More thoughts on song writing
Have you ever struggled to find the point behind a song is a the lyrics jump back and forth? Or pondered the story line and how it might bring you full circle from verse and bridge to chorus. This is something i encounter not often, but often enough to have developed an understanding on in the studio during recording sessions. These awkward moments are usually where i would take these few values and let the artist consider them in their flow.
This is a method where you would correlate your real life experiences into your song via metaphor or analogy to create a more universal and relatable sound in your music and for your listener. Doing so can also develop an emotional investment from the listener to the music which provides more potential for conversion of cold audience to warm/fan. Some good examples of resonant topics are:
2. The Development of Stories:
There are many avenues in which a story can begin. Personal experience, Ideology, Fact-Fiction and almost any outlet which displays media whether it be current or dated as after-all, they have or will have depicted a story which can or has struck someones emotional notes. I do not want the term emotional to be a pillar in this as it has become one. Your story does not have to convey lyrically a very emotive presence. These stories can come from everyday interactions you have with other people, experiences from your friends or anything that at the end of the day, can maintain Common Themes throughout. The next topic i find relevant to many of the recording artists i hear and work with that is not the most over looked as we all know it is important, but it is not the most focused on. This is:
3. Creating Diverse Rhyming Schemes:
Creating the scheme is as simple as mapping out the rhyming words you have from each phrase or every other phrase. The first rhyme being labeled A, second rhyme is B, the third C and so on. Here is an example of the scheme:
A. Many’s the time ive been mistaken
B. And many times confused
A. I’ve often felt forsaken
Notice A has a scheme that is intertwined between B to broaden the attention span of your listener. This is a very common pattern that is heard in many genres of music as it holds a powerful effect on the listener and like i said, gives them something more to listen to. Imagine if the song had the same rhyme scheme at the end of every line. Not to exciting right?
4. Studying Song Structure
I have done this in the past with previous song where i would examine the structure of a song from start to end (WHILE NOTING IT) to implement it into my own music. The interesting thing is lyrically your structure provides more detail than the music does naturally. So be concise and reflect back on your common themes to move the listener from point A to B and to C and so on.
-Verses should tell the story. They hold a majority of your lyrical context which can:
Pulls the listener in with emphasized details or scenic exploits.
You can absolutely adapt your own information to your verse, but remember to move from left to right on a story line chronologically telling the story to your listener.
-Choruses should be infectious and really bring out the that fishing hook to grab the listener. You want this part to be the most emotional, to hold the higher notes and melodies on both your singing and instrumentals and be spoken conclusively with power. Lyrical concepts could flow in the same direction as the verse sections, but should be a cap on top inspiring the mood of the entire song in its most emotional phase and repeat two to three times.
-Bridges are a more creative territory that happen around the 3/4 mark around your song where you can implement different melodies, offer a unique progression change in chords and in general, renew the interest of the listener to your song. One of the easiest ways to create a bridge that still holds interest is to tear apart your chorus and build it from the bottom up every two, four or eight bars. This will develop suspense and keep the listener in a nostalgic state between remembering what they just heard and what they are about to hear. Applying a fresh chord progression within your key or lyrical pattern in the same tempo is another way to renew the interest in what might be a solo or chorus.
-Coda is a fancy word for outro. Its where the song releases the listener back to where they came from. These can be crafted by simply removing elements of your instrumental every two, four or eight bars as stated previously for a bridge but should entail phrases and lyrical elements from prior song sections that may repeat, echo out or swell in and out to imply that this in fact is, the end.
I know i have probably hit this one on the head enough. But when it comes down to it, a good story teller will provide you with context and emotion without telling you where and what this context and emotion came from. Creating a lyric that metaphorically resonates with someones life experience can greatly affect the way the song is taken in and even more so if the lyrics are proposed in a chronological manner giving the listener more of a time line to relate to these topics on.
So this is my second set of tips here that i did some searching on as well as provided some of my own experience with! I hope these help you out and work well within your next writing session. Thanks for reading!
