Song Writing TipsSong writing tips guest article by Stephen (Doc) Haley. Here are some rules or guidelines. First of all there are always exceptions. But they are few and far between. They vary according to genre and established artists have a great deal more leeway than newbies do. First lets remember a song has lyrics and an instrumental is music only. You do not write lyrics for nor do you sing an instrumental. Boy has this been a sore spot with those that write instrumentals. They keep telling me they wrote a song. They did not. They wrote an instrumental. Moving forward before I get irritated with the above conflict. Song writing tips - When you write a set of lyrics you must:- Have a hook that the song is developed around, this is a must. - Lay it out in an @ 3 minute span. It will be changed later anyway if you are lucky enough to have something picked up by an A&R. - Use the Verse, Verse, Bridge, Chorus, Song Break, Verse, Chorus, end song layout. It works best for most record companies and this too can be changed. They are children and need to be spoon fed a song so they can understand it in the 20 seconds they allot for listening to one. - If you don't know what a bridge is find out. I have been writing for 30 years and had to learn it myself. Sometimes it was just taking the first two lines of my chorus and developing a bridge out if it. It's simple. It's stupid, but it's what the record companies want. Not all number one hits have it but they still require such so why not do it now instead of having your work returned because of it. - Put a melody to your work. If you can't sing it to a melody (guitar or keyboard) how do you expect anyone else to be able to do so and or to appreciate your work. Much less be able to consider it for use. - You can't copyright a set of chords so don't worry about infringing on a melody or chord structure once used by others in part. Don't go copying "Penny Lane" exactly and write a song to it because that is illegal. But basic chords are not copyrightable. - When you have a set of lyrics that meet the above you have just entered into song writing 101. Basement level. Now it all depends on how good your words are, their meaning, how you structured your song, how it relates to the listening public in general and on and on and on and mostly LUCK. Song writing tips article by Stephen (Doc) Haley. |
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