Quit procrastinating by telling yourself you don’t have what it takes to be a songwriter. You can! Here’s the challenge. Give yourself a month, and I’ll give you the beginner songwriting blueprint for success.

Songwriting is not rocket science. You just need to learn the foundation, the basics. This will set your songwriting in motion and all you have to do is provide your ideas for your songs.

As in any other career or vocation what you put in is what you get out. The great news is that anyone can learn songwriting rather quickly if they dedicate consistent time to practicing and studying their songwriting craft, for free! There are many songwriting articles on the web that can benefit a beginner to advanced songwriter but it’s difficult to piece them together and actually learn if you’ve never written a song.

This is why I created an article outlining a step-by-step beginner songwriting blueprint. Here is the condensed version so you can learn how to write songs quickly and effectively:

1. Pick Out A Song Title

Think of an idea for your song and come up with something original: i.e., instead of “I’m In Love With Her”, pick something like, “She Takes Me Far Away”. Great title = a song that’s much easier to write

2. Choose a Song Form

As a beginning songwriter, choose this, the most common one until you become a little more comfortable and knowledgeable: Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus

3. Figure Out A Rhyming Scheme As You Go

For example: you can rhyme lines 1 and 2, or 1 and 3, or 1 and 4 and 2 and 3, etc. You get the idea! The trick is to use a different rhyming scheme in your verse from your chorus. Pick out a favorite CD insert and briefly study how songs are rhymed.

4. Sing The Title

Figure out what genre you want your song to be in, i.e., pop, r&b, etc., and start singing the title words no matter how silly you think you sound. Hey, guess what? You’re actually writing a song!

5. Write The Verses

Once again while referencing off your CD insert to see how verses are written, write your verses, one word, phrase, or line at a time. Keep in mind that usually the notes in the verses are lower than the chorus for contrast, which will make your songs more interesting. Lastly, also know that the first and last lines in your verses should be the most powerful verse lines (they’re the ones people always remember most).

Our brains are amazing things, they can soak up information and store things away however, as we get older (and wiser) we start to forget things. It seems we need to let some of the old stuff out of our heads so we can let the new stuff in.

Never trust your memory. Unless your memory is photographic you will lose more ideas than you gain.

Julia Cameron in her book “The Artists Way” calls this concept the ‘filling of the well’.

I liken the concept to siphoning petrol from a car. Once you get the initial flow established (and the awful taste out of your mouth) the flow then becomes constant.

By simply writing what is in your head down onto paper or tape (such as a journal) you are making space for other ideas to come into being. Its like you are creating a vacuum for the new ideas to appear out of the ether.

I have heard songwriters say that they were merely the channel for a song to come into existence. It’s like they were the transmitter and through them the song was able to be received by the listener.

Remember, if at anytime you think of something that could even be minutely used in a song, write it down, record it onto tape or even ring your home phone number and leave the idea on your answering machine, do anything to keep the idea alive and get that flow happening.

About The Author

I know a few people that will spend their lives doing something they hate because their friends won’t approve them being an artist. How very sad.

When it comes to songwriting you can look at it this way.

Some songwriters are so scared of writing something “bad” that they don’t write at all (or as much as they would like to). They just don’t give themselves permission to be themselves.

Its amazing what we tell ourselves about ourselves.

• “This is no good, that is no good”
• “This song is not a hit”
• “I have nothing to say”
• “I don’t know what to write about”

How are we expected to write songs with all of this going on in our heads? What we need to do is to give ourselves permission to create.

How do we do that?

A few years ago my writing was at a very low point. Well, I wasn’t writing anything.

I had this huge block as big as the Aswan Dam stopping any form of creativity coming out and because of that I was very sad, to the point of being very, very depressed.

For some reason I was allowing myself to not create and then sitting back and blaming everyone and everything for it. How silly was that?

I eventually realised that for anything that I do I am totally 100% cause in what happens so I gave myself permission to create and I slowly started to put songs down onto paper again.

People in general are so obsessed about looking good or avoiding looking bad that all risk is taken out of life leaving a mere existence in its place. Putting this in the context of songwriting we become so caught up in the end result that we forget to actually write.

How many times have you sat down to write only to talk yourself out of it? Or all of a sudden vacuuming the carpet seems to be a better thing to do? It seems that we would rather not write at all than write a so called ‘bad’ song.

If this is you then take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. I have been there and I would love a dollar for ever other songwriter in the world that has been in the same position.

Julia Cameron in her book “Walking In This World” (the sequel to her bestseller “The Artist’s Way”) says that in life we need to “always be willing to be a beginner”. What this means is that we need to be able to be venerable, to be willing to make mistakes, to be willing to learn again.

Every song that you write has the potential to be a powerful learning experience about yourself and the world around you. Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to learn just because the end result might be ‘bad’.

Always remember. You do have something to say, your opinions are important and you do deserve to be a creative being. Give yourself permission to write. Learn from it and make mistakes.

I guarantee you the results will be amazing.

The creative process in general shouldn’t be motivated by fear and ego but from joy. An almost childish joy of wanting to do something that you love doing.

Once fear and ego are put into the equation, songwriting blocks start appearing.

About The Author

The moment that people create a melody which they feel is great, many think it already sounds like another song. This is common, and I suffered from this many times. What you’ve got to understand is that ALL SONGS are RECYCLED MELODIES.

Every song has a ‘portion’ of the tune which will be the same as another. So don’t worry if you feel your song sounds like another.

What’s important to know here is that if your melody is a familiar one, then that’s a GOOD THING. I’m not talking about a ‘rip off’ here, I’m talking about a part(s) of your melody that sounds like another song(s).

Why is it a good thing? Because it means PEOPLE can RELATE TO THE MELODY even more. They will want to listen to your song because of the familiarity.

Remember, most people aren’t songwriters. So chances are, most people won’t even realize where it may or may not have been inspired from. And what if they do? Well… ultimately, as a whole, it will be your own words, your own tune and eventually with your own music.

So it will be YOUR SONG. So don’t fret.

Here, I’ll share some methods that will jump start the process of creating a melody:

• Pick a song that you like and know “quite” well, and when you are NOT listening to it, hum the tune of the song. DON’T’ SING THE WORDS, just hum the melody. This way, you will think ‘melodically’. Eventually, you should force yourself to sing certain variations of the melody (ie. completely mess around with the tune). When this happens, you’ll end with your own melody.

• If you play an instrument (it doesn’t matter which or what level you are at) try and figure out the melody of another song on the instrument. If you figure it out easily, then mess around and CHANGE certain parts of it. Then SING (hum, la, etc) this CHANGED MELODY out aloud. If you can’t figure it out, then forget about it! CREATE A MELODY YOU FEEL IS CORRECT! Again, don’t prejudge while doing this. Just go where your fingers take you and just ‘la’ the tune simultaneously. Loop this melody once you feel you have something good.

• Grab a song that you DON’T KNOW AT ALL. Listen to the song once, and then listen to it again. The second time around, sing along to it. More than likely, you won’t remember the tune. This is normal! What do you do now? Yup. You guessed it. MAKE UP YOUR OWN MELODY to this obscure song. NOTE: This one may work better if you bought a CD of backing tracks that have no guide vocals on the songs. This way, you HAVE TO make up your own melody to a track that’s already playing. Just make sure you DON’T KNOW the songs….at all.

You have no idea how powerful this is. I’ve written fresh songs on one’s I had no clue about! And believe me, they are original songs – they don’t sound like a copy of anything at all. This is because of what I said earlier – ultimately it will be your own lyrics, your own message and your own music which then translates into your own song.

Keeping The Melody Simple: There is absolutely no point in making a melody that’s ‘musically clever’. You’re not trying to impress musicians here. What you want is to create a melody that’s SIMPLE yet INTERESTING. So how do you do this? Well, melodies often re-occur several times in a song. In fact, the verses and choruses alone will often have the tune repeating itself.

It’s the basic structure of nearly all songs under the sun. The verses will repeat and so will the choruses. SO….IF THE MELODY SOUNDS WORTHY ENOUGH TO BE REPEATED, THEN YOU’RE ON TO SOMETHING.

Lets look at the word SONGWRITING.

The dictionary meaning is ‘writing the music and words of songs’ so that gives us a clue but it doesn’t go deep enough. I propose the meaning should be something like this:

“The process in which a song is created using words and melody”

The word itself is comprised of two words, song and writing. The song part is the end result of a process and the writing part is the process.

Get it!! Without the writing there is no song.

It seems like a simple concept doesn’t it? But it’s amazing how many songs aren’t written rather than the ones that are.

You see, you can talk all you like about verses, choruses, middle-eights, bridges, pre-choruses, the length of the intro and hooks and so on but without the physical activity of writing all of that theory is meaningless.

Personally songwriting is much, much more than the song itself. To me its a whole process. It’s a discipline, a meditation, a way of life really. Without the process the end result (being the song) would not exist.

If we, as songwriters didn’t have a creative process then all of our thought, feelings and songwriting ideas will be random, haphazard and lacking in organisation. How would you be able to sustain a creative songwriting environment with all that disorganisation going on?

In later articles I will be talking about how you can adopt your own process rather than just waiting for inspiration to come your way.

Take the muse by the horns and just write!

About The Author

Writing lyrics is all about words isn’t it? Therefore to be a good lyricist you would need a healthy respect for the English language and how it can be juxtaposed to tell a story, describe something or put across a point of view.

You would need to become very interested in what you read, speak, see and hear around you. First of all lets start with the humble newspaper.

Mindfulness and observation are two of the most important qualities that a songwriter needs to have to be able to come up with songwriting ideas on a more consistent basis.

Let me attempt to expand on that premise just a little bit.

First of all to become interested in words you need to actively seek them out. Words are all around us yet we don’t see them.

We just take words for granted.

We especially take for granted what comes out of our mouths. The promises and commitments that we make, the way that we relate to people and the way we assimilate information.

Actively seeking out words does not mean getting a dictionary and reading it from cover to cover but it does mean increasing the amount of reading and listening you currently do.

If you are like me you would be saying to yourself ‘but I have no time to read’. My answer to that is ‘who says you don’t have time?’

As a songwriter we can’t afford not to have the time to read and slow our lives down a bit so we can pick up on what is happening around us.

Start by getting the newspaper every day and really take note of what you read.

You are looking for something that jumps out at you. A headline may make a great title for a song, a quote may make a good line for a chorus, an article theme may make a great song story and so on.

Have a look at the letters to the editor.

I personally find this section most entertaining and it also shows everyday people writing (mostly complaining) about everyday things in everyday language. I find this an absolute goldmine for songwriting ideas.

In the letters to the editor you find people at their most witty. It’s these witticisms I find make great songwriting fodder.

I know someone who only writes songs when she is angry about something. If this is you then reading the newspaper will be the equivalent to finding a vein of gold.

For the rest of us its a good opportunity to just take some quiet time out, grab a notepad and pen and allow the ideas to enter us from the ether. This is a great example of brainstorming for ideas.

Remember, it doesn’t matter what you write, but the writing that matters.

If you “tune” yourself into specifically looking for songwriting ideas you will find them. It’s amazing what the brain will find if we allow it too.

This exercise is not a guarantee that a song will appear the first time but (with any songwriting idea generating technique) with practice comes mastery and from mastery comes effortlessness in creation.

About The Author

There are so many ways that we, as songwriters can escape our zones of comfort and enrich our lives, and just think, the worse that could happen is that you could write a great song about it.

Imagine having the confidence to experience life to the fullest with the knowledge that there could be a song awaiting as a result of the risk being taken.

That’s a powerful way of looking at life.

A prime example of a situation that can benefit from this way of thinking is the topic of intimate relationships. So many people don’t take the risk of falling in love for the fear of getting hurt.

My argument is that if you are committed to songwriting being life then as songwriters it is our duty to take that risk and go with it. If it works then you have some great songs to write, if it doesn’t work then you still have some great songs to write.

With an attitude like that how can you lose?

Here are some other simple examples of small things you can do to get more out of life and therefore get more out of your songwriting.

1. Go to a movie by yourself

2. Take a long walk on the beach

3. Go for a drive

4. Call a friend you haven’t spoken too in ages

5. Strike up a conversation with a complete stranger

6. Catch public transport

7. Go to a cafe and write in your journal (by the way how is your journal going?)

8. Smile at people and watch their reactions

9. Meditate and listen

10. Go skydiving (Optional – I can understand if people find this a little extreme)

We try so hard to control everything in our lives so we don’t have to experience anything that we would consider ‘bad’. If we choose songwriting as life we need to relax and let life unfold before our eyes, experience what happens and then write about it.

By doing this you will never have the excuse of saying ‘I don’t have anything to write about’ if everything that you do can be written into a song.

Go out of your way to experience life, what have you really got to lose?

Doing something different in your life doesn’t mean having to endure mammoth changes or extreme tragedy. It’s the little things that you can do to break the habits and routines of our lives that make all the difference.

What do you think? What aspect of your life can you do different today? How did that change affect you?

Can you write a song about it?

About The Author

Knowing how to write songs is a skill, how to write good songs is a craft To acquire skill requires knowledge and technique. Craft comes about by observing and doing.

There’s kind of a “Hollywood” depiction of songwriting where the artist is overcome with inspiration and writes a song. If you’ve done any writing at all you know this really isn’t how it happens.Of course songwriting relies heavily on inspiration, but information, it is equally important.

It’s a guarantee that little flashes of inspiration disappear quickly. That’s when you switch over to information mode in order to get you to the next “pylon” in the song. Without that you have a very small segment of an incomplete song created by inspiration only.

It’s not that you want to have a song written purely by information.That would be lifeless. You try and balance the shift of power back and forth from inspiration to information in order to get a song written all the way to the end.

Okay, let’s say that writing a complete song is no problem for you. But now you face an entirely different problem, that of objectivity. We know that you’re pretty fond of your new creation, but how does that stack up in the real world? In other words how do you know it’s good?

How do you step back from it and neutralizing the emotional connection you feel with it Here comes that craft part again.

Most craftsmen go through a period of apprenticeship learning the proper skills and techniques and knowledge from a master craftsman.

How can you put yourself in this position? By having a good hard look at other people’s songs. Taking apart and analyzing other successful artists’ creations is the quickest and easiest way to hone your skills.

You’ll want to reverse engineer great songs. Every time you do this you should write your findings into a “little black book” of songwriting techniques for future reference.

What kind of things do you want to be looking at and analyzing? I’m going to throw out a big one here that gets very overlooked, yet it is of critical importance to any successful song. That is song form and structure.

When people do tend to look at this or talk about it it seems to be in very broad terms. That won’t do you you any good.

You want to be able to know how many sections that are song and how many bars are in each section and what each section is called (verse, chorus, bridge, pre-chorus, etc.) . This sounds basic but it really isn’t. After doing song form analysis on thousands of different songs, I’ve yet to come up with an exact duplicate.

There are definite trends that you’ll see again and again, but it’s the subtle differences in song structure that make for a good song.So dig in and start checking out song forms in order to develop a keen sense of this in your own writing.

Other elements that you want to subject to intense scrutiny will be lyrics, word use, rhymes, chord progressions, riffs, groove, melody, and production techniques.

I’ll close with a quick discussion about production versus songwriting.

First let’s come up with a fundamental description of how to tell if a song is good.

If a song was stripped down to its most basic elements so that it could be played by a guitar player and singer, and still remain captivating and enjoyable, then you know it’s good.

That’s because all of the essential ingredients would be present. Good lyrics, good melody, good progression, good groove, and good song structure.

If it can’t pass this simple test that you don’t have a song.

What you probably have then is some form of a production. Production relies on things like recording techniques and effects (signal processing such as reverb, delay, distortion, etc.), or different instrumentation, in order to make the song listenable.

Production is kind of like wrapping paper on a box. You are just dressing up an otherwise ugly box with more attractive packaging.

Again your objective is to write songs that survive the guitar/singer test.

So hopefully we’ve answered the question “what do you focus on first?” Simply put, it’s other people’s music. Load your head full of good information and inspiration first. You are trying to put great stuff in so that when it comes time for you to write songs it comes out easily. You want to learn write better songs by ripping apart and analyzing songs from other people.

Dissecting other people’s music is the best source of songwriting tips.

About The Author