If you’re a longtime music fan who just somewhat recently
realized your dream of created, you may have wondered, what it takes to write a
good song. The bedrock of a good song is the composition, or ‘songwriting’ to
be less pretentious about it. It’s easy to forget, but for centuries, the only
way to hear a song on demand was by owning the sheet music and playing it your
self. When you think about it this way, it’s clear just how important the
songwriting process as. And just like anything else in life that’s important,
it’s usually a struggle.
One of the keys to composing a song you’ll be proud of is to
really think it through. This includes putting yourself in the right frame of
mind before hand by taking a walk for example. It might also include figuring
out the structure beforehand, but this may not be for everyone, all the time.
Perhaps most importantly, don’t give up on your ideas too easily. Play around
with them for a while, try different melodies, try synonyms, different rhyme
schemes. You never know what could come out of it. This is true unless you find
yourself writing about a girl named “Peggy Sue” or opening with something like
“How many roads must a man walk down…”. In those cases you want to give up as
fast as possible. Especially you’re prone to writing about blackbirds or a
day that came very slightly earlier on your time line (…yesterday, for
example). Paul McCartney’s lawyers are everywhere.
Other good tips are to ask other songwriters you know for
advice. If you don’t know any or maybe you’re too embarrassed, just listen
closely to your favorite songs and try to identify what you really like about
them. If nothing seems to be working at all, try writing in a completely
different style from what your used to/aspire to. You may just be a proverbial ‘ugly
duckling’ trying to write Jim Morrison songs in a Bruce Springsteen world. The
bottom line is: try everything, try often. To read more, click the link below.
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