Need help writing songs?

Question

I want to start writing songs but i don't know where to start and what to end with. any tips or help?

Answer 1

write about what you know and feel...you can describe a scene, you can even create characters for it. i like making up a full story and then making the song sort of a sketch of the scene I've already fully elaborated upon. just some ideas. and to (sort of) share paul mccartney's thoughts, [the world] has seen enough of silly love songs.

Answer 2

You may start with writing lyrics. Some writers do and some don't.

Next step, if you have a melody in mind, write appropriate chords by measure. When the chords suit you, then you can write notation, notes for the bars..

If you just want to write lyrics, then you'll need someone else.

Start with your own experiences, happy or sad. Decide what genre you want go with. CW, Pop, 'Metal, Rock, etc.

Answer 3

i write songs too.......it can be hard but even if it takes a couple weeks, don't rush the song. all this crap about coming from the heart and stuff well yeah do that but just don't rush it. about the starting and ending stuff, if you have a good middle just work off that and try simple stuff like songs without bridges first. crawl before you walk

Answer 4

Start with what you know. Dig deep down and what ever hurts the most, or brings you the most joy write about it. Describe every little detail as you write. Then you can edit it later.

Answer 5

I interviewed Jide (the musician on Donald Trump's The Apprentice) and we talked about song writing:

http://shallagoeshollywood.blogspot.com/2005/12/shalla-mingles-with-jide-from-donald.html

or

http://shallagoeshollywood.blogspot.com/

you may get tips from there, good luck!

Shalla

Answer 6

dude! music is from the heart. Sing what you feel. If you get so techinical you will be just another boy band, be orriginal

Answer 7

just go w/ it, rite about something u like, or dont like, or feel, it's in u just let it out

Answer 8

“How to create? Lovingly. That's easy to say. But it still all starts out with The Blank Canvas staring back at you. The idle keyboard. The lonely guitar. The deadline (if it's a work for hire) The inertia/follow-through (if it's a work for the soul) There are hundreds of methods to ignite the creative forces to begin an instrumental composition. The first question you must ask is there a purpose to this musical piece or: Why?. Is it for a commercial? An underscore for a dialogue scene in a film? Is it background music for a chase scene? Or a music bed for a love scene? Much of beginning is a process of elimination. For example: you wouldn't have a driving dance beat as a soundtrack for a documentary on the migration of birds, just as you wouldn't have a pastoral piano piece as background for a car chase. All of these factors come into play.
I created the chart to the right to facilitate the visualization of a first step. It's a good place to start when needing to define your options for a composition and for building a framework. Devise a chart of your own. It will add clearly defined goals to your musical direction over the long run. Start by filling the vertical STYLE side at point zero. Begin with your most competent style to your weakest, followed by those styles you have little command of and wish to conquer. Begin the horizontal or MOOD axis with moods you feel competent at conveying. Again, begin with those you can easily translate musically followed by those more subtle or esoteric. Used over time, this chart will present to you your weak areas and will thereby aid you in defining your current capabilities against those you wish to attain. My methods will then allow you to fine tune and ultimately strengthen those musical muscles. It's also a good tool to use when called upon to create a very specific piece of music as it helps organize it into full view. Where on the spectrum of my capabilities does this composition fall? How do I approach it? Where do I begin? What is my creative spark? How do I know when I'm on the right track? These questions arise upon the initial step of rough sketching the piece. This chart will serve as your blank canvas. Let's pick something at random. Let's say we decide upon a mellow jazz style to evoke the mood of concern as an exercise.
By choosing jazz, we've at once ruled out every other tempo, feel, and groove that is not jazz. Mood works the same way. Once it has been decided, the notes and force of the piece come more into focus. We now need a group of notes-a scale-out of which we create a melody. You could use a standard scale or mode, or you could identify a group of notes thereby creating a hybrid or "custom" scale. One way to do this is to identify various moods or emotion(s) that a given interval would convey and if that mood or emotion goes to the feeling of the overall piece, include it in your scale. Remember: getting started is the hardest part. Once you've provided yourself within a set of parameters or building blocks, the piece automatically takes shape. I like to think of it as a lump of clay into which one would sculpt a figurine or bust or whatever. Once you begin to shape it into something other than the lump it began as, each step becomes self evident-to a degree. It's the same with a melody, especially given the vast editing flexibility of the synthesizer/computer sequencer set-up.
Let's say the length of the piece of music in need is 88 seconds, or one minute, twenty eight seconds and comes to an abrupt close. Let's say you want it to peak out at 65 seconds and continue at that level for 23 seconds more. Now, your mood is concern, so that rules out any obvious major scale or group of notes to use. By building a custom or hybrid scale, we're making the creation of a suitable melody much easier. Once we've chosen this group of notes, simply playing them as a scale will "lead" us to our melody.
Any melody dissected is nothing more than a series of intervals. The magic of music gives these intervals emotion depending upon the rhythm or phrasing of these intervals played in succession. I've created a chart that defines-for me and my ear, several of many moods the various intervals can convey. Based on this chart, we'll devise a scale or group of notes to use for our jazzy piece intended to evoke or convey concern.
•tonic: home/resolve
•minor second: tension/anxiety
•major second: anticipation
•minor third: sadness
•major third: bright
•fourth: Vague
•Augmented 4th: disturbing
•Fifth: Majestic
•Minor 6th: sinister
•Major 6th: happy
•Minor 7th: cool
•Major 7th: Sweet.
•Octave: Power/resolve
A minor second conveys tension & anxiety. These emotions work well to convey the target emotion of concern. Same thing with a major second. So we now have two notes in our "custom" scale. A minor third conveys sadness. We'll skip this note. Same with a happy major third. Vague is a cause for concern so we'll use a fourth in our scale. We'll go for the augmented 4th as we've uncovered that the reason for concern is of a dire nature! We'll skip the majestic fifth and go for the sinister minor sixth. Happy, cool and sweet we will skip altogether and finish off our scale with the power of an octave. You might say that choosing the octave is not a choice for it is already there. Who said you had to end your scale at the octave? You're the composer-you're the creator. You may wish to create a totally unsettling scale by transposing the repeat of the hybrid scale one half step up upon reaching the octave. Open your mind dispose of preconceptions Think without typical boundaries. In essence: be creative.
So we have assigned a five-note repeating scale to our jazzy/concern 88 second cue that reaches peak at 65 seconds and holds to abrupt close at 88 seconds. We have a group of notes, and a tempo at which to distribute them, and a groove to carry it along. This music is practically writing itself! We next consider peaks and valleys, or tension and release. For a short while, I had an incredible teacher, Link Chaimberlin, who unveiled a point of view that every note-every chord-every rhythm, EVERYTHING, could be broken down into either tension and/or release. Link really opened up a lot of doors for me and the many students he had. But back to the exercise
This is where we branch off to synthesizer ecstasy. Without this amazing tool, one could only guess at the outcome of the piece, however, with the multi-timbral synthesizer and sequencer set-up, you can actually get a finished, studio quality product in next to no time at all.”