Listen – Learn – Create

Writing good songs does not require only talent and inspiration. It demands a significant amount of commitment, work and practice in 3 main areas:

1. Listen:

• Listen to the music that fills you with joy and excitement, as this is the main reason we love music. It is the most pleasant activity to engage in and it will fuel your inspiration. Be the audience, enjoy the songs and don’t get into analysis mode right away.
• Listen to music genres that you are not naturally drawn to. Broaden your listener’s horizon and you will find new ways of enjoying music and new inspiration.
• As you continue to listen, start asking yourself what it is that you like in a song: the melody, the lyrics, the rhythm, the voice, the orchestration, the sound, the tone or the parts of some instruments in particular, etc.
• Listen and identify structure and patterns (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, etc) that define the architecture of a song. Listen to the lyrics and how they convey the story, how it fits with the music, understand the momentum & the dynamics that build up excitement as the song progresses.
• Identify harmony, chord structure and time signature against the melody and notice points of interest that have pleasantly surprised your ears.
• Listen with closer attention to the individual instruments and how they fit together in the arrangement to enhance the impact of the song. Don’t just listen to your preferred instrument. Listening to other instruments will give you ideas you could transpose to the instrument you’re playing, and it will also help your overall understanding of arrangements.
• Listen carefully to the rhythm section and understand how the groove propels the tune, listen to the melodic and harmonic content, and finally, listen to the production side of things (mix, effects, etc).
• As you listen to the song by paying attention to the above details, you will start enjoying the music at another level, complimentary to the way the general public may enjoy it. You will start appreciating the making of the song and its delivery, beyond just the song itself.
• If you feel you need to reinforce your melody writing, listen to vocalists, violin and horn players. If it’s groove and rhythm you’re after, listen to drummers, percussionists, bass players and rhythm guitar players. If you’re after harmony, keyboardists and string/horn arrangements will undoubtedly fuel you with new ideas and inspiration.

1. Learn:

• Listening is the first act of learning, so you already got a nice start. If you want to be a song writer, the best place to start is to learn the great songs you like and inspire you. Exercise your ear and identify the melody and chord sequence as well as the groove of a classic. Nothing more powerful than starting with covers ! That’s how the Beatles and the Rolling Stones started their careers, just as jazz players learn their standards or classical composers learn the classic pieces of the repertoire.
• I would recommend learning at least the basics of rhythm and harmony, and possibly the basics of reading music, starting by being able to follow a chord chart. These are the basic elements of the music language and they will help you communicate with other musicians. Learning music theory is often seen as boring and working against inspiration, but it actually can unlock new musical horizons.
• Learn your instrument, learn several genres on your instrument, and then possibly learn another instrument or learn to understand how other instruments are played. If you are a guitar player, learning some rudiments on the piano will expand your harmonic horizons, just as learning some of the drums rudiments will teach you better time. Listen to and learn bass parts as they are most often at the intersection of rhythm and harmony,
• As you learn basic harmonic concepts, learn to improvise over songs. This will help you come up with melodic and rhythmic ideas for your vocals or instrumental solos.
• Learn to write lyrics: study the writing of your preferred songwriters, but also look into poetry and speech techniques.
• Song writing courses are also a possibility if you think that will suit your needs. It seems the greatest song writers are often self taught, but they may well have taken lessons or courses to improve the playing of their instrument, their vocal skills or music production skills. There is an enormous amount of courses material online for you to choose from, and it’s definitely worth exploring.
• If you want to write songs in any popular music genre, it is probably a good idea to learn Blues music, as most known genres trace back to the blues. Jam sessions often include a 12 bar blues as it is a great format for improvisation, so this is a common ground for musicians to communicate with each other. It is also very insightful to listen to blues lyrics and the intonation & rhythm of blues vocalists.
• Learn to use a DAW to help record your ideas, allowing you to think about arrangement and production. Start with something as simple as GarageBand or Audacity and you can then get into more advanced DAWs such ProTools, Cubase, Logic or Ableton.
• Learn the basics of recording to capture the best possible sounds out of your gear. Mic placement for vocals, acoustic instruments or amps, room acoustics, audio interface, preamps, simulators and effects optimization, basic mixing and mastering techniques are things you will need to learn about if you want to produce your own demos of original songs.
• Learn about the online tools that will help share your songs with your audience: social media, online music streaming services, etc.
• Learn by playing in a jam situation, in a band, with friends or at open mic or jams. There’s nothing like experimenting in a live situation, where you will get the immediate reaction of the audience and your fellow musicians.

1. Create:

• The most difficult part is getting started. Focus on the fun side of songwriting and forget about the fears of not being good enough at it. Most songwriters have written more average or poor songs than good ones! The point is to start writing and keep trying.
• Keep all options open: start with lyrics, start with a melody in your head or a groove you tap with your hands and feet, start with a piano chord sequence, a riff or an arpeggio on the guitar, a bass line, etc.
• Capture ideas in writing or audio by using a notebook or a recording app of some sort to avoid forgetting ideas on the fly.
• Jam and improvise over ideas and this may lead to the creation of a melody, a line or a further development to the song.
• Challenge yourself by trying to get the most out of a common chord structure like a I VI IV V or  a I IV V blues.  Challenge yourself to write the best possible melody over these overused chord structures. If you’re an instrumental prog metal player, write a song with lyrics, and if you’re a 3-chord americana song writer, try your hand at an instrumental rock or jazz piece!
• Equally challenge yourself by trying your hand at uncommon chord sequences, melodies or time signatures. Get out of your comfort zone and see where it will lead you. Sting often says he’s writing songs with the purpose of surprising his audience.
• As difficult as it is to get started, it can be equally difficult to finish a song and record it. So once you’ve started writing a song, make sure you finish it if you believe it’s a good one.
• Seek honest feedback from musician and non musician friends to give you the perspective of different sets of ears on your songs.
• Explore co-writing. Bouncing ideas off of each other with fellow musicians can result in exciting new ways of writing songs. This also allows to assess your song writing strengths and weaknesses. Some are more talented for lyrics whilst others are better composers. Numerous classic pop or rock songs are the result of the association of lyricists and composers such as Paul McCartney & John Lennon, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, Elton John & Bernie Taupin, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards to name a few. It’s ok if you can’t do it all by yourself like Prince or Sting !
• The same goes with production. If you feel your music production skills are not strong enough, seek collaboration in this area as it is a critical step in the creative process. Nailing the arrangement of your songs, tone and sound of vocals and instruments, and a convincing mix and master can be as important as the quality of your composition.

Hopefully, some of this advice proves useful to you as you progress on your musical journey…