If you´re a beginner at songwriting. You have come to the right place.
If you´re a beginner at songwriting. You have come to the right place.
You might have a lot of reasons to start out as a songwriter.
Let me give you a couple of things to focus on.
Level of this article : Beginner
Do you play an instrument?
If yes, is it a chord instrument?
The most common instruments for songwriters are piano or guitar.
If you play one of those. You´re in luck.
What if you don´t play an instrument at all?
Well, you can make songs anyway. You can make good songs.
I am so used to my piano as a tool for songwriting that it seems awkvard to me not using an instrument. I know, however, that you can be very effective without an instrument.
You tend to focus a whole lot more on melody and lyrics, the important parts.
If you´re using a chord instrument you need to be shure that the melodies you write have a life on their own.
It might be tempting, at times, to write a melody that follows the chords and sounds really sweet when you play it together with the chords. But what happens when you take the chords away?
Everything falls like a house of cards.
If you didn´t quite understand what I meant with this, try this page for more information about melodies and chords.
LINK TO SONG CHORDS FOR FURTHER READING
There´s one more road to walk if you´re not comfortable with playing an instrument.
Use a computer…
What do I mean by that?
I mean that a computer these days is a very powerful songwriting tool.
You can use it as a beginner as well as a pro musician.
Sometimes I write a song at a real piano, the old fashioned way.
Sometimes I have a piano, a synth or a drumloop “in my computer” that I use.
One good thing with computers are that you get everything recorded on your harddrive.
An important document of your song, is created, that you can keep for future use.
When the song is finnished I make my demos in my computer. Making an arrangement of the song is easy with computers.
LÄNK TILL SONGWRITING SOFTWARE
Even if you don´t play an instrument, you can use tools on your computer that make songwriting life a lot easier.
Now, let me give you three scenarios.
Number one:
You´re playing a chord instrument
Number two:
You´re not playing an instrument
Number three:
You´re using a computer software program
I´ll give you an introduction here, in this article, and if you want more information about the three methods follow one of the links above.
You´re playing a chord instrument
So you play a chord instrument, great.
You may get some help by also reading You´re not playing an instrument.
This give you a few tips on how to focus on melody and lyrics without any tools like intruments or computers.
Melody
If you look on internet you´ll find resources for chord and lyrics to songs that you know.
Look for a song you like.
It´s an advantage if you already know the melody by heart.
Play the chords of that song.
Now play the chords again, but don´t try to imitate the original.
Just play the chords as you just invented them.
Here´s a couple of chords from a “mega superduper” hit song.
Eb - Cm - Ab - Bb - Eb
Advanced huh…:-) ?
Play with them if you like, and try to come up with an interesting melody.
As I said before don´t fool yourself with making melodies that are made up of the notes within the chords themselfs.
The chords and the melody are of course going to have notes in common. I just want you to be aware of this trap.
You need to test your melody on its own, not playing the chords, just the melody.
Does it sound ok on its own?
This is very important if you´re trying to write something catchy that people will remember.
If people can´t hum the melody of yours, they wont remember it.
EXAMPLE CHORDS with Lame MELODY
Excercise nr 2
If you haven´t already, read this section now:
You´re not playing an instrument
You´ll find it a couple of sentences down below
Then return here
Use the tips I show you about melodymaking
We are going to take this one step further.
Let´s say you have a melody that you recorded on your cell phone.
This melody of yours is going to feel very alone without any chords to it.
So, try to put chords that fit with the melody that you have done.
EXAMPLES, melody with CHORD SUGGESTIONS
You´re not playing an instrument
Here´s a couple of tips you can focus on.
Melody
Get used to making melodies.
Easier said than done perhaps, but the best approach is to write melodies often.
Start right now, write melodies.
Maybe you have a mobile phone or something similar to record your melodies on, so you can listen to them in a week or in a month from now.
Make simple melodies.
Melodies that repeat themselfs
Try to make long melodies and short melodies
Use short notes and long notes
Be creatice, at this stage you don´t have to think about to many rules.
EXAMPLE melodies
Lyrics
I hope that you have done a couple of melodies by now.
Now let´s talk a little bit about writing lyrics.
The same rule apply here, write lyrics often and you´ll improve quickly.
Start by writing down a couple of sentences that you like.
Let me try some:
“I walk across the fields”
“I can say that I love you”
“I wish tomorrow was today”
I just brainstormed for a minute and wrote down what came to my mind.
Maybe you have a couple of sentences of your own.
Start to say them out loud.
Choose one sentence and say it out loud a lot of times.
Listen for the rythm of the words.
Where´s the natural accent of the words.
Does the “speaking melody” goes up or down.
Say it over and over again and start to exaggerate the ups and downs and the natural flow, rhytm of the words.
I hope that you realize that a pattern starts to come through.
A natural flow and natural melody inherited by the words themselfs.
Do this a couple of times, with words and sentences that you come up with.
It´s a very good way to get a feeling for melody and lyrics.