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Quick, easy-to-use songwriting tips that will help you express emotion, add a contemporary feel, and connect with listeners.
Read the 30-Minute Songwriting Session technique I showed you in the previous post to get familiar with this quick, effective approach to writing songs.
Set your timer for 30 minutes, and then follow these ideas for a series of writing workouts that will get your next song started and well on its way to being finished.
Have you ever started reading a novel or watching a movie and instantly found the characters so intriguing that you couldn’t stop? While we wouldn’t dream of reading a novel that didn’t have interesting characters in it, we don’t often think about the characters in our songs. Yet a character is often the first thing that a listener reacts to. Do they like your characters? Identify with a character? If so, they’ll stick around and listen to your song, maybe more than once.
So let’s take a deeper look at how you can create characters that capture the listener’s interest.
Everyone knows what we mean when we say “Practice makes perfect,” whether it’s whacking a golf ball over and over, repeating those dance steps until you can do them in your sleep, or playing the same riff on guitar till it’s smooth as silk. We know things will improve with enough repetition because we can see the results.
But how do you practice songwriting? You can practice piano or guitar to improve your playing, which is good, but it’s not songwriting. You can improve your singing with practice so you can hit notes with confidence, character, and emotion. And that’s really useful, but it’s not songwriting either.
You need to practice writing lyrics that move listeners. You need a workout that strengthens your melodies and provides more choices when writing. Where do you find the repeatable exercises that help you get better at those things?
Answer: By breaking it all down into manageable bits and focusing on areas where you’re having difficulty. So, let’s do it.
Here’s a list of hugely successful holiday songs. Every one has something offer to today’s songwriters as examples of great song craft. I’ve included links to YouTube where you can hear each song along with a short note on songwriting techniques to listen for—structure, lyric imagery/action words, melody style, and production.
I recently got this question from a songwriter who’s just starting out.
Q: Is it okay if my song is a string of verses, with no chorus or bridge? It’s short, too. Can it still be a good song?
A: If a song is a series of verses, it’s in a form that’s been successful for hundreds of years—the folk song form. You can certainly write good songs in that style. These songs often feature a storyline, such as a lost lover, a historical event, or travel to a distant land, but they don’t have to. Good examples of the folk song form are “Scarborough Fair,” “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” and recently Passenger’s “Let Her Go.”
