Note: This chapter is entitled “Songwriting” and we’ll be discussing “writing a song” rather than “composing a piece” only because songs have the additional element of lyrics. What you’ll learn in this chapter will serve you equally well if you want to compose instrumental music (whether that’s classical symphonies or electronic dance music), and the word “song” can mean “anything with lyrics”—not just mainstream pop/rock/folk music but any other genre, a capella music, operas and more. So as we continue, please take mentions of “songs” to generally mean “pieces” too, and “songwriting” to encompass the whole art of writing music.
“Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly, nor do brooms in Quidditch matches, nor do men in red capes. There is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the Earth. We do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe. [John] breathes belief into every film we have made.”
Steven Spielberg
I can still remember the first song I ever wrote. A folks-y guitar ballad entitled “The Land of Milk and Honey”. Like most teenage compositions, the memory of it makes me cringe a little now. But at the time I was really proud to listen back to my demo recording on my minidisc player on the way to school, and even to nervously share what I’d created with a friend. The fact that I can still remember the melody and lyrics 25 years later speaks to the deep, personal impact that writing music can have on us.
I went on to write other songs, including a 3-track EP of love songs for my then-girlfriend, now wife, Natalina, and do extensive electronic music creation using Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software over the years, purely for my own enjoyment and creative expression. And although my own Creative Core swings more towards improvisation than writing music, every minute of the time and drop of the energy I’ve spent in creating my own music compositions has proven to be a wonderful investment in my musicality.
I’ve seen this repeatedly over the years inside Musical U. So many of our members came in never having aspired to write songs, or compose or arrange their own music. Then, through the way these activities featured in our other material, they discovered just how valuable and rewarding writing music can be.
For those who do already have a clear interest in writing music, it may be interesting to know that many of the blockers, obstacles and frustrations aspiring songwriters and composers face—for example writer’s block, struggling to finish their works, feeling like writing something truly unique and your own is a deeply mysterious task—are all deeply related to one, perhaps surprising, fact:
Just like musicians in general, there are actually very few songwriters and composers who have actively, intentionally, spent time on musicality training.
If you look at songwriting books, courses and tutorials, they are typically either extremely heavy on the intellectual side (step-by-step processes, rules, formulas, and music theory), or very heavy on the mysterious-inspiration (“write when you’re inspired!”, “the melody will just come to you out of nowhere!”, “nobody can explain ‘the muse’!”, etc.). There’s normally a real lack of tools, frameworks, or building blocks for music-making itself.
The result is similar to the extreme focus on Hands in the context of instrument learning: the musician is taught to “go through the motions” and can have some success… But they are often left feeling like they’re fumbling in the dark and leaving a lot to luck—rather than basing everything on a firm, integrated, holistic musicality which allows them to be Musical Inside and Out.
In this chapter we’ll approach Songwriting from the perspective that it’s simply one of the many natural ways for a musician to express their own musicality. Yes, there are certainly specific things to learn, norms to be aware of, processes that can help, and so on. But for a musician with great musicality to write their own music is ultimately a simple thing.
The generations of renowned songwriters and composers who produced great works without having formally studied “songwriting” or “composing” attests to that. The Beatles example, already shared in Chapter 1: Musicality. Bob Dylan, who made it to the Songwriters Hall of Fame without ever learning to read sheet music, or Dolly Parton, who to this day has never learned how to. Irving Berlin, who for most of his songwriting career only composed in the key of F♯―because he was only comfortable playing the black keys of the piano keyboard! And even global phenomenon Taylor Swift, who has said she couldn’t have majored in music because “when music becomes technical for me, I don’t like that part of it.”
To put that another way: this chapter isn’t designed to replace the considerable amount of excellent “how to write songs” material that’s out there, but rather to:
- Provide an easy, rewarding route in for musicians who are actively developing their musicality, and
- Fill in the “musicality” side of things, which will complement and enhance all the more technical and theory-based material that’s out there.
If you have jumped straight to this chapter first, then the approach that’s shared will certainly be usable and useful to you, but please note that it’s designed to be part of a holistic approach to musicality, drawing particularly on the building blocks for Pitch and Rhythm in Part II, and the Expansive Creativity framework from Chapter 15: Improvisation. If you’ve been through those chapters and spent some time developing your musicality in those areas, you will find that the approach presented here allows you to easily, confidently and freely start writing songs which are musically satisfying and meaningful to you.
| Mark Says… It’s probably something I’ve underappreciated in my own journey: I started writing songs (first lyrics to band-mates’ music, and then my own harmony, melody, and lyrics) quite early in my musical journey. I never thought about how that would influence my overall musicality, and sometimes I felt almost guilty for “just fooling around” with songwriting instead of “woodshedding” on the guitar—but just couldn’t help it! |
Overview
In this chapter we’ll give an overview of the Songwriting approach we recommend, and introduce several key mindsets which can free you up creatively and help you avoid common pitfalls.
We’ll then tackle five elements of a song in turn: Form, Ideas and Emotion, Lyrics, Melody, and Harmonisation/Arrangement. We’ll explain how to approach writing each, and how they are inter-related and can be combined.
We will draw on the building blocks for Pitch and Rhythm from Part II and the Expansive Creativity framework from Chapter 15: Improvisation, but you needn’t necessarily have explored those yet to have success with this chapter.
Finally, we’ll finish with some guidance on how to practice Songwriting using the approach presented here.