For those aspiring song writers. I’m going to attempt to write a guide on how song writing can be done. Before that one must realize that song writing is a creative process and therefore there is no steadfast rule that it must be done a certain way. It however has been proven that there are certain methods that generally work or else there is no point in music education. This however is how I approach song writing.

Step 1:

Determine the type of song you are about to write. Love song, sad song, break-up song, happy song and etc….

As for me I am going to write a wedding song.

Some people get inspired by a tune in their head then start penning it down. But my favorite song writer of all time Diane Warren apparently does not do it that way. She locks herself away and just brainstorms. You see, if we wait for inspiration all the time then it’s going to be very difficult to write songs constantly because let me ask you this, which of us are constantly inspired?

You can go to www.realsongs.com and preview all Diane Warren’s top hits around the world. You’d be surprised by how many of them you have fell in love with.

Step 2:

Find a killer HOOK

This means that you must have a catchy musical line of lyric that instantly catches the attention of the listener. By that there are many ways to be sure whether it is catchy or not and I’ll leave it to you to experiment. But a catchy line is just like an advertisement catch phrase. So if you fail to win your listeners over the first time, chances are your songs are not going to be famous.

I does not necessarily be very nice to hear. Most importantly it must be memorable. Therefore a shorter hook is usually easier to remember.

Listen to some greats songs you love, you will realise that there is one line in that song you can remember by heart usually the first time you hear it.

The best place to place the hook is in the CHORUS of the song. Let me digress to give you and example. We’ll use a popular song to illustrate. You should know the song “How Do I Live” sung by Leann Rimes and Trisha Yearwood. The hooks which you would see present all the time is ‘How do I’.

There are usually different sections in a song.

First part or section A of the song is called the VERSE. It usually introduces the subject of the song which in this song is this part:

How do I,
Get through the night without you?
If I had to live without you,
What kind of life would that be?

Then we hear a tonal change in the song as in the tune sound a little different like its progressing to a something new. This is called a TRANSITIONAL BRIDGE:

Oh, I
I need you in my arms, need you to hold,
You’re my world, my heart, my soul,
If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything good in my life,

It eventually leads to the highlight of the song which is the CHORUS where we can see the hook present:

And tell me now
How do I live without you?
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

Then in this song it comes to the second VERSE which elaborates more about the subject with the exact tune of the first verse:

Without you,
There’d be no sun in my sky,
There would be no love in my life,
There’d be no world left for me.

Here we see a TRANSITIONAL BRIDGE again(same tune):

And I,
Baby I don’t know what I would do,
I’d be lost if I lost you,
If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything real in my life,

Then back to the CHORUS which is usually the same lyrics and tune:

And tell me now,
How do I live without you?
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

Then in this song there is an instrumental part going on after the chorus which is called and INTERLUDE before it comes back to the TRANSITIONAL BRIDGE here. Some songs do not have transitional bridges but have a BRIDGE at this point of the song:

If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything,
I need you with me,
Baby don’t you know that you’re everything,
Real in my life?

Now you end with the CHORUS again usually to really emphasizes on the HOOK. :

And tell me now,
How do I live without you,
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

To summarize the order is like this:

Verse – Trans. Bridge - Chorus – Verse - Trans. Bridge – Chorus – Bridge - Chorus

Now you see if you don’t have a killer HOOK how your listeners will get bored really quick if you repeat it this many times in a song? So the hook is the most important part.

Ok I will stop here for now…please wait for Song Writing II

Tags: lyric, Music, song