Landslide Lyrics Dixie Chicks

Raps songs lay great emphasis on rhyming and therefore a good way to write a rap song is to approach it as if you were writing poetry. Again, the biggest audience for rap songs is the youth and hence you should choose a relevant topic for your song. Personal experiences, social injustice, love or any other inspirational matter in the real world could become the subject of your rap song.

You will have to be a lot more creative while writing lyrics for a rap song. Don’t be rigid or stagnant while writing your phrases, instead try different variations. Keep penning down all your ideas as and when they come to your mind. So that you have options while adding verses to your song. Observing people and happenings in your surroundings, gives good inspiration and ideas which you can incorporate in your lyrics.

Make your chorus short, crisp, funny and catchy. It should also convey the theme and idea behind the song to the listeners. You can let your imagination run wild and come up with the wackiest, cheesiest and the most outrageous phrases using various figures of speech like simile, metaphor, personification and pun. Concentrate on building a solid rhyming scheme within the song as well as the phrases. To help you in getting a fast paced rhythmic pattern for your song, keep adding as many quick-fire rhymes within every verse. Use as much alliteration as you can to add more power to your lyrics. Read the rest of this entry »

Rock music usually appeals to a majority of young people, who are between 11 to 30 years of age. This should give you enough hint while choosing a topic for your song as you obviously want to please that audience. Lyrics for rock songs are often rebellious, subversive and sarcastic. However, you can choose to write on any subject you feel will appeal to people.

Start writing with the first verse. You can prepare a rough draft if you feel unsure about your writing for the first time. It is not necessary that verses should rhyme as the composer can work magic around lyrics to make the lyrics sound better in the song.

The next step is creating a chorus for your rock song. The chorus should be crisp, repetitive, not too long and in connection with the verses. You should ensure that the chorus relates to the title of your song.

Second verse onwards you can start elaborating on your story or idea. Don’t make it too boring and too long, instead try keeping it concise and to the point. The third verse can then bring out the twist in your story (if any) or just continue amplifying the story further. Read the rest of this entry »

The first thing you need to do before starting to pen down your own lyrics, is to come up with a subject or topic of your choice. The topic can be absolutely anything like, love, relationships, religion, nature, heartbreaks, a particular person or even rebellious songs. If you are writing the song for an audience, it is important to choose a topic which will be liked and appreciated by them. So choose the topic carefully, as it will lay a strong foundation for the song.

You can either choose a tune or melody after selecting the topic, or think of one once you are done with writing the lyrics, whichever you are comfortable with. Some people come up with a melody right at the start as it gives them a flow while writing. The melody could be something you think of immediately after choosing the topic, or can be inspired from a song you might have already heard. If you want to settle for a melody after you are done with writing, it is fine. It can sometimes, bring out just the right melody for the song.

You now will have to sit down and pen at least five verses and one chorus. This can be simple and is also a critical part of the song along with the melody. These verses generally have the same melody as the chorus and since they begin the song, you need to have some idea in mind, about the topic you have chosen. If you are not satisfied, these verses can always be changed later on.

The eight verses which form the middle part of the song are considered to be a little tough to write. These verses generally have a different tune or melody than the rest of the song. Also these verses are the ones which form the core of your song and you should convey your feelings through them. This may take some time, so be patient. Keeping the verses short is also an option, which many people prefer. Read the rest of this entry »

So many budding songwriters get bogged down with this issue, wondering whether to pen some words first, and make a piece of music to fit them, or vice versa. They get concerned about what is the ‘right’ way to write songs. And, when it comes down to it, even if you searched everywhere you could for the definitive answer, there really could be only one: That there is no ‘right’ way.

You could liken it to making a cup of coffee. Some people pour the boiling water on to the instant coffee and then add the milk. Others prefer to add the milk first, and then the water. The end result is really the same (and actually a great tool to keep that songwriting brain stimulated, I find!).

For me, I don’t really like adding the milk first. But that’s just me.

Enough of the simile, though, you might say, quit beating around the bush. This does say ‘songwriting’ articles, after all.

So, it all depends on you. What kind of songwriter are you? Do you love coming up with a tune first? Perhaps your lyric writing skills are where you draw inspiration. Whichever you are, it might be worth mentioning that perhaps the best writers don’t get stuck in just one way of writing. One day they’ll start humming a tune, the next they’ll write a few lines…in the end they’ll still have come up with (hopefully) a great song, whichever way they began.

To make things even more complicated – or even more vague, depending on how you see it! – there is another option: The lyrics and the music at the same time.

When writing personalized songs, this is often the technique that I use, as I have a lot of information about the song recipient, as well as the customer’s chosen song style – so, sitting down and working on both parts at the same time means I can write lyrics and music which really compliment each other. In fact, rather than writing a piece of music for some lyrics, or the other way round, you can actually come up with a song which sounds altogether more ‘whole’ if you work on both parts simultaneously.

On the other hand, it is rare that lyric and musical inspiration hit you at the same time (it is only apparent in the above example due to the nature of personalized songs). I can be doing absolutely anything – from eating my dinner, to walking the dog, to playing tennis – and a piece of music will suddenly hit me. I’ll start to hum a few notes, perhaps a main melody or a guitar part, and I’ll find that I can’t stop humming it. Then I’ll either record it on my handy little ipod or Dictaphone, or rush home to work on it straight away. Read the rest of this entry »

The first thing you need to realize is that songwriting like most things in life is a skill that you can learn and get better at. None of the great songwriters picked up an instrument and wrote a hit song. Not only did they practice getting better at their instrument (you can still be a great song writer while only being an average musician) but they also practiced writing songs. For every memorable song that has been written 100s more forgettable ones were written and tossed aside.

You need to come to terms with the fact that you have to write many songs that are not so good in order to get the know how to write songs that are good. So the first step is to just write songs, and I’ll show you how to do that now.

Take chords that you know go well together, such as G and D or Am and C. Just start alternating between those two chords, try different rhythms, try an arpeggio, leave gaps between them, play the first chord for 1 bar and the second for 2. Keep doing this until you stumble upon something that you like.

Now play the chords in the way that you like until you’ve memorized the pattern. This shouldn’t take long since there are only 2 chords. Once you’ve done that start humming over the music. If you want you can start singing nonsense words like ‘la la la’ over the music. As you do this you’ll notice that one way of doing it stands out for you and appeals more than any other way. Once you’ve done this keep singing or humming the melody until that is also memorized and you can easily play the music and hum along.

Now it’s time to grab a pen and piece of paper. Start writing in the stream of consciousness form. This means that you just start writing without thinking about what you are doing. A lot of nonsense will come out at first but after a while you’ll start getting in touch with your innermost thoughts and feelings. Once you’ve written 2 or 3 pages worth it’s time to skim through it for words or sentences that jump out at you. Read the rest of this entry »