Category: LYRICS & MUSIC

Quick, easy-to-use songwriting tips that will help you express emotion, add a contemporary feel, and connect with listeners.

Do Your Songs All Sound the Same?

by Robin Frederick

Q & A

Q: I have one big problem and I’m wondering if you can help.  I have written over 160 songs. My words, melody, and my voice all seem to sound the same.  What am I doing wrong?

A: If you have a “signature sound”—your songs have a recognizable style and sound—there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. To my ears, many of Jackson Browne’s songs sound very similar in terms of music and vocals, and he’s certainly successful. He relies on powerful lyrics to tell unique stories filled with emotion and character. Vocals and music are secondary, while the lyrics hold the listener’s attention.

So, the real question is, do listeners respond to your songs and your sound the way you want them to? If you feel you’re not reaching them, then it’s a matter of upping your skills in one or more areas to make your songs more original. 

Continue reading Do Your Songs All Sound the Same?

How Is a Lyric Like a Movie Script?

Desmond Child, producer and hit songwriter

Desmond Child, hit songwriter and music producer, put it this way: “The lyric is the script, and you can’t shoot a movie without a script. The score is actually the last part that comes into a movie, in the same way that the music on a record should help bring out the meaning of the lyrics.”

I love Desmond Child’s comparison of a lyric to a movie script. While music truly does have the power to move us emotionally, it’s the lyric that draws us into the song, paints a picture in the mind, makes us identify with the singer or with the people in a situation.

Not the same old story

Like a good movie script, a song has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And a lyric, like a movie script, tells more than just the facts of a story—I met you on Monday, we fell in love on Tuesday; broke up on Wednesday, etc. This doesn’t really work well for today’s listeners – and it’s not enough for movie-goers either.

Continue reading How Is a Lyric Like a Movie Script?

Write Your Song in a Genre

Most of the time when you start writing a song, you’re thinking about what you’re feeling and what you want to say. Good! That’s the best way to approach your songwriting. But it’s also a good idea to keep a little corner of your brain focused on the song genre you want to aim for. Knowing your song’s genre right from the start, will make it much easier to find an audience for it down the road, and possibly a music publisher or record label.

Continue reading Write Your Song in a Genre

POLL: What’s the Hardest Part of Songwriting?

Are there songwriting tasks you find frustrating? Do you dread doing lyrics? Are melodies a miserable muddle? You’re not alone. Everyone has their songwriting trouble spots. I certainly have mine. So, I decided to take a poll on my Facebook page to find the biggest bugaboos. I got 180 responses which, I think, gives a fairly good idea of what songwriters are thinking.

The question was “What do you think is the hardest part of songwriting?” I started out with just four categories —Lyrics, Melody, Chords, and Song Structure—the usual suspects. I asked people to vote for the ones that were hardest for them and I invited them to add their own categories which they promptly did! They added challenges like getting started, writing contemporary songs, writing in a genre, and more. They’ll get no argument from me. These are all difficult aspects of songwriting and I’m always looking for ways to make them easier. So here are the results of my unofficial poll.

Continue reading POLL: What’s the Hardest Part of Songwriting?

Which Genre Is the Right One?

Q & A

I got a question recently from a songwriter who is torn between two very different song genres —Pop and Contemporary Folk. He loves both and sees the strengths in both. But because he can’t decide which to focus on, he’s having trouble getting started and working on a song. Which style is it going to be?

Which genre am I writing in?

The whole question of choosing a song genre can be frustrating, especially if you’re drawn to a couple of the big ones – like Pop and Folk. Every style—from Pop, Country, and Rock to R&B, Folk, and Blues—has a different approach to melody, lyrics, and production. Veering between two styles within a single song can be a disaster. And working on a Pop song while wondering if maybe it should be a Folk song can distract you from the things you should be focusing on.

Targeting a song genre helps you build an audience and gives you an edge when it comes time to market your song to the music industry. It’s an important issue and one that every serious songwriter has to confront sooner or later. So, what do you do? How do you choose? Here are some ideas that might help.

Continue reading Which Genre Is the Right One?