Writing Songs

Home : Other Documents : Writing Songs

Writing the music:

Pick a song as a model

Reduce the chord progressions to roman numerals

Change the key of the chord progressions

Come up with new licks based on different CAGED shapes for the new chords, using altered rhythms, ranges, and textures, etc.

Use the original song form as a model, but add or change parts as desired

Writing Lyrics:

Come up with a topic (fences)

Brain storm the topic - anything related. WRITE DOWN KEY WORDS - wikipedia, google, imagine everything that could be related to the topic (boards, moss, jumping over, gate, curvature, how it's in the ground, broken pieces, can't get through, blocks out the light, things leaning on the fence, trees growing through it, cold metal, living wood ... IMPRESSIONS - not necessarily complete thoughts, but flickers of thought, no matter how disjointed - just ideas, feelings, images that are related to the original topic)

Write 1 single line in rhythm, then use a rhyming dictionary to find related idea, and make it fit into the rhythm. If you can't find a rhyme for the last word, change the order of the words in the sentence.

Craft it - add, delete, MAKE CHANGES until it feels right

Record it - make bass, drums, guitar, keys, and vocal harmony parts

Perform the song, and continue to adjust contrived parts, add new parts, etc.