Songwriting How To - Ask Questions

Songwriting how to, ask questions and improve your songwriting. This is an amazing songwriting tool that will help make your songs stand out above others. It’s simple and effective. You can learn to write a song by using questions.

Songwriting how to - ask questions is a great tool to improve your rock songwriting, country songwriting, gospel or any other kind of songwriting. People are more interested in content that gets them involved actively in the song. Asking questions is a simple way to do this.

Try this, just change your lines of lyrics and pose them as questions. For example, "You look worried that we're over." into "Are you worried that we're over?" Questions get the listener involved in your song and that's very good for your song.

In this example not only does it get the listener involved it changes the whole context of the interaction. You are reaching out to the listener not telling them something. You're showing you're concerned about them. It’s a small change but it makes a huge difference in emotionally connecting with the listener.

There are many ways to pose a question. It can turn the weak words in a lyric like "are, is, how, can, etc. into much more powerful action words. Questions put your line of lyric into action and give it extra life.

There are examples everywhere of great songwriters that use this technique all the time. Look at the lyrics to some of your favorite songs and see how many of them use questions. You will be surprised how many do.

Another advantage of asking questions is that you can ask a series of questions and it will give your lyric parallel structure. This is also a good thing as it is repetition. Look at songs like Bob Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind" or songs like "Are You Lonesome Tonight?

What I like about Blowing In The Wind" is Dylan asked a series of very serious questions about society in the verses. But he is very careful to let the listener decide what the answers are. In the chorus he just says the answers are out there somewhere. The song doesn't come across as moralizing but he skilfully makes social comment anyway.

Your songs don't have to change the world (you might decide you want them to) but they do have to change the emotions of one listener at a time.

Another songwriting how to, tool is using quotes if you don't want to use questions or they don't fit your song. Direct quotes of what your characters say. Try to stick to "said" statements as they are the most active. For example Jim said "I'll stop the drinking for you". When it’s a quote it has high interest value to the listener.

Making you lyrics into commands is also a tried and true technique used by great songwriters. Again commands have much higher interest value to the listener. "Take this job and shove it" is a classic example of this. Talk about an action statement that involves the listener.

Try to change all your lyrics into questions, quotes and commands. Do this and it will change your songs because the listener is pulled into them. You want this. It will make your writing stand out. This technique is a simple songwriting how to that too few people use.

Wayne Chase does a wonderful job of talking about this in chapter ten of his book How Music Really Works.

Get into the habit of doing a songwriting how to "question, quote and command" check of all the songs you write. Change your lyrics to include them.

Follow the links below to related topics on How to Write A Song.