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I think we did very great and wrote a ton of new songs. I thought we stayed on task and got things done.

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I think that we stayed well on task and wrote learning goals, and even completed one of them

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I feel like writing it so that people feel is the purpose of writing songs. How can I write a new feeling though, Most have been done, but new is better, and I also will need an experience to base it off of.

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If I follow the chord patterns provided, and adjust to the key and range of the singer, The song will sound good with the right lyrics. I think it might sound better if I added notes in between and gave it more of I light and energetic feel.

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Free Image on Pixabay - Piano, Keyboard, Key, Chord, Music

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Download free pictures about Piano, Keyboard, Key, Chord, Music from Pixabay's library of over 1,300,000 public domain photos, illustrations and vectors - 1532973

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Gary Ewer states in his blog, chords can have different meaning. He claims that, different chord progressions are used for different genres of music. Within his website, Ewer lists several chord progression patterns, for several different music types. Ewer concedes that, "And the fact is, one of the most important characteristics of chord progressions is the fact that on some level, they need to be at least a bit predictable. This is not a weakness, it’s a feature." What the author means by this claim, is that the audience should hear in the next chord in their head so that they will be capable of singing along.

The authors thoughts can be very useful when it comes to the chord and music writing stage. I think that if I listen to the words of Gary, I can be very successful. When writing a pop song, 4ths and 3rds are very catchy and flow the best with the song type. When writing my song, I think that If I use the proper chord progressions, it will sound beautiful.

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Blume, Jason. "Show, Don't Tell: 3 Steps to Writing Better Lyrics." bmi, https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/showdont_tell_3_steps_to_writing_better_lyrics

In this article, Blume uses the acronym AID (Action, Imagery, Detail) to help lyricists easily remember how to make lyrics more artful.  He explains that for lyrics to be interesting to listeners, they must show them what the feeling is like rather than tell them, similar to writing a novel, but still very different. He demonstrates his acronym by using an ordinary sentence and putting it through all three stages into complete form. This emphasizes the importance of writing lyrics more creatively.

As a lyricist, I can use this information by applying it to all of my lines. Not only will it add pizazz and more creativity, but will also make them more enjoyable to listeners. In Blume's view, "Our goal, when we share a song, is to evoke emotion in our listeners—to have them not only know what the singer is feeling, but to empathize—to feel the emotion. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by bringing your audience inside the world of your song—showing them a scene unfolding—instead of simply telling them how the singer feels." I hope to be able to write better with this new information.

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I believe that I was mostly productive today, although I stopped doing today's focus, I was still being very productive in another aspect of our project.

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Today, I think I was very productive in my first bibliography, but after that I searched for other websites and research instead of starting another bibliography. But other than that I worked great today

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FREE with the Bundle purchase: "Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process" shows you how to put lyric-writing front and centre in your songwriting process.
Do you find that your songwriting gets stuck at the chord progression stage? When this happens, it's usually attributable to a common misunderstanding about chords: the need for chords to be unique. You're probably aware of a hilarious video by the Axis of Awesome that showcases dozens of songs that all use the same chord progression. Though they make the point with humour, it's actually true: you can write unique songs by using already-used progressions.

I'm not suggesting that you give up your search for a great progression, but coming up with something that hasn't been done before is almost, if not completely, impossible.

"Writing a Song From a Chord Progression" is an eBook (high quality PDF format) that describes the best way to write songs by starting with chords. A must-read for those who like the chords-first approach. Part of the Deluxe "The Essential Secrets of Songwriting" Bundle package.

And the fact is, one of the most important characteristics of chord progressions is the fact that on some level, they need to be at least a bit predictable. This is not a weakness, it's a feature.

So if you simply want to get going writing something, and you don't want to spend all day finding chords that work, try these 7. They're the kind that you can repeat over and over again, and they form a really nice sequence that audiences will love:

1. E B C#m A - This is the "Axis of Awesome" progression that accompanies so many songs. It works because it incorporates strong 4ths and 5ths movements of the roots, from E to B, and from A back to E. The C#m acts as a little "deceptive cadence" moment.

2. E A G#m A B E - Try this one by holding each chord for 2 beats, with the G#m being held for 4. The G#m is a iii-chord, which is actually not all that common in pop music.

3. C G/D C/E F G F/A G/B C - A great progression that results in an upward-moving bass scale.

4. C G/B Am Am/G F C/E Dm7 C - A harmonized descending bass line.

5. C A7 D7 G C - A progression that uses "secondary dominant chords". Basically, whenever you change a chord that's usually minor (in the given key) into a major one, and follow it with a chord whose root is a 4th higher, you've created a secondary dominant.

6. C G/B Am F Fm C - The Fm in this progression is called a "modal mixture", and adds a nice melancholy flavour to your song.

7. Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 Fmaj7 Bm7(b5) E7 Am7- A really nice jazz sequence.

Numbers 3 and 4 work nicely in partnership with each other. If you choose to follow 3 with 4, try replacing the final C chord with a G or G7.

A lot of what makes chord progressions work centres on the issue of strong versus fragile progressions. Here's a video I did recently that explains that concept:

________________
Written by Gary Ewer, from "The Essential Secrets of Songwriting" website
Follow Gary on Twitter for notification of website updates and daily songwriting tips
"The Essential Secrets of Songwriting" e-book bundle will show you how to write great songs, harmonize your melodies, and give you hundreds of chord progressions in the process.

PURCHASE and DOWNLOAD the e-books for your laptop/desktop

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7 Chord Progressions That Work All the Time

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FREE with the Bundle purchase: "Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process" shows you how to put lyric-writing front and centre in your songwriting process. Do you find that your songwriting gets stuck at the chord progression stage? When this happens, it's usually attributable to a common misunderstanding about chords: the need for chords to be unique.

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While you can learn and practice every possible guitar chord countless times in the Uberchord app (click here for free download, or if you still have not checked it out!), the aim of this article is to fill in your repertoire faster than I can fill in a page.

That being said, I'm starting in the last place beginner guitarists want to find themselves, in the middle of music theory class. Quick and painless, chord nomenclature, going through a scale, major chords are written with a major roman numeral, minor with lower case.

7th's are written with a superscript 7 written on the right of the numeral, diminished chords with a superscript theta to the right of the numeral (ø).

So, without going into too much detail about the why, a major scale (I'll use the keys of G and C as my samples) in chords are written as such:

If you would like a more in depth look at the theory behind scales and chord building, Uberchord has previously written a full Beginner's music theory 101 courses here:

I'll be referring to information in these articles throughout this article. I encourage all players to start learning theory, it's a pathway to understanding and breaking down what and how your favorite players are doing. You'll notice that there are two chords that are used in each of the progressions below, the I, also known as the tonic, and the V, known as the dominant. The tonic is the tonal center of the scale, it defines the key of the song. The dominant contains the tonal implication of the key as well, by containing two notes that are a tonne (one a ½ step, one a whole) lower than the two notes of the tonic, and a single note that is shared in the tonic chord. For example, let's use the key of C:

I: C E G

V: G B D

You'll note the G from the I chord is also in the V chord. Walking the B up to a half step you'll find yourself at a C (the root of the tonic and the key), and walking the D up a whole step you'll find yourself the E, completing the I chord. The movement of notes that imply a tonal center, or key, is referred to as a cadence.

Chord Progression 1

So, the first progression to learn is a I - iV - V7 (the 7th is optional on this one). V7 to I is a popular cadence or a harmonic pattern that creates a sense of resolution. Basic chord building states the use of every other tone in a scale to build your chord. The most basic chord is a triad, or three tone chord. Built from the root, or the name the chord is derived from, you then pick every note in a scale. So if you are looking at playing a G triad in the key of G. A scale consisting of the following tones:

You build the triad using the three tones in bold.Let's get to some examples of the progression in use:
Richie Valens "La Bamba" The Beatles "Twist and Shout"
Playing in different keys, with this progression, you'll find:
The Troggs "Wild Thing" The Ting Tings "That's not my Name"
Chord Progression 2

The I - IV - V progression is a break down of the 12 bar blues, which has a few of variations, I've included a popular one below, along with an example in the key of E, G and C:

So using the same chords as the first progression in a slightly different pattern.

Examples of the range of music that uses the 12 bar blues?
Prince - "Delirious" Travis Tritt - "Leave My Girl Alone" Wilson Pickett - "Mustang Sally" Led Zeppelin - "Rock and Roll"
Chord Progression 3

Adding a vi to the I - IV - V open up a whole new world of variations. Wikipedia has a ever growing list posted.

The vi and I share common tones (the 3rd and 5th of the VI chord are the 1st and 3rd of the I chord), and can be used almost interchangeably due to sounding close to alike. Just to keep score, here are examples of I - vi - IV - V in G, C, and E:

As far as those common tones....

Chord Progression 4

Sticking in the common tones theme, lets swap the IV with a ii, again chords that share 2 common tones.

I - vi - ii - V is pretty popular, here is a short list of songs:
John Mayer "Back to You" Michael Jackson "You are Not Alone" The Four Seasons "Sherry" The Muppets "Rainbow Connection"
Chord Progression 5

Again, I'm listing these progressions in their popularity of use, trying to maximize a repertoire, while minimizing the amount of memorization having to be done. So for the last progression of the article, we'll go with I - V - vi - iii - IV.

This is a progression first popularized by Johann Pachelbel with his "Cannon in D ":

You'll recognize it in songs like:
The Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge" Katy Perry "Fire Work" Green Day "Basketcase"
If you are at all in interested in the how and why these progressions are so commonly used, I really do encourage you to read through Uberchords music theory articles. If you would like an extensive list of common chord progressions Hook Theory has put one together in order of simple to complex.

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5 Most Popular & Common Guitar Chord Progressions For Song Writers

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While you can learn and practice every possible guitar chord countless times in the Uberchord app (click here for free download, or if you still have not checked it out!), the aim of this article is to fill in your repertoire faster than I can fill in a page.

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Stolpe, Andrea. ¨Simple Tips For Better Chord Progressions.¨  takenote,
https://online.berklee.edu/takenote/simple-tips-for-better-chord-progressions/

Andrea Stolpe´s beliefs dealing with songwriting, include the fact that chord progression should work different, but together, with the lyrics via mood changes and harmony. For example, some chords, such as  2 major chords, can highlight a thought or idea. Also, choosing the correct cadence of chords can change the rhythmic feel and mood of the song. I wonder if short cadences make a song sad, or if long held out cadences make a song sad. Depending on length, I can use different counts to make it sad or happy. Later in the article, the author states that when writing music, chord repetition is very important.

Stople reiterates the idea of mood changing, when she stated, ¨When we choose chords, we’re choosing a mood that gives the listener a musical interpretation of the lyric message.¨ What the author means is that, when we choose a new chord for  a new line, we have to think of the mood and message we want to portray to the audience. If I am trying to write a happy song, I will probably have a lot or chords that resolve each other. By doing this, It will completely change the feel of the song. For example, if we want a sad message, then we might use a minor chord progression, and if we want more of an upbeat mood, we might use a major chord.  Unfortunately, he does not state what keys or names of chords that would help with this idea.

Based on the article, The authors thoughts can be used to help understand and give a rough outline of a good song. The article emphasizes he idea of chord progression. When writing a song, use chords that compliment the musical feel and lyrical message.

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Tower, Bud. "Seven-Word Lines and Four-Letter Words: The Science of Songwriting." americansongwriter, http://americansongwriter.com/2011/09/seven-word-lines-and-four-letter-words-the-science-of-songwriting/

Bud Tower explains how there are always people looking for a certain algorithm of sorts to how they write song lyrics. He goes on to describe that there have been patterns in the most recent hit songs, including common use of seven-word lines and four-letter words. In Tower's own words, "Songs have so many repeating short words that the average number of characters per word in both songs is below 4—those are very short words indeed. The lesson in that is that if you are using a lot of complex words, you will have to offset that complexity with short words to keep your averages low." Tower continues explaining that although there are similarities, each song/artist also has a very unique style that is required as well to create a hit song.

As Tower continues to explain the art of lyric-writing, he gets to the topic of word choice. In song lyrics, the careful choosing of words means everything, so how does a lyricist know what to write? He approaches this with facts collected from research; most top songs have had the same reading level, usually around or under first grade level. Along these same lines, top songs were also common to have extremely high reading ease scores, which is based on the average amount of syllables/words in each line or word, word length, and the amount of words with over two syllables. According to his research, all were within 5% of maximum reading ease. Tower goes on to explain that this should be recognized by lyricists, and used by keeping lyrics simple and understandable. He backs up this idea be restating the facts that all of the past years top songs have followed these principles almost exactly.

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the chords will sound good when they naturally follow each other  

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the chords will sound good when they naturally follow each other  

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The term chord progression simply refers to the order in which chords are played in a song/piece of music.
Play a few different songs/pieces and you will see that there are various different ways in which composers order chords.
However, the good news is that there are a few simple guidelines which will help you massively when writing your own chord progressions.

The 5 basic rules of Chord Progressions

There are 5 basic rules to follow when writing a chord progression.
Follow these and your chord progression will definitely "work":

1. Choose a key to write in (if you are just starting out the C major, G major, A minor and E minor are good keys to start with)

2. Work out the primary chords (I, IV, V). Start to build your progressions with these. Then move on to using secondary chords (II, III, VI) to develop your chord progressions further.

3. Always start and end your chord progression on chord I

4. Try using some common progressions (see below)

5. Try adding some circle progressions (see below)

The Common Chord Progressions

There are some chord progressions which are used in lots and lots of different songs/pieces - they have been tried and tested in many different styles and will "work".
Learn these and you will be able to play lots of different songs and easily use them in your composing.
They will work in both major and minor keys.

Start with the following 4 progressions. (I have done an audio example in both a major key and then a minor key for you to listen to)

The Circle Progressions

Circle Chord Progressions are progressions where the chords seem to naturally follow on from one another.
You will find the following 2 circle progressions really useful.
Have a listen to the audio examples for each (again, each recording contains an example in a major key followed by an example in a minor key).

Circle Progression 1 Circle Progression 2

Quick Reference Chord Progression Sheet

I have put together this cheat sheet to give you the basic chord progressions in every key!
Feel free to screenshot it/print it out for quick reference.
You will see that some of the keys are really complex with lots of sharps and flats. If you are just starting out I suggest you choose one of the following keys to write in:

Major - C, G, D

Minor - Am, Em, Bm

Major Key Chord Progressions

Minor Key Chord Progressions

In the next lesson we are going to look at Chord Inversions.

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Chord Progressions - Music Theory Academy

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The term chord progression simply refers to the order in which chords are played in a song/piece of music. Play a few different songs/pieces and you will see that there are various different ways in which composers order chords.

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this is a free online course on developing an idea of a song

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To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

From the course by Berklee College of Music

Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics

This Course

Video Transcript

There's a songwriter lurking somewhere inside you, peeking around corners, wondering if it's safe to come out. Now it is. This course is an invitation to let your inner songwriter step into the sunlight. All it takes is a simple "yes" and you'll be climbing that windy hill, marveling at the view. If you haven't written any or many songs, this course will show you an efficient, effective process for tailoring songs to express your ideas and emotions. If you have, you'll look at your process differently, taking control of aspects of the process you may have not noticed. The course will start by examining the tools available to you, all revolving around the essential concept of prosody. You'll learn to use your tools to enhance your message-to work compositionally at the same time you're developing your ideas. You'll be working both lyrically and musically, though musically it's not necessary that you either read music or play an instrument. If you play, great, and you'll be encouraged to play and record your musical responses to the assignments. If you don't play, the course offers you a number of musical loops to work with. All you'll have to do is sing your melodies over the loops. Assignments will ask you to post something for peer review-sometimes lyric lines or sections, sometimes melodies, sometimes both. None of it has to be polished. The course is about writing, not performing. Most important, you'll have a lot of fun.

In this lesson, you'll select a new song title and create a worksheet to help develop your ideas. You'll write your lyric and set it to music, matching your lyric rhythms to melodic rhythms. You'll create a melody, using stable and unstable notes to support your ideas.

Meet the Instructors

I wish we had time to, talk about metaphor here.

I just guess I'll refer you to chapter three of Writing Better Lyrics that takes

you through a series of exercises for finding metaphor.

also Song Writing Without Boundries has three whole 14 day challenges.

that, will help you find, create, extend and reverse metaphor, pretty effectively.

But, let it, let it simply be said that, finding metaphor is a, is a great way to

start a song is a great way to dig in and find an interesting way to express

something. Particularly feelings and so on.

So then in doing metaphor exercises, you may come up on something that you find

relatively attractive. as I did when I was listening at night in

my bedroom listening to the wind in the trees.

And I started thinking about, yeah, you know, the wind just keeps going, it just

keeps going and here I am in one place. and so I thought travelling wind.

you know, and the gag reflex kicks in. But then I started thinking about

traveling and so on and came up with the phrase hobo wind, hobo wind.

And I thought, well, I kind of like that, seeing the wind as a hobo.

And then, of course, I have in mind the old hobos in the in the twenties,

thirties, and forties in the US. who would hop trains, and just, you know,

keep going. not homeless but they had the yen for

going places. They had the yen for traveling.

And so the notion of hobo wind, I, I found to be fairly attractive.

So that in thinking of hobo wind, say as the title of a song the first thing I

did, of course, was say alright, well. Hobo wind.

What would you do with that? And now, we go back to early, early,

early, where we're talking about development of ideas through the boxes.

And one of the things that I always do. When I come up with that could be a

title, no maybe not, is I think how would I develop that.

How would that gain new information? How would that gain weight?

How would that be more than it was? in this second development, in the third

development. And I thought, okay, well, here I am

listening to the wind and you know it's going through the trees.

It's you know, hi wind, wow, you're really, you're really there tonight so

that would be box one. Hey wind, what's up,

And then the second idea would be hey, wow, where have you been before you got

here, where have you been oh, hobo wind. And then the third was wow, I'd really

like to go with you. I wish that I were you so that, hey, I

hear you, where have you been, where are you going, can we go together?

Seem to me to at least have the potential of moving forward, of becoming something

like a song. So, one of the first things that I would,

that, that, that I, that I do when finding that sort of thing is I simply

say, with my toggle switch off, hobo wind.

Hobo wind. Hobo wind, I'm not listening.

Hobo wind. Hobo wind, hobo wind, hobo wind now slow

down hobo wind, hobo wind, ho wa, ho wa, ho wa.

seems like the pitch of wind is slightly higher hobo wind strong, weak, strong but

now what's the relationship between the two strongs?

That's an interesting question because, note that say, in four four time, we have

in a bar of four four time, two strongs. The downbeat, and third beat of the bar.

But one of them is stronger than the other.

So, what is stronger, hobo or wind? And it seems from hobo wind, seems hobo

wind, I could say hobo wind, hobo wind, but that sounds kind of funny.

I think, you, you could if you were going to talk about a hobo wind.

You could, you'd, you'd want to contrast it with some other kind of wind.

a homebound wind, as opposed to a hobo wind.

But here with just hobo wind, it feels like, like the ho of hobo is less

stressed slightly than wind. And it feels like that because the pitch

of wind. Is slightly higher.

That is to say on the black cloth, the black, black velvet cloth I have a

slightly brighter gem on wind than I do on hobo.

So, that in placing that. Appropriately in a in a musical rhythm, I

will want to place wind in a slightly stronger position than hobo.

[MUSIC] One, two, three, four, two, two, hobo wind.

One, two, three, four, two, two, hobo wind.

So I'm placing the ho of hobo on the third beat of the bar [MUSIC] .

We can slow this loop down a little bit, so you can hear it better.

Two, three, four, two, two, hobo wind. Two, three, four, two, hobo wind.

So it feels to me like setting hobo wind that way is better than.

[MUSIC] One, two, three, four, hobo wind. One, two, three, four, hobo wind.

One, two, three, four, hobo wind. Let's try that out.

[MUSIC] Another simple loop. One, two, three, four, two, two, three.

One, two, three, four, two, oh hobo wind. Oh hobo wind.

Two, three, four, one, two, hobo wind. [MUSIC] One two three four one oh hobo

win, oh hobo win, oh hobo win. That feels very natural to me.

and so that so it feels like I have my title, the big boss of the song.

I have my title in its natural habitat. It feels like I have preserved the

natural shape and therefore the emotion. Of the idea, hobo wind.

And at that point, when this is all I have.

I have my boxes, I sort of know how the idea is going to develop, and I have how

my title. Is being positioned in musical rythym.

And you know, I can fool around with melody and so on.

but, that's not the issue here. The issue here once again, is preserving

the natural shape of the language. And once you are able to do that, to take

the language and create it in a appropriate musical setting.

Then, you're going to get the most out of what you have to say.

Now, this obviously works either way. That if I have a meoldy or, let's say, a

melodic rhythm. To work with.

Then my job as a songwriter is to say, okay, where in this melodic rhythm are

the stresses and the unstresses? And where are the bigger stresses, the

stronger stresses and the stresses that aren't quite as strong?

And then my job. Is to find words that have exactly that

shape. It's not a matter of writing some words,

writing a melody, and cramming them together.

It's a matter of making sure, that they are perfectly married in all respects,

because if they're not If they're not perfectly set you will lose meaning, you

will lose emotion. Whenever there is a mismatch between

melodic rhythm and lyric rhythm you will lose something.

And this is clearly demonstrable by simply seeing how it is, this set, and

then ab'ing it, a, b, ab'ing it with the appropriate setting, with the thing that

preserves the natural shape of the language.

And at least in my experience, doing that a b test Here's how it is on the record,

on the hit record, and here's what it could have been.

In my experience, what it could have been, when it's not misset, is always

stronger. And you know, I'm open-minded, I'm still

waiting for the time when I hear a missetting, when I hear the word in on a

strong beat or through on a strong beat. I'm still waiting for the time they say,

that's stronger, that's better than it could have been, if it had been

appropriately said. We talk to, talk about this more in the

next segment. So here we are simply talking about

syllabic rhythm and melodic rhythm and the interface between the two.

and we're going to see what we can do with, with this hobo wind idea, and,

using this, fairly simple loop to see if we can come up with something.

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Developing an Idea - Writing the Song | Coursera

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Video created by Berklee College of Music for the course "Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics". In this lesson, you'll select a new song title and create a worksheet to help develop your ideas. You'll write your lyric and set it to music, matching ...

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you can sell songs you have written instead of recording them yourself

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by Robin Frederick Check out my books at Amazon.com.

Q: I've got a song that I KNOW is good. My friends and family all say it's as good as anything on the radio. Now what do I do? Do I need a demo? Should I copyright it? Should I join ASCAP or BMI? Where do I send it?

A: If you've written a song that sounds like it could appeal to today's listeners - one that has a memorable chorus, a focused lyric with a fresh approach, and a contemporary, radio-friendly melody, then you can start thinking about pitching it to music publishers, record labels, music libraries, and recording artists. If you're thinking about becoming a recording artist yourself, remember that many of today's top artists and producers started out as songwriters with publishing deals, so it's a great first step.

Songwriters rarely "sell" their songs. When you make a deal with a publisher, record label, or artist to record your song, it's usually in the form of a contract or license. Sometimes a publisher will use the words "work for hire." Be sure to consult a music business attorney before signing any contract.

I'm going to focus on the Pop genre in this article, but you can apply all of these ideas to Country and Rock styles. Hopefully I can answer your questions. Let's start by figuring out who might want to sing your song.

WHO IS LOOKING FOR SONGS?
If you listen to the songs on the music charts at Billboard.com and BDSradio.com - and you should if you want to be a successful songwriter - then you know that today's hits include songs recorded by a wide range of artists, like Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, Robin Thicke, Sara Bareilles, P!nk, Phillip Phillips, Justin Timberlake, Adele, OneRepublic, and Jason Mraz, among others.

Some of these artists write or co-write their own hit songs while others, like Kelly Clarkson, actively look for songs that will help them climb up the music charts. If you're interested being an artist yourself, you're going to be looking for exactly the same type of strong hit singles as they are - songs that have lots of radio appeal, strong contemporary melodies, and vivid lyrics that grab the listener's attention.

If you want to take a closer look at recent hits, I've analyzed some of today's top hits to get you started. You'll hear a range of lyric and melody writing techniques you can use in your own songs that will help you write and pitch the kinds of songs that will get you signed.

What are the odds?
Okay, reality check... Reaching an established artist when you haven't yet built up a track record as a songwriter can be difficult. These artists tend to use songs by writers with a proven track record, or they write the songs themselves, or co-write with the album's producer. So to even up the odds, consider pitching your songs to artists who are just starting out.

NEW ARTISTS ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR HITS
Look for new artists whose careers are about to take off, especially singers who come up through competition shows like The Voice or The X Factor. If you're an unknown songwriter, these artists are likely to be your best bet. All of the winners and finalists in these shows are hungry for songs that sound like they have the potential to get radio airplay. So how do you get your song to them? Try a DIY approach using these three tips...

=> First, study their performances in the competition. What kinds of songs do they excel at? Big choruses? Intimate verses? Soaring melodies? Are they better at Pop/Rock or Country? Write a song that will make this artist sound good, one that makes use of their strengths, something with a fresh, contemporary feel and an appealing theme.

=> Second, look for contact info. These artists' careers are just getting off the ground. They may be deciding which label to sign with. They may not yet have a team of professionals working with them.

Do your research; find out all you can. Interviews - online and in magazines - are a good resource. Check out their YouTube channel and Facebook pages. Are there any contact addresses or names you could use? Look for a manager or agent. Can you contact that person via email, Google+, Facebook, MySpace, or their own website? If you get in early, it's easier to get this information.

Once you have contact info, send an email with a link to your song. Most people don't want to receive large files (and some email programs block them) so don't send your song as an attachment unless requested. Make it easy for them to hear the song and read the lyrics. You can load it up on Soundcloud and keep it private if you like. Send the link that Soundcloud gives you for the private file.

=> Third, try a "grass roots" campaign. If your research doesn't turn up a viable contact or you don't hear back, get involved with the artist's fans. There should be groups of fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Be sure to participate as a fan. Find out which songs the fans like best, which songs they'd like to hear the artist record. Now make your song public on Soundcloud and post a link asking for opinions. (This public link will be different from the private link.)

If the fans are excited about your song, someone close to the artist is likely to take notice.
For more useful info, check out Robin's books at Amazon.com. THE DO'S AND DON'T'S OF SONG PITCHING
1. Be sure your song is appropriate for today's artists. No matter who you're pitching to, be sure your song is contemporary and age-appropriate. A teen artist with a youthful following can't sing a song about marriage and raising kids.

Use language and themes that are current for todays Pop genre. Avoid pitching songs and demos that sound dated. If you love retro styles like Motown and '50s Rock, give these styles a contemporary edge. Good examples are "Classic" by MKTO, "Grenade" by Bruno Mars, and "Everybody Talks" by Neon Trees. Listen to these songs and see if you can identify the retro vs. contemporary elements.

2. Copyright your songs before you pitch. In the United States, you can copyright songs and sound recordings at www.copyright.gov . Save money by copyrighting songs as a group on a single form. International copyright laws vary from country to country. Be sure to check the copyright requirements where you live and contact the appropriate agency.
Read more about copyrighting your songs.
3. Record a demo that sells your song. When you pitch your Pop song to anyone in the music business, your demo needs to put across the feel and energy that a final recording will have. If your song is played for someone who can't hear the potential, it stops right there.

The good news is, you don't have to record a complete track with all the bells and whistles. A stripped-down demo will work BUT everything on that demo needs to be played well and accurately. No pitchy vocals, no stumbling rhythm guitar, no dated drums. For Pop, the mix needs to be clean and punchy with a very clear, confident vocal. For Pop song demos, you can try a demo service like StudioPros.com. For Country, consider one of the excellent Nashville demo studios, like the Beaird Music Group.

If you're writing in a production-heavy style like the Dance/Pop genre you could look for a co-writer who can create basic, contemporary dance tracks. You contribute lyrics and melody, referred to as "topline." The song copyright is split 50/50 with the creator of the track.

Can you pitch a home recording (Hint: You can.)

CONTACTING MUSIC PUBLISHERS
Artists will usually get songs from a wide range of sources, including their record label, manager, producer, music publishers, and even friends, loyal fans, and family. To pitch to established artists, your best bet is to go through a music publisher. Don't pitch songs that are half-finished or lack a big, contemporary chorus. Study current hit songs and make sure your songs can compete. Once you've got that then try these ideas for selling your song.

=> Use a pitch sheet or event. You can reach music publishers through pitch sheets like the one at , or workshops sponsored by ASCAP and BMI, or songwriter conferences like the Durango Songwriters Expo or the TAXI Road Rally or ASCAP Expo. These avenues will give you access in a world where most publishers will not listen to unsolicited material.

There are a few contests that can also get you noticed. Eurovision has worked for some songwriters. The John Lennon Songwriting Contest is well respected and has highlighted some excellent songs.

=> Research ASCAP or BMI, even if you aren't a member. You can find the contact info for the publishers of many of the songs on today's Pop charts by searching the repertoire at ASCAP.com and BMI.com. Search by song title or artist. The results should include the music publisher's contact information. You can also check out the free online publisher directory at the Music Publishers Association website for names and contact info although it's a big list and hard to know exactly which publishers to target.

By the way, you don't need to join ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or any of the Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) until there are royalties to collect, meaning when someone has recorded and released your song commercially. However, there's one exception. If you're going to pitch your songs to music libraries - publishers who specialize in film and TV licensing - then you should go ahead and join.

=> Contact the publisher to ask if they will listen to a song from you. Many publishers will not listen to unsolicited material so don't send a CD or link without asking for permission. If you have a contact name and email address, send an email with a link and information about any credits you already have. If you have trouble getting through the publishing door, go back to the "grass roots" approach I mentioned above.

WRITING A HIT SONG DOESN'T MEAN WRITING A BAD SONG
You've probably heard people say that everything on the radio is terrible, or it's all about writing to a "formula," or a certain song is a hit because the record label spent tons of money pushing it. While those things may contribute to a song's success, the song itself still has to stand on its own merits. All the money in the world can't force listeners to like a bad song, and if there were a formula for writing hits, we'd all be doing it.

There are great songs out there that people genuinely love listening to - ones that you love listening to. Those are the songs you want to aim for. Look for successful songs that move you and let them inspire and guide you.

Good luck and may your songs flow!

Robin

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by Robin Frederick Check out my books at Amazon.com. Q: I've got a song that I KNOW is good. My friends and family all say it's as good as anything on the radio. Now what do I do? Do I need a demo? Should I copyright it? Should I join ASCAP or BMI?

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The different progression of chords is important

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The different progression of chords is important

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Chord progressions are the patterns that music composers use to put musical notes and chords together. When you write music, chord progressions are critical in writing songs that sound harmonious and have the desired tones.

If you look at Western harmonic music, you can see patterns emerge in the ways chord progressions are built. It is possible for any one chord to progress to any one of the other chords in a key; however, certain chord progressions are used more frequently than others. Why? Because they just sound better.

These natural patterns are pleasing to listeners and composers alike, and therefore they appear in popular music, classical, rock, jazz, and so on. Music theorists have taken note of those patterns and come up with a set of "rules" concerning chord progressions. These "rules" are immensely helpful in songwriting. The following tables show common chord progressions for major and minor chords, along with the corresponding chord names for key of C major and C minor.

Uppercase Roman numerals represent major chords; lowercase Roman numerals represent minor and diminished chords.

Because minor scales offer some flexibility in the sixth and seventh notes of the scale, you have more chord possibilities to account for. For example, in a C natural minor scale, the chord built on the seventh note would be Bb major, but if you're writing in the harmonic minor scale, that seventh chord would be a diminished B chord (B°). The parentheses around some of the chords indicate less commonly used chords, but they are still acceptable and they would work in the progression.

Some of the most common chord progressions in popular music are I-IV-V-I, I-ii-V-I, and i-iv-V-i.

Like everything in music and art in general, you are the creator of your work, and you can decide whether you want to follow the rules or try something completely different. Just for fun, try playing, or just listening to some chord progressions to get a feel of how easy it can be to build a great song-or at least a halfway decent pop song.

Listen to the I-V-I (G Major-D Major-G Major) chord progression in G major.

Listen to the I-ii-V-I-iii-V-vii◦-I (CM-Dm-GM-CM-Em-GM-Bdim-CM) chord progression in C major.

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Use Chord Progressions when Writing Music - dummies

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Chord progressions are the patterns that music composers use to put musical notes and chords together. When you write music, chord progressions are critical in writing songs that sound harmonious and have the desired tones. If you look at Western harmonic music, you can see patterns emerge in the ways chord progressions are built.

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There are certain steps that can be taken to write a song if you have no idea for a theme

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Whether you want to write a song to pitch to music publishers, TV shows and commercials, or record them yourself as an artist, here's a songwriting method that will help you get your message across and make sure your listeners stay involved from beginning to end. Of course, this is just one approach to songwriting but it's used by many songwriting pros and it works.

CREATE THE RAW MATERIAL FOR YOUR LYRIC

#1 Start your song with the title.

Starting with a title will help you stay focused on a single idea in your song. Create a phrase of one to six words that sums up the heart of what you want to say. Or look for an interesting phrase that suggests a situation or emotion to you. Try using an image in your title to give it more interest or an action word to give it energy. For more tips on writing song titles read Write a Memorable Title or watch this video.

#2 Make a list of questions suggested by the title.

Start by asking yourself what you want to say about your title and what you think your listeners might want to know.

Make list of questions. Your list might include: What does the title mean? How do you feel about it? What happened to cause this? What do you think or hope will happen next? You'll need three to four questions. Check out this video for more information.

#3 Choose a song structure.

Many of today's biggest hits rely on a song structure like this:
Verse / Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Bridge / Chorus.

Many hit songs add a section called a "pre-chorus" or "lift" between the verse and chorus to build anticipation.

The verse, pre-chorus, and chorus each have an identifiable melody, one that the listener can recognize when it comes around. Here's a tip that will tell you more about song structure. Or watch this video to learn the basics.

#4 Choose one question to answer in the chorus and one for each verse.

We'll focus on the chorus first since it's the most important part of your song. Select the question you want to answer in your chorus. Write down a short phrase that expresses your answer.

Look for images and action words to bring your answers to life. What is the singer feeling, thinking, or saying? What emotion is the singer feeling and how would you describe it? Is it warm or cold? Dark or light? Read more about adding emotion to your lyrics here.

GET TO WORK ON YOUR MELODY & CHORDS

#5 Find the melody in your lyric.

Choose one or two of the phrases you came up with in Step 4. Say them out loud. Now say them again with LOTS of emotion. Exaggerate the emotion in the lines. Notice the natural rhythm and melody of your speech when you say the lines with lots of feeling. This is the beginning of your chorus melody. Play with it until it feels comfortable. Here's more on using your lyric to create a melody.

#6 Begin to add chords to your chorus melody.

Try a simple, repeated chord pattern. You'll find a several chord progressions you can use here. (Scroll down to the section on Chord Progressions.) Play with the melody and chords until you find something you like. Record yourself singing and playing (or just singing) - even if it's only on your smartphone. Be sure you get it down so you don't forget it.

DEVELOP YOUR SONG IN SECTIONS

#7 Work on the lyric in your first verse.

Focus on the question you chose in Step 4. Make your first line something that will get listeners interested: an intriguing statement, a question, or a description of the situation. In your second line, consider restating the first line in a different way or adding more information. Don't move on too quickly; your listeners need time to understand what's happening in the song.

In Verse 1, be sure to give listeners enough information so they can understand the chorus when you get there. Go through Steps 5 and 6 with your verse melody and chords.

#8 Connect your verse and chorus.

After you have a verse and chorus, create a transition between them so that they flow naturally. You may need to raise or lower your verse melody or change the last line to get to your chorus smoothly.

TIP: Chorus melodies are usually in a higher note range than verses because they're more emotional, and when we get emotional our voices tend to rise.

#9 Build your second verse and bridge.

Choose another of your questions to answer in your second verse. Use Step 7 to work through the lyric. Your second chorus will have the same melody and lyric as your first chorus, so you are now almost finished with your song. You just need to add a bridge.

The bridge section adds a peak emotional moment to your song, a realization, or an "aha!" moment. Try two or three lyric lines that give the listener the best insight you can into the situation or emotion the singer is feeling. The melody should be different from both verse and chorus. Try using a chord you haven't used before or changing the phrase lengths or motion of the melody. A bridge isn't a requirement but it can add a lot of strength to your song.

SHARE YOUR SONG WITH LISTENERS

#10 Record your song.

It's one thing to write a song, but it's another to make sure that listeners hear the feelings you wanted to express. A simple piano/vocal or guitar/vocal can often be the most effective emotional statement of your song. If you wrote a Rock song, do an "unplugged" version. You don't need lots of synthesizers or drums-in fact, these can detract.

Practice both the instrumental and vocal parts until you are comfortable with them. The less you have to focus on when playing or singing, the more you can let go and feel the emotion in the song. Try singing it as if you are speaking it to someone. Record for short periods then take a break. Keep the song and the emotion fresh! Here's a post that will give you more ideas on how to record a rough demo.

Now that you know how to write a song in ten steps, here are some great Song Starters - titles, themes, chord progressions, and more - to get you going.

Visit my Tips and Inspiration website. I'll take you on a deep dive into some of today's biggest hits and show you the techniques they use to appeal to millions of listeners. Then you can try those same techniques yourself. It's all free on my website Robin Frederick Presents Secrets of Hit Songwriting.

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WRITE A SONG IN TEN STEPS - MY SONG COACH

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Whether you want to write a song to pitch to music publishers, TV shows and commercials, or record them yourself as an artist, here's a songwriting method that will help you get your message across and make sure your listeners stay involved from beginning to end.

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There is a certain amount and minor/major chords in a good son

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There is a certain amount and minor/major chords in a good son

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I love it when songs just fall out. If I could write every song without consciously applying a single tool of the craft, I would. Tools are hard work, and let's face it, I'd rather be lazy.

When it comes to writing harmony, sometimes I choose to just coast awhile. A nice chord progression borrowed from a song I know and love provides the perfect underscoring to a melody and lyric I've just written. Cast a new light on the melody, speed it up or slow it down with a slightly different groove, and presto, I've got myself a song.

But inevitably in the songwriting process, there is a point where I have to think consciously about where I want to take the next chords. I have to consider why I'm using the chords I'm using, and what those cords are saying. I have to think about the different message I want to say when I feel the need for a new chord.

When we choose chords, we're choosing a mood that gives the listener a musical interpretation of the lyric message. The message in the words and the message of the music need to agree. The musical mood will always trump the lyrical message.

Whatever musical mood we are creating, it will pull out hues of that same mood in the lyric. So we want to be sure that we're working with a diverse color palette when it comes to the chords we see available to us.

When we feel limited with our harmonic ideas, a good exercise is to try to add one new chord to our vocabulary with each song we write. Most of our songs utilize in some way the 1 chord, the 4 chord, the 5 chord, and the 6 minor chord. (For some basic theory for songwriters, check out Beginning Songwriting, available on Amazon). So we might try adding to that the 3 minor chord. We might try a new cadence, and instead of moving from the 4 chord to the 5 chord, we might try using the flat 6 chord to the flat 7 chord. Or, we might try the flat 3 to the flat 4. These and other cadences are explained and listed in the book and speak directly to songwriters who may be shaky on their theory knowledge. You might also try using borrowed cords, taking your inspiration from another key. In this case, try moving to a 2 major chord when you want to highlight a particularly important lyric idea, such as at the end of your pre-chorus section before moving into the chorus. If talk of chords leaves you feeling overwhelmed and confused, break it down for yourself. Try getting clear on the chords that belong to a major scale, and then add one new chord to your vocabulary each time you sit down to write music. The trick with using chords that don't belong to the key is to use them sparingly and intentionally. After you use one, return immediately to a chord that does belong to the key, so that our ears know the diversion was intentional. And when you experiment with a chord progression that involves several borrowed chords, make sure to use lots of repetition of that progression. The repetition will help the song to feel grounded and intentional, rather than accidental and unstable.

As always, some of the most productive writing we can do is not writing at all, but listening. Listen to and transcribe a song a day, and you will find some great harmonic progressions to apply to your own songs.

Happy writing,

Andrea Stolpe

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Simple Tips for Better Chord Progressions | Take Note by Berklee Online

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I love it when songs just fall out. If I could write every song without consciously applying a single tool of the craft, I would. Tools are hard work, and let's face it, I'd rather be lazy. When it comes to writing harmony, sometimes I choose to just coast awhile.

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how do we craft the words but keep it simple?

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how do we craft the words but keep it simple?

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what do you do to decide what story to write about?

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The words have to be easy to sing along to, but  a deeper meaning than you think

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The words have to be easy to sing along to, but  a deeper meaning than you think

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you must have a purpose/theme of the lyrics that is inspired and goes with the music

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The words that you use have to strike emotion in the audience

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The words that you use have to strike emotion in the audience

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we need to try it to better understand the hardships

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Listen to other good musicians and follow their steps in songwriting

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Listen to other good musicians and follow their steps in songwriting

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The lyrical story the artist portrays to the audience can make or break a song

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The lyrical story the artist portrays to the audience can make or break a song

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there are different sections to a song. Like an essay, the order of the song matters

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there are different sections to a song. Like an essay, the order of the song matters

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the aspect that really makes good hip hop is all about the lyrics you choose

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the aspect that really makes good hip hop is all about the lyrics you choose

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the rhythm and rhyme of the lyrics makes the difference between a good and a great song

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the rhythm and rhyme of the lyrics makes the difference between a good and a great song

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make sure the music flows, and that you know your topic well. when writing songs, the title matters, and the words have to connect.

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make sure the music flows, and that you know your topic well. when writing songs, the title matters, and the words have to connect.

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there is a science to get a sing along song stuck in the audiences head that must be used

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there is a science to get a sing along song stuck in the audiences head that must be used

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these are essential skills to write good music

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these are essential skills to write good music

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the part of a catchy song has to do with that era's trending lyrics

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the part of a catchy song has to do with that era's trending lyrics

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The song must stay focused around a clear story

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YOUR BEST SOURCE FOR USEFUL SONGWRITING STUFF

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Lyric writing, like melody writing, is ideally a highly personal and individualized matter. Creativity is not about conformity or adhering to strict dogma. That being said, there are some basic rules of thumb that have proven to be quite effective and worth experimenting with as a songwriter matures in the direction of his or her muse.

The old adage that it is wise to learn the rules before you break them is not a stodgy philosophy at all, but rather a nod to those who have gone before us and gleaned some helpful tendencies. Also, on the practical business side of things, it is good to note that an artist writing for himself can afford to deviate a lot more than a tunesmith trying to place tunes on someone else's record. I seriously doubt that the Lennon/McCartney writing team would have written and pitched "I Am The Walrus" hoping to get a cut on an act other than themselves!

At any rate allow me to apologize in advance to those of you who dispute the notion that this craft can be in any way harnessed. The tips in this article are intended to give my slant on a foundation for the art of lyric writing. Far be it from me to suggest that the possibilities of style, form, and direction are not utterly infinite!

1 - The Mechanics

Photo: Phovoir via PhotoDune

Form is the skeleton of the body when it comes to songwriting.

Form is the skeleton of the body when it comes to songwriting. Most songs break down into various combinations of verse, pre-chorus or channel, chorus and bridge. If you take a long walk in the woods in the company of your iPod, you can readily learn to identify these sections just by listening.

I used to spend a lot of time at Nashville's idyllic Radnor Lake studying the great songwriters in just such a fashion. While some songs begin with the catchy and noticeable chorus, usually containing the hook or title, most begin with a verse. Here you will usually find the story line, however simple it might be. If there is a bit of a build in the last line or two of the chorus, you can think of that as the rise, pre-chorus, or channel, and its purpose is to feed into the chorus.

The chorus is the repeating part of the song, generally designed to grab the ear and hang on for dear life. It can achieve this memorability by repetition or just plain hookiness.

Not every song has a bridge, but when they exist, the purpose is to touch on an angle not yet touched upon, and to a new melody. I like bridges that feel like a bit of a departure. In most cases they are more thoughtful and less picturesque, if that makes sense.

Speak from one point in time and to one audience.

As you hike down that trail in your town's Radnor Lake, listen to song after song and identify those sections. Even pay attention to the instrumental intro. Note differences between the verses and chorus. Pay attention to the angle of the bridge, the tension in the channel. Analyze the different sort of information between the first and subsequent verses. Look for movement that propels the song forward. Identify filler that should have been discarded.

You will discover tons of variation but in time you will get a feel for what is working, what isn't, and why. Writers with many hits have achieved what they have by finding the balance. I hate to refer to it as a formula because that discounts freshness, but to some degree there are formulas. A human face has a formula, but look at all the beautiful and different configurations of eyes, nose, and mouth!

...listen to song after song and identify those sections.

Rhyme is another important factor in most songs. Successful rhyme or lack thereof is about what feels good to the ear. A verse, for example, may have an ABAB rhyme scheme or an AABB one. The length of the line has a lot to do with what feels best. Long couplet lines in a channel usually conform to AA. Internal rhymes within one line add hookiness and interest as well. In a four line section lines two and four will usually hold the dominant rhyme while lines one and three are unnecessary or at times overkill.

Again though, it all depends on the melody, structure, and the line lengths. John Im's, who wrote Trisha Yearwood's mega-hit, "She's In Love With The Boy" also penned a less playful hit with Reba McEntire's "Falling Out of Love." To the best of my memory, the song contains one rhyme in the chorus with the words 'life' and knife,' and the rest of the song stays very effectively rhymeless. Check it out as a case in point. Conversely, I have heard songs where the determination not to rhyme is very obvious and distracting.

The question of perfect rhymes as opposed to near rhymes is another matter. Some writers are quite happy with simply repeating the same vowel sounds. The closer together the rhyming spots are, the more perfect the rhyme should be. At a greater distance, the ear has less memory of the exact sound it heard. Rhyme can be the topic of study on a different day's walk!

No matter how much you like a line, if it is too crowded, or doesn't flow easily and naturally, perform surgery!There is a big difference between a busy, energetic, chunky line, and one that has way too many syllables. Pre-downbeat pick ups should not have to be miles long either. Also make sure you have open vowel sounds on held notes. Nothing feels worse than a closed-end word like "truck" on a long held note.

One last point on mechanics is that of voice. Speak from one point in time and to one audience. If you are telling the listening audience about the girl you just met, don't hit the chorus by speaking directly to said girl! Pronouns can get messy too. If two males are being mentioned close together and the word "he" suddenly turns up, the listener will be wondering, "Which he?"

Photo: EQ8Productions via PhotoDune

A hook book and penn by the bed can spare you some serious pain!

Early on, most songwriters learn the hard way that the 3am idea from last night can vanish by morning coffee time. This can be very frustrating. A hook book and pen by the bed can spare you some serious pain. A small tape recorder or cell phone app is great for melody ideas too.

I keep my hook book with me at all times. You never know when something someone says will suggest a hook or line. Moods, emotions, conversations, movies, books, and plain old inspiration all present ideas that may strike at unexpected times.

There are some great songs out there that employ unadulterated cliches, but I am not a fan of them overall. At least swap out a word or two and make it your own. Sure you are going to cover familiar fodder at times but try to do it in a new and fresh way that is uniquely your own.

Don't underestimate the importance of your opening line either. It can shock, intrigue, or move to tears. Think of it as your movie marquee and ask yourself this: If your opening line was hanging alongside another ten in a theater, would you choose it for your evening's entertainment?

I have written quite a few songs on pure intuition. This type of lyric writing requires a leap of faith, and trusts that the psyche knows where it's going even if you don't! It is amazing to experience this phenomenon when it goes well. It can feel as though you penned the song in a dream and have an unconscious recall of it. Don't be afraid to dump a title if the song heads off on its own and renders your preconceived title impotent.

My best advice is to show it rather than say it.

I have gotten into the habit of attempting to sum up my lyrical idea in one sentence. It helps me to have a better map of where I am going and assures that the various roads I choose are at least moving me closer to my destination.

Staying with the trip metaphor, strive for fresh imagery. Nobody wants to travel down a road they have seen countless times before. Was the sky a blue sky or was it a Michelangelo sky?

Unless the song is deliberately in a stilted poetic style, don't write poetry. Lyric should be interesting but conversational. My best advice is to show it rather than say it. Someone staring out a dirty window downing their second bottle of cabernet is most likely depressed. Paint your scenario in colors far more vivid than a factual word can express.

Now and then, you may find that you have said everything you wanted to say in the first verse and chorus. You then have a remaining half a tank of gas and nowhere to go. Be sure to have enough of an idea to fill a song without becoming boringly redundant. Unfold slowly, and with tension, leaving yourself additional movement.

Occasionally, when you are in a very honest mood, scour your song for worthless filler that rhymes for the sake of rhyme, or does nothing to advance the song. Get tough and toss it. Words like 'very' and 'surely' are often culprits that could be replaced with far more interesting words.

Tired cliches are signs of lazy writing. The distillation process known as rewriting can have an enormous impact on the success of your creation. Sleep on it before you call it finished!

Photo: kentoh via PhotoDune

Probably the most important aspect of good lyric writing is genuine, well-conveyed emotion. Songs written about a real angst-ridden event tend to have an air of gritty realism that fiction-based songs might not. Strive for that realism by calling on past emotions that you can apply to your current idea.

Take your song idea into a fitting room and try on various perspectives.

Consider various tones and moods in expressing your statement. You can come from an angry or hopeful state and still talk about the same matter. Jealousy, rage, joy, humor, and passion all speak a different language. Experiment with different treatments on the same idea.

While good lyric writing should sound personal, avoid writing about such uniquely personal matters that relatability is lost on the listener. Your collection of butterflies might bore me to tears but how that collection relates to your childhood might not. Write a story somebody else would like to read!

Perspective has a great deal to do with emotion. A recent broken heart is devastating while a long ago heartache waxes bittersweet with time. Either can be potently evocative. Take your song idea into a fitting room and try on various perspectives. Step outside yourself and don't always speak as 'you'.

Last but not least, humor is always a welcome emotion in a song. Combine it with 'laundry list' lyrics and you may end up with a darkly witty song like Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover." Sarcastic humor is shown in Brad Paisley's hit "Me Neither", and the list goes on. A humorous song does not need to be a novelty song which would tend to be more limiting. Let humor be one more emotional tone to consider when portraying your storyline.

In Closing

Photo: tratong via PhotoDune

In closing, let me offer a metaphor. I have often thought that the job of a songwriter is rather like that of an air traffic controller. The minutest smattering of an idea is not unlike the airplane barely visible and high in the sky. The job of the writer is to bring it in for a successful landing.

Brilliance or total wreckage can ensue depending on the skill of the controller. The next time you find yourself staring at a blank page, envision a glorious touchdown on the runway!

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Lyric writing, like melody writing, is ideally a highly personal and individualized matter. Creativity is not about conformity or adhering to strict dogma. That being said, there are some basic rules of thumb that have proven to be quite effective and worth experimenting with as a songwriter matures in the direction of his or her muse.

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Do not write a poem for song lyrics, they are different, lyrics must sound good when put to music

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SongLyricist.com - How to write lyrics: The difference between a song and a poem - Writing tips & informative articles for song lyricists, songwriters and song poets!

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How to write lyrics, how to write song lyrics, lyric writing and writing lyrics - writing tips for song lyricists: The difference between a song and a poem.

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Writing a song with unforgettable melodies and creative lyrics can be challenging. Even the most experienced songwriters go through writer's block at some point in their career, and there are many different approaches to songwriting.

Here are 10 helpful songwriting tips, each backed up by quotes from some of the world's most successful songwriters.

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Find out how to write a song from the best in the biz

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1. Where to start writing your song

Getting started is often the hardest part of the songwriting process. Developing your song's main melody or central chorus is considered by some to be the best place to begin writing your next track. Once you've got your hook or key chord progression, you can build the rest of your song around it. But don't worry if you're struggling to find the perfect melody straight away, this method isn't for everyone.

Starting with your song's main riff or hook isn't ideal for every songwriter. Some songwriters prefer to start at the beginning of their track by writing a killer intro, which will lead them naturally into the rest of the song, while others will get the lyrics down first, and then worry about the tune afterwards. There's no rule when it comes to writing a new song. It's down to the songwriter, the song and the original inspiration to determine your starting point.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/ihbY4RUaobCfgzu1xrgL" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me, the music tells me what to talk about." <br><br><strong>John Legend</strong></p>

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2. Lyrics matter

Unless you're producing instrumental music, the lyrics are arguably the most important part of your song. Lyric writing can often be the most frustrating and difficult aspect of the songwriting process, especially for amateur songwriter's lacking in experience.

Having a clear idea of what your song will be about is a good start. You could write down exactly what you want to get across in your lyrics, then play about with the rhythm, structure and cadence of your words to fit them around your melody. A solid lyrical hook for your chorus is particularly important, while the verses and bridge can be built around your central theme.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/SdQ2sz2KQXuBJ6EQlpxN" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I deliberate over the lyrics; I really do. I'll come up with one line in a day, and then it might be a couple of days before I come up with the rhyming line."<br><br><strong>Rod Stewart</strong></p>

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3. Record any spur of the moment inspiration

There's nothing worse as a songwriter than coming up with an amazing melody or riff, only to completely forget what is was an hour later. Forgetting your ideas can be really frustrating, so it's important to make a note of your idea while it's fresh in your mind, even if it's just recorded quickly on your phone or scribbled on a scrap of paper. You'll be glad of the reminder later when you return to continue working on the song.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/0lV6GJncSEQHKN4iQHeF" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't." <br><br><strong>Connor Oberst</strong></p>

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4. Write from experience

As obvious as it may sound, some of history's greatest songs are about personal experiences, with artists drawing on real-life events and traumas to spark their creativity. Whether you've been through hard times or great times, you can use your life experiences to great affect. Put those feelings into a song you can be proud of.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/J08UT2U7T9myr41IoIhP" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"My experience with song writing is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories." <br><br><strong>Taylor Swift</strong></p>

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5. Collaborate with other musicians

If you're suffering from writer's block (everyone does at some point!), then collaborating with other musicians can offer a great way to break new ground and get a fresh perspective on your track. Show them what you've got so far, discuss any new ideas they might suggest, and see what comes out of it. Getting an outside persceptive on your track from a fellow musician can help to bring the best out of your music. Two heads are always usually better than one.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/AW4Z5MWQDuWa5cs4Y3Ts" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration."<br><br><strong>Talib Kweli</strong></p>

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6. Keep it simple and build on it

Keeping your track as simple as possible at first is an excellent way to accelerate the songwriting process and work out the structure of your song. Many complex songs from 5 or 6-piece bands started life as a few chords strummed on an acoustic guitar. Once you've the basis of the song in its simplest form, you can go about adding drums, strings, brass or any other additional elements afterwards. Don't make things harder for yourself by overcomplicating your track right from the beginning.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/G7R0f03Q56KhasMt2jcA" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue."<br><br><strong>Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine</strong></p>

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7. Make sure to take breaks

Writing a song from scratch can sometimes be frustrating and mentally tiring work, especially if the ideas aren't flowing as easily as you'd like. Often a 15-minute break away from your instrument or lyrics pad can help get the creativity flowing and stop your mind from becoming too clouded to see the ideas and inspiration you're searching for. Whether it's written in two hours or two months, the final product is all that's important, no matter how long it takes.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/oCIOJWa4RF6ubsgMe4iu" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I wish I were one of those people who wrote songs quickly. But I'm not. So it takes me a great deal of time to find out what the song is" <br><br><strong>Leonard Cohen</strong></p>

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8. Don't overthink it

Musicians and songwriters are often our own worst critics. If you judge your own songs too harshly you'll never get anything done, so it's important to keep an open mind, and while it's great to take your time and carefully consider each facet of a new song, it's often easier to get things done when you let the songwriting process flow, stop worrying and just get on with it. Overthinking can be your worst enemy. Get the basis of your song down, and you can always go back and change things afterwards.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/IpFl3uXHRFKKjodHWgYw" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"If anyone asks me about songwriting, I guess I'd say that you just gotta do it." <br><br><strong>Alex Turner, Arctic Monkeys</strong></p>

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9. Ask for feedback

It's easy to lose sight of how good or bad your song is after you've spent hours and hours working, changing and creating it by yourself. So find someone you trust to give honest advice, and who's opinion you value, and ask them to critique it for you. You might find they have some fantastic insight into how it could be improved. Don't just play it for someone who might be afraid to hurt your feelings - you want honest opinions, not just yes men.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/cEGkEE9NSm2QkNT4JPKk" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I enjoy the collaboration. I always envied people in bands who got to have that interaction. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself." <br><br><strong>Beck</strong></p>

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10. Don't be afraid to fail

Apologies for the cliché, but if you're failing and struggling to write the song you know is in you - just keep going. There's no secret formula for successful songwriting, other than the combination of hard work, positivity and talent. This quote from the legendary Johnny Cash sums up the point perfectly.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/iqiQBeNCR0mhGGe9Ibns" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." <br><br><strong>Johnny Cash</strong></p>

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How to Write a Song | 10 Songwriting Tips from the Pros

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Writing a song with unforgettable melodies and creative lyrics can be challenging. Even the most experienced songwriters go through writer's block at some point in their career, and there are many different approaches to songwriting. Here are 10 helpful songwriting tips, each backed up by quotes from some of the world's most successful songwriters.

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Lyric writing takes time, effort, and practice, you need multiple drafts

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The process of writing lyrics, perhaps more than any other discipline in music, is very personal to the writer. Everyone has a different approach, and what will work well for one lyricist will not necessarily work for another. Some people can write a whole song in five minutes, for some people it can take months.
However you write, though, and whatever your style, we've put together some pointers that we hope will prove useful. Some of them are rules of thumb; others are ideas to help you get out of any creative rut. The main thing to remember is that as with any other art form, there is no right or wrong way to do it. Experiment with the tips, tricks, dos and don'ts below, but remember that in this case, the rules can sometimes be broken. If you like the tips below, there's a lyric-writing blog post with a few more thoughts on the subject.

1. Practice. Like any other creative process such as playing guitar or programming synth sounds, lyric-writing is a skill that can be learnt and improved upon.

2. Don't be disheartened if your lyrics aren't perfect on the first draft. Many professional writers will rewrite a song's lyrics dozens of times before they make it onto record.

3. Persevere. More often than not, songs aren't born, they're created and sculpted. Don't expect a song to arrive fully formed; they sometimes take time and you'll need to work at it.

4. If you can't quite figure out how to say what you want within a particular line, jot down the gist of it and move on to another part of the song - you can come back to it later. That way, you won't spend hours wrestling with one small line that might turn out to be insignificant in the wider context of the song.

5. Try to have a clear idea of what the song is about. You should be able to sum up the essence of the song in one sentence.

6. Analyse other songs. Try to pick out the differences in lyrics between your favourite songs and your own, and apply any lyrical techniques you learn to your own work.

7. Make sure the song has a clear structure and progression. This is particularly important in narrative songs (songs that tell a story). A quick test is to read the finished song through from start to finish, asking yourself "does this make sense?"

8. Use context. Adding a back-story to explain the situation (for example) can add interest, and can change the entire meaning of any lyrics following it.

9. Use perspective. For example, a classic songwriting trick is to describe an event in the first verse, and add perspective by describing how it affected you or made you feel in the second verse. Another viewpoint can put an interesting spin on an otherwise straightforward point.

10. Choruses require a different approach to verses, especially if you're writing pop. They often need to be more 'plain' and easy to remember. A common trick is to write the 'setup' during the verse, and the emotional 'payoff' in the chorus.

11. Experiment with rhythm within a line. A line can have its own rhythmic bounce or flair and still fit in within the overall rhyming scheme.

12. Use light and shade. Contrasting the happy and positive with the sad and downbeat within a song can be very powerful. Context is everything: a joyous chorus after a more solemn verse can make the chorus even more uplifting.

13. Don't use an excess of adjectives, or describing words. While they are clearly essential to a songwriter, adding too many can make a lyric less concise.

14. Don't feel that using imagery will make your lyrics too arty or flowery. Used well, it can evoke emotions or moods that can't be created by using blunt description alone.

15. Be careful when using the emotional abstract, for example, saying things like "I want to feel free". Complex emotions are often difficult to describe; it's sometimes more effective to use imagery (see tip 14) or context (see tip 8) to convey an emotion rather than simply stating it.

16. Experiment with tense. It can be interesting to write about the past, present and future, sometimes all within the same song.

17. Be clear. Remember that the listeners might miss a word, or a line, or three. Don't rely on just one small line to put the whole song in context.

18. Experiment with attitude. Songs can be humble, arrogant, hopeful, sombre, aggressive and more. Creative droughts can often be tackled by radically changing the outlook of your lyrics. This isn't to say that you shouldn't be yourself, but a bit of experimentation won't hurt.

19. Experiment with pronouns. Songs don't always have to be written using 'you' or 'I'. Lyrics with plural pronouns such as 'we' and 'they', for example, can give a very different feel to a song. Avoid using too many different pronouns in the same song though as this may be confusing.

20. Don't use too many words. Cramming a line full of words where they clearly won't fit may cause each word to lose its impact; it's normally wiser to re-write the line completely rather than trying to play literary Tetris.

21. Be aware of the 'sounds' of words. Words have an inherent sound to them which becomes even more pronounced when sung rather than spoken. Some words sound spikey, some stodgy, some open, some blunt, some roll off the tongue. Take the sound as well the meaning of the word into account when writing.

22. Be cautious when using 'clever' or overly elaborate language. These words often look fine on paper, but normally don't translate well into song. You also run the risk of alienating listeners that don't know what a word means.

23. Consider the rhyming scheme, if there is one. It's important to remember that how 'catchy' your song is in not just a product of the music and melody; it also comes from the lyrics, especially the rhythm and rhyming scheme.

24. If possible, avoid writing filler lines in order to make rhymes work. It's fine to use filler when mapping out the structure of the song, but you should use any subsequent re-writes to try and make each line count in is own right.

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The process of writing lyrics, perhaps more than any other discipline in music, is very personal to the writer. Everyone has a different approach, and what will work well for one lyricist will not necessarily work for another. Some people can write a whole song in five minutes, for some people it can take months.

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All pros have their own way of getting inspiration, and their own way of writing songs, you need to find your own

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Interview: GZA on Uniqueness, Lyricism, and Science

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We sat down with The Genius to talk about lyricism, animal metaphors, and how Adele is like Halley's Comet.

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Mister Glassman - Single by Scotty Sire on Apple Music

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Listen to songs from the album Mister Glassman - Single, including "Mister Glassman". Buy the album for $2.19. Songs start at $2.19. Free with an Apple Music subscription.

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What's the most important component in hip-hop? For some, it's the finesse of the turn-up. Others celebrate the smoothness at which a hook is carried toward the stratosphere. Some dudes just enjoy the fashion. Ask Wu Tang's GZA though, and he'll give you an isolated answer: "At the end of the day", he says, "it's all about the lyrics".

GZA speaks truth. Without lyrics, there would be no rap. They're an integral component to the genre - more essential than throwback samples or the Roland 808 drum kit. But GZA isn't here to state the obvious; he's talking more specifically about rap's relationship with spoken word. In an essay published a few weeks back titled " The Lost Art of Lyricism", he tore into today's hip-hop artists, bemoaning the current generation's lack of lyricism. "Rakim... never talked about running up in the club and blasting dudes" - he says, holding the rap artists of 2015 up to the standard of hip hop's Golden Age, in which artists like Big Daddy Kane, KRS One, and Chuck D provided the base plate for complex wordplay.

It's easy to see where GZA's coming from. On his celebrated verse from 1988's "Follow the Leader", Rakim never repeats a two-bar rhythmic pattern - which means the cadence of every couplet within the song's all-you-can-eat metaphor buffet is different. Compare that to the millennial rap scene's biggest hitters - a song by Migos that repeats the word "Versace" eighteen times; Kanye West writing couplets like "I wanna fuck you hard on the sink; after that get you something to drink"; one-hit wonders singing about their affection for " the co-co" or " cashing out " - and it's clear the ingredients needed to make a celebrated hip-hop track have changed. It's no wonder GZA is disappointed. The rap scene he was born into no longer exists.

GZA was born in 1966. By the time he'd experimented with cousins Ol' Dirty Bastard and the RZA, released a solo album as The Genius, and put out Return to the 36 Chambers with the Wu-Tang Clan, the year was 1995, and he was 29. He's been through rap's infancy, when its core focus was on a rapper's wordplay. Today, things are different. As hip-hop critic Jeff Weiss tweeted last month, the most anticipated rap albums of the year - by artists who primarily blew up because of their rapping talent - sound like albums by rappers who are actively trying not to rap: "Tyler wants to be a director. Kendrick wants to be a jazzman. Chance wants to be Jamiroquai. ASAP wants to be Hansel. No one wants to rap". As rap has evolved, in some places its focus has shifted from who can spit the best bars, to who can release the most sonically lush, experimental projects. But in other creative provinces: bars still matter.

Two artists replied to Jeff Weiss' comments on today's rap landscape - Earl Sweatshirt and Mick Jenkins. "I do", Earl Sweatshirt said, responding to Weiss' comment that "no one wants to rap", while Mick Jenkins asked, "What the fuck else I gotta do?", seemingly upset that the potent literary symbolism of his mixtape The Water(s) hadn't been picked up as much as it should have been. Both artists released some of the most cohesive rap records in recent memory - an opinion Weiss shares in the case of Earl Sweatshirt, later listing his recent release as one of the "three best rap albums this year" - and they're not alone. There are a bunch of artists out there breathing life into "The Lost Art of Lyricism".

Take, for example, Kendrick Lamar. When he released To Pimp a Butterfly this March, there was one common reaction: this album will take time to unpack. Sonically, the record sounds unlike a rap album. But in the couplets, most of which are still being debated on Rap Genius, there's power held within the record's lyricism. On "The Blacker the Berry", Kendrick hits the beat with urgency, and his cadence fiercely pushes lines like "I'm African American, I'm African / I'm black as the heart of a fuckin' Aryan" to the forefront. Throughout the track he's "as blunt as it gets" about his pride. But the song ends with a twist - the line: "Why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street, when gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite!". Regardless of your opinion on Kendrick's standing regarding Trayvon Martin - of which there have been many - it's a shocking line. Yet as Michael Chabon, the celebrated author, annotated on Rap Genius, the reversal at the end of the track makes the listener "consider the possibility that 'hypocrisy' is, in certain situations, a much more complicated moral position than is generally allowed, and perhaps an inevitable one". Its the lyrics that make "The Blacker the Berry" one of the most powerful tracks in Kendrick Lamar's back catalogue.

Meanwhile tracks like "How Much a Dollar Cost", which narrates a chance meeting between Kendrick and God, and lines like the "Democrips and Rebloodlicans / Red State versus a Blue State / Which one you governin'?" couplet from "Hood Politics" - a concept potentially cribbed from Pat Justice's 2009 track "Democrips and Rebloodlicans", but a great line nonetheless - make strong use of wordplay, using it to tell vast, multi-layered stories. It's a theme that anchored Kendrick's breakthrough, the vastly intertextual good kid, m.A.A.d city. Sure, the way Kendrick and other artists, ranging from Lupe Fiasco to Pusha T, use lyrics is different to GZA's Golden Age. For one, the beats are entirely different. The flow too, stands apart. There's no rappity rap. Yet their lyrics, and their extensive army of techniques from metaphors to multis, still use words to draw attention to issues, conscious, political, and personal, with the same motive that's always been behind rap music: to leave the listener with a message.

In the past, during the Golden Age, the OG hip-hop heads cared for deciphering an artist's lyrics. Now, with websites like Rap Genius, and some of the biggest artists of the day releasing lyrically rich projects, even the most average of hip-hop fans are becoming more appreciative of lyricism - debating it in forums, shouting lines out in tweets and, in some cases, studying entire records as part of their college degrees. In his essay, GZA accepts this, writing "I'm sure there are great lyricists out there today". But he back-turns. In "mainstream hip-hop, lyricism is gone. There are some artists out there that think they're great storytellers, but they're not. I haven't heard the word 'MC' in so long; I haven't heard the word 'lyrical.'"

It seems, then, that GZA is more upset with the changing tides. He concedes that the mainstream hip-hop artists of his day - Kurtis Blow, the first rap artist to be signed to a major label, or Sugar Hill Gang - were corny, but states they "had messages". It would be senseless to suggest the mainstream songs from today, tracks like "No Flex Zone" or most DJ Mustard productions, have a message outside of turning up in the club, but that shouldn't matter, because they're almost a different genre to the brand of hip-hop GZA is talking about. Today, there are arguably two strands of mainstream hip-hop. The first, comes from artists like Kendrick, who release best selling albums. And the second is the kind that's played on mainstream daytime radio. It's that latter half, the sound that's found in those turnt-up anthems, that GZA seems to be talking about when he addresses the mainstream. He's right to say that lyricism has gone from that area because those sort of tracks barely count as hip-hop. The staples of the genre are the same - there's a beat, there are rap lyrics, there's often a hook - but it's a very different sound, often devoid of a message.

We're almost forty years past the first rap artist signing to a major label, and as such, hip-hop has split into splinter cells; some artists, the mainstream ones who are played on the radio, "don't give a fuck" about a message, but equally there are many who care about the weight of their words. This doesn't matter to GZA either, though. He's upset the core values have disappeared; that people don't talk about being an "MC" or being "lyrical" anymore. In GZA's day, being lyrical meant rapping about your skill, and crafting the most intellectual rhymes.

Today, it's different. There's still the odd track, like Kendrick Lamar's "Control" for example, where a rapper boasts about their skills, but possessing good lyrics no longer revolves around talking about being an MC. GZA bemoans a "Lost Art of Lyricism" in today's rap because the world has changed. The original backbone celebrated by Golden Age artists like Rakim - being an MC and representing the five elements of that culture: graffiti, MCing, DJing, breakdancing, and knowledge - has disappeared. The philosophy behind hip-hop is different now, so it's understandable GZA is upset - the landscape he grew up in, the ideals he subscribed to, have been put to the wayside. But that's the way of the world. With all the knowledge GZA possesses, he should know nothing will ever be the same as those Golden Years; that culture never stays the same. At the moment, he's an old dude shooing the young'uns off his lawn. But it's worth him opening his eyes to see the new talent, masters, and poets, coming up. Because lyricism isn't dead. As GZA says on "Liquid Swords", "enter the chamber and it's a whole new sound".
You can follow Ryan on Twitter.

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Has The Lyricism Been Erased from Hip Hop?

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What's the most important component in hip-hop? For some, it's the finesse of the turn-up. Others celebrate the smoothness at which a hook is carried toward the stratosphere. Some dudes just enjoy the fashion. Ask Wu Tang's GZA though, and he'll give you an isolated answer: "At the end of the day", he says, "it's all about the lyrics".

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Everything with the topic 'The Lost Art Of Lyricism' on Noisey

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GZA Pens Op-Ed On 'The Lost Art Of Lyricism'

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GZA has some choice words for contemporary MCs in a self-penned op-ed on 'The Lost Art Of Lyricism'

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If you listen to a lot of hip-hop, your ears perk up whenever a rapper refers to an older act or quotes one of its lines. How casual is the reference? Is it a nod to an era, or more about influence, simple wordplay, a local connection, or something else?

Responses to forebears can be heard all over the notable releases of the last few years. Earl Sweatshirt recalls "mobbing deep as '96 Havoc and Prodigy did," while J. Cole takes a moment to vent spleen at "the O.G. gatekeep rappers, the would-you-take-a-break-please' rappers.' " On the underrated mixtape "Lil Me," Wiki declares roots in "New York when Wu-Tang was rising," in part meaning not that he came of age in 1993 but that he was born then. Another person to first see daylight that year was Chancelor Bennett, or Chance the Rapper. "Oh, generation above me, I know you still remember me," Chance says with clever inversion in "Acid Rap," from 2013. Hip-hop may be increasingly amorphous and inseparable from pop, yet these cross-generational telegrams imply an additional truth: lyrics are back.

Not that lyrics-forward hip-hop fully went away. After the heavyweights of the eighties and nineties, it lived on, thanks to MF Doom, Clipse, Elzhi, Jean Grae, E-40, Little Brother, and members of the Boot Camp Clik and the Living Legends-everyone will have their opinions. A few heroes from an older guard, like Masta Ace and Ghostface Killah, overturned genre laws and got even better. But, at the same time, solid lyrical releases could feel thin on the ground, or at least they could for the rewinding fans who prize layers, precise phrasing, and detail-the sort of listener who travels mentally through a track at odd moments, stopping to puzzle out a story or just ask, Is that "Wu's whole platoon is filled with raccoons," or "_your _whole platoon"? Maybe some collective deflation was to be expected, though, considering what happened to Tupac (1996), Biggie Smalls (1997), Big L (1999), Big Pun (2000), and, while not a rhymer, per se, Aaliyah (2001). After the jiggy era ushered in a lyrically boring period of excess, attention in hip-hop moved to the South, where discoveries were often more sonic than lyrical; to Kanye; and to intoxicating anthems about this or that, hopefully featuring Ashanti.

Whether you agree with the brief characterization above or not, there are points that strongly separate today's young m.c.s from those maturing in other eras. Rappers under thirty today grew up with the Internet in place-with all that free music across genres, mixes, videos, lyrics sites, podcasts, and history. Gone are the days of shameless store freeloading to hear mere snatches of new CDs. More rap exists now than anyone has the time or desire to ingest. The way people come up, too, has been transformed, with labels looking to artists for trends more than the other way around, and radio unseated as a central arbiter of taste. Then there's the cultural capital of hip-hop, whose enormity can disguise how recently it was accrued. When m.c.s help campaign for Presidential races and a single tour (in this case, Drake and Future's) can net eighty-four million dollars, it's easy to forget the freedom-of-speech trials and corporate wariness that marked the genre during the first half of the nineties.

In prior decades, rappers usually laid down two or three verses on a solo cut-if three strong ones, all the more proof of lyrical chops. Beyond the quality of those verses as delivered and the nature of his voice, an m.c.'s thoroughness on the mike was expressed in other areas-in the style and spirit he brought to collaborations, for example, to random banter and patterned shout-outs to other neighborhoods, rappers, and cities. I'm thinking of Phife Dawg on Tribe's "God Lives Through" (1993), where a mid-verse toast mostly consists of a train of letters but puts them to a surprising, percussive use-"I dedicate this to all the m.c.s. out of Queens / That goes for Onyx, L.L., Run-D.M.C. / Akinyele, Nasty Nas, and the Extra P." Or then there's the outro to " '93 'til Infinity," by Oakland's Souls of Mischief, where cohorts are all checked off one by one as "chillin' "-a tiny and loose part of the track, by appearance fairly spontaneous, yet the classic wouldn't have the same life without it.

Today, the old verse-format assumptions have largely gone out the window, and the role of the m.c. not infrequently involves rapping and singing in some kind of combination. Tastes differ about the latter, and the practice used to be eyebrow-raising for most everyone, except Biz Markie and Ol' Dirty Bastard, but it's a natural area of exploration. Related to this new fluency, now, even when someone only raps alongside a singer, the two often interact more than they would have in the two-dimensional, hook-led templates of old. What else? Questlove, in his memoir, has noted the waning of settled duos and groups and the proliferation of solo voices. One-off or periodic unions abound, yet whether these can ever equal the dynamics (to say nothing of the lost amazing act names) of sustained and evolving partnerships in rhyme is an open question. Whatever the case may be, and in keeping with popular music as a whole, collaborations now run in every direction possible-Wiki's include the grime artist Skepta and the experimental singer Micachu. Whether it is R. & B.'s current vitality rubbing off on hip-hop or the other way around, the two genres have seldom appeared so meshed with each other.

The shifts in rapped "content" can be harder to make sense of in real time. While expressive, rap is also aslant-a genre full of voices that move in and out of persona, to and away from known conventions; where braggadocio gets deployed as an outlet for verbal play, humor, distinctions of temperament, and the like. Is "On the contrilly / I packs the mack-milli" a phrase for a corner-bound drug dealer, or a deranged Dr. Seuss? Still, at this point in hip-hop's development, it's evident how roundly the genre has been shaped as a subculture, by its birth in Bronx rubble and evolution through the years of crack. With time, those contexts have grown clearer, oddly strengthening the echoes of work music and the blues. Think of Wu-Tang's "C.R.E.A.M.," or "Cash Rules Everything Around Me," ostensibly a love letter to hustling that really turns on bleak experiences of youth and adolescence. "It's been twenty-two long, hard years, I'm still struggling," Inspectah Deck opened the second verse to the 1993 song, "survival got me buggin'." Once a listener became familiar with the verse, she or he was likely to pause and reflect on the unusual gravity: just twenty-two.

Hearing the new breed, what stands out first is the general climate of positivity. Positive hip-hop, or "conscious," or "socially engaged," or whatever you want to call it, has had its moments before, but you'd likely have to return to Public Enemy days before finding an act with an impact like that of Kendrick Lamar. (Lamar's "Alright" last year served as a natural and usefully upbeat song for the Black Lives Matter movement, among a plethora of other honors.) Whereas Public Enemy had different members and sensibilities to help the messages slide down better, Lamar is aided by his warmly dynamic persona and versatility with moods and styles-one almost wants to say voices, given that certain songs are near to soliloquy in concept, and can feature anything from despairing growls to a computer-like whisper. And then there's Chance, likewise an earthbound star whose optimism seems sourced from some other decade, be it of the future or an alternate world. The Chicagoan must be the first m.c. to conceive of a boast like "Wondrous, unfamiliar lessons from childhood / make you remember how to smile good," or to bring up a late, cherished family pet in a rap, or to resurrect a sweet childhood romance played out in a roller-skating rink.

The rapturous commentary around " Coloring Book " has made much of Chance's new fatherhood, as well as religion, especially with respect to its lyrics and church aesthetics. But a number of the tracks are more edged than a listen or two might lead you to believe. Chicago's gun violence figures into the weave of "Summer Friends," as has been well noted, but the lyrics seem equally about childhood, and the mysterious line separating that world from the present, when Chance "never let a friendship get in my way." "Smoke Break," for its part, is in the spirit of "Sexual Healing," yet it also makes for a snapshot of young love besieged by busyness-"I'm always throwin' on clothes / She always throwin' a fit / We don't got no time for no sex." "Acid Rap," a younger man's careening carpet ride fuelled by pills, sex, and confusion, also bore an unmistakable cleverness and good will. ("Balancing on sporadicity and fucking pure joy"-another sentiment hard to imagine in the hip-hop of another decade.) It's still early for Chance, but so far he's been consistent in blurring the space between joys and thrills, in partnering happy innocence with a wily irony and sense of mischief.

It's tempting to attribute hip-hop's recent surge of lyrical energy to America's worrisome state. Yet the problems of racism, poverty, and police shootings have never exactly been absent in the genre's lifetime. The clearing and regenerating power of youth is a more likely shaping force, I suspect-or that, plus a whole new warming set of conditions: hip-hop's strong cultural position now; older m.c.s staying in the game; the greater blending of hip-hop activism with the music itself; and an industry model that, for all that's unstable and absurdly unfair about it, at least allows for the making of music less mediated by industry appetites and preconceptions. Late in "Summer Friends," Chance says that he can "make the whole song do whatever I say." It's a fun boast, partly because it sounds like he can-when Chance is at his best, few rappers think and swerve so fast on their feet-and partly because he conveys the exhilaration. It's the same with the new wave of lyricists: you can taste their air of open possibility, both for themselves and for where the music might go.

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If you listen to a lot of hip-hop, your ears perk up whenever a rapper refers to an older act or quotes one of its lines. How casual is the reference? Is it a nod to an era, or more about influence, simple wordplay, a local connection, or something else?

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I feel like we were productive. We got to know a lot about music in a short amount of time, and we piled in a bundle of resources. We could have had a more precise and focused plan, but other than that we were productive and on task

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I think that we were very productive today and got a lot of good information collected

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M usic is forever changing. Hip-hop is not going to be what it was 15 or 20 years ago. Everything changes. There are different sounds, different dances. But at the end of the day, to me it's all about the lyrics.

Hip-hop started with street poets with great lyrical skills, and that's what hip-hop has always been about for me. If you hear people talking about the Golden Era of rap they're usually talking about the early-Wu Tang Clan era. And then Nas and Biggie and so on. But for me it goes back to the 80s - 1986 to 1989.

Take somebody like Big Daddy Kane, his first record was " Raw." When Kane came out as an artist, I'd get chills from his music because it would be so dope and so lyrical and so strong and so fresh and so new. On "Raw" he says:

"Here I am, R-A-W / A terrorist, here to bring trouble to / Phony MCs, I move on and seize / I just conquer, and stomp another rapper with ease / 'Cause I'm at my A-pex and others are B-low..." ~Big Daddy Kane

...and he's talking about MCing! He's talking about his craft! Yah, Kane was a player dude. He was a sex symbol in hip-hop, he was flossy and drove the fancy cars. But he never really rhymed about it. He still lived that life but he was talking about MCing in his songs. Same thing with Rakim: He rolled with a bunch of hardcore street dudes but he never talked about running up in the club and blasting dudes. He was beyond that. He spoke about his lyrical skills. Or take an artist like Nas, he's one of the greatest out there. He's done his party-type music, but he's always been lyrical with it and had good analogies and had good wordplay and good sentence structure and good visuals without talking about running the block and smoking people.

Sure, it was always about the image in rap, whether a positive or negative one. Back in the day some dudes wore costumes: Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force, they were looking like the Village People. Melle Mel. It's all good, though. Because they all had a message: socially, politically and economically. They spoke about the injustices in the city. They spoke about poverty, and they told a great story.

Of course, you still had your corny MCs. Kurtis Blow was nothing lyrically compared to Kool Moe Dee in the late 70s. But Kurtis Blow was basically the first hip-hop artist to be signed to a major label. Sugarhill Gang was the same way. That's the stuff I grew up on, it was always about that balance.

Bottom line is they all had messages, but nowadays it's changed. You've got shorties talking gangster stuff - they put music out about that and they're not really about that life. And then you bring that energy to you and it changes the dynamics of the industry. We don't have songs like " Self Destruction" or " We're All In The Same Gang " anymore. Rappers aren't grabbing you anymore, it's not pulling me in. What can I get from talking about my car? It's irrelevant. It's not about the art form anymore. I think it was Chaka Khan who said, "I would sing for nothing because this is what I love to do." It was never about money for me. There's a line we had in Wu-Tang for years:

"It was not a hobby but a childhood passion Thatstarted in the lobby and was quicklyfashionedRushing Elephants"

I'm sure there are great lyricists out there today, but when you look at mainstream hip-hop, lyricism is gone. There are some artists out there that think they're great storytellers, but they're not. Nowadays there are certain things I don't hear anymore from rappers: I haven't heard the word "MC" in so long; I haven't heard the word "lyrical." A lot of rappers think they're hardcore or say they're from the streets and there's that thing where they always say, "I live what I rhyme about, I rhyme about what I live." But you don't always have to do that. Because for me it's not about telling the story - it's about weaving the tale.

Since early childhood, I've been trying to learn all I can. Science is everything; it's not just physics. It's the way of understanding your environment, the world around you. When we were younger, whatever we felt was interesting enough to write about we would write about it. And science has always been that something for me. Not to the point where I wanted to study science and become a scientist and physicist or anything like that, but it's just understanding life. That's been a part of my lyrical history for years.

If you go back to my 2002 album, Legend of the Liquid Sword, I had a rhyme on there where I said, "My U-N-I-verse run like clockworks forever / Words pulled together, sudden change in the weather / The nature and the scale of events don't make sense / A storm with no warnin' you're drawn in by immense / Gravity that's gone mad, clouds of dust and debris / Moving at colossal speeds, they crush an MC / Since this rap region is heavily packed with stars / Internal mirror in the telescope, notices the Czar / From far away, they blink as the lightin' strolled / Great distance of space between precise globes / That travel in a circle of order." It's all about tapping into life.

I think sometimes most rappers' imaginations are sterile. I can write about anything and it will be interesting. If someone gave me a beat to a song and said the title of the song was called "Drinks On Me" and then gave it to another artist, lyrically theirs would probably be all about the same types of things and mine would be completely different. I wouldn't talk about buying bottles up in the club; I'd talk about someone that's putting date rape drugs in drinks. You have to use everything as a vehicle. If I'm writing about a pencil I might say something like, "So I bang him in the head, just lead / No eraser / One shot, no chaser / Who's your replacer?" It's all a metaphor, in a sense. When you say, "So I bang him in the head / Just lead" that could be about the pencil or the gun. In a way I'm still saying the same thing other rappers are saying, I'm just saying it differently.

When I was in Wu-Tang, and even before that, it's always been about being lyrical - who can craft the wittiest, the most intellectual, the smartest and the cleverest rhymes. It's always been that for us as MCs from Day One. It's the same for me now. It's all about the story.

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GZA Speaks: The Lost Art of Lyricism - Cuepoint - Medium

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M usic is forever changing. Hip-hop is not going to be what it was 15 or 20 years ago. Everything changes. There are different sounds, different dances. But at the end of the day, to me it's all about the lyrics.

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Writing creative lyrics is a challenging task. If you want to write for radio, you'll probably lean towards accessible themes of love with simple, easy-to-digest lyrics. Poetry, as beautiful as it may be, does not always fit rhythmically into a melody. It's not premeditated for music, unlike lyrics. Being creative does not necessarily mean artful or esoteric. You can write pop music with vivid, emotional, unique lyrics. You may be saying the same thing as previous songwriters - you broke my heart, I want you back, I will chase my dreams - but there are always new ways to arrange your words. Here are five creative exercises to write more creative lyrics.

1. Write with your favorite songwriters

A powerful exercise to help you write more creative lyrics is to write alongside your favorite songwriters. You may be wondering, "So, I just call up Conor Oberst to write?" Well, not quite. A good exercise is to take the lyrics from a song you love. Print them out, cross out every other line, and insert your own lyrics.

For example: Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life":

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway Write a new lyric.
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach Write a new lyric.
Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you Write a new lyric.
Now I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been Write a new lyric.
But I know where I want to go

2. Write a stranger's story

Just like a visual artist may trace a scene of strangers on the train or at the park, writers can do the same. Go to a populous place - somewhere peaceful, but not too crowded. Observe the strangers around you. What are their stories? Are they heartbroken? Are they in love? What fears have they yet to overcome? Ask questions to yourself. When listening to your favorite lyricists, what aspects of a character do they reveal that resonate with you? Maybe they confess self-doubt, an issue you can relate to.

Look for stories within strangers and write. It doesn't have to be a tangible story either. Maybe the old lady in the park owns the world's largest diamond and is living with angels in a deserted house on the moon. Be creative, explore, and be curious.

3. Pick a theme and just write

Oftentimes when we write, we're so concerned with liking every verse that comes out of us. We write line for line without moving onto the next one until we're satisfied with the first one. Obviously you want the best lyrics possible, but a s a creative exercise, try exploring stream of consciousness to its fullest potential.

Before you write a song - or even in the middle of writing it - choose the theme that you're trying to express, and simply just write. Set a timer for five, 10, or 15 minutes. Don't look down or think about whether what you're saying is good, grammatically correct, or even representative of said theme. Just be open and get everything out. Go back and analyze what you've written, choose lines you like, and do your best to fully understand the story you want to tell. You may be surprised by what you find out.

4. Write with a friend - and on a deadline

Songwriters like Jason Mraz, Bob Schneider, Patty Griffin, and Ben Folds play something called " The Song Game." Essentially, they take a theme or single lyric to write a song about, then they have a short period of time to write a song and submit it. Mraz's song "Coyote" from his breakthrough album We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things was born from the game.

Find a friend whose writing you admire. Maybe your friends aren't even songwriters; they could be poets, fiction writers, or essayists. Pick an amount of time that works for you: a day, a week, two weeks, etc. Then pick a theme, word, emotion, or lyric to base a song around. You and your friend can write a song and send it to each other and provide feedback. Doing it with a friend - and on a deadline - makes it exciting and competitive.

Bonus tip: Another exercise for writing with a friend is going line by line. You can do this over email, text, or in person. Start a song with a line from a book of poetry, then trade lines with a friend. You write one, he or she writes one, rinse and repeat.

5. Master the vocabulary of an emotion

Being a creative writer doesn't necessarily mean writing about new ideas or emotions. Rather, it can mean writing about emotions we all know and feel in a new way. Pick an emotion: fear, love, joy, bittersweet, anger, etc. Then, use a thesaurus to map out every synonym you can find that will describe the emotion. Don't be afraid to combine words either, such as "heart-shattering sorrow," "life-halting fear," etc. Think of your vocabulary as ammunition. While you should always have a thesaurus nearby, having a wide array of words on hand to describe an emotion will help you produce more content and write more creatively quicker.
Looking for more? Check out these articles about songwriting: Sam Friedman is an electronic music producer and singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, NY. His music blends experimental ambience with indie-driven dance music. In addition to pursuing his own music, he is a New Music Editor for Unrecorded and is passionate about music journalism. Check out his music and follow him on Twitter @nerveleak.

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5 Exercises to Write More Creative Lyrics

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Writing creative lyrics is a challenging task. If you want to write for radio, you'll probably lean towards accessible themes of love with simple, easy-to-digest lyrics. Poetry, as beautiful as it may be, does not always fit rhythmically into a melody. It's not premeditated for music, unlike lyrics.

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I've been writing songs for over 30 years. I've had 150 of them cut by famous singers like Liza Minnelli and Dianne Reeves, and written songs for a hit off Broadway musical and have had tunes on the soul, pop, county, dance and jazz charts. But when I started teaching songwriting about seven years ago, I was still surprised to find out that there were simple things my students weren't doing that could have made their songs a whole lot better.

Dianne Warren, who has written more hit songs than anybody writing today, could have replaced the title to her No. 1 song by Toni Braxton, Un-Break My Heart, with the title Please Mend My Heart. It means the same thing. But, it wouldn't have had one-tenth of the commercial impact. Un-Break My Heart is unique and catchy; you've never quite heard that thought expressed that way. But I can't tell you how many students come to me with the most boring, pedestrian titles on their songs. A great title is more than half the battle; it tells you what to write, it attracts the listener and gets them hooked. Don't even write word one without a great title!

New lyricists inevitably tend to be vague and non-descriptive with their words. The best way I know how to illustrate "being specific" is through a song written by one of the greatest lyricists of all time, Johnny Mercer. In the movie Breakfast At Tiffany's, Audrey Hepburn, playing a country girl who's come to the big, bad city, is having a moment of doubt on a Manhattan fire escape, when she sings these lyrics from the Academy Award winning song Moon River: "We're after the same rainbow's end Waiting 'round the bend My _____ friend, Moon River and me."

Now, she didn't sing "good old country" friend or "gee you're such a" friend, although both fit the line and are correct descriptions of her friend. No, Johnny Mercer had her sing "Huckleberry" friend. He couldn't have been more specific. Huckleberries grow by the river, a country girl would know that, and it also has literary echoes of Huckleberry Finn, who was a country boy who ran away from home. So here we have one word that lifts the whole song up to another level.

I've learned no matter how good the lyric is, if the music is bad the lyric can't save it. So you need to find yourself a great melody writer. But here's the catchРРyou won't find one unless you're a wonderful lyric writer. And most professional melody writers know a good lyricist faster than you can say "prosody!" Al Kasha, my first lyric writing teacher and winner of two Academy Awards, said: "A great melody can take you into the Top 10, but a great lyric coupled with a great melody will allow you to stay there."

Ask any professional songwriter what sep-arates him from an amateur and he'll say it's his ability to rewrite. But so many of my students come in with their "precious" first drafts thinking every word is gold. They think this because it came to them during a moment of "inspiration." I'm all for inspiration, but "perspiration" is much better. Keep coming back to the lyric until it's as close to perfect as you can make it. Remember, it's not the quantity of songs you write, but the quality.

Anyone can learn the techniques it takes to write a song. But not everyone has something truly unique to say. When I started out in songwriting, for some reason the teacher really liked my songs. Looking back on those days, I realize that it must have been because of my "content," because back then my songs didn't have much technique. While other people were bringing in their latest, perfectly rhymed, yet anonymous odes to love and dreams and sunshine, I was bringing in my roughly written songs about The Great Gatsby and moonlight cruises and my mother who was a singer with a big band. Unconsciously, I was doing something right. I was writing about what I knew and things nobody else had written about.

6. Step Away from Your Piano or Guitar

Burt Bacharach, who writes some of the most complex and sophisticated melodies of all time, says that when he's writing a new melody he purposely writes it away from his piano. His thought is that if the melody stands up being sung a cappella, the chords and arrangement will only make it sound that much better. Too many writers get mesmerized by their chord selection and think they can fix anything with fancy arrangement ideas.

One of the easiest ways I can tell if a lyricist is an amateur is if the person asks me to read their poetry. Lyrics are not poems. Though they share many things in commonРРcadence (the rhythm of the line), rhyme, etc.РРthere are in fact many differences. Songs are meant to be sung, so avoid hard-to-pronounce words and incompatible consonants. Songs are meant to be understood quickly; popular songs generally use only two distinct formsРРverse/chorus and aaba.

This would seem to be a no-brainer. But the longer I teach songwriting the more I realize that the way the lyricist sets the words to the melody is as important as the content of the song. Your lyric must strive to be conversational. If you hit a high note, it should be on an open vowel. And if your melody goes down, don't ever say the phrase "pick myself up."

9. Need I Repeat-Repetition Works

One of the big differences in Top 40 pop and hip-hop music today is the number of "hooks" that are in each song. In the past, perhaps a pop song would have the title repeat any number of times (from one to four) in the chorus and that's it. But in today's era of producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, from the time the song starts there are any number of repetitive hooks. They range from the repetition of the title to melodic hooks played instrumentally, to "nonsense syllables" to secondary hooks in the chorus.

As a songwriter, you have the luxury of writing in more than one format. Diane Warren has had hits in pop, AC, country and dance. But, each genre has its own strict rules and you must know them to succeed. For example, you can get away with imperfect rhyming in pop and hip-hop, but in musical theatre and cabaret you can't. In country you must be very clear in what your saying, while if you're writing songs for a rock group a la Coldplay or Kings of Leon you can be more metaphorical and artsy.

With over 150 of his songs recorded by artists in many genres of music, Mark Winkler is a sought-after songwriter and lyricist who has taught his highly rated "Craft of Lyric Writing" course at UCLA for five years. Winkler has developed a unique songwriting method and has successfully offered it to his students in any genre, including pop, rock, country, R&B and jazz, helping them to craft unique, professional songs and lyrics. He offers private lessons in person at his studio or via online Skype classes. Contact him at mwink@aol.com

This article is reprinted with permission from the April 2011 issue of Music Connection magazine.

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Songwriting Tip: You Can Write Better Lyrics

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I've been writing songs for over 30 years. I've had 150 of them cut by famous singers like Liza Minnelli and Dianne Reeves, and written songs for a hit off Broadway musical and have had tunes on the soul, pop, county, dance and jazz charts.

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by Natalie Wilson

Writing the perfect song is a difficult task. What is "perfect", anyway? What is it that the most popular songs all have in common? If you're hoping to write the next big hit, you've come to the right place. The best songs in history have incorporated lyrics that uses clever rhyming schemes and syllabic patterns, a story-like progression, personal but relatable topics, and a catchy hook. Writing the next big hit can seem impossible, but there are a few tricks you can use to increase your chances of success.

Here are five mistakes to avoid when writing lyrics:

#1) Too Much Rhyming

While rhyming is one of the most common writing tools used to create popular songs, too much of it can sound childish. If you consider some of the best lyrics in history, rhyming is used subtly and doesn't detract from the main message of a song. For example, take a look at these lyrics from "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey:

Some will win, some will lose

Some were born to sing the blues

Oh the movie never ends,

It goes on and on and on and on

These lyrics rhyme the words "lose" and "blues" together, but refrain from rhyming any words together in the next two lines. The use of rhyming should be a strategic way to draw attention to certain words, rather than used simply for the sake of rhyming. The combination of the strategic rhyming scheme, catchy melody, and raw talent of the members of Journey has made "Don't Stop Believin'" a classic few will forget.

#2) No Coherent Story

Just like an essay, novel, or poem, your song lyrics should tell some sort of story. As the song progresses, your ideas need to unfold in a way that will make sense to your listeners. If you're struggling to write a song with a clear message, try answering the following questions:

What story do I want to tell?

How do I want my listeners to feel after listening to the song

Rather than singing about your recent trip to France and then jumping to an unrelated topic, such as your childhood friend, try sticking to the same idea throughout the song. This will allow the song to resonate with your listeners more easily.

#3) Writing Disingenuous Lyrics

So many songs on the radio feel like they've been created by a machine simply to generate an income. If you're a true songwriter, you know that music is about so much more than that. While tuning into recent trends and incorporating them into your songs will most likely help you gain some extra popularity, being disingenuous with your lyrics will set you up for failure. We all know how hard it is too warm up to someone we feel is being untruthful or two-faced. Likewise, your listeners will have a hard time warming up to your song if they don't feel the lyrics are a reflection of your true personality.

When you're not a romantic, when you're not political, and so on, do not try to sound like one. Disingenuous lyrics very easily and quickly will sound like that, and that's a fantastic way to lose your audience. Regardless of your song's theme or idea, your lyrics must in some way be connected with you if you want them to stand out and come across as genuine. If you don't, your lyrics will lack conviction which will make them feel stale.

#4) Mismatched Syllables

The proper use of syllables is an important part of poetry and song lyrics. The number of syllables combined with the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables will set the tone and flow of your song. Take a look at the syllables used by Hozier below:

Take me to church

I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

Offer me that deathless death

Good God, let me give you my life

The second and third lines in this song both use a total of twelve syllables each. The song wouldn't have the same momentum if the pattern of twelve syllables was broken between lines two and three. In addition to the number of syllables, the last few words of these lines alternate between stressed and unstressed syllables in the same pattern. " Shrine of your lies" follows a stressed, unstressed, unstressed, stressed pattern, which you can see from the bolded words. Similarly, " sharpen your knife " follows the same rhythmic pattern. This creates coherence in the lyrics that wouldn't be evident if you use different numbers and patterns of syllables in every line of your song.

#5) There's No Hook

Every popular song needs a hook. Not only does a song need to have a hook, a good song needs to place that hook in a strategic spot. Just like a commercial you'd see on television, the hook should be at the beginning. Similar to how colorful ads are used to catch a viewer's eye, catchy melodies are used to grab hold of our ears. Once you've established your melody, you'll need to make sure the content of what you're saying also acts as a hook. If you're writing a love song and you use a cliche statement involving "your heart" and how hard it is to be "apart", you won't come across as the cutting-edge artist you're hoping to be. Remember not to rush the development of your hook, as it will be what draws your listeners in more than anything else.

Enjoy these tips!
About Natalie Wilson Natalie Wilson started a music blog to share her knowledge to enhance your skills as a musician . You'll find a wide range of topics on my blog, including reviews, tutorials, and tips for musicians. Check out: https://musicaladvisors.com/

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5 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Song Lyrics

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by Natalie Wilson Writing the perfect song is a difficult task. What is "perfect", anyway? What is it that the most popular songs all have in common? If you're hoping to write the next big hit, you've come to the right place.

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Writing a song with unforgettable melodies and creative lyrics can be challenging. Even the most experienced songwriters go through writer's block at some point in their career, and there are many different approaches to songwriting.

Here are 10 helpful songwriting tips, each backed up by quotes from some of the world's most successful songwriters.

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Find out how to write a song from the best in the biz

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1. Where to start writing your song

Getting started is often the hardest part of the songwriting process. Developing your song's main melody or central chorus is considered by some to be the best place to begin writing your next track. Once you've got your hook or key chord progression, you can build the rest of your song around it. But don't worry if you're struggling to find the perfect melody straight away, this method isn't for everyone.

Starting with your song's main riff or hook isn't ideal for every songwriter. Some songwriters prefer to start at the beginning of their track by writing a killer intro, which will lead them naturally into the rest of the song, while others will get the lyrics down first, and then worry about the tune afterwards. There's no rule when it comes to writing a new song. It's down to the songwriter, the song and the original inspiration to determine your starting point.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/ihbY4RUaobCfgzu1xrgL" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me, the music tells me what to talk about." <br><br><strong>John Legend</strong></p>

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2. Lyrics matter

Unless you're producing instrumental music, the lyrics are arguably the most important part of your song. Lyric writing can often be the most frustrating and difficult aspect of the songwriting process, especially for amateur songwriter's lacking in experience.

Having a clear idea of what your song will be about is a good start. You could write down exactly what you want to get across in your lyrics, then play about with the rhythm, structure and cadence of your words to fit them around your melody. A solid lyrical hook for your chorus is particularly important, while the verses and bridge can be built around your central theme.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/SdQ2sz2KQXuBJ6EQlpxN" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I deliberate over the lyrics; I really do. I'll come up with one line in a day, and then it might be a couple of days before I come up with the rhyming line."<br><br><strong>Rod Stewart</strong></p>

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3. Record any spur of the moment inspiration

There's nothing worse as a songwriter than coming up with an amazing melody or riff, only to completely forget what is was an hour later. Forgetting your ideas can be really frustrating, so it's important to make a note of your idea while it's fresh in your mind, even if it's just recorded quickly on your phone or scribbled on a scrap of paper. You'll be glad of the reminder later when you return to continue working on the song.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/0lV6GJncSEQHKN4iQHeF" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't." <br><br><strong>Connor Oberst</strong></p>

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4. Write from experience

As obvious as it may sound, some of history's greatest songs are about personal experiences, with artists drawing on real-life events and traumas to spark their creativity. Whether you've been through hard times or great times, you can use your life experiences to great affect. Put those feelings into a song you can be proud of.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/J08UT2U7T9myr41IoIhP" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"My experience with song writing is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories." <br><br><strong>Taylor Swift</strong></p>

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5. Collaborate with other musicians

If you're suffering from writer's block (everyone does at some point!), then collaborating with other musicians can offer a great way to break new ground and get a fresh perspective on your track. Show them what you've got so far, discuss any new ideas they might suggest, and see what comes out of it. Getting an outside persceptive on your track from a fellow musician can help to bring the best out of your music. Two heads are always usually better than one.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/AW4Z5MWQDuWa5cs4Y3Ts" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration."<br><br><strong>Talib Kweli</strong></p>

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6. Keep it simple and build on it

Keeping your track as simple as possible at first is an excellent way to accelerate the songwriting process and work out the structure of your song. Many complex songs from 5 or 6-piece bands started life as a few chords strummed on an acoustic guitar. Once you've the basis of the song in its simplest form, you can go about adding drums, strings, brass or any other additional elements afterwards. Don't make things harder for yourself by overcomplicating your track right from the beginning.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/G7R0f03Q56KhasMt2jcA" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue."<br><br><strong>Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine</strong></p>

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7. Make sure to take breaks

Writing a song from scratch can sometimes be frustrating and mentally tiring work, especially if the ideas aren't flowing as easily as you'd like. Often a 15-minute break away from your instrument or lyrics pad can help get the creativity flowing and stop your mind from becoming too clouded to see the ideas and inspiration you're searching for. Whether it's written in two hours or two months, the final product is all that's important, no matter how long it takes.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/oCIOJWa4RF6ubsgMe4iu" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I wish I were one of those people who wrote songs quickly. But I'm not. So it takes me a great deal of time to find out what the song is" <br><br><strong>Leonard Cohen</strong></p>

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8. Don't overthink it

Musicians and songwriters are often our own worst critics. If you judge your own songs too harshly you'll never get anything done, so it's important to keep an open mind, and while it's great to take your time and carefully consider each facet of a new song, it's often easier to get things done when you let the songwriting process flow, stop worrying and just get on with it. Overthinking can be your worst enemy. Get the basis of your song down, and you can always go back and change things afterwards.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/IpFl3uXHRFKKjodHWgYw" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"If anyone asks me about songwriting, I guess I'd say that you just gotta do it." <br><br><strong>Alex Turner, Arctic Monkeys</strong></p>

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9. Ask for feedback

It's easy to lose sight of how good or bad your song is after you've spent hours and hours working, changing and creating it by yourself. So find someone you trust to give honest advice, and who's opinion you value, and ask them to critique it for you. You might find they have some fantastic insight into how it could be improved. Don't just play it for someone who might be afraid to hurt your feelings - you want honest opinions, not just yes men.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/output=format:jpg/resize=height:200,width:200/cEGkEE9NSm2QkNT4JPKk" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"I enjoy the collaboration. I always envied people in bands who got to have that interaction. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself." <br><br><strong>Beck</strong></p>

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10. Don't be afraid to fail

Apologies for the cliché, but if you're failing and struggling to write the song you know is in you - just keep going. There's no secret formula for successful songwriting, other than the combination of hard work, positivity and talent. This quote from the legendary Johnny Cash sums up the point perfectly.

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<center><p style="padding-right: 50px; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; color: #5934E8; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 350; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 3px solid #5934E8; text-align: center;"><img src="https://media.graphcms.com/iqiQBeNCR0mhGGe9Ibns" alt="How to write a song | 10 songwriting tips" title="how-to-write-a-song-10-songwriting-tips-1.jpg" width="200" height="200"<br><br><br>"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." <br><br><strong>Johnny Cash</strong></p>

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How to Write a Song | 10 Songwriting Tips from the Pros

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Writing a song with unforgettable melodies and creative lyrics can be challenging. Even the most experienced songwriters go through writer's block at some point in their career, and there are many different approaches to songwriting. Here are 10 helpful songwriting tips, each backed up by quotes from some of the world's most successful songwriters.

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Lyrics must flow through a story, you also need to keep it simple

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No matter how good your music is, lyrics can make or break pretty much any song. And while stringing words together may not come naturally to everyone, it is possible-easy, even-to improve your writing. Here are a few tips that you may find helpful in your endeavor to write better, more engaging lyrics.

Free Flow
Even the best and most experienced of writers face writer's block and crippling self-criticism during their creative processes. Free flow writing is a great pre-writing technique that can be useful in helping you to get over that kind of inhibition. Give yourself a set amount of time-15 or 30 minutes or longer if you prefer-and write about whatever comes to mind. Write without stopping to correct spelling or grammar or word choice or meaning. This well help you get your creative juices flowing, and can produce raw material for you to later shape into a solid song.

Tell A Story
The best and most powerful songs tell a story and stay on theme with their lyrics. As you are writing, make sure that your words continue to be relevant to the larger point. Like a novel or a film or a play, people want to derive meaning from your work, so your lyrics should be about something, even if it isn't something serious. It doesn't have to be linear or traditional, but your lyrics should have a beginning, middle, and end, offering the listener a sense of closure at the end of the song. Even the most light-hearted of lyrics should, in some way, circle back to the beginning of the song.

Study Literary Techniques
Many of the essential literary techniques used by the masters of poetry and prose are very much transferable to writing lyrics. You may not have thought about them since your high school English class, but studying these devices-like imagery, alliteration, and internal rhyme-and studying how your favorite songwriters use them for maximum effect is a good way to figure out how to incorporate literary techniques into your own lyrics.

Be Concise
You only have so many minutes to fill in a song, so every syllable, word, and phrase should serve a particular, irrefutable purpose. Whether it furthers your story or is a key component of your melody, no space should be wasted. If you can convey meaning in three pleasant-sounding words instead of six, opt for that. One way to make sure you are being concise is to work on your vocabulary-whether by reading more or using a thesaurus or rhyming dictionary, all of which can also help you reduce your use of clichés.

Re-write
Re-writing is just as important as writing well. Remember that your words aren't set in stone just because you've written them down. Tweak the micro things like syllables, melodies, and words, as well as the macro things like verse length and order until you've come as close to perfect as you can. Trying things a different way, even if you don't end up sticking with it, can give you much-needed perspective on the song you're working on. Even minor, seemingly insignificant changes can help elevate a song from good to great.

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No matter how good your music is, lyrics can make or break pretty much any song. And while stringing words together may not come naturally to everyone, it is possible-easy, even-to improve your writing. Here are a few tips that you may find helpful in your endeavor to write better, more engaging lyrics.

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You must plan out your song before writing it, just like planning any other kind of writing

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Careers In Music | Music Schools & Colleges

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When I started writing songs, the process of coming up with ideas seemed magical and arbitrary. If it was a good day, the ideas would come; if it was a bad day, I was out of luck.

But then, I started learning about how the mind comes up with new ideas. I noticed that when I sat down to write a lyric, I could often be successful if I just used a few simple strategies. I looked at how ad men, designers, writers, and other prolific creators came up with brilliant ideas time and time again.

As I read more about the topic, a picture began to emerge: brilliant ideas are not magical, and anyone, with the right preparation, can get them.
Here's a better way to write brilliant lyrics - even on a bad day.
Step 1: Gather Raw Materials

Most songs start with a vague idea or emotion. So how do you get to a finished, compelling lyric?

The answer is to use your vague idea as a starting point and to gather raw material around the idea. It seems obvious; to write well, of course you should understand your subject! But this is a criminally ignored part of the process. Most people briefly think through some words, stories, and ideas that could fit their idea, and prematurely charge forward to the next step.

Taking time to gather raw materials will pay off immensely when the going gets tough later.

There are two types of raw material you need to write a great lyric. I've adapted these two types from James Webb Young's wonderful book about producing better ideas.

1. General
An idea is nothing more than a new combination of old elements. In the case of lyrics, we combine our core lyrical idea with our general life experiences and knowledge of the world. It is often the little details that emerge from the real stories of your life that elevate a lyric from average to exceptional.

2. Specific
You also need to gather raw materials about the subject you've decided to write about. I like to think of words, memories, stories, conversations, and people related to my topic. It will be tempting to give up too early here, and to move forward with only a few ideas. Don't give up! Really dig in and do a thorough job. I spend at least an hour or two gathering specific material.

Some tips on gathering specific materials:

One of my favorite authors on the art of better lyrics is Pat Pattison. In his book, Writing Better Lyrics, Pattison recommends making worksheets which are a perfect complement to our strategy of gathering specific material. I use a modified version of his method. Here's how it works:

Make a list of words that express your idea
Go through a thesaurus laid out idea-style (not dictionary-style) and find some key words related to your idea. Follow any related words that catch your eye, and if you like a word, write it down. Spend a while just following the thesaurus wherever it takes you and noting down any words or phrases that you like.

Trim your list to the best 10-12 words
The idea is to narrow down to the very best words, the heavy-hitters, the ones you think could really work in the song. Keep in mind that the best words are likely to end in a stressed syllable, so that they're easy to place in a rhyming position and work other words around.

Look up your words in a rhyming dictionary
You've found your key words and put them into a short list. Now, it's time to perform one last step! List your words along the top of a blank sheet of paper. Then, one word at a time, turn to your rhyming dictionary and look for any words that could fit your topic and also rhyme with your key word. It's best to avoid clichéd perfect rhymes; pay attention to imperfect types like family rhyme, subtractive rhyme, and assonance rhyme. I normally write my words down in the order of how closely they rhyme: perfect rhymes at the top, assonance rhymes at the bottom.

That was a lot of work! You've laid down an incredible foundation, one which will support you and push you forward when you get stuck. More importantly, you've built a profound understanding of your lyrical idea and are prepared for brilliant insights down the line.

Step 2: Search for Patterns

As I've used this process again and again, I've noticed that if I go out of order or skip a step, it no longer works for me nearly as well. So before jumping forward to this step, make sure you've really done a thorough job of gathering your raw materials. Each step compounds the next.

In this step, we work through our raw material.

Go through the different words and phrases in your list and turn them over in your mind. What associations do you have? What life experiences, memories, stories, connotations, facts, and ideas come to you? It can also help to pair words together from your list, and search for ideas in those pairings. James Webb Young describes excellently what this process feels like:

Little tentative or partial ideas will come to you. Put these down on paper. Never mind how crazy or incomplete they seem: get them down. These are foreshadowings of the real idea that is to come, and expressing these in words forwards the process.

When you've really worked through your key words and ideas, you're ready. The wheels should be spinning in your mind; you've focused deeply on everything around the subject of your lyric, and most of the time, after so much focus and brainstorming, everything will jumble together in your mind so you feel as though you can barely think.

Good! That's exactly what should happen. This gets your subconscious working hard on the problem in the background, ready to deliver up fresh creative ideas. So now, we're ready for the third step.

Step 3: Rest

You've been working incredibly hard, and now it's time to rest. Your subconscious will keep working on your lyric in the background, but you need to rest your conscious mind so you can be receptive to ideas when you sit back down at your desk.

Stop working on your idea entirely. Don't think about your lyric, or work on anything related to it. Instead, take this time to rest: go to sleep, or take a long walk, or read a book.

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living. - Anaïs Nin

Step 4: Build Your Lyric

Often, a brilliant lyric will strike you as you're walking, or showering, or doing the dishes - or it may wake you up in the middle of the night. When this happens, sit down and write it out!

Sometimes, however, you have to kickstart your inspiration. If I have really prepared well, and rested, and yet nothing is coming to me, then I know it's up to me to make my own inspiration. It's as simple as sitting down at your desk, getting out a sheet of paper, and writing a terrible first draft of your lyric; one you want to burn immediately for fear that anyone finds out you wrote something so awful.

Everyone writes horrible first drafts. The key is that in writing a first draft, you've kicked your mind into gear; where before you had nothing, now you have something in your hands to work with. Most of the time, after painfully writing three quarters of a strikingly bad lyric, I'll suddenly get hit by an inspired line or two, and my preparation will come through to save me.

The absolute worst case scenario is that you hold a truly awful piece of writing in your hands; but you have a vast wealth of words, images, memories, stories, and rhymes waiting to be summoned to help you work through your lyric, to build your first draft into a second, third, or fourth draft which is incredible.

Step 5: The Hard Part

Finally, with a rough lyric containing a few brilliant ideas and your worksheet filled with resources and rhymes in hand, you're ready for the hardest part.

Most great lyrical ideas die here. But not yours.

This is where the strength of preparing for your lyric really shines. Without preparation, you may get stuck, and struggle to figure out how to move forward with the rough idea in your mind. But you already took the steps to find all the ideas you need for a compelling lyric when you prepared your worksheet. Now, it's time to look through your lyric, find the weakest points, and then use your worksheet to come up with better alternatives for the story. When you get stuck, turn back to your worksheet and look at the words, rhymes, stories, and ideas that you've already prepared for this moment.

It's tough, but this is the final stretch. Don't give up!

Conclusion

My hope is that this method can help you break through obstacles on days when you feel tired or stuck, and give you more lyrical ideas than ever before. But I know that it can feel overwhelming to think of applying all these new techniques.

So right now, commit to writing your next 5 lyrics this way, and see how this method can give you more ideas and solid ground to stand on as you write. After those 5 lyrics, you'll be in a good position to decide what works for you, what doesn't, and how you can make this method your own.

About the Author

Thomas Rutherford is a musician and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles.

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A Proven Technique to Write Better Lyrics

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When I started writing songs, the process of coming up with ideas seemed magical and arbitrary. If it was a good day, the ideas would come; if it was a bad day, I was out of luck. But then, I started learning about how the mind comes up with new ideas.

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there are certain problems that you must watch for when writing lyrics

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At its best, lyric writing is a magical mixture of creativity and storytelling that can bring your listener into a world you've created and hold them there for the length of your song. However, in order to create the perfect, tightly-scripted narrative that great lyrics possess, countless hours of writing and re-writing are often necessary. I've found it's just as important to know how to critically examine and edit a lyric as it is to write one in the first place. To that end, here are seven questions that songwriters can ask themselves during and after a songwriting session to make sure their lyrics are as effective as they can possibly be.

1. Is everything you're writing related to the hook/message of the song?
Given the truly limited amount of time you've got to make your point in a lyric, it pays to make sure each line serves the message of your hook so that the song's point is developed and driven home at every opportunity. Lines that just sound or feel good are, unfortunately, a waste of valuable space.

On a related note, if you're building your lyric around an overall metaphor such as the ocean, for example, stay away from expressions or images that don't relate. What I mean is that expressions about waves will work better than expressions like "putting on the brakes" which relate to automotive imagery instead. Each image and detail should relate to the overall metaphor in order for the lyric to be at its most powerful. Be careful, though, not to use so many metaphors that your song sounds contrived. Being conversational and not "too clever" is an important step in keeping your song believable.

2. Have you used details in your verses?
Verses are the place to tell the story and stories are best told with interesting details. The expression "A picture is worth a thousand words" is never truer than in your verses. To that end, really focus on the kind of imagery that will bring the listener into your song. Instead of saying "a woman gives a man at the bar a cold look," you could say "his beer was warmer than the look in her eye."

On the other extreme, be careful not to overdo it in your verses with the kind of minutia that makes a song seem too long or confuses your listener. The keys to great verse writing are being interesting and impactful.

3. Have you already said it?
One of the traps we fall into as songwriters is inadvertently coming up with different ways to say the same thing. Be certain in your verses that each line furthers the story and you're not simply repeating yourself line after line. Every line of every verse is an opportunity to move your story along with new details/information.

4. Have you said enough?
As songwriters, we're the only ones who know the whole story that we're trying to tell. There's a danger in assuming that your listener knows what you're writing about. Make sure your lyric would be clear to any listener who is hearing your song for the first time. Remember that the average listener doesn't have the benefit of being inside your head or having you around to explain anything.

5. Is your chorus lyric the main message of your song and is it memorable?
Remember that your chorus lyric is the single best opportunity you've got to make your song both catchy and memorable. Making sure your chorus speaks to your overall point and does it in a simple, punchy and interesting way will work wonders when it comes to having a compelling - and commercially viable - song. A secondary tip is to keep in mind that the last line of your chorus is a very powerful spot. It's often the last thing your listener hears before you go back into telling more of the story or the song ends. For this reason, it's a perfect place to put your hook. The key is to have the last line of your chorus go out with a satisfying - if metaphorical - bang.

6. Do your words sound good sung?
One thing I say to songwriters who are just starting is what I refer to as the hippocratic oath of lyric writing. First and foremost your words should "do no harm." What I mean by this is that if a lyric doesn't sound good - and natural - being sung, it doesn't matter what you're saying, things won't go well. Lyric writing may be related to poetry but a lyric still has to answer to a singer. It's not enough to tell a good story. The easier and more comfortable a lyric is to sing the more fun it will be for people to listen to. Then, and only then, will you have an opportunity to tell your story and have people listen. A tip to help you is to say the words back and keep track of your lip movements. If you stumble, so will the singer, so look for physically easier ways to say the same things.

7. Are the little words like "and," "but" & "'cause" used properly, or can they be removed altogether?
One of the final tests I use when refining my lyrics is to make sure that there are no speed bumps in my story. Do my "ands" and "buts" make sense? If they're used improperly they can be distracting to the listener. Sometimes the best solution is to see how many of those little words can be removed entirely. It's amazing to see how little you have to say to tell your story if you say it properly.

Lyric writing is an art, but it's also a craft. A successful lyric performs a delicate balancing act between substance and style. By asking yourself the questions above, you can make sure you're not just telling a great story but that you're telling it in a way that makes people want to lean in and listen.

Good luck!

Bio
Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, session musician, engineer, author and owner of recording studios in Nashville, TN and Sonoma, CA. Cliff's site, http://www.EducatedSongwriter.com, is full of resources for the aspiring songwriter.

Cliff's company, http://www.NashvilleStudioLive.com, provides songwriters outside of Nashville with virtual access to Nashville's best session musicians and singers for their songwriting demos.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/EducatedSongwriter
Twitter: edusongwriter

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At its best, lyric writing is a magical mixture of creativity and storytelling that can bring your listener into a world you've created and hold them there for the length of your song. However, in order to create the perfect, tightly-scripted narrative that great lyrics possess, countless hours of writing and...

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Each line must be carefully crafted, it's all about word choice

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Our goal, when we share a song, is to evoke emotion in our listeners-to have them not only know what the singer is feeling, but to empathize-to feel the emotion. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by bringing your audience inside the world of your song-showing them a scene unfolding-instead of simply telling them how the singer feels.

Writing lyrics that "show-don't tell" is one of the basics of songwriting, and is one of the first things taught in almost every songwriting class. But for many songwriters, it's easier to write lyrics that state how the singer feels. For example: "My heart is filled with happiness"; or, "I'm lonely and my heart is broken." But while these statements clearly express what the singer is feeling, these types of statements don't typically evoke emotion in the listener.

By incorporating three elements-action, imagery, and detail-into your verse lyrics, you can write lyrics that tell a story. Note that this tool is primarily intended for verse lyrics. In songs containing choruses, the chorus lyrics tend to be more general. Their function is to be a summation of the concept and to hammer home the title. Telling the story is the domain of the verses.
A: Action
You might recall from elementary school that verbs are figures of speech that convey action or doing. By incorporating action words you ensure that you are avoiding simply stating feelings.

An easy way to include action is to identify the emotion you are hoping to evoke then ask yourself, "What would a person do if he or she were feeling this?"

Instead of saying, "I'm missing you and my heart is broken," you might write lines that show what missing someone and being heartbroken looks like.

For example:

I hug the pillow where you used to lay your head

I clutch a tear-stained picture of you

I drove to the club where we used to hang, but I couldn't walk through that door

I wipe the tears that keep running down my face

Note the action words-the verbs in the examples above: "hug," "clutch," "drove," "walk," and "wipe."

Similarly, instead of saying, "I'm in love," show what a person in love does by writing lyrics such as:

I wrote your name and mine inside a heart

I keep singing your name like a favorite song

I read your text that said "I love you" at least a hundred times

The action words-the verbs in this example are: "wrote," "singing," and "read."

Note that the first lyric examples never actually stated, "I miss you," or "My heart is broken." Nor did the second examples say, "I'm in love," or "I'm happy." They didn't need to-because by "seeing" what the person in the song is doing the listeners are able to surmise how he or she feels.

To master the tool of incorporating action it can help to imagine you're writing the script for a video, and the actors' actions will be based solely on the words of your lyric. If you write, "my heart is breaking," you have not told the actress what she is supposed to do to show this.

A listener cannot "see" what it looks like when a heart breaks. But if you write, "She fell to her knees as he packed his bag, and tears ran down her face"-this is something a listener can visualize. The actress knows that she is supposed to fall to her knees and cry.
I: Imagery
Imagery refers to things that be can seen. Words that convey images are nouns. Note that some nouns-such as "heartache," "sadness," "happiness," and "joy"-do not represent things that are tangible. They are descriptions of emotional states. Effective use of imagery entails including words that describe things that can be seen or touched.

While you cannot see "heartbroken," you can see the images and actions that convey that a person is heartbroken. For instance:

He falls to his knees and lays flowers on her grave

She sits in his chair and wipes her tears with a tissue

He kisses her photo

The images in the examples above include: "knees," flowers," and "grave"; "tears" and "tissue"; "photo" and "lips."

The inclusion of these images help to show that the character in the song is heartbroken. The listeners are better able to empathize with the character's emotional state because the lyric allows them to envision the character and the items around them, as well as the action taking place.

By including tangible items in your lyrics-things such as: furniture, clothing, a car, a house, a specific place, food, and other concrete nouns, you enable your audience to enter your song.
D: DETAIL:
Detail is the third component that will help you to show what is occurring-instead of telling how the singer or character in the song feels. By including adjectives and adverbs-or adjectival and adverbial phrases-you further describe the scene, allowing your listener to visualize it more clearly. The inclusion of detail also contributes to making your lyric unique and distinctive.

By adding detail to the examples above we can further engage listeners.

He falls to his knees and lays flowers on her grave - or - He falls to his knees on the cold, muddy ground and lays white lilies from her garden on her grave

She sits in his chair and wipes her tears with a tissue - or - She sits in his old rocking chair and wipes bitter tears with a wet, crumpled Kleenex

He kisses her photo - or - He kisses the photo he took of her laughing that weekend they went camping at Reelfoot Lake

Instead of using words like "pretty" or "beautiful," provide a description. What interests you more?

She could turn every head when she walked in the room
She was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen
More beautiful than any words could ever say Like she'd stepped right out of my wildest dream

or

She had a jet-black ponytail
That curled around a butterfly tattoo
Black stilletto heels, white string bikini top And eyes that could make a sky turn blue

Incorporating Brand Names
Incorporating brand names (i.e., Ray-Ban, Levis, Calvin Klein) and the names of businesses (i.e., McDonald's, Walmart, Dairy Queen) can be an excellent way to infuse details into your lyrics. For example, countless songs have mentioned brands of cars such as Chevy, Ford, Mercury, Cadillac, and Mercedes-Benz--but is it legal? No-but you won't be sued as long as you present the product or business in a positive light. Your song essentially becomes a free commercial.
Additional Hot Tips: Establish a Time and Location
Specifying a time when the action is taking place can help you to tell a story-instead of telling how the singer feels. A line of lyric such as, "It was 3 AM on a rainy winter night" almost demands that you continue the story-to describe what happened next.

A time doesn't have to be exact. It could be:

The hottest day of summer

The September sun was right above my head

It was the middle of the longest night of my life

Placing the character in a specific location is an additional tool that can help you to tell a story. Knowing where the action is taking place can also make it easier to include detail. Is the character in his or her bed? On a roller coaster? In a supermarket? At a nightclub? In an airport? At a restaurant? In a cabin in the woods?

Examples:

I was sitting in my truck
Underneath a streetlight
Outside the house that used to be ours

The sun peeked above the ocean
As I woke up on a beach in Waikiki

To view some lyrics that include exceptional use of details check out:

I Drive Your Truck (recorded by Lee Brice; written by Jimmy Yeary, Connie Harrington, and Jessi Alexander)

Last Friday Night (recorded by Katy Perry; written by Max Martin/Dr. Luke/Bonnie McKee/Katy Perry)

Terms of My Surrender (recorded and written by John Hiatt)

Irreplaceable (recorded by Beyoncé; written by Amund Bjoerklund/Mikkel Eriksen/Tor Hermansen/Beyoncé Knowles/ Espen Lind/Shaffer Smith)

Night Changes (recorded by One Direction; written by Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson, along with Jamie Scott, Julian Bunetta and John Ryan)

There are no rules in songwriting, and I'm not implying that you should never tell how you feel in a lyric. Countless songs have become hits without the benefit of this tool. But it's an important tool to have in your proverbial toolbox.

Detailed stories filled with "pictures" are the cornerstone of the lyrics of Nashville's current hits-but as you can see from the lyrics referenced above, this tool can help set your songs apart in every genre. Infusing your lyrics with A: action, I: imagery, and D: detail can be the ticket to deliver your lyrics to your listeners' hearts-and your career to the next level.

Jason Blume is the author of This Business of Songwriting and 6 Steps to Songwriting Success (Billboard Books). His songs are on three Grammy-nominated albums and have sold more than 50,000,000 copies. One of only a few writers to ever have singles on the pop, country, and R&B charts, all at the same time -his songs have been recorded by artists including Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, the Gipsy Kings, Jesse McCartney, and country stars including Collin Raye (6 cuts), the Oak Ridge Boys, Steve Azar, and John Berry ("Change My Mind," a top 5 single that earned a BMI "Million-Aire" Award for garnering more than one million airplays). In the past eighteen months he's had three top-10 singles and a "Gold" record in Europe by Dutch star, BYentl, including a #1 on the Dutch R&B iTunes chart.

Jason's songs have been included in films and TV shows including "Scrubs," "Friday Night Lights," "Assassination Games," Disney's "Kim Possible" "Dangerous Minds," "Kickin' it Old Skool," "The Guiding Light," "The Miss America Pageant," and many more. Jason is in his nineteenth year of teaching the BMI Nashville Songwriters workshops. A regular contributor to BMI's Music World magazine, he presented a master class at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (founded by Sir Paul McCartney) and teaches songwriting throughout the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Ireland, the U.K., Canada, Bermuda, and Jamaica.

After twelve years as a staff-writer for Zomba Music, Blume now runs Moondream Music Group. For additional information about Jason's latest books, instructional audio CDs, and workshops visit www.jasonblume.com

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Show-Don't Tell: 3 Steps to Writing Better Lyrics

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Our goal, when we share a song, is to evoke emotion in our listeners-to have them not only know what the singer is feeling, but to empathize-to feel the emotion. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by bringing your audience inside the world of your song-showing...

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Writing is a hell of a way to make a living. It only seems easy to those who haven't tried it. I've somehow managed to survive that way for the past 20 years or so - for richer and for poorer - and still don't know how my favorite authors, journalists, and bloggers manage to pull it off with such verve and panache. Sometimes, being a writer feels like getting paid to pull a rabbit out of a hat over and over again - but each time it has to be a new breed of rabbit, "miraculously" emerging from a different style of hat.

Days under the spotlight that I reach into the fraying dark with sweaty fingers, and feel warm fur, are good days. Other days, it's nothing but hat in there; but I say " Voilà!" with a practiced flourish anyway and hope the audience doesn't notice that the alleged rabbit is just a tattered old stuffed thing, a patchwork made to twitch by sleight-of-hand.

But writers have their secrets and rituals for courting the fickle favor of the Muse. For some, it's sitting in a certain chair at the right time of day - or getting out of familiar surroundings to type busily away in a café filled with people that might someday be readers. For others, it's a brisk walk in the open air. Or it's potions; woe to the poet who finally decides to undertake her epic sestina sequence only to discover that her cupboard is bare of aged Sumatra.

And for many writers, one way to evoke that elusive flow-state of inspiration is music.

Not, mind you, just any music. I love me some Elvis Costello, but trying to eke out an apt phrase while being throttled with the thesaurus of his post-coital tristesse would be impossible. A writer needs a soundtrack that arouses the desire for articulation while denying its consummation by anyone else's genius.

In my own search for the perfect music to write by, I've been through many phases. For a while, Miles Davis' In A Silent Way did the job. Recorded just before Bitches Brew established voodoo funk as the tenor of the times, In A Silent Way was the freshly electrified Miles band with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, and others swinging madly - but in a magisterially laid-back groove. It strikes just the right mood and tempo for my work: both meditative and locomotive, as if the music is always going on somewhere, even after the album ends.

These days, while I'm confined to my glorious prison- cum-monastery for months working on my book NeuroTribes: Thinking Smarter About People Who Think Differently, Steve Reich's astonishing Music for 18 Musicians is helping me stay on track. I still remember the first time I heard 18, walking into Recycled Records on Haight Street in San Francisco in 1979 and asking the cute music geek behind the counter (who is now my friend on Facebook - life is wonderfully strange) "What is this music?"

It sounded like electronic music, but was played on all acoustic instruments. By way of Balinese gamelan and African drumming, Reich found a way to do with marimbas, pianos, and human voices what Bach did with lutes, flutes, and chamber orchestras: use math and precision (in this case, pulses of strict time cycling in and out of phase) to reveal the source code of the Universe as blissful symmetry, "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations," as the Vulcans say. Voilà!

If you ever get the rare chance to see 18 performed live, don't miss it. It's one of the great experiences available on the planet. And Reich's " Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ " is similarly radiant, but only about a quarter as long.

Like anxious stage magicians, writers are constantly peering into each others' hats to try to learn each others' tricks. Here, I make that process explicit by asking some of the best writers in the business - in genres ranging from non-fiction, to long-form journalism, to poetry, to science blogging - to tell my readers about the musical wiles they employ to seduce their Muse. By hearing great writers talk about what they listen to while they do their work, we learn a lot about how they feel about the craft of writing itself. I'm grateful that master craftsmen and craftswomen like David Quammen, David Dobbs, and Carl Zimmer (three of my favorite science writers), August Kleinzahler and Jane Hirshfield (two of the greatest poets in America, whose work couldn't be less alike), and ace science bloggers like Ed Yong were generous enough to share their secrets with my readers.

To my fellow writers: May your dapper old hat be filled with a clamoring of rabbits, leaping through your fingers as your readers gasp, grateful to be amazed one more time.
John Schwartz
John is a reporter for the New York Times and the author of a new book about raising his gay son, Oddly Normal.

Asking about my taste in music is scary; like the playwright in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, who agonizes over his choices for "Desert Island Discs," knowing that it could kill his reputation if people knew that his musical tastes ran to The Monkees singing "I'm a Believer" and the Crystals singing "Da Doo Ron Ron."

But I can't resist. Music is one of the sustaining parts of my life; when I think no one can hear, I'll sing along with "I'm a Believer" - which is, after all, a wonderful song! - and with everyone from James McMurtry to Moxy Fruvous, the Austin Lounge Lizards to Joe "King" Carrasco. Much of my playlist reflects my Texas roots, but I love anyone whose lyrics inspire me to write more vividly, to pack more in, to be smarter.

But I don't write with music on. I'm too easily distracted. I wrote my latest book, Oddly Normal, from an Adirondack chair in my living room, mostly in the silence of the house after the rest of the family went to bed. If I could type in a sensory deprivation floatation tank, I would, except I always fell asleep in those. Music is for the sidewalks and the car, at least when I'm not listening to audiobooks. It all keeps me a little sharper than I otherwise would be. It keeps the muse amused.
Jane Hirshfield
A current chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Jane also uses a great deal of science (biology, physics, paleontology, geology) in her seven books of poems, most recently Come, Thief.

When I was young, I always wrote with music on. This probably had something to do with growing up in New York City: there was a lot of background distraction I wanted to block, and I had to make some privacy for my ears in that crowded existence. What I listened to was all over the map, Judy Collins, classical Spanish guitar, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Then a few years of living without any music at all (I was in a monastery deep in the wilderness, without electricity or heat) ended that habit. Now I write only in silence, and want for the background of my writing awareness a John Cage-like sound-space that governs itself. But some number of my recent poems take household tasks as a starting metaphor-they mop the floor, clean mushrooms, cook soup, wash doorknobs-so I offer some of the music I put on these days when housecleaning: David Byrne's Look Into the Eyeball, anything by Habib Koite & Bamada, Bob Dylan's Modern Times, Gillian Welch's The Harrow and the Harvest.
David Quammen
David is the author of a new book on the next human pandemic, Spillover.

Music to write by? I'd love to give you some juicy personal choices but the fact is: I write in silence. Closed in my cave of an office, lined with books, very little window, no distraction by the beautiful mountains of Montana, no background music.

But I always turn on the CD player, or my Pandora app played through decent speaks, for cocktail hour. Sit down in a chair with a martini, my wife and dogs nearby (she has red wine, they go it dry), and for about an hour each evening we read together...and listen to music, if it's not backyard season. What's our background music for reading and thinking and chatting? 1) Gregorian chant 2) Chopin 3) Andres Segovia 4) Gregorian chant. You get the idea. I love other sorts of music too - my Pandora list includes the Gram Parsons station, the David Bromberg station, the Chopin station. etc... My favorite of all musicians is Louis Armstrong, and he makes for great foreground listening, also background for dinner parties...but too distracting for reading. Oh, Chet Baker instrumental albums: also good for reading.
Carl Zimmer
Carl writes frequently for the New York Times and blogs at The Loom and Download the Universe.

Music doesn't mean much to me when I'm doing the dreary chores involved in assembling a story-reading papers, playing email tag, going through transcripts while sitting in a grubby airport. But there comes a time when everything's in place-the outline is in good shape, the information is all ready to be deployed, the introduction is taking shape in my mind-and then I open up a new document and hit some music. If I am trying to explain something complicated and want to get across the beauty of science's complexity, I may put on some Bach or Thomas Tallis. But when writing is working out, it brings me as much pleasure as reading can, and I want music that speaks to some other part of me-I think that fifteen-year old who got a mix-tape from a friend and discovered the greatness of a band for the first time, or who had his heart broken for the first time, or who actually got something right for once.

iTunes, it turns out, lets you create a PDF of a playlist. This is NOT an authoritative, complete list of my work music. It only reflects a month or so when I'd listen to music and say, this is something I want to work to. [ Click list to embiggen].
David Wolman
David is a contributing editor at Wired and the author, most recently, of The End of Money.

A writer friend of mine-a real talent-once told me he only listens to classical music when he's writing. Songs with lyrics tend to interfere with his inner voice. I remember thinking: Damn, that's a real literary guy kind of answer. I want that answer.

But as my neighbors can attest, that is not my answer. I need to get pumped up to write, which means I listen to some decidedly un-relaxing tunes, often the same ones over and over again. And who knows? Maybe loud music helps my writing because the prose has to compete. Without tempo and sharp diction, the words will be overwhelmed. It's as if the music provides both a challenge and a warning: DO NOT BE BORING. With that, I give you the most recent iteration of my playlist entitled "Write The Book!"

"Paper Planes" by M.I.A.
"The Funeral" by Band of Horses
"Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit
"Time to Pretend" by MGMT
"Helena Beat" by Foster the People
"In This World" by Moby
"Bad (live)" by U2
"Amsterdam" by Peter Bjorn and John
"Free Your Soul" by Supercar
"Next Exit" by Interpol
"A Little Soul" by Pulp
"Rez" by Underworld
"Fix You" by Coldplay
"Janglin" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
"Number 1" by Goldfrapp
"Atmosphere" by Joy Division
"The Bends" by Radiohead (or anything from that album)
"Torn & Frayed" by The Rolling Stones
"I Will Follow" by U2
"Temptation" by New Order
"All These Things" That I've Done by The Killers
"Universal" by Blur
"Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve
"Girls" by Death in Vegas
Ed Yong Ed is a vagrant scribe, Web miscreant, and science writer for Discover at Not Exactly Rocket Science. David Shenk
Lux Aeterna - the movie remix.

I need something with no lyrics, that's dramatic but not too fast. Like the auditory equivalent of fourth gear.

David's most recent book is The Genius in All of Us.

For reasons that no one wants to hear about, I spend an awful lot of time obsessing on this question: The perfect music for just the right mindset to create just the right paragraph. For every twenty minutes of music that I actually listen to, there may be four or five hours collecting it, pruning it, backing it up, setting up a streaming server, choosing the right headphones...

Most of the 8000 hours on my hard disk is useless (or actively harmful) to writing. I can't listen to Bruce or Elvis or the other Elvis and come up with any worthwhile sentences. I can't listen to Aimee Mann or Wilco or Martha Argerich or Richard Thompson or The Frames. I can't listen to the very best-crafted songs or the most resonant voices or the sweetest melodies or the most blistering guitar solos. Way too distracting.

But I can listen to some of my very favorite stuff, including:

- Keith Jarrett, solo or trio, preferably the longer pieces that wander off in search of something genuinely new.

- Yo La Tengo, the louder, completely unapologetic pieces

- Philip Glass, the hypnotic pieces (i.e., all of them)

- Grateful Dead, usually everything in a '73-'82 second set, up through Space and the ensuing Jerry ballad. (When "Sugar Magnolia" comes on, I'm done for the day. No good sentence has ever been written to "saw my baby down by the river, knew she'd have to come up soon for air.")
Priscilla Gilman
What does Yo La Tengo's "Pass the Hatchet I Think I'm Goodkind" have in common with a 43-minute "Dark Star" from Cleveland 1973? There's something entraining, even hypnotic, in all this stuff. I think it usually has either an overwhelming percussive quality or an improvisational humility and powerful openness, or both.

If I'm being honest (which I feel compelled to be in Steve's presence), there's also an exception to all this: a guilty pleasure that is slick, melodic, and embarrassingly thin. For some reason that I still cannot fathom, but I'm sure speaks ill of me, I am often able to do quite well with Pink Floyd's 1994 album The Division Bell. I know - it's not really Pink Floyd. Roger Waters is long gone. I don't argue that it begins to touch Animals or Meddle as a creative work, but somehow I can write to it. Inscrutability is a good thing.

Priscilla's memoir, The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story Of Unexpected Joy, was chosen as a Best Book of 2011 by the Chicago Tribune and The Leonard Lopate Show.

While writing The Anti-Romantic Child, I created an extensive playlist that I wrote about here for Poets & Writers magazine.

Recently I've been finding great writing inspiration in the British composer William Alwyn's "Lyra Angelica," a concerto for harp and string orchestra. It has many moods and tones, and both wrenches and uplifts me, soothes and galvanizes me in ways that I'm grateful for.

A few more songs/pieces that invariably help me to get my writing groove on:

"Franklin's Tower," the Grateful Dead - to free my mind.

"Sodom, South Georgia," Iron & Wine - to help me delve deep.

"Blue Ridge Mountains, " Fleet Foxes - to help me distill inchoate and confusing emotions into precise words.
August Kleinzahler August was born in a cross-eyed hurricane and is the author of Music: I-LXXIV, published by Pressed Wafer. He was the winner of the 2008 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.

"Very Slowly" from Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland - we had my new husband's parents come in and Benj walk my Mom down the aisle to this at our recent wedding and it somehow epitomizes family to me.

"Here Comes the Sun," The Beatles - when I need to cry!
David Dobbs
I don't play music in conjunction with my writing, for which I require silence to hear the music in my own head and in the word-sounds and cadences, etc.

I don't use music "to get in the mood" for writing. That said, music, most assuredly percolates into the writing, but in ways that are somewhat mysterious to me, or, at least, unconscious.

Months go by where I can't listen to jazz, only to, say, early Baroque chamber ensembles or Bach keyboard. I listen to Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" a great deal, and I especially enjoy the recordings where the artist employs several keyboard instruments, i.e. piano, harpsichord, fortepiano and organ. (I am an unrepentant timbre queen). Robert Hill on the Hanssler label, who employs all four instruments, and Pascal Vigneron & Co., I forget which label, and only available on MP3, which omits with fortepiano.

Then, one day, as recently happened to me one morning at the Weehawken Sheraton, I turn on the radio and hear Bud Powell playing a trio version of "Reets and I," a late career date, perhaps in Stockholm, early 60s, and it was as though those ivories he was banging were situated in a vertical row up and down my sternum. This is a kind of joy within me approaching ecstasy. I am a great believer that what one pours, as if through a funnel, into one's head - eyes, ears, etc. - works either as a nutrient or a toxin, at least with regard to one's "soul" or "spirit" or "art." I am as fastidious and strict as an ultra-Orthodox Jew or a Salafist Muslim about just what goes down that funnel, and how, under what circumstances, and when.

David is working on his fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which is about how genes and culture shape temperament, behavior, and evolution.

I listen to music only about a third of the time that I'm actually writing, usually just to get in the right mood - and so I'm not distracted, in that first hour, by the silent sound of me trying to write. So I might listen for 20 to 80 minutes, then quit once I'm enough into the story that the music becomes distraction rather than muse. If I'm really going well, the music dies and I don't realize it.

What to listen to? Usually it's from the list below. The choice at the time depends on my mood, how well I'm working, and/or whether I seem to need calming or stimulation.

My playlists:

Bach's English Suites, the recordings by Wolfsam Rubsam on Naxos. These suites are wonderfully orderly, like all Bach, and driven with an especially clean melodic energy. Just what you need to keep a roll going; not so good if you have to climb a fresh hill. I like listening to them when revising, or when, as Hemingway advises, I have left my writing the day before in a state of clear motion so that it is easy to pick up.

Bach's Lute Suites, recorded by Sharon Isbin on guitar. Other than a few Neil Young albums, Sticky Fingers, and "Kashmir," I don't think I have a recording I've listened to more often. It opens with a lovely cascade of notes that can chute you down a wonderful Zenlike channel. I confess that once I'm going, I often turn this off after a half hour or so, when it starts to seem jangly and intrude. That's a good sign; it means I've got enough going on the page that I don't need more stim.

At that point - or when I need to just color the aural landscape, rather than drive myself through it - I'll go to some gentler stuff. Most commonly I'll play one of two iTunes "genius" playlists, 100 songs each, that iTunes' Genius algorithm pulled together from tunes I named. The first builds from "The Man I Love," a gorgeous jazz standard, a ballad, recorded in this case by the trumpeter Enrico Rava with drummer Paul Motian and pianist Stefano Bollani. The other playlist is built around a recording of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry " by Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, and, again, drummer Paul Motian, who's a genius. Motian plays his kit so gently he could put babies to sleep.

I also listen to a lot of slow Charlie Haden, especially his album , with the guitarist Antonio Forcione, and , with Keith Jarrett.

Another rung down the distraction/stimulation ladder and I'm into background/ambient terrain. Here also I rely on two staples:

First, a shuffled play of Brian Eno's ambient albums, such as Music for Airports; second, an ingenious iPod app Eno made called Trope. You tap and rub the screen for a moment, fingerpaint-style, to set the texture for a Music for Airports-like ambient soundscape that will play indefinitely. I've done some great planning and some of my better writing lately with that going. The one danger is that the fine ambience and healthy relaxed Zenlike state it produces can convince you you're getting good work done when it turns out ... well, you're not. A couple times I fell asleep.

When that happens, I get up, turn the volume up to 11, and put on some Led Zeppelin: " In The Evening," for its hunger; " Fool in the Rain," for the triumph of Jimmy Page's solo; " The Ocean," because it's in 15/16, reminding me of the power of structure; " Kashmir," for like reasons; or, if I've actually done especially good work done and feel like the king of the world and figure maybe it's time to go downstairs and visit my wife, " I'm Gonna Crawl." Because it works.

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From the Archives: Music to Write By: 10 Top Authors Share Their Secrets for Summoning the Muse | NeuroTribes

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Writing is a hell of a way to make a living. It only seems easy to those who haven't tried it. I've somehow managed to survive that way for the past 20 years or so -- for richer and for poorer -- and still don't know how my favorite authors, journalists, and bloggers manage to pull it off with such verve and panache.

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there are certain proven ways to get the audience captivated that must be used

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How does one explain a creative process that is unexplainable, and largely intuitive? How does one create original work which is both 'art' and product in a multi-billion dollar industry where among its most successful members were a British slave trader who during a violent storm in 1748 had a spiritual epiphany and later on wrote the words, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound...." Or a singing waiter from the lower east side of Manhattan who wrote the words, "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...." Both leaders in the field of songwriting, English poet and clergyman John Newton and Irving Berlin had NO formal training whatsoever.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" as they say, and I have been the only songwriting professor for NYU School of Continuing Education and professional studies for the past 15 years. After thousands of students have asked me to write a course textbook about my insights into both the art and science of song creation, I have finally released my first book, Do What You Love: Songwriting.

More than a learn-how-to textbook, it's an inspirational memoir of 7 key life lessons woven like colored threads from the tapestry of a life being happy doing what I love. Some people commit murder and go to prison for life, I committed 'music' back in seventh grade and have been sentenced to a life in music, with no parole. In my own way, while not being an arena headline performer, I've had over 25 gold- and platinum-selling records, made a living doing what I love, and worked with many of the most original, iconic musical artists I admire. The only thing left, after reaching the mountain top of one's dreams, is to lift others up too and assist them to attain their dreams too.

In my classes I compare being a songwriter to being a radio antenna. We pick up a signal and, if smart enough, get out of its way and record it. Songwriters are the humble workers who create the bricks that are the foundation of music.

As part of Do What You Love: Songwriting I've created a series of Pop Secrets. Patterns I've observed which have been used across time that seem to connect with the listeners deep connection to an authentic song. Here are three "Pop Secret" hip tips for writing great songs:
Pop Secret 1
Bittersweet Lyric - Happy Music
It's the contrast of colors that often makes a great piece of art -- the white canvas against whatever color is painted onto its surface. It's this contrarian principle that holds true for many of music's greatest songs: bittersweet words, happy music!

Take for example "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David:

"What do you get when you fall in love, you only get lies, and pain, and sorrow, so for at least until tomorrow, I'll never fall in love again."

Or "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen:

"It's not a cry you hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."

Gosh, these wretched writers! How we listeners identify with them for writing something so emotionally dark about the shadowy side of love.

Yet both songs are juxtaposed against major sounding chords. The Burt Bacharach/Hal David song is so light and peppy it could be part of a soap commercial.

The opposite is true as well.

We can balance words that express a lot of sunshine by giving them a few musical "clouds." That way, our compositions don't feel so green on green, white on white, red on red, black on... black.
Pop Secret 2
"Don't bore us, start with the chorus!"
A technique many hit songwriters use is starting with some variation of the chorus as the intro. Why wait? Why not subliminally plant the melody, feel, and mood of the chorus into the listener's ear in zero to ten seconds, instead of after a minute?

Just as in The Beatles early hit "She Loves You," it starts rip-roaring full blast with the chorus. We love the song in first three seconds-sold! By the time the verse is finished and we're back into the chorus, we're singing along.

Other composers and producers will offer some tease, a coming attraction of the chorus. On "The Time Of My Life" from the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack, Bill Medley sings "I've had the time of my life" over the intro that is in half time and his lead vocal is a full octave lower that the main chorus. This way when the beat comes in the verse lifts up, and when the first chorus hits and Mr. Medley sings an octave higher with a full tenor voice, we find ourselves singing along. Hooked by the hook!

Other teaser/coming attraction-type techniques include merely hinting at the melody. An example of this is "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi. It starts with the guitar weaving around the notes of the chorus melody. It hints at what's to come in the chorus. When the chorus arrives, we intuitively feel somehow we know it, and we're on the hook.
Pop Secret 3
Songs From Dreams
True, we can't control this. But it sure feels good knowing about it when the morning comes.

Some of the most famous songs come to their composers during a dream. There are many examples over the years. Keith Richards talks about hearing the guitar riff from "Satisfaction" in a dream, then waking up and recording it, as he mentioned in his amazing memoir Life.

Sting tells the story of hearing "Every Breath You Take" in a dream. The most famous dream story of all is Paul McCartney receiving "Yesterday" in a dream and writing the placeholder lyric "Scrambled Eggs" to it originally.

My own versions of hearing a song idea from a dream, then waking up to figure it out are "Brothers and Sisters" and "Reflexology" from my solo album "Life Is Strange."
Mr Dvoskin has had over 25 gold and platinum selling recordings, Grammy nominations, and worked with a diverse range of iconic stars including Mgmt, Sean Lennon, Sammy Hagar, Robert Plant, Bono, Matchbox 20, Richie Havens, Alec Baldwin, Bad Company, and The Beach Boys. His website is www.miraclemusicinc.com.

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How does one explain a creative process that is unexplainable, and largely intuitive? How does one create original work which is both 'art' and product in a multi-billion dollar industry where among its most successful members were a British slave trader who during a violent storm in 1748 had a spiritual epiphany and later on wrote the words, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound...."

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Musicologist Dr. Alison Pawley and psychologist Dr. Daniel Mullensiefen out at the University of London have dabbled into the difficult task of scientifically determining what makes people sing along to certain tunes. Their research has led them to claim that there are various factors that make a song catchy, and in the process have compiled a list of the UK's top 10 sing-along songs.
[ALSO SEE] Oldest song in history (3,400 years old)

Mullensiefen said, "Every musical hit is reliant on maths, science, engineering and technology, from the physics and frequencies of sound that determine pitch and harmony, to the hi-tech digital processors and synthesisers that can add effects to make a song more catchy.

"We've discovered that there's a science behind the sing-along and a special combination of neuroscience, maths and cognitive psychology can produce the elusive elixir of the perfect sing-along song. We hope that our study will inspire musicians of the future to crack the equation for the textbook tune."

The researchers' conclusion was that there are four traits that make a song catchy:

1. Longer and detailed musical phrases. The breath a vocalist takes as they sing a line is crucial to creating a sing-along-able tune. The longer a vocal in one breath, the more likely we are to sing along.

2. A Higher number of pitches in the chorus hook. The more sounds there are, the more infectious a song becomes. Combining longer musical phrases and a hook over three different pitches was found to be key to sing-along success.

3. Male vocalists. Singing along to a song may be a subconscious war cry, tapping into an inherent tribal part of our consciousness. Psychologically we look to men to lead us into battle, so it could be in our intuitive nature to follow male-fronted songs.

4. Higher male voices with noticeable vocal effort. This indicates high energy and purpose, particularly when combined with a smaller vocal range (Freddie Mercury of Queen and Jon Bon Jovi).

The determine these factors, the researchers went undercover and observed over 1,100 instances of people singing along in the real-life context of pubs and clubs across northern England, counting how many people sang along to each song. Then, after performing an extensive musical analysis and correlating with contextual variables gathered using various data mining techniques, they were able to rank a list of sing-a-long classics. Here's how the top 10 UK sing-a-long looks like:

1. 'We are the Champions', Queen (1977)
2. 'Y.M.C.A', The Village People (1978)
3. 'Fat Lip', Sum 41 (2001)
4. 'The Final Countdown', Europe (1986)
5. 'Monster', The Automatic (2006)
6. 'Ruby', The Kaiser Chiefs (2007)
7. 'I'm Always Here', Jimi Jamison (1996)
8. 'Brown Eyed Girl', Van Morrison (1967)
9. 'Teenage Dirtbag', Wheatus (2000)
10. 'Livin' on a Prayer', Bon Jovi (1986)

I have my serious doubts about the legitimacy of such a list. It's controversial, not telling that, like any kind of top 10 list trying to rank songs, but either way, I can appreciate the hard work the researchers put in for the study. It tries to show how science and audio engineering fundamentals are linked together and can describe all sorts of patterns that influence our lives, including music. Again, music is terribly subjective by nature, and I'm certain a lot of people will jump at this flaming.
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What makes a song 'catchy' - science explains

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Musicologist Dr. Alison Pawley and psychologist Dr. Daniel Mullensiefen out at the University of London have dabbled into the difficult task of scientifically determining what makes people sing along to certain tunes. Their research has led them to claim that there are various factors that make a song catchy, and in the process have compiled a list of the UK's top 10 sing-along songs.

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Great songwriters have to be inspired and take time to write great songs

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Thomas Edison's famous and oft-abused quote about genius being 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration is one of the great truisms of our time. But is it actually true? How creativity actually works-in terms of the nuts and bolts of actually getting things down on the page/tape/canvas/etc.-is perhaps the most mysterious aspect of art, a process that's both romanticized and often misunderstood.

In view of this, we thought it might be interesting to see what some of our favorite songwriters had to say about how they approach the process of writing. Scrool down to read opinions from Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Björk, Patti Smith, and more. We hope they provide some measure of inspiration, interest, or insight.
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This post also appears on Flavorpill, an Atlantic partner site.

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25 Great Songwriters on the Art of Songwriting

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Thomas Edison's famous and oft-abused quote about genius being 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration is one of the great truisms of our time. But is it actually true? How creativity actually works-in terms of the nuts and bolts of actually getting things down on the page/tape/canvas/etc.-is perhaps the most mysterious aspect of art, a process that's both romanticized and often misunderstood.

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the song has to have a shorter intro and a faster pace to be a good song because people are starting to listen online more

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How do you write a hit song? Through the decades, many books have been written on the subject - usually by people who aren't songwriters themselves - using analyses of previous hits to come up with solutions. Music industry publication Billboard recently revealed the stats of all the songs that had featured in the magazine's Hot 100 charts.

Since the 50s, songs have become longer, from an average of 2.36 minutes to 4.26 minutes this decade. If you want a hit, it may be best to stay away from writing ballads - ever since the 40s, the average tempo of chart entrants has hovered between 117bpm and 122bpm (ballads usually play at around 90bpm). You should also stick to major keys, with C major being the most popular. Of the top 10 most successful songs of all time, only Kanye West's Gold Digger is in a minor key.

Billboard shows it has become increasingly important to get a cut with artists who are already successful. The number of hits in this category has steadily risen, and is now 25% higher than in the 50s. The most successful artist of all time, chart-wise, is Mariah Carey - followed by Madonna, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and someone called Patti Page (glad to see Hall & Oates coming in eighth).

Author Jay Frank says the way people consume music in the digital age has changed what makes a hit. In his book Future Hit.DNA he argues that people are discovering music online and not always via radio, so song intros need to be shorter. He recently used Adele's Someone Like You as an example of how the theories in his book are correct. "The intro is five seconds long, it's at walking tempo (105bpm), contains repetition of many lyrics with a choral counter-chorus, has a very sly shift in the chord progression at the bridge, and contains many dynamic shifts throughout the song," he concludes.

This doesn't exactly tally with stats provided by Billboard, although Adele's hit is in a major key. So who's right? Maybe it makes more sense to look to songwriters who have had plenty of hits. BBC2's brilliant current series Secrets of the Pop Song is trying to shed light on the issue. In it, successful songwriters talk about the craft, and we see hit-maker Guy Chambers in action as he co-writes with a selection of artists.

If anyone was hoping to stumble on a secret formula, that hope was quickly shattered. As Motown legend Lamont Dozier once said: "I've written about 78 top 10 songs, and I still don't know what a hit is. I can only go by what I feel." His point was brought home as Chambers got together with Mark Ronson (most famous for his collaboration with Amy Winehouse) and budding artist Thalia to write her a breakthrough hit. After trying out a few ideas they settled on an African highlife sound. Ronson noted that very few hits had that particular sound, bar Vampire Weekend, which probably should have been a reason to abandon the idea. A view echoed by the radio pluggers who thought it could possibly be a fourth single, adding: "It's not bad, but it's not great."

As a fellow songwriter once told me: "The world doesn't need any more good songs. What we need are great songs." Or, to take the idea a bit further, the enemy of great is good.

One of the advantages of being a songwriter instead of a performer is that, while artists have a hard time recovering their reputation when a record bombs, the only time the public pays attention to who wrote a song is when it's a hit. Most people don't realise that, even for successful writers, the good-v-great ratio is low: Chambers has written more than 1,000 songs in the last 15 years, of which 21 ranked in the top 10 - that's one hit for every 47 songs. That may sound like a frustrating process, but most writers would agree it's necessary to write non-hits to get to the nuggets. As with athletes, it's important to exercise the writing muscle.

It can also be detrimental to throw away the seed of a song too early. "As you get older, your filters are much more refined," Sting has said. "The critical mind takes over from the creative mind, and I think they are opposed." He admits that, nowadays, it can take him months - even years - to write one song, as he feels every idea he has is too much like something else he or somebody else has written.

When I first heard of the BBC's intention to film the process of songwriting, I wondered if it could work. The creative process is intensely personal, and you need to feel relaxed and comfortable enough to talk about intimate experiences, and to throw some ridiculous ideas into the mix. The prospect of being judged by a TV audience would surely make writers curb their ideas.

But while I found the Ronson session quite painful to watch, the Rufus Wainwright session - in which the goal was to write a ballad - was inspiring. He started out playing some ideas he'd recorded on his Blackberry, including a rap called Everybody Wants a Piece of the Action, and so proved my fear about filtering unfounded. Even though he'd just met Chambers, he revealed personal things, which later were incorporated into a beautiful ballad called World War Three (shame that ballads rate so low on Billboard's hit barometer). He used an old songwriter saying as the first line of the chorus - "don't bore us, get to the chorus" - as a metaphor for life.

In the third and final episode, to be broadcast this Saturday, Chambers and the Noisettes attempt to write an anthem. It features some of the songwriters behind past anthems, analysing why they think their songs became so popular. What is apparent is that none of them knew they were writing an anthem at the time. I Will Survive, for example, was originally a B-side track before a Studio 54 DJ picked up on it. Yet it ended up generating over $100m. Many songs have been written with the same ingredients - a hook that makes people feel good, a repetitive chorus, basic chords - and yet they've failed to set the world alight.

There's one thing successful songwriters have in common: they all love the music they write. They're not cynical about their craft. But while there are tricks of the trade to deliver songs in a more palatable way, other key ingredients are more elusive. Don Black believes lyrics should say something new about the human condition; Björn and Benny of Abba said you should have at least five hooks in a track. But how do you come up with a great hook? If Black or the guys from Abba knew that, they might still be churning out hits.

Even if Secrets of the Pop Song had been able to capture the moment Björn and Benny came up with The Winner Takes It All, we'd be none the wiser as to how to write a hit song - and neither would they.

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Behind the music: How to write a hit song

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How do you write a hit song? Through the decades, many books have been written on the subject - usually by people who aren't songwriters themselves - using analyses of previous hits to come up with solutions. Music industry publication Billboard recently revealed the stats of all the songs that had featured in the magazine's Hot 100 charts.

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the lyrics must be easy to understand/no hard words are used, for it to be a good song

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How the hell do you write a #1 song? Don't we all wish we knew the "secret" to that! Well, maybe there is a way to unravel some of the answer. Songwriting is an art. Songwriting is a craft. But is songwriting a science? Can we test it scientifically and come to certain conclusions about what works and what doesn't and then reduce "success" to mathematical formulae?

Well not exactly, but algorithms have existed for years with which to test the "reader-friendliness" or accessibility of a writer's prose. Specifically, the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests have been around since 1975. They have become ubiquitous. They are built into Microsoft Word. The US military uses them to assess readability of training manuals. Some US state insurance commissions require insurance contracts to meet certain "F-K" levels in order to be used in the sale of insurance products in their states. (By the way, the F-K reading level of this article is 7th grade!)

We thought it would be interesting to subject songs to F-K analysis and see how they scored. The results will probably surprise you. We also think they provide a powerful road map to what you should be doing in your own writing if you aspire to write #1 pop hits.

For reference, the songs we studied were the seventeen #1 songs of 2010 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart as follow:

(Thanks to Ralph Murphy and Anna Maki at ASCAP for providing us this information.)
So that you have some frame of reference with which to understand our results, in a book entitled "Fiction Writer's Brainstormer" by James V. Smith, Jr., Mr. Smith tested ten bestselling novels# with F-K. On the F-K Grade Level scale or score, the books tested in a range of 2.68 to 6.3. The average grade level was 4.4! Here are some other points of reference.

Figure 1 that follows presents a scattergram of the seventeen #1 songs. The number on the vertical axis represents the grade level a reader would need to attain to understand the song. The numbers on the horizontal axis represent the number of weeks each song was at #1.
(Note: While 17 songs were analysed, less than 17 dots show up on this Figure and the next as some scores were identical, so the dots are on top of each other.)
Surprising huh! All of these #1 songs except one (which happens to be Eminem's "Not Afraid") test out at first grade level or below. (Note: 0.00 is interpreted to mean just entered kindergarten. So, for instance, the song that falls almost exactly on 1.2 is interpreted to mean 2/10ths of the way through first grade). So, what goes into the "scientific" calculation and how can it help us write more commercial songs? The F-K grade score is calculated based upon two factors:

The average number of words in sentences.

The average number of syllables in words.

But, there are other factors at play in measuring the complexity or simplicity of writing. Accordingly, Messrs. Flesch and Kincaid came up with a more complete analysis, the result of which they call the "Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease" score. Let's look at the same songs rated by this formula.

The revelation of this analysis is that virtually all of the songs have identical scores of 100 meaning they have the maximum rating for ease of understanding! The two outliers are again the Eminem song, "Not Afraid" and additionally, Katy Perry's "California Gurls." But, even given these two outliers, consider that all of these songs are within 5% of the easiest level as measured by the F-K Reading Ease model. So, on what is this model based? It takes into consideration the same two factors as the F-K Grade Score:

Average number of words in sentences.

Average number of syllables in words.

as well as two additional factors:

Word length as measured by letters.

The number of "complex" words (words of greater than 2 syllables).

Another way to look at this is to aggregate all of these #1 hit songs as in Table 2 that follows: What these values represent are (1) the average for each column heading, (2) the maximum value for all of the seventeen #1 songs and (3) the minimum value for the same group. Before we comment on Table 2, let's look at all of the songs and their values.

What should be clear to any reader at this point is that if you want to write hit pop songs, you need to be an economical wordsmith. Your sentences need to be short-shoot for around seven words or at least generally, between 4 and 10 words. Your words need to be short-shoot for three to four characters per word. And finally, stay away from complex (more than two syllable) words unless you are as gifted a writer as Eminem (Not Afraid" and "Love the Way You Lie") or your hook is the more-than-three-syllable word and you repeat it so much nobody could possibly misunderstand what it is (Katy Perry's "California Gurls").

Even in the cases in Table 3 that have a lot of complex words like "Firework" and "Imma Be," those songs have so many repeating short words that the average number of characters per word in both songs is below 4-those are very short words indeed. The lesson in that is that if you are using a lot of complex words, you will have to offset that complexity with short words to keep your averages low.

At this point, no doubt some of you are sticking your fingers down your throats and hurling and saying "if I have to write kindergartner songs, fuggedaboutit." But, is that really what these songwriters are doing? We think not.

A song is not a book or an insurance contract. You don't generally read it. You listen to it. Moreover, when you listen to it, it is zipping by at a set pace. You can't slow it down. You can't pause it (at least not if it's coming out of your radio). Moreover, whether you are in your car, surfing the net, or at home washing dishes or cleaning or whatever, your attention is more times than not diverted by other activities.

The F-K models were designed for the written word, not songs. They are measuring something meant to be focused on exclusively and something that can be lingered over and read at one's own pace. It's pretty hard to read and "multi-task" at the same time and actually comprehend what you are reading.

If one were to build versions of the F-K models for analysing songs, the "distraction factor" would no doubt be taken into consideration and the results would be different.

In short, we believe "K through 1" for songs translates to several grade levels above that in the prose world-perhaps more in the neighborhood of the 4.4 range of the average hit novel referred to earlier.

Moreover, hit novelists like John Grisham or Elmore Leonard recognize that their readers read their books, not to uncover the secrets of life, but for entertainment. Typically, these books are read fast by the reader and need to "read easy" to draw the reader in. Who wants to relax with a novel written like it's a stock prospectus or a peer-reviewed technical article? If 4.4 is good enough for John Grisham, Stephen King, and Elmore Leonard, it's good enough for us and we hope for you!

Put another way, the genius of all of these writers; novelists as well as songwriters is that they are smart enough to write to the level of their audience taking into consideration the special conditions of their medium. In doing so, whether they arrive at it through years of hard work or simply brilliant intuition, they communicate effectively to millions of people.

One final thought on this "simplicity" angle. You read a book, laugh with it, cry with it or whatever. Then you put it down and walk away from it. You don't hum it. You don't roll the words over in your mind. It's read, it's done. Is that the case with songs? No, a song is a different animal. It is consciously constructed in a way to enhance memorization. It has a hook, the music is typically "hooky" or hypnotic or draws you in in some way. Why else rhyme in a song but as an aid to memorization?

Isn't it a fact that it's easier to memorize short sentences made up of short words than the opposite?

And what is a songwriter's job? What's his or her raison d'être? Is it to make you think they are smart? (We'll just say it-hell no.) World peace? Save the whales, split the atom or some other heady noble cause? Well maybe and certainly songs have been vehicles for wonderful messages and can and have been agents of change.

But, above all, the songwriter's job is to make you love the song and hence, the artist! His or her job (the songwriter) is to hook you! If after hearing their song for the first time you are humming it and maybe singing along with the choruses and within a few hearings, you know the whole damn thing and love it, the songwriter has succeeded. Accordingly, great songwriters have figured out that the key is simplicity. Sometimes, like Bob Marley or John Lennon or Eminem they use that simplicity to say something very deep and important, sometimes they merely sing the praises of California Girls.

To "add a little meat" to this point, Eminem had two #1 pop songs in 2010. "Not Afraid" is a no-holds barred, bare-your-soul acknowledgement of the artist's battles with addiction. His "Love The Way You Lie" duet with Rihanna is an equally raw exposé of men beating on women. Moreover, "Love The Way You Lie" was the 2nd longest running pop #1 of 2010 at seven weeks. Is that all there is to it: short sentences and short words? Well, no. Not exactly. To prove that point, we ran a couple of outlandish tests. We used an online random word scrambler on Ke$ha's 9-week #1, "Tik Tok." The word scrambler kept the line length intact and used all of the words in "Tik Tok," but scrambled them into incomprehensible gibberish. The F-K scores were pretty much the same on this scrambled text as on the real lyric.

We then translated the song into French and ran it through the F-K models. Again, virtually identical results. The point is that short sentences and words can help make a song more comprehensible, but if you write crap, short crap is still crap!

We believe the writers of these #1 pop songs know the wall they are up against. If you want a vehicle to communicate, whether its pop silliness or primal scream, you first have to make your music accessible. We believe the key to that in today's music is short sentences and short words-it's that simple. We hasten to add though that there are many other variables to success-the music, the arrangement, the artist, not to speak of promotion. But, if you don't get the words right, forget the rest.

So, to answer our own question at the outset of this article, yes, the scientific method can measure what we all do when we write songs and can provide insight into our craft.

------- Credits: The author is songwriter Bud Tower. Bud's latest cuts are the title track of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 2009 album God & Guns and the Hank Williams Jr. radio single, "Red, White & Pink-Slip Blues." Bud is also creator of what many consider to to be the finest rhyming resource in existence online or off, www.WikiRhymer.com. Bud was assisted in the preparation of data for this article by Nashville-based Belmont University student and songwriter, CJ Solar.

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Seven-Word Lines and Four-Letter Words: The Science of Songwriting " American Songwriter

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How the hell do you write a #1 song? Don't we all wish we knew the "secret" to that! Well, maybe there is a way to unravel some of the answer. Songwriting is an art. Songwriting is a craft. But is songwriting a science?

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