Your Songwriting Ingredients, Part Two Of Four

Hello and welcome to Part Two Of Four of our lesson in Songwriting Ingredients. Last time I talked about the main ingredient in writing hit songs (it’s you). Today I will talk what to do specifically to write a hit. Which brings me to today’s subject:

Listen!

Oh, for the love of God, listen to music. You are probably thinking, “I already do. I want to be a songwriter after all.” Well, you are on the right track, but it goes much deeper than having some music on in the background.

When I say listen, I mean really listen. Listen to the chord changes, listen to the contour of the melody (more on that in a future post), listen to the lyrics to see how they are structured, listen to everything. I am talking about the tone of the guitars, the sound of the drums, the rhythm. Everything means everything.

I guarantee the first time that you do this, you will hear parts of the song that you have never heard before, even if you are analyzing your favorite song.

So how do you learn the art of song analysis?

1. Pick a song that you don’t mind listening to many, many times in a row. You want this song to be in the same style that you are writing for. Don’t listen to Miley Cyrus if you are writing Thrash Metal. Easy enough. Go ahead and pick a song you want to analyze. Write the title and artist on a sticky note and keep it somewhere where you will see it often.


2. Go someplace quiet where you know that you will not be disturbed for at least a half hour. Get rid of anything distracting. The fewer distractions you have, the better. Do you really need to text your friends in order to be a songwriter?


3. Pick the instrument that you will listen to throughout the song. Eventually we will analyze the whole song, but for now we will stay with one instrument. I recommend that you pick the instrument that you play, if you play one. Otherwise, the easiest thing to do is to pick the instrument that stands out the most.


4. Hit play on your stereo :-P


5. As you listen to the song, note the qualities of the instrument. Is it loud/soft? Fast/slow? Is the guitar played with power chords or more complex jazz chords like 9ths and 13ths? Are the drums in 4/4 or some other time signature?
   
   There are a million other qualities you can find that I didn’t include here. Why? Because you need to get in the habit of thinking for yourself as a songwriter. The sooner you can learn to be independent, the better. Just don’t stop reading this blog ;-)


6. Once you understand your instrument’s part so that you can play it in your sleep, move on to the next instrument you would like to listen to. Like your first choice, your second choice doesn’t matter as long as you are actually doing the exercise. For the sake of the example, let’s say that you chose the drums as your first instrument and the bass as your second. Listen to the qualities of the bass. Write them down.


7. Here’s where it gets interesting. I want you to take the first two instruments that you listened to, and combine them. Play the song again and see how they fit together. Do the bass and drums play on the same beats, or on different ones? Which instrument is louder? Does one provide a foundation for the other? You get the idea.


8. Listen to a third instrument using the process outlines above.


9. Listen to all three instruments together.

Do this for all of the instruments on the song so that you know it inside and out. The nice thing about this process is that it can be applied to any genre of music or band, whether it is the Beach Boys or Burzum.

Once you start to practice this technique, you will find that it gets easier the second time, and easier the third, and so on. More importantly, you will begin to understand how instruments fit together in a song, and you will be able to work new sounds into your music.

Next post I will talk about serving the song, what it means, and how to do it. Thanks for reading my songwriting blog.