Turning an Idea Into a Song

Once you’ve thought of an idea for a song, how do you develop it into a complete musical journey?

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Most of the time, a song starts with an initial idea: a fragment of a story, or a scene of some sort in your mind’s eye. But how do you take that idea from being just a thought to something like a fully-fledged song?

Here are some tips for taking that good idea you’ve got, and then developing it so that it makes a 3-5 minute song that people will want to sing or hum. It starts by focusing mainly on the lyric.

1. Develop the initial idea by writing a short story or play. Your initial idea might be something along the lines of a relationship going bad, but that in the end, you realize that you don’t need love to make you strong. But that’s not enough to create a compelling song. You need more. So sit down and write a story.What happens in this story? How does the love between you develop? What eventually happens to break the relationship? These are all bits that your audience is going to need if you want to get them to feel the emotion of your story. Keep your story short: 1-2 pages.
2. Write a chorus lyric that sums up the emotion of the story. If you want to convey your sense of confidence and inner strength, focus on those emotions as the main focus of you chorus lyric. Example: “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)“.
3. Write a Verse 1 lyric that justifies the emotional response of the chorus. Think about what’s happened that causes that emotional outburst in the chorus.
4. Develop a chorus melody and chord progression. A good chorus hook is going to combine a catchy melodic bit with a rhythmic treatment that demands attention. Place the chorus melody high in your vocal range.
5. Go back and compose a melody for your verse lyric. Remember to start lower than your chorus melody. Think about how to connect your verse chords and melody with your chorus words and melody. Don’t be afraid to change lyrics, melodies and chords to make that verse-chorus connection stronger.
6. If needed, compose a bridge that allows for a complete story. It’s typical for Verse 1 to explain “the lay of the land,” and then Verse 2 to embellish that story even further, always returning to the chorus to sum up your emotional mindset. If those verses show, for example, how you always felt downtrodden in your relationship, with the chorus showing how strong you ultimately feel, then you need a bridge perhaps to explain where your inner strength ultimately comes from. Be sure that your bridge lyric, melody and chords all connect smoothly to your chorus.

This is just one of many possible ways of working out a song idea that starts with the fragment of a story. No matter how your song starts in your mind, remember that the end result will usually be that your verses tell a story and your chorus displays an emotional response.

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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.

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