Music Writing

Music writing skills can be learned for experimental songwriting and and any other kind music songwriting.

Its always helpful to get as much music advice as possible to help you compose songs. You can also use various music writing software packages to help you.

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There are different approaches songwriters take and no one correct way of doing it. Basically you need to find what you are comfortable with through trial and error.

But also keep trying others methods to keep you composing sharp. Sometimes writing for a different starting point can help you if you're stuck or feeling you're blocked.

Some songwriters start with lyrics, some start with music and some start where ever inspiration strikes and build the rest of the song from there.

There are decisions you make as you compose music whether you are conscious of them or not. If you learn the various components you can consciously control this issues and how you want them to impact your listener.

Your song will be in a minor or major key and have a chord progression. It will have a tempo (110-140 beats per minute is most common), a time signature (4/4 time, 3/4 time, 6/8 time etc) and a song form ( i.e. verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus).

It will have a beat, feel or pulse such as straight time or swing and have meter within the bars, lines and sections.

Wayne chase in his book How Music Really Works give a detailed and excellent description of the various components I've talked about above. Pat Pattison's book Writing Better Lyrics also goes into detail regarding the stressing of the beats within and among musical bars.

By understanding how these work together you control your song to do what exactly you want. Again the choice is yours about controlling these.

My advise is to learn about them and play with them to see how the same lyric can sound differently if different scenarios.

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