12 Easy ways to start writing a song


12 Easy ways to start writing a song

Writing new songs is one of the most exciting parts of being a songwriter.

But what happens when those ideas just aren’t showing up?

We live for those times when we’re bursting with motivation. Ideas pour out from the muse and appear as fully formed songs.

Other times, it can feel like a cruel joke.

Spending hours trying to come up with a good idea, much less write the first line.

It happens to all of us.

In fact, when I polled my audience, coming up with ideas was the no.1 obstacle to their songwriting.

what's your biggest obstacle to writing new songs?

what's your biggest obstacle to writing new songs?

The good news is there are many ways to start writing a song.

So here are 12 easy ways to start writing a song that can get your creative juices flowing.

 

The most common way to start writing a song

How to start a song

what is more important than ‘how you start’ is that you start.

Starting a song can be thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

The excitement of something new, will this be your best work so far?

Since we are human there will also be a little doubt mixed in with the excitement.

This is my first attempt to write a song, where do I even start?  or it could be the age-old problem… the nagging baggage of all those unfinished songs from the past.

There will always be some doubt floating around in the background.

Why?, well like I said we are human. It comes with the territory.

The thing is, doubts will always lead to hesitation, procrastination, and second-guessing.

Here are 12 ways to start writing a song.

There are hundreds of ways you can start.

There is no right or wrong way to do it. It’s a creative act and there are no rules.

So here are 12 ways to get you started

#1. Give yourself ten minutes

Set a timer and never overthink it, learn to work in short bursts.

The longer you spend thinking the more doubts will creep in. the longer you look in a mirror, the more imperfections will start to emerge.

Give yourself permission to drop it or to keep going after ten minutes, depending on how you feel.

Remember, ten minutes of writing every day are better than no minutes.

#2. Learn a new song

Pick a song and start learning it on your instrument. Sing along with the lyrics, even if you can’t sing.

The point of this exercise isn’t to learn the song perfectly. In Fact the less perfect the better. 

Doing this takes the pressure off ‘what comes next.

That leaves you free to wander into creativity.

Can’t get the rhythm or voicing of a chord quite right? Great, that’s a jumping-off point.

Play it in a way that feels right to you and start making it your own thing.

#3. Start from a title

Starting from a title is often a very efficient way to get things going.

The title sums up the emotion and the big idea.

So all the other information you need from your song is already there, you just need to dig into the idea and retrieve that information.

 

Take a song title and reverse it.

My Girl could become ‘your boy’

Diamonds could become ‘Glass

 

Get creative with it. Take a song like ‘Drivers license’. what could be the opposite?

Driver or driving = walking, sitting, lying, standing still, motionless, passenger

License = denial, restriction, rejection, 

Take walking and rejection. The first thing that came to my mind was the saying “Tell your story walking”. It sounds like a song title to me.

#4. Melody first

This is a very common way to start. From Max Martin to Dolly Parton, there is a school of thought in songwriting that is “melody is king”. 

Starting with the melody ensures that the melody is strong.

Dolly has been known to strum out a rhythm on her fingernails and top line from there. The Beegees wrote a lot like this.

It allows you to focus on the melody and produce something that feels good to sing and good to listen to.

Pick a note and an interval to go to.

Use it as the first couple of notes to a melody.

For example, you might pick the root note and an interval of a fifth. In the key of C that would be the notes C and G.

You might play or sing the C note three times and move to the G note, then back to C.

You’ve just played the opening to the superman theme.

Use the first three notes of a scale to come up with a motif.

Listen to how those same three notes sound over different chords in a chord progression. 

Some notes will be stable, some unstable.

This will also change depending on the chords plate underneath.

For example, in the key of C. The first three notes in that scale will be C,D,E.

Over a C chord, the C and E notes will be stable and the D note will be unstable.

But over a G chord, the D note becomes stable and the C and E notes become unstable.

Listen to how your three-note motif has a different emotional sound when played over different chords. 

Don’t worry if you don’t know any music theory. Trust your ears.

#5. Start with a beat

You can create or download a drum loop sample or just tap out a beat on the table.

It doesn’t matter as long as the beat inspires you.

Then you can build a melody/ topline, a chord progression on top of the beat.

#6. Starting with chords

Another really common way to start. Coming up with a harmonic progression with tempo and rhythm/ groove.

This gives you the fundamental emotional feel to the song. Songs are all about emotion, so it’s a great place to start.

Take the chords/ tempo/ rhythm from 3 different songs and mix and match.

  1.  Start with a common chord progression(or from a song you like) and
  2.  Change one chord (major to minor) 
  3.  Change the rhythm,
  4.  The chord frequency,
  5.  The key,

Check out hooktheory, they have a massive database of chord progressions.

#7. start with a sound

Record a sound you hear on your phone.

Maybe a dripping tap has a good rhythm. Or a car alarm has the energy you want for an idea.

Open up your daw and add effects to make them sound unique.

Sounds that are all around us every day tend to go unnoticed. Start listening.

#8. Start with dynamics

Use structure and arrangement to build the dynamics of your own song.

Layout the sections of a song in your DAW that follows a hit song.

For example…

Intro

4 bars, 00:00 – 0:10

Pads + arp + low acc + melodic hook

 

Verse 1

16 bars, 0:10 – 0:41

8  bars, Pads + arp + low acc + vox

8 bars, Pads + arp + low acc + vox +bass synth + perc on backbeat

Last 2 bars drop out, tail reverb on vox

 

Chorus 1

16 bars, 0:41 – 1:11

Drop chorus, 8 bars, edgy synth bass + kick + vox

Swell into 8 bars, edgy synth bass + kick and snare + vox + arp

 

Post chorus 1

8 bars, 1:11 – 1:27

edgy synth bass + kick and snare + melodic hook + arp

1 bar drop out at the end

 

Verse 2

16 bars, 1:28 – 1:59

4 bars, Pads + arp + low acc + vox + perc on backbeat + ear candy(last bar)

4 bars, Pads + arp + low acc + vox + Bd downbeat + ear candy(last bar)

4 bars, Pads + arp + low acc + vox + Bd downbeat + Bass + ear candy

2 bars, Pads + vox + hats + Bass (¼)

2 bar drop, more exaggerated

 

Chorus 2

16 bars, 2:00 – 2:20

Drop chorus, 8 bars, edgy synth bass + kick + vox

Swell into 8 bars, edgy synth bass + kick and snare + vox + arp + layerd vox

 

Post chorus 2

8 bars, 2:20 – 2:36

edgy synth bass + kick and snare + melodic hook + arp

1 bar drop out at the end

 

Bridge

8 bars, 2:36 – 2:52

Build up.

 

Chorus + outro

#.9 Start with a Hook

A hook can be the main focal point of a song.

That’s why the strongest hooks are intros and chorus/ titles.

Once a hook is found, the rest of the song can be crafted to put that hook in the best light.

# 10. Start with Lyrics

There are so many ways to come up with lyrics, but here is a couple you might not have thought of.

Do a George Harrison

“I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book, as it would be relative to that moment. I picked up a book at random, opened it, and saw ‘gently weeps’. I then laid the book down again and started the song.”

 

Play with the emotional feel of vowel and consonant sounds.

Say these lines out loud and feel the sound of the sharp consonants and short vowel sounds…

Kick it to the curb,  Drop it like it’s hot.

Or the smooth consonant sounds and long vowel sounds of…

Sweet Summer sun shining.

Match them to stable or unstable tones, staccato or legato note lengths.

Play with the vowel scale and different melodic shapes.

 

loop a chord progression and try singing a poem over it.

It will give you ideas for lyrical rhythms and melodies that you can use.

A certain word or phrase might give you a lyrical idea.

Try out our song lyrics idea generator to get some interesting things to write about.

# 11. A Stream of consciousness song

Give yourself a starting point and an endpoint and freestyle.

This is the instructions The Beatles producer gave the musicians that played on ‘a day in the life’

have you ever heard of the aristocrats joke?  Its setup describes a family pitching an act to a talent agency, and the punchline is….’and it’s called the aristocrats’,

what happens in between those two lines is a total freestyle of filth.

That way the punch line gets funnier.

But instead of trying to be filthy we could have the last line of our improv song be, and that’s why i love you, or that’s why you left me,  or that’s why i’ll never be fooled again, you decide.

Pick a theme and come up with a first and last line, then just free style.

Here are some themes

loss,

desire,

aspiration,

breakup,

pain,

inspiration, 

nostalgia,

Love,

relationships.

For example, Pick the theme pain and the punchline ‘but now I’m invincible’,

These two contrasting ideas will give you plenty of places to go.

Pick up your instrument and just go for it.

# 12. Start random

What feelings are inside you that you can’t put into words?

How else could you express them, sounds, pictures, actions, what would they smell like, taste like…is there a scene in a movie that sums them up? Express it in sound…music

Practice by watching a music video from a song you don’t know, with the sound turned down, and see if you can guess what the song is about.

Play a song backward, speed up or slow it down.

Prosody, brainstorm what elements of an emotion or idea could be expressed with just the musical elements of a song.

 

 

No matter where you start you have to deal with certain aspects of the songwriting process.

The idea you generate needs to motivate and excite you enough to want to pursue it.

After you get an inspired idea, most of what you are doing is developing that idea.

Fleshing it out through creative exploration and organization. So don’t overthink it.

I like to keep my logical mind out of the whole process as much as I can.

Getting that inspired idea might seem like the whole rodeo. But it’s not.

So don’t be intimidated by the thought of “what will I write about”.

When people say “I can’t think of anything to write about”. What they are saying is “there are infinite things to write about, but I’m not connecting to any of them”.

You have to tap into your emotions and connect them to your new idea.

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