This is geared mostly towards guitar players, but could still apply in some respects to those of you who write with a keyboard. Are your chord choices and your chord progressions getting boring? You might find yourself always turning to the same chords when you’re sitting down to write…and let’s face it, you can probably only sing in certain keys so those chords work for you.
However, they’re not very inspiring after awhile, are they?
Maybe you need to introduce yourself to some new sounding chords, chords that have different extensions (more about that in a minute), but still work for your voice. There are many, many chords out there, but most of the time we stick to the common chords. It’s not that common chords are bad, but they are what we know. I get an awful lot of visitors to one of my articles entitled “Chord Keys” because people aren’t sure what chords sound good together. In fact, they often use the search terms “what chords sound good together” to find that article!
So if you aren’t sure about chord keys, that’s a good primer. However, beyond that, why not teach yourself some less common chords. Chord “extensions” are simply added harmonic notes that change the sound of a chord. For instance, a basic G chord changed to a Gadd5, gives it a fuller, more majestic (for lack of a better word) sound. A Gadd5 is fretted like this:
I did an article once called Songs That Break The Rules, giving some examples of songs that went outside the lines in terms of doing things that you are often told NOT to do when writing a song. Songwriters get a little riled up when it comes to the word “rules”, but I think there’s a lesson to be learned from understanding those “rules” and then going beyond them and finding your own songwriting voice in spite of them.
Certain things just don’t work, and there’s a good reason that they don’t work. Not very many people want to listen to crazy, unorganized noise. I suppose some do, but that’s beside the point :-). Once you figure out what works, you’re ahead of the game. The songwriters I often admire are those who take those rules and turn them upside down, and STILL come up with a great song.
Recently I was asked to work out a song for a guitar class called “Late Bloomer” by Canadian songwriter Sarah Harmer. I’ve heard her songs before and like her style, and she’s definitely got a distinctive voice. When I was teaching it to the class, one of my students commented on how it was tricky to sing because of the way Sarah emphasises certain words in it. You might think that’s a bad thing…because how many times have you been told (by myself and others!) that you can’t put the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble? In other words, you need to make the music work with the natural stresses of the lyric.
Well, Sarah breaks this rule all the time, but it works! There’s a line in the first verse “oh, late bloomer, the rumours were true”. The first time she sings it, her melody matches the stresses just as if you were reading the line; OH, late BLOOMer, the RUmours were TRUE. But the second time she emphasizes it differently; OH, late BLOOMer, THE ruMOURS were TRUE. And in the second verse, she does it again in the second line; to read it you would see “it was NOTHing to be ALways LEFT beHIND”. But her emphasis is “it was noTHING to be ALways LEFT beHIND”, putting the emphasis on the last syllable of the word ‘nothing’ instead of where it naturally occurs.
Now, many times when I’ve heard something by a newer songwriter where there is an incorrect stress in a word, I’ve heard it as a mistake. With Sarah’s song, I don’t. Why is that? My guess is that she does it on purpose and likes to play around with the stresses of words like that, and this has become her distinctive style. So she doesn’t sound like a “newbie”, instead she has created a sound for herself that makes her songs and her singing stand out.
And that is what we’re all trying to do, isn’t it? Find a voice that can be easily identified as ours and ours alone. Sarah Harmer may not be a massive, money making music star, but she has a following and continues to write great songs.
So what is the lesson here? Same as always; learn the rules, and then break ’em :-). Have a listen to “Late Bloomer” and consider buying one of Sarah’s albums if you like it. The lyrics are below:
Oh late bloomer the rumours were true
You know I checked your ID when you left the room
I didn’t want to see it coming, I showed off my heart
Now there’s a scar in the shape of a question mark
Oh late bloomer the rumours were true
Scattered leaves are all that’s left of you
I never thought I’d be the marrying kind
It was nothing to be always left behind
From the ship that would sail with everyone on it
I said ‘give me the land, I know what I want and where I’m wanted’
But you came in whistling ‘I’ll go if you’ll go’
And I was waiting around to play like an old piano
And honey I couldn’t see the trouble sleeping down deep
Where these lights won’t go
I couldn’t see the trouble underneath
I set my sights on what was alright
My will didn’t know, where these lights won’t go
I couldn’t see the trouble underneath
Who knew it would be you through the wall
Listening in to a voice on a call
And hearing the strings and a shoot ‘em up show
Little did I know then what little did I know
Long before listening forever
Was shot down before it was ever delivered
And honey I couldn’t see the trouble sleeping down deep
Where these lights won’t go
I couldn’t see the trouble underneath
I set my sights on what was alright
My will didn’t know, where these lights won’t go
I couldn’t see the trouble underneath
Oh late bloomer the rumours were true
You know I checked your ID what was it I knew?
I didn’t want to see it coming, I showed off my heart
Now there’s a scar in the shape of a question mark
Oh late bloomer the rumours were true
Scattered leaves are all that’s left of you
I was at a funeral for an old acquaintance yesterday and on the way home it occurred to me that there were a lot of lines and phrases spoken by others that I could easily use in a song lyric some time in the future. Quite often you may have come across the idea of reading or watching TV or seeing a movie to find some inspiration, but the truth is that your very own life is probably a great source if you handle it just right.
Of course, many of you already write about your own life, and many songs you’ve heard over the years are a reflection of the writer’s life, not just fiction. But instead of writing about the typical things like love, loss, partying (:-)) and every other clichéd topic, there are probably events or snippets of conversation happening around you all the time that might make for interesting lyrics. So any of you out there complaining (and many of you do!) that you don’t have anything to write about, maybe you only need to open your ears and eyes a little more. Almost anything can inspire a song lyric if you know what to do with it.
For instance, one thing that was said yesterday by the brother of the person who passed away was that in losing his brother, he learned something about him, and he also remembered something that he had forgotten. The “new” learning came in the form of stories that people told him after his brother died. The thing he had forgotten was how he had always thought of his brother as his hero. I could see turning that into an idea for a song. Another idea that came to me was when the pastor spoke about how we only know a part of a person, and when we get together during such an occasion, the memories others have, when we put them all together, paint a much more complete picture of that person.
Do you see what I mean? Whatever lyric came out of that wouldn’t even have to be about death, only about getting to know someone, or a kind of philosophy of life.
I’m not even afraid to share these ideas with you because I know that if you use them, you would probably write a completely different song than I would 🙂 Years ago I used to lead a kind of online songwriting workshop on a songwriting message board I used to hang out on, where I would get everyone to submit a song title. Then we’d vote on the title and have a week or two to write a song around that title. Sometimes it wasn’t a title, but just a lyric idea. It was a great exercise, but what it taught me most was how completely different all of the songs were that came out of it.
So take something from my experience above, if you like, or pay more attention to your own experiences and don’t be afraid to share them. You never know where you’ll find a new song!
A guitar student of mine recently decided he wanted to get into songwriting for the first time. Having dabbled in it just a little bit, his first questions had to do with where to start. I have long since forgotten exactly what my process was (I was only 12!), but I do remember what caused me to sit down and write. I couldn’t really play very many chords, meaning I couldn’t play the songs I wanted to, so instead I decided to make up my own. It came naturally in that I didn’t spend too much time worrying about how it was coming out. I hadn’t yet developed an “inner critic” or a sense of having to get “somewhere” in terms of a finished product. The Brill Building in New York
And that is a really important point to remember. If you’re reading this article and you’re only just starting out, try not to read or think too much! You don’t write by reading about writing, you write by writing. It might take you a minute to get your head around that line, but essentially if you start loading your brain up on HOW to write, you may actually impede the process.
So I’m not going to tell you how to write in this article, I’m going to give you some ideas to get you in the mood to write. If you’re 14 years old, outside of school and homework and maybe some chores around the house, you’ve got lots of time to fiddle around with writing. If you’re 42, you probably don’t. Many songwriters will express the idea of only writing when the inspiration hits them (yes, and I’ve said that too!), however, it’s not always practical to jump out of your chair at work or out of bed in the middle of the night when inspiration hits and start writing. But you can write it down and work on it later.
No matter how many times the same points are brought up when it comes to common problems that arise for newer songwriters, they bear repeating as a kind of checklist to go through once you feel you’ve finished a song and you want to send it out there. Of course, a song can never really feel “finished” if you’re the type who likes to tweak a lot, but what I’m going to list here are more obvious problems that come up again and again when I’m listening to newer songwriters.
1. INTRO TOO LONG – I’ve seen this brought up by many songwriting instructors or critiques again and again, but somehow it doesn’t seem to sink in for many writers. If you are pitching your songs to publishers or artists, you are going to lose them so quickly if your intro is long and self-indulgent. They want to get to the meat of it, so don’t serve so much salad! Keep your intro as short as you can, and you can even try no intro at all! Now of course, you’re going to find lots of examples of pro recordings out there with long intros, but these are often by artists or bands who have long since established some kind of following and they can get away with it. You can’t.
2. FILLER LYRICS – Even if you have one really good hook in your song, don’t ignore the rest of it! The sound of boring old phrases will put even the most enthusiastic of your listeners right to sleep. Your job is to take every one of those old, boring lines and make them remarkable. There is not one syllable’s worth of room for boring! Don’t get lazy or impatient, keep going over every line and make it better.
3. UNREMARKABLE MELODIES – in some cases the problem can be one of two things: either the melody is too repetitive, or it’s not repetitive enough! Work on your melodic phrasing, listen to popular songs or songs you like and notice how often the same melody is repeated within a verse and then within a chorus. The human brain can remember a sequence of up to 7 digits easily, then it starts to lose track. This is not to say you should only put 7 notes in your melodic phrasing, but just keep in mind that people who are listening to your songs fresh can only remember and retain so much. On the flip side if you keep throwing the same melody at them over and over, they’ll drift off to sleep. Too much or lack of repetition is probably the most common problem I hear in songwriter’s melodies.
4. POOR PERFORMANCE – if you’re not a singer, don’t sing on your own demos. For the purpose of getting a demo made, of course you’ll probably need to give them a rough version of the melody. The same goes for your accompaniment. If you can’t play very well, get somebody else to do it. A poor performance of even a great song will often be a distraction for those who are listening with a critical ear. Your mom will love it, your publisher won’t :-).
5. LACK OF A THEME AND CONTINUITY – what is your song about? If you can’t tell me in one phrase, then you haven’t got the chorus down yet. And don’t tell me it’s a love song, that’s going to lose me too! There are a gazillion love songs out there, what makes yours different? Then look at the continuity of your lyrics, is the first verse tied to the next one? Can you describe the “story” as it unfolds in each verse and does it make sense as a whole? A common problem is disjointed lyrics where one part of a song doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the next part and it’s difficult to really know what the song is about. It’s like walking into an extremely cluttered living room, where your eyes don’t know what to look at first. In a song with no continuity, your ears can’t figure out what to listen to either. Get rid of all the furniture and pictures, pare it down and start again!
The above problems are not insurmountable, and yet they will stand out immediately to someone who is used to listening to a lot of songs, like a publisher. You don’t want to give anyone the excuse to hit stop too soon! Take your time to fix them and it will pay off, I promise :-).
