3 Expert Tips to Write Killer Choruses Instantly
Crafting a memorable chorus can feel intimidating for many songwriters – even the most experienced ones. But what if you knew the formula for writing an amazing chorus? In this post, we’ll unpack three radically practical tips that will help you write a knockout chorus every time.
This article is a summarised transcript of our video “How to Write Great Choruses: 3 Practical Tips That Work!”. Click here to watch the video for more details, explanations and examples.
Tip #1: Find the Title First
This might sound like an obvious tip. However, it’s incredibly common for songwriters to start the songwriting process, whilst telling themselves that they can just decide on a title later. Often, this is due to a misunderstanding about the purpose of a chorus. At its core, a chorus isn’t just the part that repeats – it’s the moment that delivers your song’s central message or peak emotion.
By arming ourselves with this knowledge, we can begin our songwriting process with the goal of finding a title in mind. Once you’ve found your title, you can write the rest of your song so that it leads up to it. A great example of a song which does this is “Reckless Driving” by Lizzy McAlpine.
Throughout the song, we can observe how she uses reckless driving as a metaphor to highlight the conflict which exists within a romantic relationship where two people are approaching it very differently. Only by having the title clearly in her mind could she have written her lyrics with such vivid imagery, and references to her title.
Get our free PDF with writing prompts designed to get to the core of your song here:
Tip #2: Build the Melody Scaffold Around the Title
The concept here is that once you have your title, you don’t need to jump straight into writing your chorus word for word. Instead, figure out the melody of the chorus first. By doing this, you can figure out the melody of your title, and where that melody is going to land in the chorus. You can just use filler lyrics or mumble words to fill in the rest of the shape of the chorus.
After you get the melodic shape of your chorus, you can start to include some rhyme structure. As you do this, you still don’t have to worry about the individual words in each of the lines. We can just come back and fill in the words, whilst knowing the most important things are where the title will land, the melody of the title, and how we’re setting up the title.
In addition, if you’re able to identify the opening and closing line of your chorus, that will help provide structure as well.
Tip #3: Save the Tonic Chord for the Chorus
For those of you who aren’t familiar with music theory, this tip might sound intimidating. Put simply, the tonic chord refers to the home chord of a key. As an example, the tonic chord of D Major would be D Major, the tonic chord of G Major would be G Major, and so on and so forth. As songwriters, it’s important for us to understand this, as it’s information which will allow us to more accurately choose where we use our chords.
Out of all the chords in a key, the tonic is the one which provides listeners the most resolution. Therefore, if we save it for the chorus, we’ll be able to create this incredible release of tension. A song which demonstrates this well is “Someone Like You” by Adele. Her pre-chorus entirely avoids the tonic chord. So, when it finally appears in the chorus, it creates a huge sense of release in the song.
Conclusion: 3 Expert Tips to Write Killer Choruses Instantly
In just 3 steps, you now have a simple yet powerful framework for writing choruses that stick. By following these 3 tips, you’ll never have to worry about your choruses being boring ever again.
Be sure to put them into practice on your next song, and watch how your choruses level up instantly.If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now.
