Writing a song part 3: Approach
July 20, 2010
Sorry for the long delay. I know ALL of you have been anxiously waiting! Here’s the final part:
From here, you can take any approach you like. The amazing thing is you have so many options. I have tackled songs from many different directions, like lyrics before music, music before lyrics, a cool riff to work around, or an interesting chord progression to get the song jumpstarted. I’ve come to learn that the songs are fresh and different.
Most recently, I decided to try my hand at writing music based off of lyrics, which I’ve never done before. It was tough, but the end result was fabulous. I’ve never written chord sequences as ambitious as this one. The reason is that before I always wrote music first. In such an approach, I wrote music that was well-structured and for the most part a typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus pattern. But with these lyrics, I didn’t write them with a structure in mind. I was basically writing a story. That meant that I had to establish a musical structure that would accommodate the story in the lyrics. As a result, the way the song was moving around was unpredictable, taking all kinds of unexpected, unique paths, music-wise. Whatever was happening in the story, the music had to give the right feeling. Not only that, but the vocal melodies had to fit the vibe, spacing and timing of the lyrics correctly. Sure, I had to modify the words here and there, but I honestly didn’t make many changes. It makes for some interesting chords/hooks that I otherwise wouldn’t have come across.
Again, these posts are not about how to write songs, but about the process of how I write songs. They’re really preaching that there isn’t a correct way to write a song. You can come up with your own methods, but just make sure there is a solid foundation for you to work with, whether it be from your natural sense of music or knowledge you gain from practicing/studying. Then you simply write and get better with experience. For some, it won’t be pretty in the beginning, but you’ll surely surprise yourself if you keep at it. Yes, just keep at it!
