Songwriting - Tips

Writing songs.

There are countless ways to go about writing songs and everyone needs to find their own way of working. I will offer some tips on how to get the ball rolling and the tunes coming.

1) Get a book. Try to keep it on you at all times. You never know when inspiration for a song idea or a lyric will hit you and you want to write it down so you can use it later.

2) Write something everyday. Anything. Work on an old idea. Rhyme the same line a million times. Write down something that happened to you that day, a dream you had, a conversation with somebody. Anything at all because this will get you into the habit of writing and rhyming.

3) Know your style. Figure out your style of playing and listen to singers that you want to imitate. Dissect their melodies and what make them so catchy to listen to.

4) If you haven't already, start humming or singing along to riffs you wrote. This is the main reason I suggested trying singing when you started playing because if you want to write songs, you will have to sing your own material. If not in front of an audience, than at least to a band member who would sing it for you.

5) There are many parts to a song. Intro,Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Coda and most importantly the Hook. The hook can be anywhere and there can be multiple hooks in a song, but the most prominent hook is in the chorus of a song.

6) If you know somebody with recording equipment, than go to their house and record your ideas. This is not your final product. Listen to them and see what you can make better. Figure out what transitions or lines aren't working. This allows you to devote your undivided attention as a listener rather than listening to yourself while your playing.

7) Simplicity. It is easy to get carried away with songs especially when you are starting off. Not every song can have a 5 minute guitar solo and 3 minute drum solo. Most of the time, keeping some ideas simple and restrained will make them work better. So try it out, if you don't like it, you can change it because it your song.

8) Don't under-rate the importance of your song's title for it's the soul of your song, telling your audience what your composition is about. Make it catchy, appealing, and easy to remember.

9) Avoid overuse of cliches. Instead, what I usually do is take well-known phrases and change them around to use them for my own meaning.

10) Put yourself into the songs. Use your own life experiences as inspiration for your songs. It's always better to write about something you personally know about because the feelings will be more real.

And last but not least.....

.....Steal ideas from your favorite artists and change them into your own. One of my favorite quotes is, "good artist imitate, great artists steal."


Hope these can help you get your ideas flowing. Check out some songwriting books from the library or go buy some. Also, remember to use the internet to its fullest and search for more songwriting tips.