A New Product for Future Songwriters

Hi songwriters,

You are stressed out. You've been staring at the paper for hours and you can't get past the first hook or the first chorus. How do you do it? Scratching your head, you walk away from your desk with no answers. Later, you end up throwing what would have been a great song in the trash. How discouraging would it be to know that the song you threw away was to be a hit, if you just had the knowledge to finish and the inspiration to continue it!

Well, I'm here to tell you that there is help! "Masters of Songwriting" helped me overcome this similar challenge. It helped me see the basics of song structure, the contents of what a hook actually is and how today's big names in the business use these tools to create songs that change the landscape of popular music.

It is even an honor to read the book of someone who has been close to so many of the greater acts in popular music. He has seen the songwriting magic that these artists have been able to manifest and create.

Breaking down the essentials from formation of verse and chorus to find inspiration to get a lyrical story started. This book also gives you the ins and outs of copyrighting your music professionally, as well as how to present infringement cases and how to make deals with copyists to print the music that you write if you don't write it out as sheet music yourself.

The free gifts are also fabulous, giving you connections to inspirational music recordings, multi-level song courses to take at your own pace and help you improve your skills a little at a time.

If you follow the proven patterns that the author goes through, you will begin to see dramatic results. Try it here for yourself!

How to Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less Snippet 4!

Here is snippet number four for "How To Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less."

Think In Sound And Color

If you are into naturally getting rhymes into your head fast, turn your mind into a sound thesaurus full of words that have the same vowel sound from one word to another. Try the following method. Put a minimalistic piece of music that only has one note into your earphones. Plug it in and listen to that music. Then, while you are listening intently to this, think about words that could be used in songs. Think of rhymes like time, slime, crime, sublime, prime, etc. Sing these words over and over again for at least 30 seconds. Repeat this with another minimalistic piece in a different key. On this piece, think (for example) words that have the same "ah" sound. For example, in the key of D, say you think of the words on, paw, lawn, spawn, pawn. Repeat this on many different keys with different rhyming vowel sounds. Put all the words you come up with on a piece of paper. Then, when you are coming up with each lyric line, try to fit at least two words from each list for every line or two. Before you know it, your song will be ringing with catchy rhymes that are sure to make for future top 40 hits.

Here is one way that you could break this process down:

You start by taking the chords of your song which are playing in the back of your head a lot of times before you finalize them. It is good to sketch the chord arrangement on a piece of paper or in a manuscript on the computer or in a book in order to find the note that you will be using to come up with rhyming words. This is easier than it seems. Play this progression at least twice to get the sound in your brain. Then sing the common note that you find in each chords. In the figure below, the note D is common in all the chords I use below. Hold that note (whatever it is) against all those chords and see what syllables and sounds come to mind. 

Figure  9.1--Songs and chords with no lyrics yet.

Now, take a look at the notes in the top line of the sample. What vowel sounds do you hear in your head? Take a few seconds to listen to what is in your head and in your heart. You could possibly hear what has been put before you below:

9.2: Review of other possible syllables that you could later use to form words.

If the above example seems like it is not simple enough, you could take a minute or two to brainstorm different vowel sounds and lyric combinations until you find a set that works for you. Or, you could completely redo the melody notes that you picked and put different syllables with them as is demonstrated below:

Figure 9.3--Music with syllables that would soon turn into words.

Note that the vowel sounds that you pick should be able to give you words that are at least somewhat linked to the vowel sounds you heard in your head. If you have to tweak things a little, that is fine.

The next minor step is to come up with lyrics that could closely match the vowel sounds you choose.

Figure 9.4 More complex syllable presentation.

This above process will work most often if you write songs with the lyrics as the key focus. If you write songs lyrically before you write the melody, writing the many lists of succinct rhyming words and having them within your writing space as you write will give you a tremendous boost.

On the other hand, if you are already coming up with lyrics, you could feel free to skip this little exercise and continue writing lyrics as you were.

How To Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less Snippet 3

Here is snippet #3 from How to Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less. Feel free to comment if you have questions.

Ways to Write Melody

Writing melody can be done in two ways, by ear or by writing notation for it.

Let's cover the former way first. The former of writing melody involves sitting with your instrument and playing a specific set of notes at your discretion over and over again until you memorize it.

One of the first melodies you will memorize is a riff. A riff is a short, simple melodic phrase that comes at various stages of the song, but is usually the starting point for writing a song. Riffs can start off the introduction to songs, be played in instrumental breaks, or played in the outro of the song. The riff often houses the opening rhythm, pitches and nuances for the basis of the song.

How to Compose an Opening Riff For a Song

This part of the process could be pretty easy. What you have to realize is that most riffs are only based off of one to three note passages or motives that could be spun around in a variety of different ways.

Finding the melody for the riff can come either by playing your instrument or singing. If in a rush to get a song down, many songwriters will choose to record their voice into a tape recorder or digital recorder to preserve melody and basic rhythms of the riff. Or they will record themselves with an instrument doing the melody or with an instrument playing chords under the voice singing the possible riff melody.

Here’s how to start writing riffs to songs.

First, think about the overall chord structure of the song. The chord structure is most likely the first thing you will think of when drafting the song. The melody for the riff would be taken from single notes in any one of the chords that you choose for the song. Take just a few seconds to listen to the chord sequence you have chosen and try to determine what notes will fit best to start the riff.

Second, play or sing a few notes that are in the chords that you have chosen. Play it along with the chords that are in your mind at the time. Do any of the notes you play clash with the chords? Does everything have a good ring to it? Are the notes that you choose consonant? If they are, then you are on your way to finding that perfect riff. I not, keep working at it.

Third, pin a select few notes down on recording or on paper that serve as "goal posts" or boundaries where the riff could be confined. This is so you don't make a riff that is too complicated on the ear. The audience for your song is looking for something that is quick and catchy that draws them in and makes them want to listen to the song in full. Think about when you're in a concert hall and your favorite artist plays a particular song. You'd notice right away that when that opening riff is played, everyone in the audience goes nuts. That is because your first melodic riff is the song's identity. It gives the song away to the audience for instant recognition.

Depending on your specifications for your riff, you could pick goal posts that are five, six or even ten notes in between your first and last notes in a series. In today's pop music world, song riffs are best recognizable when you have a total of about four notes in between the starting and ending (the highest) pitch of your riff.

Fourth, operate within your chosen goal post notes. Don't go outside of the notes that you have chosen. Audiences flock to pitch limits. They don't want to have to think of more notes than what is simple to their ears. People digest simple things with a minimal amount of parts. Take your instrument or voice and sing or play one note at a time. If you’re really stuck, play some consecutive notes in a scale. For instance, take your starting pitch at any note and go up one step at a time. You could start at the pitch of C and go up--( D, E, F, G... up to C). Keep playing until you find a note combination that you like. Take a good look at the sample riffs that are given later in the chapter. (See page.)

Fifth, play through your riff several times to make modifications. Keep playing your simple riff within the goal notes you specified in step three. Make modifications as needed to make your riff sound more appealing. Make sure each tone in the riff you are creating naturally leads to the next note. There can be some skips between notes, but too many skips make the riff sound like it's not unified. Many riffs only go about four or five notes from the starting tone.

Sixth, Record a sample of two or three of the chords in the chord sequence of your song. Play back the sample you've recorded and play parts of your riff along with the playback of your chord sequence. This will tell you whether your riff is in harmony with the chords you chose or if it's clashing with the chords. Make modifications so your riff fits with your chord sequence.

With these steps, you should have the opening riff to your song in a very short amount of time. Remember, keep it simple and straight forward and have the audience in mind.

Examples of possible riffs written out could be:

“Feeling Like A Dream” riff:

Figure 7.5: “Feeling Like a Dream” riff also notated for guitar notes and tabs.

Opening Riff for “No Words”

The instrument could be responsible for the chords and superimposing the melody over them at the same time. For example, if you are a keyboard player, you’ll know what I mean. You can play chords with the left hand and the melody with the right, or vise versa. If you play the guitar, you could also do this, but it may take more effort.

Over a great number of takes, the melody and the chords will find a balance that is right and sweet. It will develop into something that is crisp that fans will love.

In today's world of songwriting, the melodies tend to be simple. There are a lot of melodies that use two and three-note motives that are simple enough to spin a song into existence within 10 minutes.

In the last five years, songs have gotten increasingly simple and repetitive with the motives they use. There are many different types of motifs that many composers use.

The first one is the major-third up motif. This takes any note as a starting base and combines it with a note that is two notes above the base note. On piano, the performer or composer alternates between these two notes as the foundation of chords and melodies. This pattern is what most commercial jingles are made from these days. Just turn on your television and you'll hear this pattern within no time. See the example below.

The next motif is just the reverse. It is the major third down motif. This is where the writer picks a base note and go two notes down from that on a piano or other instrument. The writer or performer alternates between those two notes. See the example below.

These two motifs are the most popular motives of today's jingle and songwriting strategies.

There is also another motif that involves the inverse--the minor third up and down. Start at a home base note and go up two notes from that. On piano, we’re talking about using the white notes only. Take a look at the example below:

Another popular melodic songwriting technique that is used in many pop songs today is the use of the repeated note before changing to another note. In this style, notes are repeated twice or three times before changing to other notes nearby. Those nearby notes are then repeated a number of times before changing to another nearby note. Then, there's a change back to the first note played. See more of an explanation below:

This part could be played by a guitar (usually) or piano. This progression is slimmed down without chords so that you can see the notes that are actually repeated without too much getting in the way.

How To Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less Snippet 2

Here is a Snippet, snippet #2 from my book: How to Write A Song in 30 Minutes or Less.

Come Up With a Main Melody

The first step in the process of writing a melody is to go to your writing space. In this

space, your instrument or instruments are housed. It should be a place that is really

quiet, not distractive and disruptive.

The second step is to go to your favorite instrument and set it up. Set up your recording

software or device.

Start playing chords that come to mind that could possibly go with your idea. Once you

come up with the basic chord structure, pick a melody that could go with the chords.

The chords are the fundamental first building blocks to songwriting especially fast

songwriting.

Pick up a melody that will instantly ring with lyrics. Know your own range or the range of

the singer that you are writing for. The melody demonstrated in the pictures to the side

gives a demonstration.

Pick a Phrase That Lends Well To Lyrics

The first part of writing fast lyrics requires a process of quick rhyming. Thinking of lines

quickly is essential in the thirty-minute writing process, but the art of doing this well

takes some practice. In the first part of this chapter, I hope that I can help you make that

practice a bit easier.

How do you think of fast rhymes? Think back to step one. What was the thing that made

you first have the spark for the time. Say it was a brown coffee table. Look at some of

the things that are physically around the table and try to see if you can rhyme the the

first item and subsequent items.

If this doesn't work, lyrical phrases taken directly from personal experiences do. Maybe

your first phrase or spark makes you think back to a time when you had a flat tire on

your way to a job, your finances were in the toilet and you just learned your girlfriend

walked out on you. It sounds like a pretty desperate situation, but it makes for a great

filler of lyrics for your song. Don't be afraid to pour out frustration, anger, sadness or any

other emotion into the lyrics. Often, when you do.

this, you'll find some interesting lyrical matches that could really stick.

Take the above situation for example. Start with the first line. Your first few lines could

be:

On the way to work,

I just got the word,

My girlfriend left without a note,

She kicked me out of the house,

Got no money for town,

Got no friend's place to go.

Do a similar process with the remaining verses. Then, work on the chorus.

Example Chorus:

Dreaming of a better life,

Ready to stop living a lie,

Not knowing where God is showing

Faith from within,

Wishing of course to party with all my friends,

Wish to go far away

From this hell I'm in.

Come Up With Middle Eight

Once you have your two or three verses, come up with a middle eight which is a 4 to 8

line segment that is different from the verses or choruses. After that, youʼre pretty much

done. Replicate this process with many songs and youʼll see grand success in no time!

Until next time use your musical ears and be inspired

My Experience with In-Studio Recording

Has anyone else had the jitters in the recording studio? I don't know about you, but when I sing in the vocal booth in a studio, I am totally nervous.This article is about my experience with studio recording. This is not just about recording an album because that could be a full book in itself.

My experience in the past has to do with going into the studio one afternoon to record a track for my album, "Over." I go into the first verse of the track and I quiver. Once that record light goes on, my positive and brave expectations are halted. Then, cut! 

The engineer would say, "You got the first two lines and part of the next one. Let's start there…"
Line after line, we would drag through the song. Finally, it's done. After I walk out the door, I shake my head and think, "What was I thinking in there?"

Is it perfectionism?
Is it the willingness to try and get every note right? Possibly, yes.

Is it not having practiced the song enough?
Not, really as I practice the songs thoroughly before going into the sessions. 

Any advice for those struggling out there? 

1. Sing one or two lines at a time and stop. Listen to the takes every one or two lines. If they're good, continue with the next two lines.
2. Don't worry about perfection. Imperfection is beautiful. You could end up coming up with a new rhythm to your words that could fit more with your song.
3. Take a break from working on the song when it's needed. Feel free to walk out if you are feeling pressured. Come back to the studio when you feel you are comfortable again. Making a record takes a number of recording sessions to get right enough to sell. The more time you put in, the more results you get out.

Take a deep breath. Recording an album is art. Art need not be stressful. So, go forth and create. 

How To Write Out Music Part 1

Hey. This blog post is for all of you songwriters and copyists who use a notation program in order to get your song ideas down. This would be an excellent tutorial for all of you ambitious copyists. It shows you how to open up and write down score and parts to make having records of your music easy. Below is a video that gives you most of the instruction on how to get started actually writing  music.

I hope that this video was informative and helpful for you. I am planning on doing a video series for those of you who may be interested. I also have ideas for how to create a lead sheet for your songs in a following blog post.
Until then, happy music making!

Dear Followers,

I am not sure whether I told you this, but I've been running a free promotion of my recent Kindle Book called "How To Write a Song in 30 Minutes or Less" Today is the last day of the free promotion on Kindle Direct Publishing. Feel free to go to http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICZTUR4 to obtain your free copy!

Formation of A Songwriting Idea --Setting Points of Intrigue In Various Ways

• Setting Points of Intrigue

The first thing that is important is to set the tone. You have to set points of intrigue to get your juices flowing. Some songwriters are skilled craftsman enough to just create songs with no impetus. But most songwriters have to have some story, some hitch that will get your juices flowing in some direction.

The first thing that is important is to set the tone. You have to set points of intrigue to get your juices flowing. Some songwriters are skilled craftsman enough to just create songs with no impetus to create. That's okay. If you are able to do that and have a constant of creative juices to get you through, then okay. But most songwriters have to have some story, some hitch that will get your juices flowing in some direction. It could be a particular word, a particular phrase, a particular story or chapter. You could be inspired by an ad or TV show, a movie, or an infomercial. You just need something to draw your music and lyrics from. You have to have a seed or a topic to base your song or songs on.  Many songs have the American idiom in them relating to the wars on terror or the idiom of love lost or gained. Many songs are written from songwriters' own experiences of love lost or gained. Whatever experience drives the impetus for your creativity, use it.

Writing without an impetus to create is going to produce material that weighs less to you. You will end up laughing at yourself as you write stuff that is meaningless. This is what others say. This is what the critics would judge on. But your impetus to create could be as so small like a pinprick or a thought about something attractive or multiple things that come to mind. Feel free to mix and match those things in order to create the environment in which you will write. These images or other things that attract you could create the strong back bone that you need to lift the song from its humble beginnings to being a hit among hits in the business.

One question that may arise is: Is there away to create the impetus for songwriting creativity? The answer to that is there is a way. Turn on the TV. Turn on the radio. Listen to talk shows. Listen to religious programs. Get something in your spirit and your vibe that takes you away, that helps you create the back bones to award-winning songs. Make fun of what your critics say. Let's say someone accused you of something in your past, write a song around it. Trust me, it will get a lot off your chest. The trick is to use creative word choice to dissuade from the fact that it's about the people around you.

-Find Stories to Use for Intrigue

I'll give you some examples in this section of how I am able to use stories as points of intrigue to spark your songwriting. Many artists use stories from the war, stories from their friends, stories of hardship and longing, stories of happiness and blessed times, even stories that are quite nonsensical to put into songs to make them sell.

For example, right now, I am using the horror story about a musician struggling to find his way and work at the local coffee houses. When he is unsuccessful, he's at this other coffee shop and he suffers a massive seizure that prompts immediate medical attention. Throughout the story, I put in sample lyrics that the wounded musician would be singing as the emergency personnel are carrying him out of the lobby of the coffee shop and into a waiting medical response vehicle. One of these songs is called "Driving The Gig." The chorus to the song is a sort of tagline that goes like this: "You can get your drive on all the time/But Lord, you just can't hide/Riding away, I'd ride, Driving the gig."

Now, you may be asking what this part of the song means. It basically means, you can try hard much of the time, but no matter how much you ride, you'd be hoping for the gig to come. Of course, different songwriters would have different meanings and interpretations based on what I've put here. But that's okay. The lyrics don't have to mean anything to people until later on until after the song has been out a while.

Paul Simon uses stories as a way to evoke deep memories of the times and events surrounding the sixties, including the Vietnam War Protests, Civil Rights and other movements. One story he tells has to do with a boxer who has searched high and low fighting for a cause that he thinks is pointless but continuing to search for salvation. It has become one of the biggest and best selling songs on his album Bridge Over Troubled Water.

To break the song down, Simon starts by talking about how the supposed boxer is a poor boy who is promised a pocket full of mumbles such as promises. What are these mumbles that Simon talks about? This is just my opinion, but the mumbles were the riches that were promises of better things to come. The main character is forced to roll with life's punches and suffice with what little he is given. He goes on living his life traveling from train to train, getting what little he can get for his more than modest efforts to look for work. Hence "Asking only workman's wages, I come looking for a job, but I get no offers, Just a come on from the whores on Seventh avenue.

I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome, I took some comfort there."

Bridge Over Troubled Water by fortune of a different design was used as a message of calming embrace as if to say, "I will lay down my life, my insecurities for your comfort. Hence, the line in the chorus, "I will lay me down." The opening lines "When you're weary, feeling small. When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all" are a set up to this magnetic chorus that explodes from the speakers of any venue playing the song as a message addressing the weary and dragging crowd.

In the song's line, "If you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind," there is the promise of a friend whenever you need a comforting soul to make it through a hard or lonely day or night. "Bridge" makes the use of saving production for the last verses. This is known as the kitchen sink production. Every surging depth of instrumentation is on hold until the very last verse. This signifies the climax of the song. Everything in the verse up to the final reprise of "Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind!" is expertly written and executed in the recording as an anthem to heal a nation suffering through a decade filled with tragedy.

Other songs are laced with humorous longing as in "Why Don't You Write Me?" and "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright "and a slim chance tale of going across the county line driving who knows what in "Keep The Customer Satisfied." Much of the songs composed on this album have a two verse or three verse system with or without a bridge and instrumental break. The three verse song is mostly a traditional staple used by most artists before and since the making of Bridge.

A lot of songs written by Simon in the sixties had short times just over two minutes, some just over one. But it was also with Bookends and this album that Simon began to experiment with longer timed songs that had more involved stories in the lyrics. Many artists since this album in the history of pop and rock have done the "extended version" or "extended outro" device that became popular on many of the rock albums beginning in the mid-1970's where the guitarists and other featured instruments would do outrageous solos and orchestrations in order to sell the album and the record if it wound up on the radio.

"Hotel California" is a particular song that had this trademark. The solo that would be the one of the hour here would be the two guitars' riff played by Don Felder and Joe Walsh. They trade off in intervals of thirds doing arpeggios (in it happens to be B minor) up and down the scale. Chicago featured the extended outro in the brass arrangements that ended many of their hits.

While we're on the subject of using stories as a point of intrigue, there is also a possibility of songwriting based on poems that have already been written that may or may not have been intended to be songs. In 2003, Art Garfunkel made a comeback album called Everything Waits to be Noticed where his collaborators Buddy Maddock and Mia Sharp helped transform poems from Garfunkel's 1989 book Still Water to pass for grand hits like "The Kid," "Bounce," and "Perfect Moment." When you take a poem to put it to a song, it can be achieved in two ways: You can either leave the original poem in its entirety and put memorable melodies to it, as Garfunkel originally tried to do or you can do what his two collaborators did and transform it into a song by summarizing various lines of the poem and then adding other filler lines that are more musical.

Take this video for example: 

It also important to take from any other experiences that you experience or use words that you either write or find to help you write the song of your dreams. The next blog post will go into the emotions that start songs and other music.

Elements of Songwriting--Part of How to Write A Song in 30 Minutes or Less

One of the first things that you have to have at your disposal are the elements of a song. Those elements are what a huge part of this blog post's content is about. These are broken up into five different elements.

Melody

The first one is called melody. This is probably the most important element in the songwriting process. In today's music most melodies are written in the aural tradition. Some people may pay a copyist to write the melody as it is played by the original writer.

Many melodies that are written and played today are simple, two to five note melodies that are easily hummable by the general public. 

Many melodies bounce back and forth between two or three notes, thus repeating them many times. A key word for melodies these days is repetition. You want something that stays in people's ears. You want something that gets their attention. These days melodic repetition is the way to do it.

Chords

Chords are perhaps the foundations of all music. They give the song structure and voicing so that melody can arise. Harmony is another term for this. You build chords or harmony by stacking one note on top of another, ensuring that each note is a third apart. A third is a musical interval that measures the distance between two notes that are two notes apart from each other on the keyboard. Think of the tone of the third as a very sweet sounding combination when paired together. These are your building blocks for melody. When you strum a guitar or play a piano or play any other instrument, among the first things you play are chords. These are the building blocks of the songwriting process.

Rhythm

Rhythm is another central part of the songwriting process in that it is the element that moves the song through verse, chorus and bridges. It is the part of a song that isn't static. In other words, it causes the rest of the song to move in a fashion that is hooked to the listener's ear from beginning to end. It causes people to dance. It is the glue that holds the song together.

Words

Words or lyrics provide the message or messages o the song that make it stand out to people. Whether the song is about a lost relationship, a difficult time in life, or whether it is happy and about partying or about the Lord, the message of the song is just as the music is in getting into people's heads.

Timbre or Quality

What is the quality of the song? What are the timbres of the instruments? Is the combination loud and rowdy or is it soft like a ballad or classical-sounding piece? This is one of the final elements of songwriting that you decide when you first put chords and melody together. Think of it as the expression of the song that also helps the lyrics take on a new tone. Do you want the song to be aggressive, light, happy or otherwise? As the songwriter, you choose how to convey the music and its message.

With these simple definitions, you can start writing songs with power and feeling in no time! For a more in-depth tutorial on songwriting consult my book How to Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less.

Want To Learn A Bit About Lyrics? Read this post!

When writing songs, melody and the music bed usually come first. Most songs, however have a message to convey--something to say. That is where lyrics come in. These are words that you put in the song to make it stand out above the other songs on the market. These words help you write hooks and catch phrases to keep the listeners listening. The goal of this article is to teach you how to come up with those phrases that are oh so infectious to listeners. So, here we go.

The first step to writing good lyrics is to think of a subject that highly interests you. Pick a subject that you can derive a lot of hooks from. What are hooks? They are simply repetitions of catchy phrases. Take for example the samples below:

Dreaming of you,

Sipping that ocean view,

In my cup.

Thinking of you,

Seeing you

In the sun.

There ain't no good lesson

You can't teach,

It's like a true confession,

I need to breech,

Whoa! ho! Ho!

What's that you're doing,

You know what you're doing,

Girl, you drive me wild.

You love like a red rose gun [HOOK]

Shooting my heart with your puns,

Praying at church,

For you love like a red rose gun.

This is just a tiny example of how you can take a subject (in this case, "red rose gun") and turn it into a hook. The hook can, as it is in this case, act as the subject of an entire chorus:

You love like a red rose gun [HOOK]

Shooting my heart with your puns,

There is another type of hook that is used more commonly in pop music today. It is just a simple, provocative bunch of words that get people's attention. The artist uses that knowledge to bang the listener over the head by repeating that one phrase over and over. Another example is below:

Shooting blanks,

Shooting blanks,

No giving thanks,

Shooting blanks.

Notice how often the phrase "shooting blanks" is mentioned within the chorus. It is meant to be there to keep the listeners listening--to keep them dancing. As you keep practicing writing lyrics, over time, you will be able to create better hooks that would make instant hits on the radio.

Next, let's go over how to distinguish between genuine lyrics and pure poetry. Yes, they are two different things. I used to think that any poetic writing could be twisted and turned into lyrics but the book The Art of Writing Lyrics proved me wrong. It is best to avoid having language that is very flowery or have a distorted cadence. It is best to have short, sweet, sloganeering phrases.  You want to have phrases with shorter words and a simple cadence that will give itself to rhymes almost automatically. For example, take the following lyrics into consideration:

I need a lover,

Not no money grubber,

I need a lover,

To sooth my mind,

She's gotta have her own car,

To drive me wild,

Let your hair down,

Kiss my smile.

Poetry would read something different. Take something like this for example:

The Elegy of the Broken Rose

By: Cody Weinmannn 

This, yes, you may call it a song

The mere spirit of thee

Though thou isith no more

Than a sad elegy

The strength for music

Envelops the strength for prose

For this is the story

Of the broken rose

It once had shown so beautiful 

And thou prayeth thee to keep me alive

And it did keeping honest truth

And abolishing lies

That could clutter,

Clutter the limitless, blue skies

The rose, the hypnotic goddess of love

Hath thou lavished thee

With a dear prayer from up above

To block away enshrined secrecy

One day, a gray sky

Showers down upon my precious rose and I

Rain as it were swept the rose away

And soon did my days decay

Under the black- and- white- trimmed skies of gray

Not even could Heaven seem aplay

And so the story goes on

Down by the bay,

That the heart of big hopes

Began to crack and spray,

All in a sea of red

Of deepest masquerade 

Did he drown and fade,

His memories no longer were

All that was left was the shattered splotches of rose

Yes, it had come back, though shattered,

Amidst the sea of red masquerade

And next to it lay the bones, weary,

The heart cracked and eerie.

So eerie and exploded in the ruckus of emotion ,

And ruptured bits of its premises,

Are ever constituent to all of the love he had,

For sheer, true, obsessive memories.

© 2006, Cody Weinmann

Disqualification: Poetry vs. Lyrics

As you look at this piece of work, there are elements that immediately disqualify the work as a lyric or set of lyrics. One of those elements is the cadence or rhythm. If you read the poem, the cadence isn't that singable. It's not a uniform cadence all around. The cadence of a lyric is formed by things called syllables. In this piece, one line may have 5 syllables while another one will have 11. It is very oblong. Song lyrics have equal numbers of syllables per line or a typical pattern that is present throughout.

Another disqualifying thing about this piece is there is not an apparent title on this poem. There is a mention of the title of the poem one time throughout the whole poem.  Songs and song lyrics mention the title multiple times, preferably at the end of choruses and in between the bridges of the songs. This piece doesn't emulate that.

Another disqualifying element is the fact there is no established verse-chorus format. It reads like a rambling, free-verse poem. There are no breaks for choruses or verses. There is no uniformity the length of each chunk of poetry going on. Some of them have 5 lines; others have ten or more. It is free verse in its classic form.

The text is also not conversational and quick. Song lyrics require a conversational flow in order for the average listener to stay in tune with the performer. An example of a conversational lyric is this:

Your love is like a rose,

That fills with sweet perfume,

As it grows,

I thought you'd really like to know.

The multiple rhymes alone would give away that this is a lyric, but just read it. Hear how it bounces from line to line. Take a few glances at the cadence. For example, the first line is six syllables. The second line is seven syllables. The third line is only 3 syllables. The final line is eight syllables. Essentially, you have a 6-10-8 or 6-8-10 syllable configuration that makes for a bouncy cadence and gives you a great range of rhythmic possibilities. This is an essential figure of music lyrics. You have to make sure the lyric lines you write influence a rhythm almost right off the bat. Another good format is a 3-6-9 verse pattern. There are many differences between poems and lyrics. If you'd like to read up more on this, read the book "The Art of Writing Lyrics" by Pamela Phillips Oland. It provides writers a distinct formula for writing lyrics so that you could make hits over time.

Process of Writing Lyrics

The process of writing lyrics starts with a music bed. Once you have the basic music bed written, pick a topic that you think is relevant for people today. Love songs usually work for this. Suggestions for topics include:

Love,

Being lost with no opportunity,

money,

God,

Personal stories… The list goes on.

If you are in need of song subjects, you can reference the book 1000 Songwriting Ideas by Lisa Aschmann. There are tons of ideas in this book along with how to execute those ideas.

Once you come up with your idea or subject, form parts of a melody that could give way to sounds. An easy way to do this is go to an instrument (i.e. piano) and play a few notes that are also in the chords in your recorded music bed. Start humming those pitches after playing them a few times. Then experiment with vowels (A,E,I, O U). Sing each syllable on each note to tell which vowels would be a strain for you at certain pitches and which ones are perfect for you. Establish a set of vowels to repeat over and over. Soon, those vowels will turn into words. Take the first words that come to mind and form them into a line. Sing the line over and over until you feel that the lyrics you've written fit your music. After this first line, do subsequent lines that are somewhat related to your song subject and the details of the first line. For example:

Days are bright 

The sky tonight,

Feels so right,

uh huh, it feels so right,

Can't get enough,

Just get enough of you babe.

© 2013. Cody Weinmann.

This is obviously a song about the last days of life and dying, but the rhyme scheme is right. It doesn't have the 3-6-9 or 6-8-10 verse form but the rhyme scheme can make up for that. After the first initial lines, the rest pretty much speaks for itself. Writing a chorus is a similar process but the differences can be making a hook that repeats often throughout the chorus, the mentioning of the title toward the end of the chorus. The reason that there isn't a set format for this is because each song has a different construction depending on the ideas the composer comes up with.

In another article, I can show you how to construct a chorus and what the different types of choruses are. This article is just the beginning portion of how to write a song. It is meant to get you started writing lyrics in no time.

"How To Write A Song In 30 Minutes or Less" is a fast lane intro into the land of songwriting, teaching everything from how to keep an idea flowing from brain to paper, to writing melody and lyrics. A chapter is devoted to each step to give you precise details on what to do and how to do it. There are even two extra chapters devoted to what you should do after writing your masterpiece! If you are a songwriter just starting out, this book has scores of good pointers and advice to get you started. It can be your companion during the process of writing songs quickly and effectively.

The book is to come out within the next 48 hours on Amazon Kindle! If you are interested in learning how to write that first hit song, this book will teach you how! I will be posting content on song and lyric writing and melody writing, so keep posted to this blog for more. I will also get the links for you to buy the book if you wish in the next 3 days.

Until next time, take it easy and happy songwriting!