Whether you are the kind of writer for whom the whole song falls out in 15 minutes, or you painfully deliberate for hours over each line, there are a few quick rewriting tools that can help polish that final product. To apply these tools, sometimes we’ve got to be flexible with our melodic rhythms and pitches, open to adding or taking away a syllable or two as the lyric dictates. Other times we’ve got to be careful not to play and sing the song too much while we write, to avoid convincing ourselves something sounds natural when it actually doesn’t. Singing an unnaturally set phrase over and over again enables us to ‘learn’ the part, which can make it very difficult for a demo singer or the audience later on to sing and remember the song. Staying objective can mean keeping enough distance between you and the performance. When our gut tells us something didn’t sing right at first, our impulse may be to sing it again and convince ourselves we don’t need to go through the work of rewriting. But, give yourself enough credit as a skilled writer to practice seeing opportunities for making the melody even better, the harmonies even more complimentary, and the rhythm even more exciting. Remember, whether you’re pitching your songs to other artists to record or recording your songs yourself, the listener only gets one chance – and they’ll be relying on their first impression.

Point of View

One fun tool you might start with is changing the point of view of the song. First, check to make sure you have kept the point of view consistent throughout the song. If you start with ‘I’, then switch to ‘you’ or ‘he/she’, your listener can wind up confused. Establishing clear characters is the first step in making sure your listener can connect emotionally to the song, rather than sit there trying to figure out who’s doing the talking. After you’ve got it in one point of view, consider which point of view you’re working with.

First person point of view uses ‘I’. ‘I remember when…’ or ‘I thought I saw you there…’.

Second person point of view uses ‘you’. ‘You took the train to New Orleans…’.

Third person point of view uses ‘he/she’. ‘She held the ticket in her hand, and knew he wasn’t far away…’.

In third person point of view, the singer is the narrator, not part of the story but looking from the outside in.

If you’re in first person p.o.v., try changing to second person, replacing all the ‘I’ pronouns with ‘you’. If you’re in third person, try changing to first person p.o.v. If you’re in first person, try changing to third. Play the whole song and even record a rough guitar/vocal or piano/vocal of it. Sit back and listen to both versions and try to imagine yourself as the listener. What kind of impact do you feel from both versions? Does first person feel more intimate, more suspenseful, more purposeful or empowering? Does third person lend a more mysterious or adventurous mood? How does the point of view affect the overall emotion of the song?

Verb Exchange

Another technique you might use is exchanging your verbs for more specific verbs. Verbs hold so much potential in a lyric, able to burst forth strong feelings of movement and texture, or disempower those feelings and leave the lyric lying flat. Let me give you an example. In the lyric below, I’ve used generic verbs:

You’re putting sugar packets under the table leg
but it just seems it’s built to slant
and it’s making you crazy
I’m moving runny eggs around a breakfast plate
watching you put your face
in complete frustration

Now here is the same verse, with more specific verbs:

You’re stuffing sugar packets under the table leg
but it just seems it’s built to slant
and it’s driving you crazy
I’m pushing runny eggs around a breakfast plate
watching you twist your face
in complete frustration

By livening up the verbs, I can create a more vivid situation. The more vivid the situation, the more my listener feels a part of the experience rather than an observer from the sidelines. Try using this technique with the help of your thesaurus to find verb substitutions. In some cases you’ll be able to match the number of syllables and stress pattern of the original verb, and in other cases you’ll find a great verb that requires more or fewer syllables. All in all, it’s good to have options. Writing with control over all these elements means we can better gauge how strongly we’ll capture the attention of our listener.

Happy writing,
Andrea

Over a steaming cup of tea and some of the best sweet potato fries I’ve even eaten, I recently met with a past student and fellow songwriter of mine, Joy Gora, in Boston, MA. We talked about the craft, about the daily challenges and the victories we experience as we journey through the business. I found her insight about song critiques particularly valuable, and asked her to write a bit to share with my Berkleemusic readers. Joy is a wonderful lyricist, singer/songwriter, and former student of the Berkleemusic songwriting courses. Below you’ll find some of the things she’s doing to promote her songs and examples of feedback she’s gotten from various sources like TAXI and NSAI. You can hear more of Joy’s music at http://www.lyricwriter.net/.

Song Critiques
Even though music is an extremely subjective art, I’ve often leaned on feedback from different sources in order to improve my own craft of writing songs. I will admit that as a Berkleemusic student I have been quite spoiled with quality detailed instructor feedback and a warm supportive environment of fellow songwriting students. But outside of the classroom I’ve found a variety of song evaluation methods offering different styles and opinions. And I use the word opinion because I believe a song critique is just that – one person’s opinion.
Hopefully critiques are coming from an educated opinion, but I believe even comments from fans attending shows can be very enlightening. If you are looking for a way to improve your songwriting through feedback here are a few sources you may want to consider.
Friends and family – Ok this one may seem dull, but I can’t leave out the support system of those that want to see you succeed and those that will always tell you how great your writing is. It’s invaluable, especially on those days when you wonder how “good” your stuff really is. Let them cheer you on.

Other songwriter friends and musicians can appreciate the depth of your soul that goes into your art and they can often times make cool suggestions while still treading lightly on your work. A friend of mine will send songs out to her friends saying, “let me know which ones you like the best.” If she gets replies from them and everyone is saying “I love song #3″ then she knows that particular one resonates with people.

Your fan base – If you have the opportunity to play live, your audience can sometimes be the best critic. If someone takes the time at the end of the night to comment on a song or if you silence a room with your latest ballad that may mean something to you as you continue to write.

Taxi – Taxi is an “independent A&R company.” Outiside of my Berklee classes, one of my first experiences with a song evaluation was from TAXI. These critiques are streamlined into a form style of evaluation with a multiple choice answer with some room for actual comments. You get back a combination of song opinion and the experience of what it’s like to interact with the gatekeeper of an artist looking for new material. These particular evaluations are really in the confines of that particular listing. If you’ve never pitched you stuff to and A& R person, it’s a safe way to build your courage muscles for rejection!

The areas of focus for Taxi critiques are Style (was it right for the artist), Melody, Structure, Lyric, Title, Overall Rating and verbal overall comments. I think their focus is more on why the song wasn’t forwarded than specific suggestions as to how you could improve your writing or song. To give you a sense, here are a few of the comments I’ve gotten from my last few evaluations:

“Really Nice work here, but for a debut album by a young country artist, the theme here is a bit too mature (especially for commercial country. The hook needs to be a bit more repetitious and better defined. I really enjoyed the song though”

“A really nice love song with some expressive lyrics, but it’s not quite the style of song that they’re looking for with this request. Songs like those of Shania Twain and Carolyn Dawn are what they need. Clever stories with memorable country pop melodies/hooks are what this artist is trying to find. But still, this is a good love song, good writing.”

“There is some nice imagery here and you sell the emotion well, but musically it is just a little too busy and is not quite in the style that is being requested. The musical attitude is much more pop than country – a bit too sophisticated.”

Nashville Songwriters Association International – As a member of NSAI, you may submit one song per month for evaluation. An independent team of published songwriters will evaluate each song’s commercial potential and return an evaluation. Any song submitted to the Song Evaluation Service that is judged “Ready-to-Pitch” by the song’s evaluator is then screened by the entire panel of NSAI song evaluators. If approved, the song is played for major music publishers and label A&R representatives at NSAI’s exclusive Pitch to Publisher Quarterly Luncheon. On a quarterly basis, they play the best songs from their Song Evaluation service for a “who’s who” of Nashville publishers at their in-person listening session.

The focus for these critiques is: overview, form, hook, lyric, melody, and commercial viability. Usually you get a one or two line statement under each subject. Here are a couple of sample comments from my own evaluations:

“ Very good overall especially the 2nd verse. The chorus bothered me though. It needs more edge. It feels too wholesome and fuzzy. Very good with a few fixes. Add some tongue in cheek wit”

“ I like the hook and idea. The lyrics were good, I would work on making them more youthful. Keep it simple so the listener can enjoy the song without having to think too much”

Song Camps and Workshops – A fellow songwriter friend of mine had the opportunity to get a one-on-one session with Pat Pattison and Jason Blume based on the way a particular workshop was set up. There were large group lectures that broke-out into small sessions where she got to work with other hit writers. She told me this experience changed her life and how she approached music, writing and her career.

Pitch to Publisher Events – ASCAP, and BMI come to mind as organizations that help you get in front of a publisher with your music. As an example, ASCAP has an event called Song Source every Wednesday afternoon in Nashville that allows each participant an opportunity to play their most commercial song to a music publisher and get direct feedback.

Proven Professional Songwriters – Ok, I’ve saved my favorite for last. There are numerous hit songwriters that are genuinely interested in sharing their knowledge to help you pen the best songs possible. They help you dig deep inside of yourself to bring out what unique experiences only you bring to the world of music. They can help you turn mediocre songs into great songs by offering specific, relevant hands on advice. These critiques are usually not generic, but rather focus on tools like, point of view, rhyme scheme, structure, power positions and originality.

There are certainly other places to seek opinions about your music, but whatever path you choose, I encourage you to let you songs see the light of day and play them to anyone who wants to give you an opinion. I personally have gained golden insight into how professionals in the industry look at music, what resonates with listeners, and tips to improve my writing. I have also disagreed with comments I have received so I caution you to try a variety of song evaluation sources and stick with the ones that are helpful to you. Take away from these critiques only what you want to take and throw out the rest. I was recently told that I had to “dumb down” my lyrics for a certain genre. My take away from that was not that I had to change my style of writing, but that my song just wasn’t right for that artist. I often remind myself of the many stories of songs that were rejected for years before they became hits.

Thanks to Joy for setting aside time to share her experience with us -

Andrea Stolpe

If you’ve been writing songs for a considerable length of time, or even if only for a short time, you might notice that many of your songs have a similar style or sound. Perhaps it’s a tempo you write in often, maybe it’s the movements of your harmonies, or rhythmic pattern in your melodies, or a strumming pattern in your guitar. Sometimes we get locked into a particular feel and though it produces a decent song, a whole album or live show continuing that feel gets monotonous for the listener and boring for us as writers.

One way that we can break out of our typical style is by co-writing. Letting someone else set the tempo, determine the key, dictate some harmonic changes, or twist the melody between two chords for awhile takes away some of our safety nets. It may feel awkward at first, as if you’re unable to tell whether what you’re writing is ‘good’ or not.

When two writers of different styles come together, the result can be bumpy and random, or it can result in an integration of the strong elements of both writers. I’ve had plenty of both results, but each experience has enabled me to listen to my own style in a different way. Over time I could see how the styles of my co-writers influenced my own writing.

When we don’t have the immediate option to co-write, we need to get resourceful with our own tools. Discovering and developing the various angles of our own style takes effort, moving beyond the subconscious inspiration that sometimes allows lyrics and melodies to just ‘fall out’. We can do this through a variety of tools, some of which I’ll describe here. Add your own tools as you think of them.

1. Set aside your instrument. Letting go of that guitar or piano for awhile and simply singing a melody can free up any limitations you experience by your instrument. If you’re a singer, let go of your vocal chords too. Find a quiet space, and imagine your favorite singer writing a new tune. Pretend you have access to his/her vocal quality and range, and begin to explore intervals or ranges you wouldn’t typically explore using your own instrument.

2. Pick up a new instrument. We’ve all exchanged instruments in band class on substitute teacher day, but this time I’d like you to consider picking up an instrument you’re not as familiar with for the sake of writing something outside your comfort zone. If you’re a guitar player, move over to the piano and try thinking melodically rather than rhythmically. If you’re a piano player, try picking up a guitar and strumming some rhythms with your right hand for a more percussive effect, muting the strings with your left.

3. Start writing a song to the intro of another tune. Pick a song you know or don’t know, and listen to the intro. The intro might be a groove or melodic motif or harmonic progression that sets the tone for the song. If you typically write ballads, try choosing an up-tempo intro and pause the song before the verse begins. Write your own verse melody inspired from the intro. Later, you can change the chords if you wish.

4. Set the metronome for various tempos and tap out the rhythm of a new melodic idea. Starting with rhythm can be a great tool if you’re used to writing the same tempos all the time. Many piano players get mired in ballad-land, and starting with a faster tempo in mind ensures that we’ll approach the lengths of our notes differently within the melody.

5. Try writing a whole song over one groove. You might write a 4 chord progression and use it throughout the verse and chorus. In this case, make sure you use melodic techniques like raised pitch, longer and shorter notes, and changes in your phrase lengths to get contrast between the song sections.

6. Write the lyric first. If you tend to write melody and lyric at the same time, try your hand at some lyrics and then go to the piano or guitar. If you write lyrics first, go to your instrument and write some music first.

7. Analyze similarities between your songs, and do the opposite. Look for consistent elements like long notes, the same harmonic progressions, always starting your melodic phrases on the downbeats or after or before the downbeats, ranges in the vocal, structural elements like rhyme schemes or even the rhymes you gravitate towards the most. Then, change them up by using shorter notes or changing the position of your phrases to beat two or three instead of always on beat one, letting the pitch of your chorus rise above that of your verses, changing the rhyme schemes, etc.

As with anything we endeavor, it’s those times of drought that spur growth. Keep forging ahead and you’ll find yourself emerging on the other side with some new songs that display a whole new side of your talent.

Happy writing,
Andrea

I recently received an email from a fellow songwriter that raises some excellent questions about the relevance of what we write as artists to the commercial industry of songwriting, and I thought I’d share my response in a blog. The writer had read my book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling, among other songwriting books, and arrived at an insightful observation regarding the craft and business:

I read your book on songwriting 10 steps to great story writing. I thought it was excellent. I think you were able to illustrate the “soul” of lyrics in a practical way, making it less of a mystery but more concrete.

One of my favorite writers is Bruce Springsteen who of course, is a great story teller.

One dilemma I have is I don’t see a lot of these techniques in hit songs. I mean all the books tell you to “show don’t tell” but in pop songs there isn’t a lot of room for vivid details. I wish I had a dollar for every “I’ll love you forever” song I hear. The lyrics seem to be non pictured but just verbal chit chat.

It’s true that many of the songs we hear on major radio waves are not driven by expert lyrics. That is to say, if the lyric were separated from the track, the melody, the groove, and the artist’s image and marketing campaign, it wouldn’t hit us as particularly memorable. Much of what we hear from well-known acts is primarily ‘telling’ language, thoughts and feelings that don’t mean much apart from the context of the music in which they sit.

Though lyrics are an integral part of songwriting, they certainly don’t always take center stage. The melody is a huge driving factor in popular music, and we can observe how much so by simply looking at the fan base of some of the biggest entertainers of today. As a song is promoted and played over and over again, their simplicity lends to even the most tone-deaf listeners.

But we might ask the question, what if popular songs offered more substance in the lyric – would that weaken their popularity? I think the answer is no, it wouldn’t. Artists like John Mayer still uphold a high level of lyric writing while appealing to the masses. It can be done, and is being done, but by a select few.

Because we don’t see the kind of lyric writing in most popular mainstream music that the songwriting books harp about, I don’t think that points to the conclusion that popular mainstream music wouldn’t benefit from higher craft. What it does point to, is that writing great lyrics to great melodies is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. Many of us write decent songs each day, songs that capture our listener’s attention and express purposeful messages. But when we really get honest with ourselves, can we say with confidence that we write hit songs every day? Do we write the kind of melodies and lyrics and grooves that make fans want to lose themselves in our world for hours at a time, buy our clothing line, wear our perfume? And in that light, do we have the marketing campaigns behind us that will propel our music to hundreds of thousands of people? Lastly, I think it’s also important to point out that many songs sung by our well-known entertainers are actually written by songwriters who are deeply immersed in the business. They are brought into a project for their ability to work with the artist and turn out songs that will appeal to the fan base the artist is already entertaining. This is not to say that those working on these mainstream projects are robots, but that they too are compelled to work within the confines of the industry machine to a certain extent.

As independent artists of today, we are writing with a distinct difference. Our goal is not to appeal to the industry gatekeepers, but to appeal to our fans. I believe that fans want good music, and want purposeful songs about real moments in life – more than ‘we’ll always be together, always and forever’. Though most of the popular music industry is not giving their audiences more, I don’t believe that it is because the audiences couldn’t handle it. And regardless of what I believe, I have only to look at the songs I’ve written that win over my listeners. Are they generalized lyrics with really catchy melodies appealing to folks who just want to party and have fun, or are they lyrically driven verse/refrain songs that appeal to a more thoughtful, insightful crowd? What is it that draws listeners to our own personal music? When we can pinpoint that, we can understand who our fans are, and therefore understand the need that we innately fill with our voice. Those are the questions that lead to greater expression through better songs, and greater connection with a broader audience. Regardless of what is driving the major music industry, our future depends on our ability to create an experience for our fans.

I love the part of your book where you said the greater the detail, the less time has passed. I think we live moment to moment, so it makes sense songs should too.
But one thing that came to mind is, once you have zeroed in on a particular moment with detail, where do you go from there? Do you string together different moments with each verse, or do you keep defining the same detailed moment throughout?

This is a great question pertaining to the craft of writing with external or ‘showing’ language. When we draw a listener into a specific experience, we’re drawing a picture in which we can evoke certain emotions. Those emotions draw their importance from the scene we’ve set, and so the question is how to craft the song around that scene to make our main message truly believable and powerful. I’d like to show you how to use a few techniques from my book and Commercial Songwriting Techniques, the online www.berkleemusic.com course, to apply this kind of imagery-writing to your own songs. But, that’s another topic – so please allow me to do so in another blog on tools for the craft of songwriting, which I’ll post soon. Thank you for your great questions, and please feel free to comment in response to my thoughts here.

Happy writing,
Andrea

The first time I heard Thom Schuyler it was at the Bluebird Café. He was strumming along a little ditty in the round with songwriting greats Mike Reid and Don Schlitz. I was watching and listening from the ‘pew’ section of the café, the churchy benches in back where budding songwriters often go to catch a little inspiration without having to pay the minimum drink fee. It was three legends of the business, all of whom had been around since the 70’s and watched the industry cycle through good times and bad. Songs like Kenny Rogers’ ‘The Gambler’, Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me,’ and Lacy J. Dalton’s ‘16th Avenue’ sprung from their guitars as fresh and effortlessly as if they’d written them yesterday.

Years later while writing with Thom, I got to experience his mastery first-hand. Aside from being a top-rate songwriter, he is a genuine example of how quality, honesty, and authenticity can be retained over a long career in the industry. His warmth and sincere interest in inspiring those poised at the starting line in their career sums up what I have learned to be at the core of this songwriting legend. Whenever I need to remember why I got into this business, I go back and read these words of one my most revered songsmiths, Thom Schuyler.

Great Songwriters

“The King James Version of the Bible is full of rich imagery and flowery
language that is often difficult to interpret. For instance, a passage from
the Gospel of Matthew reads: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” Simply
translated it means that heaven will be full of songwriters. A rough
calculation would lead to the conclusion that fewer than 10% of those people
who have determined to call themselves songwriters will succeed in earning
even a modest living from their work in that field. On the other hand, a
chosen few will be rewarded handsomely for their pursuits. The gulf that
separates these two groups is full of tens of thousands of songs that are too
long, too short, too country, too pop, too complicated, too ordinary, too
hard to sing, too much like another song, not quite right, too good, too sad,
indistinct, unnecessary, ill-conceived and probably lost forever. And, back
to the scriptures for one last tortured image: Why is it then that “many
be called, but few chosen?” Well, I think there are three reasons: Timing,
talent and tenacity. The talent, however, is the key.

Great songwriters, I believe, have remarkable gifts. Clearly there is a
fundamental understanding of and instinct for melody and harmony, rhythm,
chord progression and other musical components that fit together to create
the popular song. And, although I will say little more about these musical
components, I suspect that most folks are initially drawn into a song because
of its melody or beat or the instrumentation in which it was set or because
of a particularly stunning vocal performance. Song structure, that is the
verse, the channel, the bridge, the chorus, etc. is easily studied and
learned. For me it is in the story-telling that the cream rises to the top.
Great songwriters look at the world through two eyes: One is the eye of a
prophet, one is the eye of a child. They listen to the world with two ears:
One is the ear of a poet, one is the ear of a spy. Great songwriters seem to
be, at the same time, standing right in the middle of everything and yet
somehow just outside. They are preoccupied with the subtle twists and turns
of language. They thrive on irony, consider pathos their own, fertile field,
elevate the simple to the sublime, depend a great deal on the word blue and
regret that there are fewer than a half-dozen pure rhymes for love. The work
itself is tedious requiring equal amounts of spontaneity and patience. I
would call it something like mystical labor. Most writers will tell you that
they had very little to do with the best songs that they produced other than
having the wisdom to stay out of their way. Then again, they’ll also tell
you that you’ve never heard the best songs they’ve ever written because they
haven’t been recorded and likely will never be. Great writers write 8 hours a
day, 40 hours a week. Others write only when they are inspired. Some
succeed because they are diligent craftsmen. Others have such deep resources

that great songs seem to just roll out of them. They draw from their own
experiences, reflect on the experiences of others and they also make shit up.
They have earned money from masterpieces and they have earned money from
tripe. They are not messengers, they are not ministers, they are not
counselors; they are songwriters. And, great songwriters, I believe, have
remarkable gifts.

Harlan Howard, Bob McDill, Dave Loggins, Hugh Prestwood, Tony Arata, Don
Schlitz, Bobby Braddock, Dennis Linde, Gary Burr, these are not the best
songwriters in Nashville; they are the best in the world. I use their names
for several reasons. In the 24 years that I have walked the streets of Music
Row these gentlemen have been the most consistent, most diligent, most
commercial, most profound, most enduring, most studied, most appreciated and
most successful of them all. There are more, many more but, these men have
climbed the mountain, they have found their own voices and those voices are
distinct. And, guess how they found their own voices? They worked alone.
Somehow the collective wisdom of Music Row has determined that if we put two
or three or even four songwriters together in a room the result will be a
song that is two or three or four times better when, in reality, the creative
process is diluted, the focus blurred and the result is an innocuous little
ditty that has all the right parts and then some unrecognizable 24 year old
kid from Oklahoma will record it, a promotion team will run it up the charts,
someone, somewhere will hear it on their car radio and think to themselves,
“That sounds just like the last song they played,” and then the song will win
a BMI Award, the songwriters and publishers will make money and so the
publishers will encourage the writers to write more of these ditties, the
promotion team will urge the A&R department to get the kid from Oklahoma to
record more of these kinds of songs because they can run them up the charts,
the guy in the car will start listening to the Top 40 station because, “He
just can’t stand this shit anymore,” the head of the sales department will
tell the label head, “That kid from Oklahoma may be having hits but, he’s not
selling records,” the kid will be dropped, staffers at the label will be let
go, the songwriters’ option will not be picked up, stand-up comedians will
make jokes about country music and, eventually, we will all die. This, in my
opinion, is the unnecessary result of co-writing.

Finally, let me say this about Garth Brooks. There is much spoken and
written about his remarkable accomplishments but, our opinions of him,
positive or otherwise, are irrelevant. The people have voted. He has
reached them. He did it with shrewd, global marketing, with an astonishingly
exciting live show and with a very vital, world-wide partnership with his
record label. When it is all counted up, factored out, studied and analyzed,
may it be remembered that he also did this:

And now I’m glad I didn’t know
the way it all would end
the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could’ve missed the pain
but, I’d have had to miss The Dance

Of all the wonderful opportunities that have been afforded me in this
town, in this business, it fills me with the greatest joy and satisfaction to
be able to say that I am a songwriter.”

Thom Schuyler
http://www.thomschuyler.com/discography.html

For a more detailed explanation of the tools I’m about to share, please refer to Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling.

The chorus of a song is for some of us the first section that begins to take shape during the writing process. Whether we start from the title or a theme, focusing the chorus to sum up the main point of the song is essential for any great purpose to form. If the song is worth writing and listening to, the chorus proves why.

In my opinion, what makes choruses so difficult to write is the responsibility that section has in summing up my point. If I make the listener wait too long to get to that main point, or if that point is vague, I stand to lose the attention of my audience completely. The chorus has to capture the essence of what I’m trying to say, and in a way that is immediately accessible to all the ears that have waited a minute or more for that essence.

When I already have a title idea, the first step I take in writing a memorable chorus is positioning that title in the power positions. Depending on the structure, those positions are the first line, the last line, and sometimes the middle of the chorus section. Take a listen to some of your favorite tunes and notice where the title line sits.

Next, I speak the title line out loud, noticing the highs and lows of the language. The stressed syllables falling on stressed beats of the measure allows the lyric to sing as naturally to the melody as it speaks in conversation. This idea of conversational quality is so important to the title line. If the way the title sings upsets the natural flow of the words or syllables, then the listener will be paying more attention to ‘how’ I’m singing rather than ‘what’ I’m singing. The result is my song becomes less believable. For more details on stress placement, refer to Pat Pattison’s course ‘Writing Lyrics to Music.’

After I’ve set my title to a catchy melody and tried out a few power positions, I’ve got to write some of the developmental lyric that falls between those title lines. I like to give some thought as to how I’m going to recolor the title at the end of the chorus. The key line in recoloring is the line before the last repeat of the title. That line holds the responsibility of twisting or adding dimension to the final title line. As an example, here is the chorus from a song of mine “Kaleidoscope” off my CD, Breaking Even.

Power position Not anymore
I’m letting go
I’m not gonna
be a kaleidoscope
I’m saving my life
or what’s left to lose
And taking it back from you
I was afraid
of some kind of change
Power position But not anymore

In order to frame the chorus in the title, I needed to allow the last line title idea to finish off the sentence I started in the second to last line. That new idea of being afraid of a change offered just a bit more insight into my final point, ‘not anymore’.

Once I’ve brainstormed a bit on those power positions and how to close the chorus section with a powerful final idea, I start to think about the internal lines, the developmental ideas in the chorus. Line one introduces the melodic hook I’ve chosen to become the ‘motif’ of my chorus section. Line two repeats that melodic motif, as well as line three. The lengths of my lines reflect that repetition of the melodic motif, and so I’ve used structure to help me decide the phrase lengths. For more information and a listening example, refer to my blog ‘A Short Songwriting Lesson, Part 1 and 2.

With lots of repetition in the melody, a rhyme scheme starts to surface. In your own choruses, a great idea would be to listen to the chorus sections of some of your favorite songs and note the structures. Listen for the rhyme scheme and any melodic repetition. Then, write your own chorus using the same or similar structure.

As for the lyric ideas, I use a process called ‘destination writing’ to develop those internal line ideas. Very simply, I journal about the very theme and title I’m writing about. From this paragraph of conversational ranting, I lift lines and throw them against the melodic hook. I look for any rhyme potentials, like ‘afraid’ and ‘change’ or ‘kaleidoscope’ and ‘letting go’. There are gems hidden within the journaling that make the process of constructing the chorus much easier than if I had plodded along line by line from top to bottom. For those of us who feel more comfortable talking out loud rather than writing our thoughts, try recording yourself talking about the idea or title. Just find a quiet and private place, and let your mind drift as you delve down into the core of what makes that title worth writing. What you’re looking for are those big thought ideas, as if you were standing outside the situation looking in. Try these sentence phrases to get you started:

All that really matters is…
What I really want is…
If only…
If things were different I’d…

Challenge yourself to write a chorus each day. Finding out how you move through your own writing process will come as you write consistently. Try new processes, and continue to refine as you feel what stalls and what encourages your creativity.

Have fun,

Andrea