How do you teach the basics of songwriting to people?

[thor666]

Other than structure, how do you actually teach people to write songs?

personally, i feel i am at least competent in songwriting but i find it difficult to tell my band members how to write songs. ie, i suggest "hum a melody" as the fundamental approach to writing songs but they don't seem to get it/don't have a good sense of the Key, sings offkey/have little or no concept of phrasing.

 

[Scream_ed]

I always feel it's a delicate balance between knowledge and inspiration. If you have a killer melody of 4 bars floating in your head, you'd need to know how to capture it and harness it and make it into a song somehow, or it'll always remain a sound clip. on the other hand, you can know the techniques of writing very well but still not able to come up with anything good. Basically the same as playing good guitar.

So I would say know the basic theory well at least. Say you have a song idea, you guys can determine a key, work out some progression which will somehow give the melodies a place to fall into and a direction to go. It takes practise too. So dun be too disappointed or discouraged if things dun turn out to be great at first.

 

[turbochicken]

concept, progression, hook and your personal element

concept: the story, the idealogy behind the song, the impact of your tune.

progession: the chord progression. safe is cliche, but still works, more in the chinese market. interesting progression refresh certain listerners.

hook: basically, lyrical, melody and arrangement hooks.
lyrics like "might as well be walking on the sun", melody hooks (self explanatory) and arrangement hooks like "we will rock you", "word up" etc.

your element: something you deem you have an edge over others; something you can pull off with more versatility. not so much a signature sound or style, but a certain element like percussiveness (for me) or mixing a cappella with band (acoustic or pumped up) - something which i'm trying to do now. though i know it's not new.

how to go about it: theory is not necessary, but understanding of and exposure to different kinds of music are essential. listening and capturing the different elements of major or minor styles maximizes your arrangement potential and versatility in both writing and arranging.
having a principal instrument helps tremendously as well. using it to write (for pitched instruments only, sadly)

that's my take. hope it helps.

 

[emphibian]

write songing again?

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
-Oscar Wilde
do yourselves a favor eh.
like shampoo.

 

[DontDeRockMe]

And just like what Dave "The Snake" Sabo from Skid Row said: "Just because you can sing it, doesn't mean you can write it". Bear in mind that sometimes good singer/musicians doesn't neccessarily means good song-writers (and vice versa).

I guess sometimes there're things you can't force... and songwriting is something you can't really force. Either you have it, or you don't. Although it sure doesn't hurt to give it a try and keep practising... Good luck!

 

[mingguan]

thor666, maybe you can analyse with them by using their favorite song as a example. It may be more practical & short-cut.

 

[SoMA]

I agree with Scream_ed. For good songwriting, you need a strong foundation in music theory, especially chord progressions. Yes you can copy chord progressions from your fav songs, but why not learn how to form chords and the rules of chord progressions instead? In this way, you will write your own strong harmony instead of copying others and risk sounding cliche.

Next step is to develop a strong melodic hook. All professional songwriters use certain techniques and tools to develop a melodic hook to make the song more catchy and memorable (which is our goal as songwriters) ; people like Sting and Diane Warren use these tools so naturally, i highly doubt they're even conscious of it.

Keep writing, and letting friends and other musicians/songwriters give positive criticism on it. Be OPEN to suggestions for improvements, because that is the only way to learn and grow.

SoMA has a 6 months songwriting programme where students with no music background come in to learn basic harmony and chord progressions, then put that foundation into keyboard skills using the pop/jazz chord approach.
After that, the 3rd and 4th module combines for 10 weeks, where students learn one technique of developing melodic hooks each week, write and record a song at home, and then bring it back for positive criticism from the peers and the trainer. They will then further improve on the song, and learn how to arrange these songs using cakewalk and individual digital workstations at our labs.
Finally, they will pick their 3 best songs, and record their demo CD/portfolio in our recording studio with live musicians =)

Everything you need to know, learn and grow as a professional songwriter, all in 6 months. Feel free to msg me about your songwriting woes, i love to chat and discuss ideas with fellow songwriters.

Oh and we're giving out free ipod nanos for every sign-up by 21st October!

We also have 5 school holiday programmes - which includes a songwriting course of 12 lessons where these tools and techniques of developing melodic hooks, contrasting sections, and other essential elements of songwriting will be taught - all at a special promotional rate only for students this school holidays.
Check out www.soma.com.sg for more details.

 

[guitarman78]

Scream ed and soma ... well said ... Chord knowledge, melodic behaviours, harmonic tendancy, motiff, these are fundamentals that doesn't just apply to musical composition, but also improvisation and musicianship. If you wanna play music, play by the rules, and play around with the rules. If you can't understand a sound ... then no one else can understand better than you.

But however, some genres of music doesn't require too much technical knowledge. Like Punk or Granch .... cobain isn't technical. HIs music and lyrics are just Raw and straight to the point ... and not that straight to the point. Bottom line .... just write and keep writing ... and you will get it right. Write to get right to get the right to write ..... erm whatever.

2 basic approaches .... melody to fit the words ... words to fit the melody. Depends on which is priority. Some genres of Jazz an Funk are music intensive ... hence words are just there to fit the vocals in as an instrument. I don't see how trash metal lyrics can be emphasised ... you can't hear them anyway ... haha ... ok just kiddin k?

Listen to a variety of music .... learn different progressions .. like 1, 6, 2, 5 progression .... i, 2, 3, 5 ....1, 3, 4, 5 .... and not forgetting 12 bar blues or jazz blus ... you can expound so much from there. You can also try advanced technics like 2,5,1 substitution, tritone substitution, diminished7th or altered(b5, #11) chords, accidentals, chromatic notes.

Whenever you think rhythm ... try to think 16 beat. This will help you not to miss out on cool syncopations and riffs. Triplets are useful too. And it will also help if you are able to expose yourself to different types of rhythm .... like Chacha, Bossa, Samba, Afrocudan, funk, fusion, swing, blues, theeee basic rock beat.

Another drill .... just get a piece of paper and start writing .... it can be rubbish ... ramdom ... or whatever. But just write whatever's on your mind. You can be amazed at what you can piece together with those random words.

And if you are serious about writing ... always have pen and paper with ya. So that whenever a line .. a tune or sentence pops out in you mind, you can jot it down. You can be taking a crap or talking to the busdriver or stranded in the rain under a tree .... inspiration can come anytime.

2 more things to add as musician ....

a) KISS = Keep it simple stupid
b) Less is more.

play too much ... you over harmonize a chord ... or you overcrowd a bar.
play too little ... you sound boring. Have dynamics .... add a bridge ... do the second verse differently, add an outtro, ad interlude .... let music flow .... dun just limit it to Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Chorus sequence ... Yawn!!! But yet if you do too much ... it will sound awfully distasteful. Let your ears be your judge.

You can't think ... if you think ... you are not creating ... you are merely writing ... mass production of music ... no soul. Just write what your heart feels .... hear what your ears tells you is write.

 

[Scream_ed]

Oh. I'm seeing things from two points here. Firstis the brainstorming part, where you have a blank sheet of paper, and a blank slate in your mind. You're plucking idea from thin air. That, there 're no rules governing how you should come up with your ideas. If seeing your friend slip on a banana peel triggers a song idea, it is a song idea.

But what happens after that initial spark of grammy-worthy genius? You gotta capture it, form and shape it into a song that makes sense, no?

There comes the second part, where a technical know-how will help you shape the song, instead of hit-and-miss cherry picking of chords, blah blah. By theory, I dun mean the grade 5 and above kind of competency, but a knowledge of scales, chord families/theories (knowing chord theories btw helps you flesh out alternative chords on your own without the need memorise the chord shapes), circle of fifths and all that. A songwriter's knowledge of theory need not challenge the standard of a concert pianist, if that's what the concern is about.

So for me, in a nutshell, it is about being able to capture that fleeting moment and making a song out of that little spark.

 

[guitarman78]

SCream Ed:

Well, i'm no expert in songwriting .... i'm novice ... self taught too. But i agree with ya ... brainstorming and post fine tuning is what i do too. And sometimes when the tune really pops out while you are taking that final poop in the toilet .... it just comes in a package of full rhythm, melody and harmony.

We can also look at tensions .... like how dominant (5th) chords can resolve to it's tonic (1st) or how a Mediant (3rd) can either move chromatically to supertonic (2nd) or subdominant (4th), or jump to a submediant(6th). People study tensions and tendancy because some note movements dun sound as "resolved" as the others in a given chord progression.

Same applies to notes .... that there a way notes flows relative to it's key. And that's also a reason for practicing scales using melodic patterns instead of playing a "G Major scale" straight from G to F#.

You can play melodic patterns like 3 notes accending forward, accending backwards, descending forward, descending backwards, do it in 3 notes of 4ths ... 4 notes on 6ths .... 2 notes of thrids so on and so forth. You hear drummers practice rudiments? This is the rudiments of guitar, not sure for keyboards. Just for a single shape of the major scale, you can have thousands of possibilities of melodic patterns. let alone 15 shapes of the major scale and melodic minor scale.

Well, like i've said, i'm no expert ... but this is something you can try while waiting to enroll to a song writing school. Good luck!

 

[Scream_ed]

Enroll into a songwriting school :?:

 

[guitarman78]

well, if you're really really interested ... you can join songwriting classes which is believe really helps. Not trying to advocate anything ok?

But if you are like me .... no time to do anything else but work full time and study part time ... then will have to make do with self taught lor ... but it's definitely tougher. D music sells alot of interesting books ... i got mine from there.

 

[Scream_ed]

I did attend a songwriting class 2 yrs ago. Er, it's a slightly long story la, but I get to pay half price so I just went. But my opinions are not based solely on that experience. I do consciously read up and try things out on my own, so I hope I dun come across sounding like I dam authoritative or wat. I'm just sharing a bit of what I know.

ButI'm taking note of what you were talking about in your previous post. Hmm...there's always something to think about.

Ha, now instead of keep paying $$, I rather put my knowledge to work. I've put off my songwriting in the back burner for very long liao. Time to get back into gear. Rusty gear, albeit...

 

[Scream_ed]

Oh. A helpful website for you people.

www.musesmuse.com

 

[guitarman78]

very insightful scream ... share more of your knoweledge with me.

 

[thor666]

wow... thanks for all the comments guys... very insightful stuff.

it's the teaching part i'm finding difficulty with.. on one hand i don't want to keep pushing my own songs into the band, while on the other hand, i SERIOUSLY don't want to teach songwriting for months. (it's such a chore, considering how self-taught i am, i roughly have an idea what it takes to hone songwriting).

It's just so difficult to explain to people music theory and keep them motivated on songwriting... and it's even more difficult to tell people how to write good melodic hooks when their listening influences are extremely limited (like people who listen only to mainstream pop, or only a few types of genres, songs with limited phrasing)

my main concern however, is how to teach people to create melodies. it seems extremely intuitive to me (i just hum something, if it's nice, i start to work on it), but to explain to others that they can do it as well... that's hard.

i also have to try to make my point that lyrics alone don't make sense, especially if they are written in too poetic a manner (songs are not poems, although they share a lot of similarities).

any of you have your own experiences you would like to share?

 

[ViD]

Thanks for the website Screamed. Great for songwriters!

 

[Scream_ed]

Glad to be of help, guys.

I believe songwriting thrives on a community that shares ideas and tips. If done in all our lonesome, I dun think it'll be surprising that we'll hit a brick wall sooner than we can blink our eyes. Musesmuse.com works on that principle (the contributors there dun get paid, if I'm not wrong). 9 out of 10 times if you share an insight from what you've read or gone thru, someone will learn something from it, so everyone can have something to contribute here.

But it's great to know more of you here who are songwriters. Suddenly the planet feels a lil smaller... :lol:

To SoMA: Hey, do you conduct things like a one_day workshops, like , er..tips on writing lyrics, knowing your chords, and topics like that, for pple like guitarman and me who can't commit to a 6 month program, but would like to refresh ourselves from time to time (also for networking la, heh heh. THat's how lobangs come about... :twisted: )? Would be great to have that locally instead of searching like heck online.

Oh yeah, another webbie (I was pretty deep into this a few years)back... :lol: :www.taxi.com

This site has everything covered, not only songwriting, but things about the industry, reality checks for aspiring musos, tips, columns, you name it. I learned a lot of things from here.

YOu guys got anything, any shitty experiences, any new discoveries, just post it up. Nothing is irrelevant here (if it's pertaining to making music).

Good die! (Aussie: Good day) hehehe

 

[shibby]

teach them style

 

[SoMA]

Hey Scream_ed,

We do have shorter courses over the school holidays at really reasonable rates just for students passionate about music! There're 5 courses and one of which is songwriting! The songwriting course will cover 10 tools and techniques of developing hooks, both melodically and harmonically.

The songwriting course is $500 (usual $980) for 12 sessions of 2.5 hours each, starting 24th nov.

There is a prerequisite for the songwriting course: you've got to be proficient in either the guitar or piano with basic knowledge of chord progressions =)

Check out our website under school holiday programmes for the timings and the write-up about the course or call 6336 3313 and speak to our songwriting instructor Keith. He'll love to help you with all your questions.