Harmony first! While I also consider myself a poet, in every aspect, and my lyric sheets are stacking up as we speak, if someone were to ask me to write a song, or even if someone were to ask me to teach them to write songs, I'd say "pick up your instrument, and play some chords." if you have a chord progression that sounds kick ass to you, it'll probably sound pretty good to other people as well. That's my philosophy. This works for just about any instrument. Now as you can probably tell, I'm speaking out of experience as a guitar player, but I could easily see myself writing chord based songs on a piano/keyboard, mandolin, ukulele, oude, harp, accordian, etc, etc. I would mention wind instruments, but that's more like a riff based song, unless you're writing for like an orchestra, or more than one instrument, which I'll get into that in another column.
After you have a good sounding chord progression, this (in my expierience) would be your first verse. The second verse will most likely contain the same chords, and melody. I tend to play these chords over and over, untill i'm confortable enough to sing over them. Alot of people don't like this method, because it's not extremely organized, however it does help your song come together spontaniously. I like to play the chords, and hum while i play, whatever melody just pops into my head, and fits comfortably over the chords. After humming try to find some words that match the length, and tune of what your humming. Even if it's completely non-sensical, you can make sense out of them later. This is how I find the subject of my song. As soon as you have words that fit your melody, or your humming portion, write them down. If they don't make sense to you, rearange your lyric, untill it sounds cool, and it's a subject you like. If it's a subject you feel good singing about, your audience will probably feel good listening to it! Try to tell a story in your verses. Or at least have something you feel you can easily continue writing about in the second verse. Something that makes sense to you, even if you don't think it'll make sense to others. If you're vague in your songs people have the opportunity to view it in many different ways, don't be affraid of people not connecting to what you write verse wise, cause that's what the chorus is for!!! Once you have a verse written, if you feel it's to long, try breaking it into two separate verses. My problem's always been that my songs are to short, and that I run right through them, even though i have all the correct parts. I try to look at my song structures like this:
Intro: 15 seconds
Verse: 30 seconds
Chorus: 30 seconds
Verse 30 seconds
Chorus 30 seconds
Solo: 30 seconds
Chorus: 30 seconds
Outro: 15 seconds
Now, I know 30 seconds for a verse doesn't seem like a lot at all, but you gotta remember, people nowadays, including myself have the attention span of a goldfish. Also, you'll realize when you start playing that 30 seconds of singing, is a really long time! The ideal song, from what i've heard, and what people mostly hear on the radio is about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. You can mess with the structure that I put up there a little bit, but verse, chorus, verse, chorus is the most popular. Most famous artists don't really try to deviate from this structure, unless they've pretty much mastered it, and feel comfortable exploring structure wise. The Beatles didn't really deviate from this structure for a long time, but when they did, they pretty much set the standard for songwriting. There's nothing wrong with experimenting, it's just not something i'd recomend for a begginner, or even myself for that matter.
When you feel comfortable with what you've written verse wise, take a look at your subject matter. Is there anything about it that makes you angry, sad, or emotional in any way? You want your chorus to be loud, and something you feel that people who are listening to the song feel that they can connect with. Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue had a knack for writing choruses that people could chant along with. Think of your choruses as a chant, that means something to everybody who wants to sing along. Things like "I wanna be Anarchy!", "We are the Champions, My Friend!", or "All we are is just another brick in the wall!" Kurt Cobain made sure that when he was in the studio, that the choruses always came out louder than the verses, in order to get his point accross. A technique that is widely employed now, but was made more popular by the grunge artists of the 90's.
When you find it, Yell it! Once you have your message, your song is pretty much done. As soon as i have my chorus lyrically, I tend to throw some chords behind it. Some that sound good with what i've written verse wise, but not the exact same chords, that'd make the chorus and the verse indestiguishable. You can use one or two of the same chords, but throw in at least one odd one to mix things up a bit. Maybe change the rhythm here a bit as well. I know that goes against the harmony first theme of the post, but if you really want, you can write the harmony of the chorus first, and attatch it to the verse. There's no wrong way to write a song! Just remember that the chorus is one of the most important parts, and you want it to sound as good as possible. What works for me, may not work for you.
Last, is the Solo. With this, I tend to analyze the chords in the verse. If there's a noticable key, find the scale that goes with it and play the notes in that scale, but play from the heart. Here's where you might want a second guitar player, or pianist, to keep the background chords going while you solo over them. Play some of the individual notes that are in the chords, if you want, bend the strings a little, and experiment! I can't stress that enough. The solo is all about experimentation, yet still keep with the theme, if you stray to far, you might alienate your audience. The best solos are the ones you can hum the notes to. A technique that i tend to use alot, is to play the melody that you used to sing over the verse, just transfered to the guitar. You can sort of go back and listen to what you sing and play by ear, you might be off key when you play, or get some of the notes wrong entirely, but that's what keeps it unique, and interesting. If you feel that you're guitar playing is dead on with what you're singing note wise, you can even take it up an octave, or have a bass player come in and take the whole thing down an octave. Or have a second gutarist come in, and write a harmony part. If you feel in your heart that you can create notes that sound good together, go for it!
Songs and artists that write songs harmony first would include:
"I got you babe" by Sonny and Cher. Sonny was known to say he only knew three chords on the piano when he wrote that song. Three chords that made him famous!
Basically any song by the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson had the inate talent to hold multiple harmonys in his head at one time, so when he went into the studio, he did everything in layers, and if you've ever worked with recording programs, you know how hard it is to layer vocals, and guitar parts, unless you do a million takes of a chorus, or section of a song. Especially with the equipment they had in the sixties, and seventies!!! Long live the works of Brian Wilson.
"Plush" by the Stone Temple Pilots. This one you could tell was more of a band effort than just that of Scott Weiland. They work quite well as a group. This song is a lttle hard to play as an individual because the music was written separate from the lyrics, so you can pretty much hear where they collaborated. The guitarist started with a G chord, and worked his way into the harmony, the drummer threw a back bone behind it, and Scott sang on top of it all, with lyrics that cut straight into your soul! Very kick ass song, and I urge you all to check it out for a great example of harmony.
Almost any song by Alice in Chains. If there's any band that can even come close to the brilliance of the Beach Boys harmony wise, it's Alice in Chains.While the Beach Boys were riding on the brilliant mind of Brian Wilson, and the sheer talent of Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine, Alice in Chains had a combined genious that only worked between them. It wasn't just Layne Staley that could imagine harmonies, with great lyrics to match, but Jerry Cantrell and his guitar playing matched him word for word. Classic example of how the whole of a band can equal more than the sum of it's parts.
Songwriter of the day:
Tom Petty!
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