to speak to everyone.

By understanding the elements of songwriting, you can learn to write great songs that are moving and memorable. Use these songwriting tips to jumpstart your own musical journey. Great songwriters use these ten practical tips when composing new music and lyrics.

• Compose a catchy melody. There are millions of songs that share the same three- and four-chord progressions. Why do some of these songs get stuck in our heads ? The answer may be the melody. If you're trying to write an earworm, the melody is the most important part of the songwriting process. Successful melodies typically move in stepwise motion (up or down either a half-step or a whole step) with a few leaps (up or down any larger interval). They also often have a focal point-a high note in a melodic passage that anchors the rest of the melody line.
• Use all types of chords. If you only stick to the same few chords, you’ll limit the scope of your musical ideas. Try composing songs that contain all types of chords-major, minor, dominant, diminished, and augmented-for a more complex and interesting sound.

• Create a memorable rhythm. Many of the catchiest, most popular songs-from country hits to hip hop gems-are memorable because of a rhythmic motif. The next time you listen to your favorite songs, take note of how a funky or syncopated melody or backing track can be the catchiest part of the song, then get creative with the rhythm of your own songs.
• Write a song you can play live. Today's music production software enables songwriters to create digital symphonies in their home recording studios. Digital audio workstation (DAW) software is a remarkable tool for making music, but you should also think about how you can perform your songs live. Record company executives want to see how musicians connect with live audiences, so your music should be just as compelling when played live as it is in recorded form.

• Step away from your instrument to write. Common logic would suggest that you should write songs while seated at the piano or holding a guitar. Most of the time, this works great, but it may cause you to fall back on familiar tropes, which can leave you in a songwriting rut. Try setting the instrument down, going outside, and writing melodies and rhythms in your head. If you have some good ideas, sing them into a voice recorder on your smartphone. Then, return to your instrument and figure out how to play them instrumentally.
• Get ambitious with song structure. Most songs contain some combination of the following elements: an intro, a verse, a pre-chorus, a chorus, a bridge, instrumental solos, and a coda or outro. Challenge yourself to write a song that does more than just toggle back and forth between verses and the chorus. At the very least, try the well-established song structure: verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ bridge/ chorus. Many hit pop songs use this structure.

• Approach your lyric-writing with both structure and spontaneity. Writing lyrics is tricky. Have a plan for your lyric-writing process, but leave space for discovery. For instance, you may know what the song will be about in broad terms, or you may have a song title picked out and a few lyrical ideas already written; but just like a poet, learn to let the lyrics come to you. You may find yourself drawn to certain lines based on nothing more than the consonance and assonance of words.
• Use rhyme as a tool. Rhyme scheme can make song lyrics catchy, cohesive, and easy to memorize. But rhyming isn’t always necessary for songwriters. Sometimes an idea cannot be adequately expressed in rhyme; if this is the case, follow the idea, not the rhyme.
• Learn to break through writer's block. A great way to fight writer's block is to vary your creative process. Do you normally write music first and then lyrics? Try doing it the other way around. Do you normally strum chords and then improvise a melody on top of that? Set down the guitar and start with a melody or riff. Try writing a song on a new instrument or in a genre that’s unfamiliar to you. Moving out of your comfort zone can help jumpstart your creativity.

With Computer

The personal computer has brought a whole new dimension to the craft of songwriting. With some of the computer music programs available today, you don't even have to know anything about music to be a composer. Although this can be fun to sit back and let your computer do all the work, it is strongly recommended that you use your own creativity and talent to write the music and let the computer put it all together for you, quickly and easily.

Getting started

To get started playing, composing and recording music with your personal PC, you will need at least Windows 95, a midi keyboard, a soundcard, and a MIDI sequencer program such as Power Tracks or Cakewalk. You will also need some sort of MIDI interface. The MIDI interface I use is a Roland MPU-IPC-T. There are many other MIDI interfaces on the market today. The MIDI interface connects to one of your computer ports (or soundcard) and on the other end to your Midi keyboard. First let me explain the term MIDI, for those of you who do not already understand this incredible technology. MIDI stands for (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). With a MIDI keyboard and a Sequencer (either a stand alone hardware sequencer) or a software computer sequencer program installed in your computer, you will be able to play and record sounds from your keyboard into your sequencer and play them back later.

The advantage of having a sequencer program installed on your computer's hard drive is the fact that you can use your computer for your music and of course for many other things as well. With a stand alone hardware sequencer you can use it for recording music tracks, playing them back and nothing else. Though that they are very handy for musicians playing with bands who do not want to haul around their expensive computers to gigs. A sequencer program is much like a multi-track digital recording system, only what you are recording is digital information from your keyboard into your computer or sequencer. When you strike a note on your MIDI keyboard, a sensor located below that particular key relays a message to your computer as a note/pitch/touch message etc. To play back the sounds you have recorded into your sequencer you will need a sound card in your computer or a MIDI keyboard or sound module capable of recreating sound. There are normally 16 MIDI channels to work with (some programs have more but we won't get into that now).

Quantiziation

One great feature of computer sequencing is a function known as Quantiziation. This is where the computer will automatically correct your (not so perfect timing) and play your tracks back in perfect time. For example: After you lay your drum tracks down and it comes out quite a bit sloppy and off the beat, you can press (Quantize) to say 8th resolution if you are playing a straight 8th groove or 8th triplets, if you are playing a shuffle groove, and your drum track will now come out sounding perfectly on the beat, just like you are the best drummer in the world. And, YES, you can do the same thing with all your other tracks and have a perfect sounding recording.

Sequencing

Computer sequencing is also a very good tool for composing. You can record a basic chord progression into your sequencer and then record a melody line over top experimenting with different melody lines etc. You can also change the chord progression if you like as you go along experimenting and coming up with the best one that suits your current composition. This is not meant to be a complete course on recording with MIDI, but is included simply to get you acquainted with it's potential as a powerful aid to composing music. Once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to understand and to use.

Many programs available

The Computer Sequencing programs I personally use are Cakewalk, Power Tracks, and Band In The Box. There are many more programs available commercially, at prices ranging from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, depending on all their bells and whistles. You will probably not find these programs in your friendly neighborhood computer store, but you will find them in most music stores, and shops that cater to musicians. If you do not own a MIDI keyboard and/or soundcard for you computer but are interested in checking out these wonderful gadgets, there are many to choose from at all price ranges. Check your local music store, there are usually very knowledgeable staff there to help you with all your questions, and to demonstrate all the latest musical techno toys.

Lyric Writing

For talented lyricists who learn how to successfully market their songs, there are good opportunities in today's music business. Every great song needs a great lyric. Every Elton John needs a Bernie Taupin. Every Andrew Lloyd Webber needs a Tim Rice. Memorable songs require well-written song lyrics. Therefore the music business will always need talented new lyricists and song poets. To illustrate this, check the songwriting credits of hit songs recorded in Nashville these days. Rarely will you see just one songwriter credited under the song title. More often you'll find at least two songwriters listed. That's because each songwriter brings different, complimentary strengths to the songwriting process. Some are stronger composing music. Some are stronger writing lyrics. Sometimes it's simply a case of "two heads are better than one" in the creative songwriting process. Sometimes songwriting partners work together on both the song  lyrics and music.

Opportunities for Song Lyricists:

Songwriters Resource Network encourages song lyricists and poets to take their work to the highest level. That's why we offer current and informative articles on all aspects of song and lyric writing. For a complete list of articles, song lyric contests and events related to Lyric Writing. If you're an ambitious song lyricist and song poet, you'll probably want to start thinking about teaming with a music composer. That's because song publishers rarely consider "Lyric Only" submissions. It's difficult to judge the potential of a song based on only the poetry and lyrics. Song publishers want to hear complete songs - both lyrics and the music. Lyricists working with music composers have one big advantage: they can join forces to create song demos. An impressive demo can be used to attract the interest of song publishers, music producers and recording artists.

Helpfull tip

Song lyricists seeking music composers can find contacts using the Songwriters Resource Network Songwriter Billboards. You can respond to those that interest you. Or post a free ad of your own. Featured Event: Amateur lyricists are now welcome to enter the Lyric Writing category of the Great American Song Contest where songwriters will have their songs critiqued by music-industry pros and get the chance to win great Prizes & Awards. There's an excellent new online resource for song lyricists! SongLyricist.com offers tips and opportunities for lyricists learning the art and craft of lyric writing. They offer many educational articles by music-industry pros on how to market song lyrics and succeed in the music business.

How to write song lyrics

There’s something magical about good song lyrics. They’re relatable, or poignant, or they just really make you feel a certain way. We all know great lyrics when we hear them, but what exactly makes them so great? How do you write your own song lyrics that convey your message and help people connect with your music? In this article, we break down the songwriting process step-by-step, from getting inspiration to crafting the perfect lyrics to pairing your lyrics with music. Once you know the basics, you'll be ready to write a song whenever inspiration strikes. 

Common Structures

1. Start with the AABA structure. The AABA structure is probably the most common structure of a song in modern popular music. In the study of song structures, A usually signifies a verse and B usually signifies a chorus. In other words, in this structure there's a first verse, second verse, chorus, and then a final verse. Experiment with this basic structure for lyric writing before moving on to more complex ones.

2. Understand the parts of a song. There are several parts of a song. Your song can include all of them or none of them. It really all depends on you. There are standard layouts of these parts that are used in most songs, however, so in order to understand how most songs sound, you'll need to understand the parts. They include :

• An Introduction - this is the section at the beginning which leads into the song. Sometimes it might sound different from the rest of the song, might be faster or slower, or it might not exist at all. Many songs do not have an introduction, so don't feel like you have to use it.
• A Verse - This is the main part of the song. It is usually fifty percent to twice the number of lines as the chorus but it does not have to be. What gives away a section of a song as a verse is that the melody is the same but the lyrics are different between the different verses.
• A Chorus - The chorus is the part of the song that repeats without changing: both the lyrics and melody are unchanged or nearly unchanged. This is usually where you try to fit the catchiest part of your song (usually called the hook).
• A Bridge - The bridge is a part that exists in some songs but not all. Usually coming sometime after the second chorus, the bridge is a part of the song that sounds completely different than the rest of the song. It is usually short, just a line or two of lyrics, and will sometimes lead into a key change.

3. Experiment with other structures as you get better at lyric writing. There are of course, many different standard song structures. You can try AABB, ABA, AAAA, ABCBA, ABABCB, ABACABA, and so on.

• C usually signifies a bridge, other letters that you see cited elsewhere likely just mean that that section of the song is none of the traditional parts and is unique to itself (sort of like taking a verse from a different song and putting it in).

4. Try free form songs. Of course, if you want to challenge your skills, you can try to write something that breaks from traditional forms and does not follow a standard structure. You might try this if you want to take a different approach to lyric writing. This can be very challenging though and is not the best way to get started.

Getting Inspiration

1. Use stream of consciousness exercises. Stream of consciousness writing is where you just write and keep writing and don't stop: just write everything that comes into your head. This will capture many ideas that change quickly but it can help you find ideas when you're really lost. 

• Do your exercises every day to help you brainstorm. In time, this may help you write better lyrics.

2. Look at existing songs. Look at popular songs which are known for great lyrics to get inspiration. Additionally, study your favorite songs and consider why you like them. You can learn a lot from thinking about what makes a song good vs what makes a song bad. Look for the kinds of things they talk about, how they talk about them, what rhymes they use, the rhythm of the lyrics, etc.

• What you consider to be a good song might differ from someone else's preferences. Focus more on what you like because that's what's important.
• For practice, you might try writing different lyrics for a song you like. You might change a few lines or create a totally new version.

3. Follow your own opinions in deciding what to write. Decide what type of music you want to write, and figure out what types of lyrics you like and dislike. It's really up to you what kind of music you want to write. You, whether you believe it or not, are a growing artist, and as an artist, you can use your own path and formulate your own opinions of various fellow artists and their work. So, if you want to write something similar to rocker Avril Lavigne rather than classic Frank Sinatra, don't let someone tell you you can't write how you want to.

• If you're not sure what kind of music you want to write, give your favorite songs a listen and look for similarities.
• Find the song writers who penned your favorite songs. Then, check out their body of work to look for trends and to evaluate their style.

4. Look at existing poems. If you're hard up for inspiration but you want to keep practicing your song writing, try adapting existing poems. Older poems (think Lord Byron or Robert Burns) have wonderful ideas but might not seem all that modern. Take on the challenge and adapt them. Can you make a rap song out of Shakespeare? A folk song from E. E. Cummings ? This type of challenge will improve your skills and give you a great starting point.

5. Be true to your style. Don't feel pressured to write songs like someone else because everyone has a different style. It's totally okay to take a different approach to song writing! Some write freely from their mind's eye, while others write with a specific intention. While there are lots of rules and conventions to music, at the end of the day it is a creative venture, which means that the most important thing is that it expresses you.

• Songwriting is an art-form, so it's good to develop your own style. Don't feel like you need to do what everyone else is doing.

6. Keep writing to get to the good stuff. Get a journal and be ready to write down a lot of stuff that won't work in order to get to the stuff that does. This is how the creative process works: everyone has to make bad things on the way to making good things. Write as much as you can until you feel it is finished or ready to be set aside. To even write a single word or sound is an excellent start. Let the song ferment. The songwriting process takes time!

• Lyric writing may go through stages. Don't worry if what you're putting down on paper doesn't look like a song at first. You'll be able to shape it later.
• Keep everything. If you write a single sentence of a song down, it always leads to something else sooner.
• It's okay if your songs aren't very good at first. You can always revise them to write better lyrics.

7. Write all the time. You should always start by just writing. Write about your feelings. Write about the world around you. Describe a person or a thing that matters to you. This is to help you find the words most worthy of a song. The poetry on which your song will be built (whether it's an actual poem or just a few phrases that you want to cobble together into something better). Remember: it doesn't have to always be depressing or angry. Or even have an emotion. A laundry list could be poetic if done right.

• Journal entries can be a big inspiration for a song. For instance, when you're going through hard times, you might write song lyrics that encapsulate your frustration, despair or hope. This will help your listeners relate to you.
• You're probably going to get writer's block, as it happens to everyone. The best way to get past writer's block is to just get words down on paper. Don't worry if they're good or not.

Keeping Music in Mind

1. Understand music notation. You probably remember hearing about the conservation of matter in your science classes (the idea that nothing is destroyed completely). Well, the same rule generally applies to music. Learn about how music notation works (bars, measures, notes, rests, etc.) so that you can make sure your lyrics fit in with the music. The short version of the advice is that you should make sure your lines have roughly even syllables and that your rhythm stays steady (don't speed up too much to fit in extra words).

• Think of a section of music as being like four cups of water. Now, you can pour half of one of the cups into a fifth cup, but that now means that you have two half-full cups. The first doesn't get any more water in it. You similarly can't add extra beats without making it up somewhere (usually with a pause).

2. Start with a melody already written. When you first start songwriting, if you're doing it on your own it's best to start with a melody already written. This is easier for most people than trying to create a melody which matches existing lyrics. You can write your own melody, work with a musically gifted friend, or you can adapt a classical melody, such as from old folk songs (just be sure to use songs in the public domain).

3. Stay in a range of about 2 octaves. Not everyone has Mariah Carey's vocal range. When you come up with a melody, keep the notes within a reasonable range so that someone can actually sing it, so avoid anything above 2 octaves, unless you know the person you're writing for can sing those notes.

• If you're writing the song for yourself, you'll need to find your own vocal range. First, warm up your voice, then hum and drop your voice down as low as you can go. The lowest you can go while still humming clearly is the bottom of the range. Then, go as high as you can go. Wherever you can hold a note for 3 seconds, that's the top of your range.
• If you'd like to improve your vocal range, repeat this exercise, but try to stretch your voice a little further each time you do so.

4. Add in parts for the singer to take a breath. Singers are human too and they need to breathe. Put an extra two to four beats here and there that allow the singer to stop for a second to catch their breath. This also gives the listener a chance to take in what you are saying.

• A good example of this is the USA's national anthem, after the line "For the land of the free". There is a pause before "And the home of the brave", which allows the singer to recover from the very powerful previous few bars.

Finding Your Words

1. Show, don't tell. "I'm so sad, I just feel bad, my girlfriend left me today..."....No. Don't do this. This is a fast way to make your song forgettable. The best lyrics, like any good writing, get us to feel emotions because they capture that experience, not because they tell us what to feel. Try to write about what it's like to feel something, instead of just telling your audience.

• A good example of an alternative to this "I'm so sad" thing is from Damien Rice's song The Animals Were Gone: "At night I dream without you, and hope I don't wake up; 'Cause waking up without you is like drinking from an empty cup".
• Brainstorm some ideas so you can see what you have and choose or even build off of an existing idea. It is probably best if you have an inspiration.

2. Rhyme within reason. You know when you see a song written by someone who isn't very good and the lyrics just come off as cheesy? This is often because they rhyme too much or very badly. You should avoid having all of your lines rhyme, and the rhymes that you do use should look natural. Don't put weird phrases or words into your lyrics just to get a rhyme. Really, your lyrics don't have to rhyme at all. Plenty of songs have non-rhyming lyrics.

• Good: "You make me feel real again/You just have to smile and I know/The sun's coming out - Amen!"
• Bad: "I really love my cat/My cat is where it's at/Her tail looks like a bat/She's getting kind of fat..."
• Of course, there are some genre considerations. Rap often has far more rhyming than other genres, but even then it's not required. It's just stylistic.

3. Try non-standard rhyme schemes. If you do want to make your rhyming stand out a bit more and avoid sounding cheesy, you can experiment with different styles of rhyming. Did you know that there's more ways to rhyme than just what you learned in school? Explore assonance/consonance rhymes, pararhyme, alliteration, forced rhymes, etc.

• For example, Macklemore's Same Love uses many examples of assonance rhymes and other non-standard rhymes: lately/daily, anointed/poisoned, important/support it, etc.

4. Avoid cliches. You want to avoid cliches because these keep your songs from standing out and don't show off your unique talent. If you have someone down on their knees (especially if they're begging please), someone is walking down the street (either it's a girl or it's you, either way, it's been done), or you just have to ask "why can't you see", you probably need to go back to the drawing board.

Wrapping Up

1. Read what you wrote. What is the bigger picture? Does the song form a narrative, a declaration, or a description? Is it a call to action, a set of directions, or a greeting ? Is it philosophy or a reflection? Is it genuinely nonsensical ? Does it have multiple forms ? Start moving around words and changing them so they fit in with the rest of the lyrics. Think about how you want to come across and how that balances with what you want to say. Do you like the placement of the vowel and consonant sounds ? Does a line have multiple meanings ? Does a particular phrase stand out ? Do you want to repeat a line or word ? Remember, the first time an audience hears a song, they only hear the parts that stand out the most.

2. Rewrite. Who says you can't change what you have written? If you like the original, then keep it. But most lyricists need to play with the song a bit to get that perfect sound. A good song can be written in one draft, but more often it takes a while. Even move around entire verses so the song has continuity. Sometimes, a song takes on a whole new meaning.

• Try to write a great first line to hook the listener.
• Revising your song is the best way to write better lyrics.

3. Consult with others. Once you're done with your song, it can be a really good idea to share a test version with others. Even if they're just reading your lyrics, they may be able to find places where the rhythm is off or where the rhymes sound strange. Of course, music by committee is a bad idea but if they catch something and you agree it's wrong, fix it !

4. Do something with your song ! We make the world a better place when we share the things that we create. It's okay to be shy and just because you wrote a song doesn't mean that you have to go out and do a concert. But you should write it down or record it in such a way that you can share it with others. Don't hide your incredible work !

Getting Extra Help

1. Learn how to write the music. If you've written your lyrics but you've never written a song before, you might want to get some help learning how to compose a song. It is not actually all that different from writing lyrics. There are also standards and guides that you can use as a basis to work from.

• With practice, you may be able to teach yourself how to play a musical instrument. However, you might prefer to take classes. This will make it easier to learn proper techniques and concepts like chord progression.
• Learning to write music will help you write a whole song rather than just writing song lyrics.

2. Learn to read music. Although it isn't strictly necessary, having a basic understanding for how music works will significantly increase your ability to write good songs. You might even be able to write them down for others to play !

3. Improve your singing. Being a better singer will be help you figure out what notes you're looking for when writing your music. Work on your vocal skills and you'll be surprised how much it can help.

4. Gain basic instrument skills. Knowing some basics about how to play standard instruments can help a lot with songwriting. Consider learning how to play the piano or how to play the guitar. Both can be self-taught and are not too complicated.

5. Create a melody to match the lyrics. Try creating an original melody on the guitar. Also try singing along with the guitar while creating the melody. Finally, add keyboard,percussion and bass to the music to make your song even better.

* Article 2016, updating 2023, be continued !

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