Become a Songwriter

Right, so you want to learn the best ways to write great songs? There are a few great ways to create great songs that will resonant with your audience. Songwriting at first, is really tough. I spent the first couple years of my songwriting career contributing to global warming with all the song lyrics that I threw away, but I got something for you…Here are three tips that will help reduce your carbon footprint significantly.

Improvise words and phrases while jamming on your guitar or piano. Often times a line or phrase from your unconscious mind can be the start to a masterpiece. If you let loose and vocalize while playing cool chord progressions and riffs, you will be amazed at what you can come up with. Have your phone, computer or something else that records handy so that you can document what you are coming up with. Often times you can hear things that you didn’t know that you did that were awesome, when you play your recording back.

Try to make it so the first line of your song tells your audience exactly what the whole piece is about. John Lennon was a master at this. Just listen to “Instant Karma” (Instant Karma’s gonna get you) or “Help” (Help I need somebody!) and you can hear how in one line Lennon can tell you what the song’s going to be about. This concept is harder then it sounds, but if you can get good at this, the rest of your lyrics will be pretty easy to come up with.

Think of your songs as miniature movies. You want the imagery that you create from your lyrics to be so vivid that are people seeing a short movie in their heads, instead of just listening to a song. You can do this by writing very descriptive metaphors, similes and by incorporating common sayings into your songs. In “Brainstew”, by Green Day there is a line, “I’m counting sheep but running out” which is a great example of using a common saying for the purpose of painting imagery into the minds of listeners. Write common sayings down as you hear them in every day speech and weave them into your songs.