Not every good song becomes a hit, and hopefully if you’re a songwriter you know this already. In many ways, what determines whether or not a song becomes a hit has to do with what the industry of the day has to say about it. Hit songs, regardless of the decade, usually need to adhere […]
Sometimes it’s the case that you’ve written a song, played it for yourself a few times, realized it sounds bad, and your instincts are to trash it and go do something else. The truth is that somewhere between many and most songs start out as something that just doesn’t work. In other words, most songs […]
In music, momentum is anything that builds energy. Every possible element within a song has the potential to affect momentum, and songs are good if all of those elements partner well. You can hear energy and momentum growing in a song in any number of ways, including: if the music becomes louder; if the music becomes faster; […]
It’s common to come up with a chorus before you come up with a verse. That’s because the chorus is the section with the hook, the catchy bit that you hope brings your audience back time and time again. They’re repetitive and of relatively simple construction, so they’re often easier than other sections to write. It’s […]
If you’ve been writing songs for a while, you’ll know that lyrics change in character as a song progresses. To generalize, you’ll notice the following: VERSE LYRICS: Verse lyrics set the stage, recount details of a story, describe characters, etc. It lays out the narrative, the storyline or general song topic. “Hooks and Riffs: How They […]
It’s an important principle in songwriting that all elements of a song — lyrics, chords, melodies, even instrumentation — act as partners within a song. In other words, lyrics, for example, will be at their best when the chords seem to communicate the mood and meaning of the words. Similarly, the melodies will bring the […]
