How to Write a Song: Eight Easy Steps

If you can pound out three chords on the guitar, you can write a song. I never, in a million years, imagined that someday I would be a songwriter. When I finally decided to learn how to play the guitar, it was more the result of boredom than any kind of ambition to be a musician. But once I could play a few chords, I found myself singing along, and before I knew it, I was writing original songs and fronting a band.

My method may not work for everyone. Different folks have different processes for songwriting. But if you’ve always wanted to write music and aren’t naturally inclined to do so, give my little tutorial a try. You just might find yourself performing at open mike night to an adoring crowd of admirers.

Step One: Get your groove on!

Pick up your guitar. Strum a chord. Find a rhythm: One, two, three! One, two, three! or A-one! A-two! A-one! A-two! Once you have the rhythm down, choose a chord that sounds good with the first one. Then find a third. Keep playing these three chords until you find a rhythm and a progression you like.

Step Two: Hum along!

Start humming. If words pop into your head, sing them-they will probably not make sense (“well, holy cow, I’m walking through roses…”) but they will give you a basis for the phrasing of your song. Keep humming until you find a melody you like. Remember that you don’t necessarily need to change the note you’re humming when you change a chord. Sometimes it works out that you’re singing a note, and the chord change adds another dimension to that same note. Don’t worry right now about choruses and bridges. Just get the verse figured out.

Step Three: Record it Now!

You will forget the melody, I promise. If your phone rings, by the time you’re done with your conversation, the melody will be gone. So keep a tape recorder next to you, and when you find your melody, record it immediately. You may not need to refer back to it, but better safe than songless.

Step Four: Replace The Hmmms with Words

Okay, got your melody? Now stick some words in there. If you’re not much of a writer, don’t worry right now about the finished lyrics. Just start singing about something-anything. As you are singing, you will find that a rhythm of phrasing comes naturally.

Step Five: Replace the Words with Lyrics

Don’t know what to write about? Remember that a song can be anything: it can be a story, a vignette, or a cryptic poem. It can rhyme, or not. Pick any topic: love, hate, sadness, joy, your car, your dog, your neighbor and his incessant shouting. Write about that time you fell off the horse and didn’t get back on. Write about the worst day you ever had, or the best. Write about how much you love dirt roads or fishing in the Mississippi. Once you’ve got your first verse (or all of them,) record your song thus far so you don’t forget how it goes.

Step Six: Chorus Time

Now that you’ve got your verse(s), write the chorus. You know what a chorus is, and usually the chorus is just a slight change in the chord progression from the verse. You can choose a whole new chord for the beginning of the chorus. Just begin experimenting by singing the verse, and changing up the chords for the chorus. Hum along to find a melody change that seems to fit nicely with the verses. Once you’ve got the progression and melody for the chorus, write the lyrics if you haven’t already. The chorus is usually repeating; that is, it will be the same every time you sing it. You can change it up a bit if you like, but generally the chorus should be the glue that holds the song together.

Step Seven: The Bridge

You don’t have to have a bridge. A bridge is a serious change-up of the song, a punctuation mark that sort of pulls you away from the verse-chorus portion and shakes you up a little before returning to the verse-chorus. Lyrically, the bridge generally does the same thing; it focuses on the theme of the song, or provides an aside. The bridge may be in a completely different key than the rest of the song; the main thing is that the bridge is very different from the chorus and the verse. It usually falls after the last verse of the song, before the last chorus. However, I’ve put bridges in the beginning, middle and ends of songs. Really, you can put it wherever you darn well please. If you choose to write a bridge, construct it the same way you did the verses and chorus. Be sure that as you change chords or keys that the continuity is good; i.e., the chords sound nice together.

Step Eight: Put It All Together

Now, play your song. Keep playing it, changing it if you feel like it, until you have it memorized. It will likely be in your head all day, and you will probably want to play it any chance you get.

A very common song structure is verse, verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, chorus. You can use any structure at all. Some of my songs are verse, verse, verse, verse, verse. Some are verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, verse, chorus. My advice is to do what comes naturally, do what you like. There are no rules set in stone.

Writing songs can be very liberating. You can say things to people in songs that you may not want to say to their faces. You can get things off your chest, express yourself, show your true poetic talents or your comedic ones. You can perform your songs for an audience, or just have them to play by yourself after a long day. It’s way more fun than TV.

Happy songwriting!

Reference:

• www.lyricideas.com/