Writing Songs, and Making People Listen

How do you get and then keep an audience’s attention?

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Simply choosing a compelling song topic is not usually enough when it comes to grabbing an audience’s attention. The fact is, it’s all about how you bring lyrics, melody and chords together that will build your audience base.

Choosing a song topic is merely the first step, and you could argue that it’s not the most important one, either, since many great songs barely rise above “I love you”.

But it’s what they do to transmit that message that makes or breaks a song. In the best sense of the word, you want to force people to listen. And then you want to make it easy for them to keep listening once they’ve started.

There is no one best way to achieve that. It comes down to how the various elements in your song work together that counts. That partnership is different for every song you’ll ever write. In some songs, audiences will be captivated by how you work interesting altered chords into your progression.

For others, the chords may be simple and unassuming, leaving the job of grabbing listener interest to the lyric. For other songs, the undulating melody and how it partners with the lyric may be the important aspect.

Here are some basic tips to keep in mind as you work to keep audiences hooked on your song.

1. In most of the pop genres, the quality of your lyrics is always an important consideration. What you’re saying, and how you say it, is going to make or break that all-important connection to your listeners. It’s well worth the time spent to work and rework your lyrics until they flow easily and effortlessly.
2. Use conversational, everyday words in your lyric. A lyric, though written, works best when it sounds like someone would say those words.
3. Let the natural up-and-down flow of your spoken lyric inform your melody. In other words, as you speak your lyric, take note of where your voice naturally rises and falls, and let that be a guide as you create your melodies.
4. Complex chord progressions still need to make sense on some level. Most of the time, a simple progression that makes use of 4 or 5 chords in various ways will be all you need to properly convey musical meaning to your audience. As with most musical elements, simplicity almost always trumps complexity.
5. It almost always sounds better when create chords to support a melody, rather than creating a melody to support the chords. People tend to remember catchy bits of melody more so than a chord progression. You will often notice that if you think of melodic ideas, you can imagine the chords underneath them, and it’s a very natural and strong way to work.
6. Try starting with the chorus. Get a chorus working first by thinking of something hooky and memorable, with an emotional lyric. Then move back into the verse, and find the words, melodic shapes and chords that lead naturally to that chorus. Working this way creates a powerful link between verse and chorus that keeps a listener’s mind from straying.

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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.

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