Do you like to start every song by vamping a few chords and see what happens? It may be time to try something new: isolate the imagination stage from the creation stage. If you aren’t sure what that is, you need to get “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and discover how great songs are assembled. More..
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There are two processes songwriters engage in when writing music. The first stage is the imagination stage, in which you conjure up musical fragments. The second stage is the creation stage, in which you (hopefully) cleverly put those ideas together to form complete songs.
The issue of balance – how much of songwriting is imagination, and how much is the work of assembling ideas – differs from one song to the next. But it’s normal to have the majority of work on a song being the assembling task.
And for some songs, the original musical ideas that comprise most of the song are very, very few in number. A great example of a song from the 70s disco era that seems light on ideas, and is all about assembly, might be “Get Up and Boogie“, by Silver Convention. Very few ideas, lots and lots of repetition, and little to think about.
But even great songs, ones that make us think, are still heavily balanced toward the assembly of ideas, and not filled with unique musical elements. In fact, one of the problems novice songwriters often have to fight against is the inclusion of too many ideas in one short song.
All the discussion here about imagination and creation has a purpose: For songwriters, the job is to write a great song, but the best songs start with the quality of those initial musical fragments. Since (especially in the pop genre) you’re often using standard song forms, like verse-chorus-bridge, the most important step, the one that often makes or breaks a song, is that first conjuring-up-musical-fragments step.
With that in mind, you may want to rethink your approach to songwriting. In other words, it’s a day well-spent if you devote most of your time to creating short, catchy, musical ideas. Don’t worry so much at this early stage how you’re going to use those fragments.
For many of you, that will represent a significant departure from what you normally do when writing songs, which is to vamp a few chords, and start assembling a verse or a chorus from thin air.
Once you’ve started to collect a significant number of ideas, start playing and singing through them. You’ll then notice that some ideas, though created at different times, seem to partner well together. And two or three ideas is often enough to form the backbone of a good song.
So if your approach to songwriting is heavily weighted toward putting ideas together, it may be time to back up a bit and look at the quality of those initial ideas. Getting a stockpile of catchy fragments can make your songwriting more successful, and far less stressful.
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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.
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I’ve been thinking of this a lot lately in simpler manner. I was ridin in the car and listening to the new pop indie album ‘force field’ by Tokyo Police Clu and also Sky Ferreira’s nighttime my time (a great catchy pop album for new wave enthusiasts I’d say). I think most people tend to overwrite or over compose if you will. For instance if you are a good guitar player or you have good keyboard chops then if you ever get around to finishing a song you’ll notice that. Not that that’s a bad thing but instrument taken should exist secondly to idea/ creativity talent.
Especially with those songs I was analyzing why it was so good to me. Every lyric is simple and even sometimes tongue in cheek (“I got a friend with a Mohawk he’s giving terrible advice to me”). Also most the melodies are short and repetitive not drawn out and meandering. But back to the instrumentation, if you know a little about mixing or music production u realize that only certain song elements need to be present at certain times win regards to filling the sonic spectrum of our hearing. So u shod always think of songwriting as combining smaller parts to make a bigger picture and not overplay. Of course there aren’t any rules but pop mostly abides by this.
This lender me to thinking about the importance of titles in starting a song, creating a noun and verbs list to explore lyrical territory. I noticed this when browsing soundcloud looking for iPad musicians who happen to be quite honest tongue in cheeky type titlists. One of my favorite exercises is to write a song to a new hit title I see (or just like) before I’ve heard it. Soundcloud is great for this. As I like very honest lyrics w a sense of depth through their honesty. For example Blake Mills (an extraordinary guitar player who makes folk music and never overplays)
Another example is I have no musical interest or get any musical excitement from indie group yo la tengo but when I saw the titles a room full of ladies, and cherry Chapstick I smirk. I think that tongue in cheek title are just my taste and inspiration bc I see tons of depth in these smile out loud. So no matter the genre there’s always some craft element to be learned from any music and u have to respect it bc it has given us so much 😉
Just embrace the music is is harmony. The melody and lyrics are usually upfront and what’s being harmonized too. Too bad I’m no good at crafting catchy melodies.
Sorry if this is ranty. I keep a notebook filled with little song craft insights!
Cheers