The art of songwriting has the power to bring you to transport you to another world. After learning a little songwriting and maybe even writing a few songs yourself, you probably want to level up your songwriting skills. You want to learn not just how to create those lyrics that stick in your head the whole day, but also make your listeners feel a certain way.
That’s why we are going to go over 5 advanced songwriting tips professionals use you can start using immediately to create better lyrics.
So let’s get started.
Advanced Songwriting Tip #1: Focus on painting a story with one big idea
Before you write your actual song, one of the first things you want to do is paint a story with one big idea.
You want to focus on having one central theme that will create the structure and connect the entire song so that it all makes sense.
That’s because when you have too many ideas within your song, then your song gets “muddled” which will confuse the listeners because the idea of the song isn’t very clear. For example, if your main idea is writing about a romantic relationship in the woods, and then you talk about kayaking with your parents then this wouldn’t make sense and this will dilute the effect of the emotions you’re trying to portray in a relationship.
However, if your theme is about your life’s journey where you talked about kayaking with your parents as a child and then met your fated lover in the woods, then this could work.
One thing you want to avoid is adding too many ideas even with this theme because there’s a limited amount of lines you can produce in a song.
You don’t want to spend 6-7 minutes on a song as nowadays people have a shorter attention span, which means you only have 3-4 minutes and a couple of verses and a chorus to tell your story. That’s why you should be able to describe your entire main idea in one sentence. If you can’t, distill it so that everyone can understand your song in one sentence. And then build the song from there.
Advanced Songwriting Tip #2: Think about your one core emotion
Just like having one central idea in your song, another big idea you want to consider in your advanced songwriting is to focus on the one big emotion you want to portray.
It’s when your song is relatable and makes your listeners feel some sort of powerful emotion that will get your song remembered.
You want to focus on making sure that one emotion is expressed clearly, even if there are other emotions portrayed in your song. For example, if your song is about breaking up with your lover, there are many emotions that can come up like loneliness, being paralyzed, feeling relief, feeling depressed, etc.
So if I wanted to focus on the emotion of sadness and being depressed as my central emotion, I would use the emotions of loneliness and being paralyzed to support that central emotion.
Otherwise, if you gave them too many emotions, you may not have enough lyrics to showcase all the emotions diluting the effect.
That’s why recording can be a powerful tool in songwriting when trying to find the right emotion for your song. Recording and listening to your songs can help you physically feel the emotions you are writing about.
So focus on the one core emotion in your song and that will help guide your songwriting.
Advanced Songwriting Tip #3: Learn when to Break The Rules Of Songwriting
One thing to consider when you get advanced is knowing when to break the rules of songwriting. You first have to learn the foundations before you can understand when it’s okay to break those rules.
The Beatles were quite famous for breaking songwriting rules from doing time changes to having an odd chord change within their song. However, the difference though is that they knew they were breaking these rules and did it with purpose.
And you can do the same by:
- Using unorthodox chord progressions
- Changing the structure of your song
- Using different time signatures
So how do you know when to break the rules?
Intuition and experience.
Your gut feeling will know when things are off and when they aren’t. That’s why having a collaborative songwriter to bounce ideas is another great idea for learning when to try something new.
You can talk about different ideas and get another person’s perspective and thoughts on the changes you make.
Advanced Songwriting Tip #4: Write conversationally with your personality
When you first learn songwriting, you focus so much on the rules of making sure your beats are right, your syllables are right, your lines are rhyming, etc.
And they are all very important. But you are missing an important piece of making that sound truly yours…
And that’s writing with your authentic voice.
Just like your favorite Youtube star or author, one reason you would like them is because of their distinct personality, right? The same thing applies to your songwriting. You want to use the voice that you would naturally use in your everyday life to truly make it yours.
This can include things like putting in some of those dad jokes or even using colloquial language like “y’all” in your lyrics. And when you do this, songwriting becomes more fun because it becomes an extension of who you are.
That’s why although it’s important to learn the foundations of songwriting, over time you will put this into muscle memory, where you will naturally tap into your voice.
Advanced Songwriting Tip #5: Focus On Great Prosody
Another songwriting tip is making sure that your melody and lyrics match well.
Prosody is just a complicated-sounding word, but all it means is making sure the melody and the words of your song flow well.
For example, try saying this sentence out loud:
“I like to eat a lot of strawberries.”
You probably said something like this:
- I LIKE to eat a LOT of STRAW-ber-ies.
But imagine you said something with your intonation like this:
- I like TO eat A LOT of straw-BER-ries.
It’s going to sound weird, right?
That’s why you want to focus on making sure your melody matches the natural intonation of the song. Because you want to make it sound as natural as possible for people to sing along with it, right? This is what happens when you write the melody first and you try to force the lyrics to match the number of syllables.
However, It doesn’t matter if you start with the music or melody first when writing your lyrics, because it should be a combination of the two. It’s learning to make the song sound as natural as possible where it sounds like it could be a conversation between two people.
Conclusion
I hope you learned a lot about songwriting to help advance your skills and guide you on how to create better lyrics to make songs that will be memorable. From starting with one big idea and emotion to making sure your melody matches with your lyrics, these are all the little things you have to keep into consideration to make a great song. Let me know if you have any comments or questions below!
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Author Bio
Anthony Nebel is the founder of Melody Beats.
He helps empower online musicians to improve their craft and find their voice. He is an experienced musician writing guides on singing, songwriting, and using instruments to help beginner musicians become better at their craft.
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