A common complaint that many songwriters have is that they’re unable to finish their songs. You can easily avoid this by ensuring that you have a clear concept before trying to develop your song idea. In this article, we’ll talk about how having a concept is the first step in the songwriting process.
In the case of songwriting, a concept refers to having a general idea of what you want to write. Famous songwriter Jimmy Webb provides a great example in his book “June Smith”, as follows:
“I want to write a song about someone who goes through acute mood swings from euphoria to emotional exhaustion. I love this person and want to address the song to him.”
A song concept can also just be an interesting angle of approach. For example, “I want to write a love song about a person I want to marry but I’m going to address the song to the person’s father who’s refusing to let me propose.
By establishing your concept, it will help you when you’re writing your song map later on in the last step of the process.
In the meantime, click here to download a free PDF song map template that will help you finish every song you start:
A Song Concept Isn’t a Song Idea
It’s important to note that having a song concept is not the same as having a song idea. In order for a concept to be an idea, you require a title.
To follow up on the previous excerpt from Jimmy Webb’s book “June Smith”, the songwriter said the following:
“If, however, you add the following sentence: ‘I want to call the song Problem Child,’ then you have an ‘idea,’ even though the song may not end up being called ‘Problem Child’”.
Conclusion: Part 1 of The Songwriting Formula – The Concept
It’s important for us to establish our concept during the songwriting process. This allows us to have a solid base upon which to build our song. In addition, it also ensures that we don’t lack a sense of direction in our songwriting.
Do you have folders full of half-finished songs? This is a common problem and you’re definitely not alone. In this article, we’ll go through a songwriting formula I’ve learnt that has allowed me to know whether a song idea will work, and write better songs faster.
This formula is all about finding a writable idea. A writable idea is the combination of a concept, a title and a song map. We’ll go into each of these individual components in the later sections of this article.
For now, click here to download a free PDF song map template that will help you finish every song you start:
When you have these 3 components together, it gives your song structure and a plan. This ensures that you don’t feel as if you’re just groping around in the dark during the songwriting process.
Part 1 – The Concept
In this case, having a concept means having a general idea of what you want to write about. Jimmy Webb provides the following as an example of a song concept in his book “Tune Smith”:
“I want to write a song about someone who goes through acute mood swings from euphoria to emotional exhaustion. I love this person and want to address the song to him.”
It’s important to note that just having a song concept is not enough to make a song idea. In order to have a song idea, you must have a song title.
Part 2 – The Title
Having a song title does two important things. Firstly, it provides your song an anchor – otherwise popularly known as a hook. This is important because coming up with a song idea is all about limiting your options and possibilities. Aside from that, a title also ensures that you have a target for all of your lyrics.
For example, the song “First Times” by Ed Sheeran is a song about him celebrating all of the daily first times he gets with his partner. In the first line of the song, he describes the first time he played Wembley Stadium. This creates contrast to all of the first times he talks about in the song with the love of his life.
A title gives you destination, which in turn gives you direction. That being said, this doesn’t mean that you have to stick with the same title throughout the songwriting process. What’s important is that choosing a title gives you momentum and it’s that momentum that will help push you forward to further develop your song.
Part 3 – The Song Map
A song map is having an idea in your mind about how you could approach this title from at least two different angles, where the meaning and emotion will grow as the verses progress. The concept plus the title need to contain a clear way in which your song idea will develop.
As an example, let’s look at the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Below is the song map we’re able to extract when we examine the lyrics:
Verse 1: How happiness feels
Verse 2: The idea of obstacles to happiness is introduced
This is actually a really useful song map for writing songs to convey a clear mood or emotion – which is very common in film and TV songs. We can even replace the emotion “Happy” with any other emotion to create a different song.
Below are two examples of universal song maps which you could use:
Problem -> Intensification -> Escalation: A great example of a song that uses this song map, is “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” by John Mayer. The concept of this song is “A relationship that is on the brink of collapse”, and the title is “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”. The song starts with the narrator sensing that there’s a problem between the two of them.
This then turns into them starting to pick fights with each other, followed by the two of them trying to hurt each other. We can see from the progression of this song’s story that it clearly follows the song map Problem -> Intensification -> Escalation.
Situation -> Context -> Consequence: For this song map, we tend to start in the present moment. This is followed by us trying to zoom out from the situation to provide some context on the present moment. The final part is where we introduce the consequences of the situation that was introduced. Often, the introduction of the consequences is the emotional heart of the song.
A great example is “The House That Built Me” by Miranda Lambert. In this song, the situation that’s presented is Miranda knocking on her childhood home door. Then, we’re given some context as to why this action matters to her. Lastly, the emotional consequence of leaving her childhood home is made clear in bridge.
Conclusion: An Easy 3-Part Songwriting Formula
Although this songwriting formula is useful, it’s important to remember that by no means is it the be-all-end-all of songwriting. There’s no one right way to write songs. However, knowing this formula will provide you with something to go on when you feel stuck during the songwriting process. This way, you can put an end to unfinished songs for good.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them:
The song “Let It Go” from the Disney musical Frozen is a song that solves an age-old problem that songwriters face: how to repeat something, but make it get more interesting, not less interesting. So, whether you’re into Disney or not, take a moment to read this blog post and learn the crucial songwriting tricks that “Let It Go” uses.
Repetition is a fundamental element of songwriting. Listeners don’t just enjoy hearing something repeated; they need it. It’s the repeating part that draws them in, creating an emotional connection with the song. However, the challenge lies in ensuring that each repetition feels fresh and emotionally resonant rather than becoming stale or predictable.
For example, if you tell the same joke again and again using the same punch line, the joke gets increasingly less funny. Similarly, if each of your verse sections use the same words or imagery, then your song will become less interesting and get less of an emotional reaction.
This is a problem that many songwriters struggle to overcome, and it’s something that “Let It Go” solves very well.
Analysing “Let It Go”
Before we jump into some techniques we could use to overcome this problem, let’s take a look at how “Let It Go” does it.
“Let It Go” is not only the title of the song, but also its hook. In line with that, the phrase is repeated multiple times throughout the song. However, instead of becoming dull, the phrase “Let It Go” means something different each time it’s sung. Below are the different meanings of the hook throughout the song:
Letting Go of Expectations: The first time Elsa sings “Let It Go,” she sheds the weight of other people’s expectations, revealing her true self and powers to the world. She is letting go of the person she’s expected to be.
Letting Go of Limits: In the second instance, she lets go of her own self-imposed limitations on her powers. She’s no longer bound by rules, and she’s eager to explore the extent of her abilities. This shift in meaning helps the emotion grow and gain power, rather than lose it.
Letting Go of Relationships and the Past: Finally, in the third iteration, we understand that Elsa is actually letting go of the past. She is severing her identity and becoming someone new.
Each time Elsa sings the same words, they take on new layers of meaning and emotion, creating a captivating story that resonates with listeners.
Technique #1: Title Strategies
The first technique we can use to create interesting repetition in a song is title strategies. This means that we should try to choose a title that can be re-colored from different angles.
Instead of looking for just any memorable or interesting phrase, look for phrases that could be approached from different angles. We can apply this thinking even as we’re brainstorming for titles by asking ourselves:
Are there at least two angles from which I could approach this title?
Are the two angles able to be related to the core idea of the song, but not take the same approach?
Once we’ve decided that, then we can use the different angles as different parts of our song. For example, take the phrase “No one but me”. We could approach the phrase as follows:
All alone, there’s … “No one but me”
No one has answers…”No one but me”
I don’t need … “No one but me”
The 3 different meanings can all be used as different song sections, which would then serve to further deepen our song’s story.
Another important part about this process is to try and structure your thoughts in the form of a song map.
And to download a free PDF song map template, click here:
Technique #2: Trigger Lines
The second technique involves the use of trigger lines, which are the lines immediately before the repeating chorus. These lines “trigger” the meaning of the chorus into something new with each iteration. They’re called trigger lines because their proximity to the hook or chorus or title of the song triggers its meaning into that repeating thing
To give you a clearer idea of how they’re used, the trigger lines from “Let It Go” have been highlighted in the image below:
One way to use trigger lines is to reverse engineer them. First, ensure that you have your title and a song map. You also need to have a clear idea as to the different ways that you’d like to approach the title. Then, start at the end of a section and work backwards to write your trigger lines.
Sting has previously talked about this in a Sodajerker podcast. In it, he talks about reverse engineering his sections from the titles or from the important lines that he wants to put at the end of sections
Conclusion: Let It Go – A Lesson in Songwriting
Disney’s “Let It Go” demonstrates that the art of repetition in a song is not magic, but the result of carefully crafted technique. As songwriters, we should learn from songs such as these and consciously employ these techniques to create songs that people will listen to over and over again.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now
Level up your songwriting with five radically practical exercises used by professional songwriters around the world:
The importance of studying your heroes is often overlooked by most when learning the art of songwriting. Through this blog post, you will learn why studying your heroes is important, as well as how to use what you’ve learnt from them in your own writing.
Merely learning how to play your favourite songs is a great start to your songwriting journey, but that doesn’t mean you should stop there. You also need to actively pick them apart and observe why the songwriters make the choices that they do. Examples of aspects which are useful to analyse in particular, are chord progressions and melodies.
To illustrate this, let’s have a look at the song “Someone Like You” by Adele.
By observing the chord progression of the song, we can see that she avoids the tonic chord in the pre-chorus of the song. This makes sense, as it’s the job of the pre-chorus to build tension. Through only bringing back the home chord in the chorus, Adele really makes it bloom and stand out.
In addition, if you learnt to sing the song or picked apart its melody, you’ll find that she never sings a note in her verses that’s higher than the first note of the chorus. She does hit a high note later on again in the chorus in order to build it up, but she never allows the melody notes of the verse to go higher than the chorus. This helps build anticipation and really put a spotlight on the chorus.
This active process of taking things apart and putting them back together allows us to grasp the components that make a song unique and memorable.
You can find out more about other exercises to improve your songwriting in the free PDF ebook, “The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics.” Click on the image to download:
Turn Imitation into Emulation
After analysing songs from your heroes, it’s important to graduate from imitation into emulation. This entails not only mimicking the surface aspects of our heroes’ work but also seeking to understand their thinking and perspective. In short, we should not seek to merely look like our heroes, but instead seek to see like our heroes do.
As we embrace their artistic mindset, we begin to cross-pollinate ideas from various songs and generate our own unique artistic voice.
If you’re interested in looking for some specific examples on how we can emulate instead of just imitate, then check out our video entitled ‘6 Ways to Steal Great Chord Progressions’
Conclusion: Study Your Heroes
Becoming a great songwriter is a process that requires lots of determination, hard work and persistence. Studying your heroes is one of the great ways you can improve your songwriting, and ensure you get closer to your vision of your creative aesthetic.
A common struggle among beginner songwriters is the notion that they can only write about experiences that have personally happened to them. Here, we discuss how to walk the fine line between truth and fact when songwriting.
Although they sound similar, the reality is that you can actually convey truth without describing all of the facts. As songwriters, our job is not like that of journalists – we don’t have to write the autobiographical truth of things. Instead, our job is to capture the emotions of moments or situations, and this grants us creative license to bend truth if necessary.
For example, referencing the specific details of a pet’s death may diminish the impact of grief in a song. Instead, focusing on the emotional essence of loss can resonate more powerfully with others who have experienced similar emotions.
How to Balance Truth and Fact
There is no easy answer as to how we should go about balancing truth and fact. However, below are some methods that will help you in excluding the details in moments that might result in diminishing the truth behind them.
Sense Writing
In sense writing, you use all of your senses to try and describe a moment you have in your mind. For example, if you wrote about your pet dying, you could write about things like:
How did it make your heart/ muscles/ lungs/ skin/ fingers feel?
How did your perception of the world change?
How did the light alter?
Through using the details of that day, you’ll be able to create a song that is relatable to anyone who has experienced that kind of loss, while also conveying the truth of what happened.
You can find out more about sense writing and other exercises in the free PDF ebook, “The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics.” Click the image below to download:
Using a Persona
Writing using a character or a persona might sometimes help us in bringing out core truths that we might not be able to express in our autobiographical selves. Examples of famous songwriters who have used this technique are Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Jason Isbell.
A more modern example is the song Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish, as she has previously talked about how the song was written from the perspective of a monster under a bed.
Conclusion: Balancing Truth and Fact
Remember that you shouldn’t be limited to autobiographical facts when writing a song. After all, the old adage “Write what you know” doesn’t just mean “Write the facts you know”. It also means “Write the emotions you know”.
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them.
Clichés are convenient ways to express ourselves but because they’re so well known, they can make our writing sound mundane and unoriginal. That’s why in this blog post, we’ll be going through a technique called replacing, which will help you freshen up those old clichés you might be tempted to default to in your songwriting.
Before we can use this method, we must first identify clichés with a replaceable element. The key is to retain the beginning of the cliche, allowing the listener’s mind to anticipate the expected ending. However, instead of fulfilling that expectation, we replace the expected ending of the cliché with an unexpected one.
For example, when we think of the sentence “They fight like ___”, our mind automatically fills in the blank with “Cats and dogs” to form the cliché “They fight like cats and dogs”. With this method, we replace the phrase “Cats and dogs” with anything else to create an element of surprise.
If you’d like to experiment with this method further, you can download this free PDF eBook entitled “The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics”:
Ways to Replace
Now that you’ve understood the concept of replacing, you can start to experiment with it in different ways. One way is to replace the phrase with something entirely unexpected. For instance, you could take the cliché “Time heals all wounds” and replace it with “Time dances with rainbows.” The unexpected coupling of “time” and “rainbows” not only adds a vivid visual but also infuses the lyric with a touch of whimsy and wonder.
Another way to go about it, is to incorporate wordplay and puns into the cliché.By twisting words in unexpected ways, you’ll create a delightful playfulness to your lyrics. For instance, consider the cliche “The apple of my eye.” By flipping it with “The apple of my sky,” you craft a charming wordplay that brings a smile to the listener’s face.
An Example of Replacing
In the song “Wild” by John Legend, the hook he uses is “I wanna drive you wild, wild, wild”.
Normally, when we think of the phrase “I wanna drive you ___”, our mind automatically fills in the blank with the word “Crazy”. However, John Legend replaces “Crazy” with “Wild” instead. This creates a sense of familiarity in the hook but at the same time makes it stand out, and be memorable for the listener.
Conclusion: Flip Method #1 – Replacing
In short, replacing is an easy method to help pull you away from the dullness of clichés. By maintaining a sense of familiarity with your phrases, but surprising people with something new, you can ensure that your lyrics stick in the minds of your listeners.
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them.
A common pitfall of many songwriters is to try and tackle grand themes from the start. In this blog post, we’ll discuss what that means, how to avoid it and some exercises to help you practice avoiding this mistake.
Let’s first start by tackling what it means when we say “Write small moments, not big themes”.
It’s common for beginner songwriters to feel compelled to write about huge themes like homelessness, climate change, heartbreak, or love. However, approaching songwriting in this way can be overwhelming and put excessive pressure on the song. Often, attempting to fit too much into a song results in a lack of focus or a generic and unrelatable song.
To avoid these pitfalls, it’s crucial to focus on writing about moments or experiences from your own life. By honing in on the details of your experiences, emotions, and perspectives, you then tap into universal themes that are relatable to others.
Shift Your Perspective
John Mayer eloquently describes this in an interview of his that I love, as trying not to fit a universe into a glass of water, but instead writing about the glass of water itself. By this, he means to emphasize the importance of finding inspiration within the confines of small moments, rather than attempting to capture grand concepts.
When you focus on the small moments, you discover that the universe resides within them, as well as unlock a treasure trove of relatable and authentic material.
Paul Simon echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that themes naturally emerge from the specifics of our own lives. When you pay attention to these moments, they can help you find emotional truths that resonate deeply with others.
Examples of Practical Exercises
Practical exercises such as “Homework for Life” and “Sense Writing” can help you uncover the details in your life and incorporate them into your songwriting. They’ve been explained briefly below:
You can find out more about sense writing and other exercises in the free PDF ebook, “The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics.”Click the image below to download:
Homework for Life
This exercise involves spending a few minutes each day noting something that made that day unique or different from others. By maintaining a record of these moments, you begin to recognize patterns and themes that emerge from your daily experiences.
These insights can serve as valuable songwriting material, allowing you to craft songs that are relatable and emotionally resonant.
Sense Writing
Another powerful exercise is ”Sense Writing”. This technique prompts you to engage all your senses to vividly describe specific moments, within a specific amount of time. As a result, it enables you to communicate emotional truths by helping you tap into your sensory experiences.
Through immersing yourself in the sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells associated with these moments, you create a rich tapestry of details that breathe life into your songs.
Conclusion: Write Small Moments, Not Big Themes
Songwriting is a continual journey of self-discovery and growth. By focusing on small moments rather than big themes, you can uncover relatable themes within your experiences that you can use in your songs. This way, you’ll be able to create songs that are truly yours.
Tired of your lyrics? Can’t seem to create anything that sounds interesting or original? Well you’re in luck because this blog post is all about helping you break free of cliched lyrics so you can start writing better songs! This blog post aims to summarise our video “The Crazy Easy Trick to Write Great Lyrics (The Flip Method)’’. Click here to watch the video for more details, explanations and examples.
Flip Method #1: Replacing
The first flip method involves finding clichéd expressions that contain easily replaceable words or images. The trick is to use a familiar cliché that triggers a predictable response, like “we fight like cats and dogs.” Now, instead of using cats and dogs, swap out the phrase with anything else.
Some examples are: “We fight like rust and rain.”, “We fight like tree roots and concrete.”, or “We fight like secrets and loose lips”. This creates an element of surprise while still tapping into the familiar meaning of the cliché.
An example of this is in the song “Wild” by John Legend. In it, he uses the hook “I wanna drive you wild, wild, wild”. Normally, the cliché line that most people know is “You drive me crazy”.
Flip Method #2: Magnifying
Magnifying clichés means zooming in on a specific detail within the expression and elaborating on it. Cliché metaphors like “Love is a drug” are plain and simple but have been done to death by most songwriters. Rather than using it as is, avoid the cliché and magnify it by focusing on specific details related to the concept.
If you listen to Lorde’s song Writer in The Dark, you’ll hear the line “I still feel you now and then slow like pseudoephedrine”. Through this, she not only avoids the cliché word “Drug”, but adds detail to the nature of her relationship by specifying the kind of drug and the effect it has on her.
To explore these concepts further, click here to download a free PDF eBook entitled “The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics”:
Flip Method #3: Extending
In this strategy, we take a common cliché and extend or elaborate on it by introducing new words or images related to the cliché.
For example, instead of saying, “the conversation flowed,” you could write, “as the conversation flowed, I started to drown in the undercurrent of everything I didn’t understand.” By extending the cliché, you use the cliché as a launchpad to create a more interesting line that goes against the expected meaning of the cliché.
The song “Case of You” by Joni Mitchell has a wonderful example of extending. The chorus goes like this:
“You’re in my blood like holy wine Tastes so bitter and so sweet I could drink a case of you darling And still be on my feet”.
The last two lines of the verse extend on the idea that she’s really in love with this person, by implying she could drink a case of them and still be on her feet. The meaning is further highlighted because it’s impossible for anyone to drink a case of alcohol and still be standing.
Flip Method #4: Inverting
Inverting clichés means turning negatives into positives or vice versa. You could also simply find the opposite of a clichéd expression. This method relies on finding an appropriate cliché to use it with, as it can’t be used on every cliché.
For instance, instead of “The grass is always greener on the other side,” you could write, “The grass is never greener on the other side.” You could also use a more subtle way of doing this by playing with the language of the cliché. As an example, you could rewrite “Actions speak louder than words” as “Actions cower in the shadow of words”. Both still have the same meaning but one twists it in an unexpected way.
Flip Method #5: Swapping
This flip relies on identifying clichés that consist of two words or images that can be swapped while still making sense. For example, take the phrase “storming a teacup” and flip it to “teacup in a storm.” This creates a new and intriguing meaning, giving your lyrics a unique twist, while still maintaining a sense of familiarity.
Flip Method #6: Pairing
For this flip method, instead of looking at clichés as just famous phrases that we all know, we’re going to look at them as predictable word pairings we all know. Examples of this are “Hot and cold”, as well as “Soft and hard”. Predictable pairings are not just about the words themselves or the images that the words paint. They are also about predictable rhymes such as “Rain and pain”, “Fire and desire”, and “Love and above”.
To create new and exciting pairings, you could practice replacing a word in a predictable phrase or pairing, with different kinds of words. For example, if you are given the phrase “If you are a bird, then I am the ___”, you could fill in the blank in multiple ways. A good example of this is a song called “The Bird and The Rifle” by Lori McKenna, where she has the line “If you are a bird, then I am the rifle”.
Conclusion: Explaining the Flip Method
Clichés are unavoidable, but they can be valuable tools if we know how to wield them effectively. By using the Flip Method and experimenting with these six strategies, you can transform clichés into powerful and memorable lyrics.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now.
Amidst all the doubts and fears, it can be difficult to know where to begin when songwriting. All too many times, songwriters get stuck staring at an empty page in frustration. In this blog post, we’ll explore three essential songwriting tips for beginners that will help ensure that this is a situation of the past.
Many beginner songwriters fall into the trap of attempting to tackle grand themes right from the start. While it’s admirable to want to write about homelessness, climate change, or heartbreak, approaching songwriting in this way can put excessive pressure on the song. Often, the result is either cramming too much into the song, causing it to lose focus, or creating something generic and lacking in relatability.
Instead, focus on small moments from your own life. Hone in on the details, emotions, and perspectives within those moments. By doing so, you’ll discover universal themes that resonate with others.
In an interview with John Mayer that I love, he compares the process to attempting to fit the universe into a glass of water. He says that instead of trying to approach songwriting from a glacial perspective, where you fit the universe into a glass of water, to try and write about the glass of water itself. In doing so, you’ll find that focusing on small moments from our lives instead, allows us to find universal themes that not only we relate to, but that our audience will relate to as well.
Here are some practical exercises to help you hone in on these small details and moments in life:
Homework for Life: This involves spending a few minutes each day noting something that made that day different from others. This exercise allows themes and emotional truths to emerge from seemingly ordinary experiences.
Sense Writing: This exercise involves using your senses to describe moments and experiences in detail, thereby capturing the essence of emotions and creating relatable content.
You can find out more about sense writing and other exercises in the free PDF ebook, “The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics.”Click the image below to download.
Tip 2: Balancing Truth and Fact
As songwriters, we deal in truth, not necessarily facts.
Many beginners feel constrained, thinking they can only write about experiences that have happened to them. However, it’s crucial to distinguish the difference between truth and fact.
Songwriters have the artistic license to bend facts to convey core emotional truths effectively. For example, you can write about the grief and loss of a pet without explicitly mentioning the specific details of your cat’s passing. By excluding certain autobiographical facts, you can communicate the emotional truth in a way that resonates deeply with others who have experienced similar emotions.
Remember, writing what you know doesn’t mean writing the facts you know, but rather capturing the emotions you know.
Tip 3: Study Your Heroes
Studying and learning from your musical heroes is an essential part of the songwriting journey. Learning how to play your favorite songs by heart is an excellent starting point, but our journey as songwriters doesn’t end there.
As songwriters, we need to critically and analytically listen to songs. This means that we need to actively dissect the songs, paying attention to things like chord progressions, relationships between chords and key centers, and song structures.
Examples of questions that you could ask yourself are:
What chords are used in specific sections? How are they used? Are there chords deliberately avoided?
What is the relationship between the melody and the chords used?
Are high notes used in specific places for any reason in particular?
By analyzing and understanding the components that make your favorite songs resonate, you’ll begin to grasp the artistry behind them.
Moving beyond imitating your heroes, strive to emulate them instead. Emulation involves not only striving to look like your heroes, but also to see like them. It’s about understanding their thought processes, and through this understanding, your own artistic voice will start to emerge.
Emulating your musical heroes and combining their influences with your unique perspective will allow your songwriting capabilities to truly be used to their fullest.
Conclusion: Essential Songwriting Tips for Beginners
In short, the three tips can be summarized to the following:
Focus on the small moments
Find the balance between truth and fact
Actively study your musical heroes
By using these three essential songwriting tips, you can help yourself overcome the initial struggles that many beginner songwriters face, and ensure that you have the tools for a smoother songwriting journey.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now.
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them.
A Songwriter’s Enemy – Mistaking Universal Ideas for Generic
There’s a surprising enemy that lurks in the good intentions of songwriters chasing the ‘universal’ song lyric. In this blog post, we’ll explain what that enemy is.
The lines above are examples of lyrics that feel generic, and cringy. These generic lyrics seem to pop up everywhere, even in the work of songwriters who consciously strive to avoid them.
The enemy we face in songwriting is mistaking universal ideas for generic ones. While universal ideas encompass experiences and emotions shared by many, generic lyrics fail to capture the specific details and nuances that make them relatable and authentic.
In the attempt to make something more relatable to a larger audience, you end up stripping them of anything that actually makes them personal and therefore, more relatable.
The Paradox of Great Songwriting
To forge a deep connection with our listeners, we must strike a delicate balance.
On one hand, we aim for universality, crafting lyrics that resonate with a wide audience. On the other hand, we must retain the idiosyncrasies, specifics, and personal touches that breathe life into our words.
It is the presence of these details that evokes familiarity and compels others to exclaim, “Me too!”
An Example of Relatable Lyrics
To show the importance of including specific details in songwriting, let’s examine Bruno Major’s song “Nothing.” The song’s first verse serves as a prime example of how specific imagery creates relatability and universality:
“Tracksuits, movies for two
We’ll take off iPhones and turn off our shoes
We’ll play Nintendo, though I always lose
‘Cause you watch the TV while I’m watching you”
Now, let’s imagine an alternate version where the relatable specifics are stripped away:
“We sit on the couch, just you and me We love to hang out, nowhere I’d rather be”
Can you feel the difference? The generic version lacks the vividness and relatability of the original lyrics. By removing specific details, we inadvertently remove the elements that resonate with listeners on a personal level.
Exercises to Enhance Your Ability to Write Details
Sense writing is a great way to enhance your ability to transform generic ideas into specific details. You can find out more about that by downloading the free PDF eBook in which sense writing is the first exercise there.
Click here to download the free PDF eBook ‘The 5 Best Songwriting Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics’
Instead of going into detail regarding sense writing, here’s a sort of abridged version which will help you practice turning something generic into something specific. I call it, “Turning the Dial”.
Pick a random generic line. For example, “It was a normal, lovely Saturday afternoon.”
Set a timer for six minutes.
Write as many lines as you can in those six minutes that turn that generic line into a specific one. For example, “Square of afternoon light inching along the floor”.
Choose Your Words Carefully
It’s important to note that incorporating details into your lyrics does not mean embellishing them with excessive amounts of adjectives and adverbs. Instead, prioritize the importance of nouns and verbs.
You need to strike a careful balance between ensuring that you don’t rely on adjectives and adverbs for detail, but also remembering that every line doesn’t need to be dripping with detail either.
This can be done by trying to include one or two lines per verse that employ carefully chosen, specific images. Through this, you’ll enable listeners to enter your song’s world and forge a profound connection with your experiences.
Conclusion: A Songwriter’s Enemy – Mistaking Universal Ideas for Generic
Hopefully, this blog post helped give you a better understanding on how to ensure that your lyrics are more specific, as well as some ways you can avoid being too universal.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now.
Level up your songwriting with five radically practical exercises used by professional songwriters around the world.
