[0:00] Hi, I'm Andrea Stolpe, and
welcome to Becoming a Songwriter.
[0:04] I made this course because I wanted
something comprehensive that songwriters
[0:08] of all levels could use to dip into some
of the more common techniques and then
[0:13] also some of the more uncommon techniques
that I think songwriters working
[0:17] in the industry find really useful.
[0:19] I really wanted this course to be free
as well, so anyone, no matter your
[0:24] circumstance, could benefit from the
tools and strategies you find here.
[0:29] At the ends of the lessons are exercises
that you can use to structure your time
[0:35] that you have available, whether it's
a very short ten minute period while
[0:39] you're waiting to pick up the kids from
school, or a longer stretch when you have
[0:44] really time to sink into your writing.
[0:47] I've also created a PDF guide that I
hope will help you to visualize how these
[0:51] tools are laid out through the course,
and how they interact with each other.
[0:55] You can find that in
the description below.
[0:58] I really hope this
course is useful to you.
[1:01] If you find you're benefiting from it,
please like this video, subscribe to my
[1:06] channel and send this course to someone
that you feel could benefit from it.
[1:10] Thank you for being here and I can't
wait to hear how these tools and
[1:14] strategies are helping you to answer
that calling in your life to create
[1:18] something beautiful through song.
[1:21] Let's go.
[1:28] What makes a song magical?
[1:33] When I work with songwriters, they're
often at a point where they've
[1:36] been writing songs for a while, and
they want to move their songs from
[1:41] being ordinary to extraordinary.
[1:45] These are the things that we'll
be talking about throughout this
[1:48] course, and things that I know as
writers inspire us to be able to take
[1:54] greater control over our process,
and over the result of what we make.
[2:00] There is some language that we can use
when it comes to the lyric element.
[2:06] Well, it helps us feel strongly
about the idea, or it takes us to
[2:14] another place or it sings well.
[2:18] When it comes to melody, it's
hooky, it's catchy, it's memorable.
[2:23] When it comes to rhythm
and groove, maybe it's fun.
[2:27] It's danceable.
[2:29] It's got momentum.
[2:30] It's got drive.
[2:32] There are many ways to describe why a
song is effective in making us feel like,
[2:40] wow, that was a moment I enjoyed having
and I want to have it again and again.
[2:46] I think the way in which we can
take our songs from ordinary to
[2:49] extraordinary and our process from
something that just happens to
[2:54] something deliberative is in knowing
what resonates with us as a person.
[3:02] Now, when I listen to a playlist
of music that I've curated for
[3:07] myself, that represents what I've
liked over the decades, there are
[3:12] similarities amongst that music,
even though it covers quite a lot of
[3:17] ground in terms of styles and genres.
[3:20] I know that I really appreciate
lyrics that tell stories, and
[3:26] it's really kind of where I find
myself writing most of the time.
[3:31] I know that I struggle to create
groove and rhythm from the get go in
[3:36] the songwriting process, and I was
brought up to think melody and lyric.
[3:42] And so if I start my process with
more groove and rhythm, I end up
[3:48] satisfying an element of my songwriting
that tends to get left behind.
[3:53] I hear myself enjoying rhythmically
driven songs, production that's full and
[3:59] intricate and detailed, but I also enjoy
a simple acoustic single vocal demo.
[4:06] There are many, many ways to express
our songs in terms of production.
[4:11] But the key elements that I want
to be listening for as I begin to
[4:15] understand who I am as a writer and
how I want to express myself is in
[4:21] the songwriting elements themselves.
[4:23] We can control melody, we can control
the chord progression, the rhythm and
[4:29] groove, and then finally the lyric.
[4:32] And in those four elements lie many,
many possibilities to discover who
[4:38] I am as a writer and artist and
to be understood by my listener.
[4:43] What I would like for you to do to begin
this process of understanding your own
[4:48] artistry is to make your own playlist of
10 songs that have been influential for
[4:54] you along your musical listening journey.
[4:58] These are songs from other artists that
just simply hit you straight to the heart.
[5:04] And when you listen to these songs, I
want you to pay attention to what are
[5:10] some of the important markers with regard
to melodic stylings, lyrical tendencies,
[5:18] chords, and then rhythmic feel.
[5:21] And I want you to see if you can find
patterns throughout these songs that
[5:26] express to you what you value, what
needs to be there to create a magical
[5:34] experience that you resonate with.
[5:36] Rather than just a song that's functional.
[5:40] Listen for a few days, take a little
bit of time to really steep yourself in
[5:44] these songs, and it might be interesting
to share your playlist with a few other
[5:50] people and get their response as far as
what are some of the elements you hear.
[5:56] In general, how do these
songs make you feel?
[5:59] Are they intricate and detailed?
[6:02] Is there a delicacy there?
[6:04] Are they empowered and bold and brazen
[6:08] or agressive, and dynamic?
[6:10] What are some of the qualities
that are coming out in all of
[6:13] these songs that might give you
insight into what you value?
[6:18] When you're done with this exercise,
come back and we'll look a little bit
[6:22] more into this idea of writing what
is you and what you know as an artist.
[6:41] A familiar story for us as artists
and writers in the industry is that
[6:46] we keep trying to write what we think
others will like or want to record,
[6:51] only to find that we're recreating
what others have already made.
[6:56] And we keep pushing up against this door
that represents sort of success on the
[7:02] other side and recognizing that until
we really just write what we know, and
[7:07] write what resonates to us, or write
what we would want to listen to, we never
[7:13] quite actualize the vision that we have.
[7:16] So, write what we know is a wonderful
piece of advice to keep giving yourself
[7:22] throughout your writing process.
[7:24] Some of the things that I know: I
know Catholic Mass from 10 years
[7:29] old at midnight on New Year's Eve.
[7:32] I know humid Minnesota nights and
playing outside until 9: 45 at night
[7:38] when the sun was just going down.
[7:41] I know going out to the deli at 1 in the
morning, the only one that was open 24
[7:48] hours, and hanging out with songwriters
and drinking  coke and trying to stretch
[7:53] the coke as far as it'll go because
we couldn't afford to get more food
[7:57] that night as struggling musicians.
[7:59] I know things that I could write about
and the limitation is how I see those
[8:05] fitting into the scope of a song.
[8:08] As we develop as writers, it's
important to make space for writing
[8:14] about the things that you know about.
[8:16] So give yourself time to discover who
you are as you develop as a writer.
[8:23] There can be a tendency to gauge
how successful our songs are by
[8:29] comparing them to other songs.
[8:32] But if we stop there and just continue
to write what we believe another
[8:38] artist might be able to sing and
contain, then we're only allowing
[8:43] our own art to flourish as broadly as
it might look on a different artist.
[8:49] I believe that each of us, even though
we might label ourselves as a songwriter,
[8:55] we must become artists because it is
through our being that we express the
[9:01] things that resonate with us and as human
beings will resonate with the universal.
[9:07] How we discover and refine our own
artistry is the same as it's always been.
[9:15] We write.
[9:16] We record.
[9:18] We release the music, and
we share it with people.
[9:22] I think this hasn't really changed,
even as the industry around us,
[9:26] and maybe the modality in which
we do these things, changes.
[9:31] But whether we share on a large scale,
or just with our intimate, small
[9:36] audiences, Maybe family and friends.
[9:38] The act of putting music out there and
releasing it and allowing others to
[9:44] embrace it develops us as writers and
artists and puts closure on where we
[9:51] were at the time of making that art.
[9:55] And then I think we can reflect on
what we've made, take time to enjoy
[10:00] it and recognize where we might go
as a result of having made that art
[10:08] and over time that act of writing,
recording as best we can, releasing
[10:16] in the manner that we can and allowing
others to to hear it and embrace it.
[10:21] Then we can begin to reform and
transform ourselves over time
[10:28] and become more of who we are.
[10:31] I would like for you to do a
little exercise right now that'll
[10:34] just take about 15 to 20 minutes.
[10:37] I want you to grab something to write
with and go sit by a window and I want you
[10:41] to make a list of things that you know.
[10:45] Now, it could be short little bullet
points like I know about my dog leaping up
[10:50] onto my bed at 5am and staring me in the
face while standing on my chest, right?
[10:56] I know about the door slamming
when my toddler, um, gets up
[11:00] at 2am to use the bathroom.
[11:03] I know about there being a sink full
of dirty dishes, uh, and everybody's
[11:08] gone to bed and it looks like
I'm loading the dishwasher again.
[11:11] Now you know a little bit about my life.
[11:13] Make a list of things that you know about
and they'll seem insignificant, but the
[11:19] thing is about song, the ordinary becomes
extraordinary because there is meaning in
[11:27] the insignificant moments that we live.
[11:31] This is where songs reside.
[11:33] Make your list.
[11:35] Put it to the side and come
back for the next lesson.
[11:52] There's no one right way to
write a song except for the
[11:55] way that finishes a great song.
[11:58] And that can be different
from song to song.
[12:01] I tend to start with lyrics most
of the time because lyrics for
[12:06] me take the longest to finish.
[12:09] And I get a little bit anxious
when I've got a lot of great music
[12:14] that I like and then no words.
[12:17] There are different ways to write and
whatever way empowers you to feel like
[12:23] it's gelling and the song gets done and is
shareable, that's the way to keep going.
[12:29] Sometimes when we're in situations
like a collaboration, we find
[12:34] that we have to be flexible in
the way that we approach a tune.
[12:38] If I'm writing top line, as the
producers are building a track, I
[12:42] need to come up with melody and lyric
[12:45] that suits the structure of the track.
[12:48] So my process has to adapt to
what's given to me in the room.
[12:52] But if I'm at home on my own writing,
inevitably I'll pick up my guitar and
[12:58] I'll start strumming something and sing
a little something or have a few lines
[13:03] of lyric that begin the song for me.
[13:07] And I'll set those to a little bit of
melody and chord progression and groove.
[13:12] The way we start affects whether
or not we finish, and so process is
[13:19] a skill that we can use to adapt.
[13:23] So if we typically start with melody
and then we add words and then finally
[13:29] we go and we add chords, sometimes
we might find that our excitement
[13:34] about the chords is just not there.
[13:36] They're kind of an
afterthought all the time.
[13:39] Now, consequently, if we're leading with
melody, it can be that the reason why
[13:46] we're doing that is because we feel most
capable of writing melody, or perhaps
[13:52] we're a strong vocalist, and that's
what we do to lead the song and make
[13:56] sure that something is hanging together.
[13:59] I like to switch up the process
sometimes and recognize that, you
[14:03] know, when I start with lyrics,
I tend to get a lyric heavy song.
[14:09] The lyric tends to be the
leading edge of my tune.
[14:13] When I start with chords and groove,
though, and then I sparsely pop some
[14:19] melody in there with good rest space and
some other elements that put music as
[14:24] the leading edge, Then, I can pull back
on the lyric and say, you know what?
[14:30] The lyric is icing on the cake now.
[14:32] And I have just created a new style
that I would not have created had
[14:40] I gone with lyrics first as always.
[14:43] Sometimes I'll sit down and pay
special attention to the chord
[14:47] progression that I'm using.
[14:49] Because again, for me, classical
piano growing up, lots of Mozart going
[14:55] through my head, which results in
lovely melodic phrasing with no groove.
[15:00] And so if I sit down and I just focus
on feel on harmonic rhythm, what
[15:06] are the chords and what's the rhythm
with which I'm playing them, then
[15:11] I can feel better about moving into
my strength areas, knowing that I've
[15:16] taken the time to develop something
harmonically that I'm really happy with.
[15:21] So process
[15:23] can be a result of our strengths, and we
can think more intentionally about our
[15:28] process and change it up a little bit to
put us more in line with writing something
[15:35] we love and actually finishing songs.
[15:39] I would like for you to do an
exercise in which you can examine
[15:42] your process a little bit.
[15:45] Think about how you normally write a song.
[15:48] Now, this may change from song
to song, but one way to identify.
[15:53] Your process might be to look at
what you feel really competent doing
[15:59] when it comes to writing a song.
[16:01] Do you tend to pick up your
guitar and strum some chords?
[16:04] Do you not play an instrument and
instead start with lyrics or melody?
[16:09] What comes with great ease for you?
[16:12] Now think about what's challenging
about the songwriting process.
[16:17] What do you tend to do last?
[16:20] Because it's hard.
[16:22] Now, when we consistently write with the
same process, it dumps us off the bus
[16:27] at sometimes, worst case, an unfinished
song, and it never sees the light of day.
[16:33] So think about your process and how it
interacts with your perceived strengths
[16:38] and weaknesses, and consider how changing
that process might change the result
[16:45] and the song that you get from it.
[17:01] Let's talk about lyric writing.
[17:04] Lyric writing can be
a little intimidating.
[17:06] And I think that where I'm going to
take you throughout this course, I hope
[17:11] will make you feel more empowered to
write lyrics that you feel intrinsically
[17:17] are right for the music you're making.
[17:19] Lyrics get their shape and
their color from the musical
[17:22] landscape that they're in.
[17:24] So, you can think of music like the
body language that carries the words.
[17:29] The agreement, or the way
that the lyric and the music
[17:33] interacts, we call that prosody.
[17:36] What do the words and
the music make together?
[17:39] If I take a simple phrase, like "hold
on", and I set that to different
[17:44] musical landscapes, the meaning of
those words is going to change, and the
[17:50] character with which we're singing them
[17:52] seems to change as well.
[17:54] So let me show you what I mean.
[17:58] Let's say I start with a little
bit of a, like a rock vibe.
[18:03] Hold on.
[18:07] Hold on.
[18:10] Hold on.
[18:11] Hold on.
[18:13] It's got a sense of drive.
[18:16] There's a little bit of power.
[18:17] There's some edge to it.
[18:19] But let's say that I take those same
words and I position them over a
[18:23] landscape that's, uh, finger picking.
[18:27] Hold on,
[18:34] hold on
[18:38] So here there's a sense of longing, of
kind of playing with someone or something
[18:44] or, um, kind of wanting to be lifted up.
[18:48] It's a really different
character, different feel.
[18:51] Now an interesting thing is when we start
to understand that the lyric can be a
[18:57] product of the music that we make, if we
make music first, or that the music is
[19:02] where we go when we write lyric first and
we're drawn towards that musical sound,
[19:08] we begin to understand what our sound,
our unique sound, can be and also how we
[19:14] can change and manipulate pieces of that
sound by not assuming that we have to
[19:20] go there with our musical landscape with
those words and that we have to go to
[19:23] those words from that musical landscape.
[19:27] Ultimately, what I think we can
be the controllers of in our own
[19:32] songs is the connection between
the words and the music, and they
[19:36] should always create something
better than the two on their own.
[19:42] So, an example of this, imagine
Etta James, not me, singing.
[19:46] Singing at last.
[19:49] At last.
[19:52] Why sing a long note there?
[19:54] Why set it that way?
[19:56] Why not?
[19:57] At last my love has come along.
[20:01] You know?
[20:02] Well, it's, it's true in both times, at
last my love has come along, but all the
[20:07] pull, at last, she's waited a long time.
[20:13] And you can feel it with the music
that also shares that message,
[20:17] and really makes it come alive.
[20:19] So, instead of thinking
as lyric writing as a
[20:24] challenging portion of songwriting that
we need to overcome or just squeeze
[20:29] by, I want us to start thinking of
lyric writing as a way to express
[20:36] more through words what the sound
that we're already making expresses.
[20:56] One of the best exercises for writing
better lyrics is to do a form of
[21:02] writing called destination writing.
[21:05] It goes by many names, sensory writing,
object writing, descriptive writing.
[21:10] You might even call it journaling,
but I'm going to put a little more
[21:14] definition on just that idea of
journaling as we go through this practice.
[21:19] Destination writing is the process of
releasing Our thoughts and feelings and
[21:27] descriptive writing in its raw form.
[21:30] So, unpracticed and non judging.
[21:33] And we do this for several minutes
a day, every day, so you can get
[21:39] into the flow and stay in the
flow of just generating words.
[21:44] Now, what is  descriptive writing
and how do we see it in the song
[21:49] lyrics that we know and love?
[21:51] I want to share with you what
descriptive writing can look like
[21:55] as a lyric so we know where we're
going when we do this practice.
[22:00] I've chosen Randy Newman's
song called "Baltimore".
[22:05] It's from the very beginning of this
song, highly descriptive, so listen
[22:10] to this lyric with your ears attuned
to taste, touch, sight, sound,
[22:15] smell, and movement in the verbs.
[22:19] And what you'll notice is there's
quite a lot of imagery here.
[22:23] You'll see visually what
the words are saying.
[22:27] Beat up little seagull on a marble stair.
[22:31] Tryin to find the ocean,
lookin everywhere.
[22:34] Hard times in the city,
in a hard town by the sea.
[22:38] Ain't nowhere to run to, there
ain't nothin here for free.
[22:42] Waitin for a train, drunk
lyin on the sidewalk.
[22:45] Sleepin in the rain.
[22:46] And they hide their faces.
[22:48] And they hide their eyes.
[22:50] Cause the city's dying
and they don't know why.
[22:52] Oh Baltimore, man it's hard just to live.
[22:56] Oh Baltimore, man it's hard just to live.
[22:59] Just to live.
[23:01] Do you hear the imagery coming through
in many of the lines here in this lyric?
[23:06] And it goes on to contain a lot more.
[23:09] Now this is characteristic
of Randy Newman.
[23:13] He gives us imagery to enable
us to feel what he feels.
[23:19] It's like a keyhole looking
at the world through his eyes.
[23:23] Regular practice.
[23:25] Writing with sensory language in
mind,  allows us to become more
[23:30] attuned to the language, the
whole amount of language that is
[23:35] available to us when we write lyrics.
[23:38] Now, not all songs need sensory language.
[23:44] The Weeknd has a wonderful song
called "Die For You", and this
[23:48] song has no sensory language,
and here's what that sounds like.
[23:52] I'm finding ways to articulate
the feeling I'm going through.
[23:56] I just can't say I don't
love you because I love you.
[23:59] Yeah.
[24:00] It's hard for me to communicate
the thoughts that I hold, but
[24:03] tonight I'm going to let you know.
[24:05] Let me tell the truth, baby.
[24:07] Let me tell the truth.
[24:08] Yeah.
[24:09] Now, I don't know about you, but
when I write lyrics like that, my
[24:15] little red flag, cheese flag goes
up big time, and I start to think,
[24:21] how do I know if this is good?
[24:23] And I start to ask kind of
these existential questions.
[24:26] What is good lyric?
[24:28] What is lyric?
[24:29] So I want you to remember that
good lyric  is an evaluative term
[24:37] based on how well the lyric and
the music dance together, okay?
[24:42] So our goal is to figure out for
each one of us as unique songwriters
[24:50] what that balance of sensory language
and non sensory language is to
[24:56] engage our listener with the musical
experience that we're providing.
[25:01] Let me give you a verbal example of
what sensory writing could look like.
[25:05] And this is just going to be me
keying into imagery from a memory.
[25:10] Fireworks with my brother back in 1984.
[25:14] Alright, here I go.
[25:17] We're in the cul de sac.
[25:19] I'm still skinny.
[25:20] Skinny like nine year olds can be,
shooting up awkwardly, crooked teeth.
[25:26] My brother and his friends, he's
three years older, and they're
[25:30] dancing around a carbon snake, they've
just lit the tin cans glinting on
[25:37] the asphalt in the July 4 heat.
[25:39] And it's 7 p.
[25:40] m., but it's still gonna
be light for hours.
[25:43] And the poplar trees and the cotton
are floating through the air.
[25:46] And I see my dad with his socks
pulled up in his sandals and his
[25:53] shorts on and his knobbly knees.
[25:56] And now looking back, it makes me smile.
[25:59] And my mom.
[26:00] Standing there in her gardening
clothes with the dirt on the
[26:03] knees and the sweatpants.
[26:05] And the hat, the sun hat
that covers half her face.
[26:09] Uh, sunscreen, obsessed with not getting
skin cancer by the time she's older.
[26:14] And I watch the bursts of light and the
sparklers and the neighbor kids with their
[26:20] grimy hands and snot dribbling noses.
[26:23] And I think about this time
that seemed to pass so fast.
[26:28] And the way that the fireworks crackle
above our heads, and my dog, a collie
[26:33] dog, mutt, runt, barking at the hot
air balloons, and the flush of the
[26:38] heat as it rises, this colorful balloon
into the sky, and it's July 4th, and
[26:45] these times will never be back again.
[26:48] Okay, so, This is this process of
kind of losing yourself in the moment.
[26:55] And when you find that you might be
drifting away, or, or, or even your
[27:00] mind going blank, you can gently
pull yourself back to the moment,
[27:06] and just continue where you left off.
[27:08] Having a non judging spirit
is really helpful in this part
[27:14] of the songwriting process.
[27:15] And non judgment is not the
same as a lack of judgment.
[27:20] I'm just gently nudging myself
back to what is inspiring to
[27:25] me, to what resonates with me.
[27:27] Whenever a new image pops in, I just
tug at that one just a little bit
[27:32] and let it take me to a new image.
[27:36] This process, the more you do it, The
more thoroughly you will feel that you've
[27:42] uncovered, uh, ideas and expressed them.
[27:46] And at this point, it's very natural
to think, well, Where's the song?
[27:50] So it's not about writing the song.
[27:53] This is about a daily practice.
[27:55] And also, then later on, we'll uncover
how to take these gems that naturally
[28:02] seep from, from us and our history
and our culture and, and who we
[28:06] are, and turn them into things that
are meaningful to others as well.
[28:11] But for now, take this
opportunity to do this exercise.
[28:17] I want you to start a daily practice
and start it right now where you
[28:20] take five to 10 minutes every day
and do a form of sensory writing.
[28:25] Again, if you'd rather use your phone
or turn on some recording device or do
[28:29] it on your laptop typing or freeform
with a pen and pencil, it's okay.
[28:34] Whatever way you do it.
[28:35] Choose a prompt.
[28:36] It could be a time like January 1st, 1992.
[28:41] It could be a place like sitting in
an airport seat, waiting for a flight,
[28:46] or it could be a person like your
uncle Joe with the weird mannerisms.
[28:50] Anything that inspires
you to begin writing.
[28:54] Now, here's the thing.
[28:56] Observe your tendency to want
to edit what you're making and
[29:02] reserve the editing for later.
[29:05] Also, don't use any form of
judgment over what you're making.
[29:09] Just assess when you feel like you're
moving away a little bit from the taste,
[29:13] touch, sight, sound, smell movement,
just draw yourself gently back.
[29:19] And then when you feel like you've
come to a point where you've
[29:23] expressed maybe a small paragraph to
a few pages, everybody's different,
[29:28] close it down and put it away.
[29:30] And don't look at it again, do another
one tomorrow and another one the next day.
[29:34] And over time, you'll find
yourself becoming more and more
[29:38] comfortable with the process.
[29:40] And then we can start to look at a little
bit later how these ideas contain gems
[29:46] for songs, sometimes in their stories
and many times in the language that we
[29:51] use, um, to actually make music from.
[29:56] But for right now.
[29:57] All they are is our entryway
into the creative cloud that
[30:01] is around us all the time.
[30:15] One of the most challenging things
about lyric writing is that we many
[30:19] times have a story we want to tell.
[30:22] And it's hard to understand what
do I need to say and what doesn't
[30:26] need to be in the song to tell the
story and engage the listener to
[30:31] feel as strongly about it as we do.
[30:35] I want to share with you a few templates
that you can use to determine what
[30:41] belongs in my song and what doesn't.
[30:43] One of the simplest ways of approaching
a story is to start by setting the scene.
[30:52] And this occurs in different
mediums, whether it's movie and
[30:56] film, or whether it's books.
[30:59] We first see the characters in
their environment, and then we begin
[31:04] to understand what it all means.
[31:08] As an example of this,  is a Sara
Bareilles song called "King of Anything".
[31:13] So here's how this goes.
[31:15] Keep drinking coffee, stare me down
across the table while I look outside.
[31:20] So many things I'd say if only I
were able, but I just keep quiet
[31:24] and count the cars that pass by.
[31:28] Do you see the scene?
[31:29] It's so vivid and so clear.
[31:33] John Mayer has a song called "Why
Georgia", and it goes like, like this.
[31:39] I am driving up 85 in the kind of
morning that lasts all afternoon,
[31:44] just stuck inside the gloom.
[31:46] Four more exits to my apartment,
but I am tempted to keep the car
[31:51] in drive and leave it all behind.
[31:54] So again, wonderful scene
setting going on there.
[31:58] Okay, I want you to take a few
minutes and do an exercise.
[32:04] I would like for you to go to some
of the sensory writings you've
[32:08] done and I want you to look for
lines, phrases that set a scene.
[32:15] A scene in which your character is living
and breathing and experiencing something.
[32:22] And I want you to make a mental
note of how that scene is just like
[32:27] Sarah Bareilles scene, just like
John Mayer's scene, but it's yours.
[32:32] It's something in which you are engaging
the listener in a moment in time.
[32:37] So that what you say in your song after
laying down that scene now becomes
[32:43] more significant and meaningful.
[32:47] When you're done, come back to me and
we'll do the next part of this process.
[33:03] Setting the scene is a
great way to start a song.
[33:06] Many, many songs do this.
[33:08] When you set the scene, our
listener is in the now with us.
[33:13] Right there in that situation.
[33:16] When we go to tell a story, we
can end up commonly writing, this
[33:22] happened, then this happened, then
this happened, then this happened.
[33:25] And we lose a sense of the
moment that we're rooted in
[33:29] while we're singing the song.
[33:32] Some songs do tell you what
happens sequentially through time.
[33:37] "Cats in the Cradle", "The Gambler",
things happen as the song moves along,
[33:43] but real life doesn't go from here's this
problem that I've been having and here's
[33:49] how I overcame it and here's how I feel
now in three and a half minutes, right?
[33:53] The length of a song.
[33:56] So what we tend to do is we root
ourselves in a moment and we
[34:00] tell what's going on right now.
[34:03] And we tell what happened to get
us here, and we tell what do we
[34:07] think the future will be like.
[34:10] And from these time frames,
we can deliver the story.
[34:15] This I call vantage point.
[34:18] Every song has a vantage point.
[34:21] It's the moment from which
we are telling the story.
[34:26] And it's the moment that gives
the song the reason to be told
[34:29] right now, as opposed to later
on when the story fully unfolds.
[34:37] Let's say I'm writing a song
about a challenge that I'm facing.
[34:42] Maybe I'm feeling nervous about moving
into a new space in my life or a new
[34:49] phase, and I don't know what to expect.
[34:52] That challenge is the height of the
emotion that I'm feeling right now and
[34:58] so it deserves to be the first verse.
[35:02] When I'm expressing this challenge, if
the chorus comes and it's the culmination
[35:08] of this, ah, it's really hard and
I don't know what to expect and I'm
[35:11] worried and I hope it's going to be okay.
[35:14] If I continue to tell you about this
challenge and how much more nervous
[35:19] I am, the song doesn't move forward.
[35:22] And so the purpose of looking at past,
present, future, and establishing
[35:28] the vantage point is to really begin
to understand how to tell the full
[35:32] story I want to tell and make sure
that the song keeps moving forward.
[35:38] Pharrell Williams has a
wonderful song called "Happy".
[35:40] And he begins the song by putting
us in a scene where he feels happy.
[35:45] And listen to the sensory language here.
[35:48] Now he starts with a non sensory
line, but boy does it make me
[35:51] want to listen for the next line.
[35:53] It might seem crazy what I'm about to say.
[35:57] Sunshine, she's here.
[35:58] You can take a break.
[36:00] See that sunshine?
[36:01] It already makes me feel
like what he's talking about.
[36:05] I'm a hot air balloon that could
go to space, with the air like
[36:09] I don't care, baby, by the way.
[36:11] More imagery that just uplifts.
[36:14] Now, the whole first verse is
dedicated to allowing me to feel
[36:20] the main message of the chorus.
[36:21] So by the time he gets
there, I already feel it.
[36:23] He says, cause I'm happy.
[36:26] Clap along if you feel
like a room without a roof.
[36:29] Great imagery right there.
[36:31] And I'm happy.
[36:32] Clap along if you feel like
happiness is the truth.
[36:34] That line just tells.
[36:37] Uh, I'm happy.
[36:38] Clap along if you know
what happiness is to you.
[36:41] I'm happy.
[36:42] Clap along if you feel like
that's what you want to do.
[36:45] So the chorus just tells
me what it is, direct.
[36:49] Now, the second verse of this
song takes that idea of being
[36:53] happy and flips it over.
[36:56] Because imagine for a minute, if
he kept giving us more examples
[37:01] of what happiness feels and looks
like he might be like, well good
[37:05] for you, I'm glad you're so happy.
[37:07] But what about me?
[37:07] You know, what about this other side?
[37:10] And so he says, alright I'll look at that.
[37:13] Here's how the second verse starts: Well
here come bad news talking this and that.
[37:18] Right?
[37:19] Well, give me all you got don't hold
it back Now, this is an example of
[37:25] a song capturing the whole picture.
[37:28] So at any point in a song that
you're writing, you can look at the
[37:35] solution and the problem, or it's
a, if it's helpful to you, you can
[37:41] look at the now or before the now.
[37:44] All right, in my example of the challenge
that I'm facing moving into a new phase in
[37:48] life, I could look back and say, you know
what, I used to feel really good here.
[37:54] This phase used to fit me.
[37:56] New York streets and the busyness
and the clamoring and the noise
[38:00] and the buildings and the, and the
stress, man, it was invigorating.
[38:05] And after a while, I felt myself become
part of the shadow of those buildings.
[38:12] I felt myself.
[38:13] overwhelmed, maybe my
voice muffled by the noise.
[38:16] And now here I am thinking
I'm in a new phase, right?
[38:20] So I've given you a backstory and
I've also contrasted the challenge
[38:25] with how it used to feel invigorating.
[38:29] So whenever you're looking at the
content of a story that you want to
[38:33] tell, see if you can push the content
to its extremes in the solution.
[38:42] Or problem.
[38:44] Time frame of here's how it is
now, here's how it used to be.
[38:49] Sometimes these extremes they help
us to understand how to move the
[38:53] song forward through its sections
and help us to really expose all the
[38:59] information the listener needs to really
feel connected to the transformation
[39:04] that the character is going through.
[39:06] The final timeframe of future is often
handled in the bridge, which I will
[39:11] talk more about later, but the bridge
is often a look into the future.
[39:17] Kelly Clarkson has a wonderful song that
was a very big hit and called "Breakaway".
[39:22] And in her bridge, buildings
with a hundred floors
[39:26] swinging with revolving doors.
[39:28] I don't really know where
they'll take me, but I gotta keep
[39:31] moving on, moving on, moving on.
[39:33] So she shows us an example of an
intimidating vision and that despite
[39:40] the risk, she's gonna keep going.
[39:44] And that is futuristic thinking and a
beautiful place for our bridges to go.
[39:50] So I would like you to try
an exercise of your own.
[39:54] I want you to think of a concept that
you feel passionate writing about.
[40:01] And it could be a title, or it could
be just an idea like the one I had
[40:05] about being in a place now in life
where I feel I'm entering a new phase.
[40:10] And I feel excited but also
intimidated by that change.
[40:15] And I want you to map out the
concept in terms of what is the now?
[40:20] Is my singer experiencing a challenge?
[40:24] Or is my singer experiencing delight,
um, uh, joy, excitement in this moment?
[40:31] Or peace, calm?
[40:32] What's the now?
[40:34] Now, taking that, what would be the past?
[40:38] What led up to this moment?
[40:40] Or what is the considering the flip
side of that excitement and that joy?
[40:47] And then one last look into the future.
[40:50] What could be the future
that's held for the character?
[40:56] Map out this different parts
of your song just for a moment.
[41:00] Don't take too long, maybe 10 minutes,
and see if you can see the broader
[41:06] view of your song in an outline of
sorts before you dig into actually
[41:11] writing a real lyric and music to it.
[41:16] Have fun.
[41:29] So, I've talked about setting the
scene and letting the first verse of
[41:34] a song establish the point in time
and the place in which it's happening.
[41:39] And then we've also talked about vantage
point as a way to tell a story and know
[41:45] what parts of the story to deliver in
the song and when, in terms of past
[41:50] present and future.
[41:52] There's another style of lyric
writing that can help us to know
[41:57] how to express what we want to
say, and it's called using a lens.
[42:02] A lens is when we tell a
concept through an image.
[42:08] So for example, I can talk about a
relationship through the lens of a
[42:14] tornado, and that relationship carries
[42:19] elements of a tornado, like it's spinning
and it's violent and it's dynamic
[42:26] and it whips up, uh, the earth and
everything it passes and it carries it
[42:31] with it and sets it down somewhere else.
[42:35] Now, I can change that concept
to something else that seems to
[42:38] be characterized by those things.
[42:40] Let's say divorce.
[42:43] I could talk about a parent's divorce
through the lens of a tornado.
[42:48] Using a lens is a wonderful way to allow
our lyrics to carry a distinct style
[42:57] that doesn't require that we put the
song in a particular time and place.
[43:03] Now, let me show you how a lens
might look in terms of a song lyric.
[43:11] This is the song, "Who Are You Mad At?"
[43:14] by, uh, Jordan Schellhardt.
[43:17] You come through the door
like a hurricane, rattling
[43:20] walls and window panes.
[43:22] Blow off the roof and let it rain on me.
[43:26] Then you get silent right after the storm
and leave it to me to patch what's torn.
[43:31] I said I'm sorry, but
I'm not sure I should be.
[43:36] Do you hear the words that
reference the hurricane?
[43:41] And they even say the word
hurricane right in the first line.
[43:45] That's the lens.
[43:47] A lot of times when we're
writing, We initiate a lens
[43:51] in our lyrics, but we miss it.
[43:54] When we describe things like her hair
falls like a waterfall, we are, in
[43:59] fact, giving the listener an image, and
we can play off of that image, or we
[44:05] could just let that image go when we
play off the image, what we are doing
[44:10] is allowing ourselves the ability to
do sensory writing around that image
[44:16] and then liken those sensory terms
to the concept we're writing about.
[44:22] So we're colliding a concept with
an object that can be our image.
[44:28] Look for this idea, this lens in other
songs that you know and love and you'll
[44:36] soon find that verbs like rattling windows
[44:41] come out over and over again.
[44:43] These verbs, these descriptors of taste,
touch, sight, sound, smells, and movement,
[44:48] they come from the lens and then you
can use them to give shape and color to
[44:53] the concept you're really talking about.
[44:55] It's a beautiful way to envision a more
abstract metaphorical lyric style that
[45:02] might be more appealing to you if you
don't want to write so direct and tangibly
[45:09] in your lyrics.
[45:09] Here's an exercise for you with Lens.
[45:12] I would like for you to
make a list of nouns.
[45:15] Let's say 10 nouns that
you think are interesting.
[45:19] And then, look at a song concept that
you would feel inspired to write about.
[45:25] And I want you to hold that song concept
under the lens of each of those nouns.
[45:31] So, you're going to imagine Popcorn.
[45:34] That's my noun.
[45:35] Let me look at, uh, a relationship
that I'm thinking about
[45:39] through the lens of popcorn.
[45:42] That relationship is unpredictable.
[45:45] It's fun.
[45:46] It's greasy.
[45:47] It's salty.
[45:48] It's something that is a
little light in my life.
[45:52] Maybe it's under pressure.
[45:53] Maybe there's points of steam,
heatedness in that relationship.
[45:57] But all in all, it's, I
think, a little bit fun.
[46:01] Popcorn.
[46:02] Now, if I change the lens and I go
through all of my ideas of nouns,
[46:08] I'm going to get ten different songs.
[46:11] But ultimately, the practice here is
to loosen up, let yourself take on
[46:17] different lenses for a single song
concept, after which you can pick
[46:22] your favorite and write that song.
[46:37] Whatever kind of music
we're trying to write.
[46:41] Having a seed idea in a song that recurs
so that the listener recognizes it as
[46:48] a familiar thought of words, or words
and music, or melodic theme, or chord
[46:54] progression, this is what allows us to
communicate a singular, potent thought
[47:01] to our audience and for that to be
understood and recognized again and again.
[47:08] When it comes to lyric writing, the
seed idea that helps the listener
[47:13] understand where they are in the song
and what it is really that we're trying
[47:17] to tell often comes down to a title.
[47:22] Now, whether it is the actual title
of the song or the phrase that is
[47:26] simply repeated often is up to us.
[47:29] Of course, some songs don't carry
the repeated line as the actual
[47:35] title of the song, but I'm going to
set that aside and say that it is
[47:39] important to have focus in a song.
[47:42] And the way that we can do that is
to allow for a title phrase to come
[47:46] back and be positioned in areas
that show itself as a main idea.
[47:52] Some songs have the title right
up front and repeat it often.
[47:58] An example of this might be Bill
Withers "Ain't No Sunshine".
[48:03] Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
[48:06] It's not warm when she's away.
[48:09] Ain't no sunshine when she's
gone, and she's always gone too
[48:13] long, anytime she goes away.
[48:17] Wonder this time where she's gone, wonder
if she's gone to stay, ain't no sunshine
[48:22] when she's gone, and this house just
ain't no home, anytime she goes away.
[48:30] Another example would be
"Blackbird", The Beatles.
[48:33] Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
take these broken wings and learn to fly.
[48:38] All your life.
[48:40] You were only waiting
for this moment to arise.
[48:44] Blackbirds singing in the dead of night.
[48:46] Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.
[48:49] All your life, you were only
waiting for this moment to be free.
[48:55] Our tendency is to write every
song all the time, right?
[48:58] We want to say it all.
[49:00] But the most magical song experiences
that I've ever had, and that I hear
[49:05] people reflecting back to me over and over
again, is a song in which it asserts one
[49:11] point clearly, concisely, beautifully.
[49:16] That's our job, just one.
[49:18] And a verse, the job of the verse
is to say, here is the supporting
[49:23] detail that makes me believe that one
thought is true, and it's so true that
[49:30] there's nothing else I need to say
in this song to make it song worthy.
[49:35] Verses often show us something.
[49:38] The chorus tells us what it means.
[49:42] Catching a clean,
effective title is an art.
[49:47] Here are some titles that artists have had
success with, and I want to investigate
[49:53] just for a minute what might be qualities
of these titles that make them shine.
[49:59] Here's a title.
[50:01] It's "Cool".
[50:03] Just the word cool.
[50:05] "Fake Out".
[50:07] "Death Wish".
[50:09] That's interesting.
[50:10] "Speak to Me".
[50:11] Depeche Mode.
[50:13] Sometimes a title is just
clean, simple, direct language.
[50:20] Now, other times a title
can be eye catching, like
[50:23] "Superpowers" by Daniel Caesar.
[50:26] "Back 40 Back", Luke Combs, right?
[50:29] What is back 40 back, man?
[50:30] That's kind of interesting.
[50:31] Sometimes you will find that your
intuition about a title has more to do
[50:37] with the way that it flows or doesn't flow
than what the words are actually saying.
[50:44] And this is a beautiful thing because
it's that feeling, again, that body
[50:49] language that the music is creating for
those words that often let it seep into
[50:54] our skin and become art instead of just
something on our to do list for the day.
[51:01] So.
[51:02] I would love for you to take a
few minutes to begin what we would
[51:07] call a title list for yourself.
[51:11] Take a notebook or make yourself a digital
document on which you collect titles.
[51:18] You could do this by setting
aside 20 minutes one day a week,
[51:24] saying, today for these 20 minutes
I am going to collect titles.
[51:29] You could go to some books that you
enjoy reading and just open to a
[51:35] random page, scroll down for phrases,
words, anything that might pop out
[51:42] to you that has title potential.
[51:46] You don't have to know, you
just need to be open to what
[51:51] a title might be telling you.
[51:54] Jot the title down.
[51:56] and set it aside for a later date.
[51:59] But start your title list so that when
you have time to write, some days you
[52:07] can go back to that list and consider
if any of those titles speak to you.
[52:26] There's one more element of lyric
writing that I'd like to share
[52:30] with you that affects how we
are perceived to our audience.
[52:37] When we write, we naturally take on
a point of view with which we write.
[52:42] And the point of view
comes out in the pronouns.
[52:46] So, when I use first person point
of view, I have I within the song.
[52:51] I am speaking to you,
or he, or she, or them.
[52:57] When I use direct address, I am
directly addressing you as a person.
[53:03] You and me.
[53:05] When I'm using second person narrative,
it's, you know, when you, when
[53:11] you feel this and that happens and
when you dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
[53:14] And so I, as the singer and delivering to
the universal audience, a sense of, Hey,
[53:23] I'm slightly outside this experience.
[53:25] I'm just relaying the information.
[53:28] When I'm addressing the third
person, I'm saying he and she,
[53:34] and they do this, think this, and
isn't that the truth for all of us?
[53:40] I'm the narrator, and I'm
outside the song, so I can
[53:43] say what I want to say here.
[53:45] And none of it is necessarily how I am.
[53:49] I am just reporting the news.
[53:52] So, how is point of view really useful
to us as the songwriter and how am
[54:00] I going to use it to create the kind
of connection that I want to create?
[54:04] Well, I think one of the first things
that we can do as songwriters is to simply
[54:10] notice the point of view that we're using.
[54:13] When we notice the point of view,
we can change the point of view and
[54:17] experiment with how changing those
pronouns affect how the song delivers.
[54:22] Let me give you an example.
[54:24] Here's a song called "Never
on the Day You Leave".
[54:27] It's a John Mayer song
and it goes like this.
[54:30] Now it's never on the day you leave that
you wonder what you still believe in and
[54:35] you can't remember why you said goodbye.
[54:38] You'll hear an old familiar sound and
hope it's her when you turn around,
[54:43] but never, never on the day you leave.
[54:48] So, I understand, from this point
of view, that John is expressing a
[54:55] truth that might be my truth too.
[55:01] And she is gone, and so naturally,
her is a distancing pronoun that
[55:07] works really well to further
reinforce that she's not there.
[55:12] They've left.
[55:13] It's over.
[55:14] Now let me try changing the pronouns
just to see what happens to the way
[55:20] you perceive me as the singer, and the
information that you get from the song.
[55:26] No, it's never on the day I leave
that I wonder what I still believe in.
[55:32] And I can't remember why we said goodbye.
[55:35] And I'll hear an old familiar sound
and hope it's you when I turn around,
[55:40] but never, never on the day I leave.
[55:44] So now, interestingly, I think
the song becomes more personal.
[55:51] Perhaps in a manner that doesn't
translate to all of us, but it's
[55:56] just one person's experience.
[55:59] And it might even be a
little confusing that way.
[56:03] When we change the point of view,
we are changing the relationship
[56:09] between the singer and the audience.
[56:12] We're changing the way
the information lands.
[56:16] And so, as a writer, even if I can't
predict the effect that a change in
[56:21] the pronouns is going to have, it's
worth trying, and it's another tool
[56:26] that gives me the ability to step
outside my song and hear what the song
[56:30] is telling me that it could be saying.
[56:33] Right?
[56:34] So it's a wonderful tool to be aware of
the point of view and to be able to change
[56:40] it so that I can find the soul of the
song and how the concept really breathes
[56:47] life with a particular point of view.
[56:50] Sometimes not having pronouns
at all creates the interest
[56:54] that we want in the lyric.
[56:56] Going back to Randy Newman's
song "Baltimore", listen
[57:00] for the lack of pronouns.
[57:02] Beat up little seagull on a marble stair.
[57:05] Tryin to find the ocean,
lookin everywhere.
[57:09] Hard times in the city,
in a town by the sea.
[57:12] Ain't nowhere to run, there
ain't nothin here for free.
[57:16] Waitin for a train, drunk
lyin on the sidewalk.
[57:19] Sleepin in the rain, and they hide their
faces, and they hide their eyes, cause
[57:26] the city's dyin and they don't know why.
[57:30] For the first time.
[57:32] Late in the song we hear the word they.
[57:35] They is quite distancing.
[57:37] I don't know who they is and I
think I'm not supposed to know.
[57:41] It's just a group.
[57:42] That I don't belong to, and
they're basically strangers.
[57:46] And so the lack of pronoun there,
I would say the use of no pronouns,
[57:52] helps to emphasize the desolation
of that experience, the separateness
[57:59] that he's describing, the tough times.
[58:02] So, consider your pronouns.
[58:04] And know that you have control over
whether you use them and where you use
[58:09] them and which pronouns you use to create
the feeling that you want to create.
[58:16] So a great exercise can be to find a
song that you've already written, pull
[58:20] it out, and just exchange the point
of view for a different point of view.
[58:26] Go from first person to third
person, or from second person to
[58:30] first person, or to direct address.
[58:33] Haphazardly, without being able to see the
future of what's going to happen, stand
[58:39] back and observe what the change causes.
[58:42] Now sometimes you might realize,
wow, that totally didn't work, this
[58:45] new point of view confirms that my
old point of view was the right one.
[58:50] But sometimes, changing point of view
results in a breakthrough moment for
[58:54] a song, where what once felt cheesy
and forced now feels authentic and
[59:01] real, and sometimes the point of
view just calls out, finally, now
[59:06] I know how to finish this song.
[59:09] So I would encourage you to find a song,
something that you've written, that might
[59:13] be stuck or stalled or something that
you're not quite sure if it's done yet.
[59:18] Flip the point of view and
see if it doesn't give you
[59:20] new insight into the song.
[59:43] A foundational piece of our
songs is clearly what we're
[59:47] doing on the instrument.
[59:49] And I don't know about you, but when I
go to write the chords and determine the
[59:55] feel with which I'm going to play those
chords, I can get a little sidetracked.
[60:01] And the reason is, I think it's
natural to want to move away
[60:05] from the typical places we go.
[60:09] I know what I've been doing
for years on guitar, for years
[60:14] on piano, with my chords.
[60:16] And so sometimes it feels
like there's nothing new.
[60:20] Nothing really interesting that
I'm, I'm doing and the way that
[60:25] I approach songwriting can then
become very lyric and melody based.
[60:32] If I don't spend some time giving
my instrument the chance to speak.
[60:39] And so what I'm really talking
about is the chords and the
[60:42] harmonic rhythm of the feel with
which I'm expressing those chords.
[60:48] I think most of us are looking
for interesting chord progressions
[60:54] when we go to our instrument.
[60:57] And, uh, certainly, we can wind up
with some really wonderful, like
[61:14] some really interesting bass movements,
some one major chord, uh, a flat seven
[61:21] chord, you know, a flat three, um, and
just get real deep into a, where can
[61:29] I go now that's an interesting color?
[61:32] But, only doing that leaves behind
another wonderful area of harmony that
[61:40] is accessible to us without really even
knowing chord names and kind of addressing
[61:47] the instrument with music theory.
[61:50] And that is paying attention to time, time
signature, and when we're changing chords.
[62:00] I'd like to use a Sheryl Crow song called
"Strong Enough" as an example of this.
[62:06] Now, when I play, I'm going to be
playing chords that we all know if
[62:12] we've been playing guitar a while.
[62:14] I'm playing an A major, a D major,
an F sharp minor, and an E major.
[62:24] So it's in the key of A.
[62:26] And in this song, what's
interesting to me is how the chords
[62:32] transition from one to another.
[62:35] If I were given those chords,
I might go 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,
[62:42] 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4.
[62:49] You know what I'm saying?
[62:51] One chord per measure and then I'd
wonder why I'm not terribly inspired
[62:56] to write the melody and the lyric.
[62:58] And so here's what Sheryl
Crow did with "Strong Enough".
[63:03] And it has a wonderful movement
that really creates beautiful
[63:10] prosody or dance with the melody.
[63:14] God I
[63:18] feel like
[63:19] hell tonight.
[63:22] Tears of rage I cannot lie Be the
last to help you understand, are
[63:32] you strong enough to be my man
[63:46] So, the movement here happens
near the end of the measure, so,
[63:51] God I feel like hell tonight.
[63:57] And I think, wow, what if I had
remembered that I don't have
[64:05] to change chords every bar?
[64:08] Or, in the middle of every
bar in 4/4 and beat 3, right?
[64:12] So it has such a beautiful lilt to it.
[64:16] This idea of when we change chords
[64:20] is really wonderful because then we can
use it to contrast sections of our song.
[64:27] So, for example, if I have a
song that I'm playing and I
[64:31] know the verse goes like this,
[64:36] one two three four five six one.
[64:38] I'm going to use two notes.
[64:39] Two chords,
[64:57] so each chord lasts two measures.
[65:16] Now look when I change
[65:27] now, that clearly was a new section.
[65:30] And did you feel the energy pick up?
[65:33] It's a result of two things going to a new
chord, but changing much more frequently.
[65:45] Not much changed in the
range of the melody.
[65:48] It's all due to doing
something different here.
[65:53] And again, these aren't chords that
you don't know if you've been playing
[65:58] too long, so it's really about the
frequency of the chord changes basically.
[66:04] The more frequently I change, the
more energy I infuse into the section.
[66:10] The less frequently, the more
expansive I make it, the more
[66:15] sprawling it begins to feel.
[66:17] And that could feel peaceful and content.
[66:21] Or maybe it feels a little bit, um,
[66:27] Maybe it feels a little
static and anxious.
[66:32] Ba da da, da da, ba ba ba ba ba
Ba da da, da da, ba ba ba ba ba
[66:56] So here I'm staying on one
chord for a long, long time.
[67:01] And that might create kind of a
tension, like, Oh, when is the
[67:06] tension going to relieve, you know?
[67:08] So, when we change chords is a really
beautiful technique that you can
[67:14] apply anytime because you simply
don't need more chords than you have.
[67:20] A really great exercise to take
yourself through a few times a week
[67:25] would be to just take 10 minutes
and choose a few chords and play
[67:30] around with changing the frequency
with which you play those chords.
[67:34] So let's say that I've got A major
and D major and I want to play
[67:41] around with real basic 1, 2, 3,
4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2.
[67:50] Now I can change chords elsewhere.
[67:52] 4 1 2 3 4 1 2,
3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2.
[68:01] Or I could stretch it out.
[68:02] 1 2 3 4 3 4 1 2 3,
3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 3
[68:11] 4.
[68:11] Right?
[68:12] And so not having assumptions about
how these need to go, I can open
[68:18] up a lot of possibilities for how
the song will progress from here.
[68:22] So take 10 minutes and just play around
with assumptions that you might have
[68:27] about when you should change chords and
stretch those assumptions out a little
[68:32] bit and you'll find that you come up
with sort of new progressions, new
[68:36] feels just from that simple exercise.
[68:57] Nobody doesn't know that song.
[69:01] And it's really interesting
because there's not much to it.
[69:05] And yet, it's the rhythm with which
those chords are expressed that
[69:10] makes me realize it's that song.
[69:12] Right?
[69:12] If I change that and I go
[69:20] Now it's not that song anymore.
[69:22] Same chords.
[69:23] So, the rhythm, or the feel, the harmonic
rhythm with which we express our chords
[69:29] really affects the identity that the
song takes on, and furthermore, it
[69:35] helps to establish who the character is.
[69:38] Now, remember this idea
that music is king?
[69:42] You can choose all the chords you
want to choose, except if it doesn't,
[69:46] correctly express the character with
the harmonic rhythm, we will not get
[69:51] the full scope of that character, right?
[69:54] So guitarists learn this by playing
along with songs that they love and they
[70:00] develop that right hand flexibility,
which for us as songwriters would mean
[70:05] that we get to develop a vocabulary of
rhythms and feels that can then help
[70:13] us to write different styles of songs.
[70:17] Now, we could go with
something more rock, right?
[70:26] And just because of this feeling
now, a melody is coming to me that
[70:30] has more of a rock groove to it.
[70:33] If I finger pick, Um, I took
my love, I took it down.
[70:40] Suddenly, I get a little
sentimental, right?
[70:44] I climbed a mountain, I turned
around, and I start to feel this
[70:51] sense of looking back and reflection.
[70:54] It's just wonderful, but it's that
harmonic rhythm, that mood, that feel,
[71:00] that takes me to that place lyrically.
[71:04] So, if you feel that you're writing a lot
of the same songs over and over again and
[71:10] that is kind of a point of stuckness to
you, then something that you can do is
[71:16] absolutely, first of all, listen, listen,
listen  to music, music, particularly
[71:22] outside of the music that you typically
listen to, because what we want to get
[71:28] is some new influences on our right hand.
[71:32] If you're strumming with your right hand,
we want to get some moods and feels that
[71:38] take us to new places with our content.
[71:42] So how much should we listen?
[71:45] I recommend that you listen to at
least one new record every week.
[71:50] If you can, more is always great.
[71:53] But to take that a step further, pick a
song on the record that you resonate with.
[71:59] And play along with it.
[72:01] Now it could be that you have to
mute the strings because it's a
[72:04] mess and you're not even able to
play in the key that it's in, right?
[72:08] And you bring out your capo
and it's still a mess, right?
[72:11] It's okay.
[72:12] Just try to let your right hand
actualize a little bit of that feel.
[72:18] And then,
[72:19] you might even record yourself laying
down your best guess at what that is.
[72:24] And then later you can pull it out
and try writing over that feel.
[72:29] And we don't even really need
chords here yet at that stage.
[72:32] We can simply strum, get the feel
into our bones, and then write
[72:38] something inspired by that feel.
[72:41] So I would recommend doing that.
[72:43] Once a week, if you've got the
time, but definitely a few times a
[72:47] month, and it'll help you to develop
a vocabulary with which you can
[72:53] write new songs and inspire you.
[72:55] A really great exercise that you can do
anytime, anywhere, is to put on a record
[73:01] and pay attention to the feels and the
grooves and how they make you feel.
[73:07] And when you're listening to something
and it's inspiring you, to write that way,
[73:14] take that groove and start to sing some
of the titles that you're developing in
[73:19] your title list over that mood and groove.
[73:23] The idea here is not that you need
to come up with your own unique and
[73:28] original moods and harmonic rhythms
[73:31] every time you sit down to write,
but you can borrow from what
[73:35] other people are doing within a
genre or outside of your genre.
[73:40] And just experiment with how the things
that you say lyrically and your melodic
[73:45] ideas feel over those grooves and rhythms.
[73:50] And this can then unlock a whole new
style of songwriting for us that we're
[73:56] just using other artists to inspire us
with and create a template together.
[74:01] Try this out for a few minutes every
day and see what comes to you from
[74:07] the titles that you have connecting to
the music you hear from other people.
[74:25] Sometimes it's intimidating to manage
to capture words and melody and
[74:32] chords and feel all at the same time.
[74:35] So I want to tell you that it's okay and
sometimes even preferable to put some of
[74:41] those areas aside while you work on one.
[74:46] Sometimes, uh, folks who don't
play an instrument will say,
[74:50] Oh, I hear it in my head.
[74:52] I know what I want to hear, but I
can't find it on the instrument.
[74:57] And I'll admit it was sometimes
when I'm, I'm, sitting with my
[75:01] instrument, I will search around to
see where do I think I want to go.
[75:06] And of course I, I know all the normal
places to go, but sometimes we hit where
[75:11] we want to go by accident and sometimes
we have to look for it a little bit
[75:15] and we'll know it when we hear it.
[75:16] So there's nothing wrong with
saying, well, I don't know, I'm
[75:19] just going to look around a bit.
[75:22] But one of the best ways I think
to set some of these things aside
[75:26] is to say, you know what, I've got
Five fingers, but they don't need
[75:29] to all be playing at the same time.
[75:30] I'm just gonna, gonna do one.
[75:33] I'm gonna capture a note in
the chord and for me, it's
[75:36] gonna be the root of the chord.
[75:39] And I'm gonna use this song,
Bill Withers "Lovely Day".
[75:43] Amazing song.
[75:45] And I'm going to just pluck the
bass, which is the root of the chord.
[75:51] And I want to look at why did he
choose the chords that he chose?
[75:55] And what is so great about
this E, to a C sharp, to an A?
[76:02] Why those?
[76:04] Because under a melody, we
can play a number of different
[76:07] chords to capture the emotion.
[76:09] So, the first line of the song is, When
I wake up in the morning, love, And he
[76:14] goes, When I wake up in the morning, love.
[76:20] So it starts on the root of the scale.
[76:24] And it's in the key of E.
[76:26] So it's, When I wake up
in the morning, love.
[76:33] And sunlight hurts my eyes.
[76:36] And something without warning, love.
[76:44] Bears heavy
[76:48] on my mind
[76:50] So the idea here is that he plays
very simply the root of the scale.
[76:58] First, the key, the the, the, the E.
[77:01] Now, why start on the e?
[77:04] When he plays, when I wake up in,
I'm singing a note that collaborates
[77:10] beautifully with the key.
[77:12] When I wake up and when I wake,
it's the fifth over that E.
[77:17] It's very agreeable.
[77:18] And so I think that sets
the tone for the whole song.
[77:22] It's almost like he's saying,
all right, when I wake up in the
[77:26] morning, love, it's not awful.
[77:30] Like it's not, um, I'm drowning
in, in all my troubles.
[77:34] It's all right.
[77:36] It's all right.
[77:37] You know, take this with a
pinch of salt, a little bit.
[77:41] When I wake up in the morning, love.
[77:44] Right?
[77:45] There's a little bit of challenge.
[77:48] That morning, sometimes like, uh,
not sure I want to wake up yet.
[77:53] That's what this C
sharp minor does for me.
[77:55] It's a little dark, right?
[77:56] A little darker.
[77:57] It's darker than this.
[77:59] This says, um.
[78:01] Little pain, little, little twinge.
[78:04] And then he goes, the
sunlight hurts my eyes.
[78:11] That's a little bit painful, right?
[78:14] Just a little, it's not a, I'm
going to die under the pain, but
[78:18] it's just a little, little jab.
[78:21] So what I'm saying here is that the
chords are very intentionally chosen.
[78:28] And when you write a lot of songs.
[78:30] Or, you know, Bill Withers, uh,
was an amazing artist because he
[78:35] didn't release a lot of albums.
[78:38] And yet, um, many of his songs
are just pristine, I think.
[78:44] There's such intentionality in how the
chords are able to bring out the message.
[78:53] Now, the song goes on to say, and
something without warning love.
[79:02] It bears heavy on my mind.
[79:06] It's not bears heavy on my mind
that that really bears heavy.
[79:13] Right?
[79:14] If he goes back to that C sharp minor,
bears heavy on my mind, he's got a little,
[79:22] uh, to me there's a little strength there.
[79:25] It's a little like, yeah,
I'm able to deal with it.
[79:27] Stay tuned and we'll see what comes next.
[79:29] Kind of a feeling.
[79:30] And then there's a little pre chorus
that happens and it goes, then I look at
[79:35] you and the world's all right with me.
[79:43] You know, it's like,
what are those chords?
[79:45] Just one look at you.
[79:49] And so the feeling here, you can
even look at it as it's a C major.
[79:55] And then he goes up, he lets the
chords rise and it's a D major
[80:01] there as far as I'm looking at it.
[80:03] Skeletally.
[80:04] Uh, then I look at you and
the world's all right with me.
[80:12] How do you say It's all right with
me over a dark chord like that?
[80:16] An E minor.
[80:19] It's so interesting.
[80:21] So the colors of the chords, I'm gonna
call them colors, but the emotion
[80:26] that they cast over the words will be
different for every song you write and
[80:33] you have to attune to, what do I feel
[80:37] the message to be now that I
move from this chord to the next?
[80:42] And it's a beautiful, um, dance
that we take with our song as it
[80:49] shares with us what it's meaning.
[80:53] Then, we get to this chorus.
[80:56] Uh, I know it's gonna be Then,
here we go back A lovely day Right?
[81:09] So it really is a lovely day
because now we've come home.
[81:14] We're over the E major again, the world
is bright, despite the, the uncertainty
[81:23] that we've had in this pre chorus,
and we're staying away from the E,
[81:29] so that when we come back, it feels
[81:32] .
like, wow, we've really arrived.
[81:36] It's a beautiful, beautiful,
lovely day, just like he says.
[81:40] Now, if you know this song, you'll
know that the chorus is just
[81:45] one, two, three, a lovely day.
[81:49] Then the backgrounds are
creating the movement.
[81:51] Lovely day, lovely day,
lovely day, lovely day.
[81:56] And he just gets away with
this chorus that is One phrase
[82:01] over and over and over again.
[82:03] And I say, get away with it because
I think part of me is envious.
[82:08] Why can't I write something
that simple and profound?
[82:13] And I think that it is a keyhole
into a secret of magical songs.
[82:21] Magic happens when we are
potent with our ideas.
[82:26] Just like with melody, we write a distinct
theme and we allow ourselves to repeat it.
[82:33] With harmony, we allow for distinction,
not necessarily complication.
[82:43] So, whatever your skill set is at this
point in time, whether you can move your
[82:50] way around your instrument in a manner
that shows master level or whether
[82:57] you're just beginning, I want you to
take heart in that we don't need to be
[83:04] able to express for writing the bones of
the song, a guitar part or a piano part
[83:12] that is expertly crafted and played.
[83:17] What we're interested in in the writing
of a song is really how do the colors of
[83:23] the chords that I've chosen just simply
played as they are interact with the
[83:29] message in the lyric, and the rhythm
with which I'm playing these chords
[83:35] help to express that message as well.
[83:39] If you're someone who tends to lay
down a lot of recordings of musical
[83:45] pieces without lyrics to go with
them, you are in a beautiful spot
[83:51] because you have all these wonderful
chord progressions that are sharing
[83:56] with you a character, a personality.
[83:59] And now it's your job to mine some of
those personalities for the imagery
[84:05] and the language that they share.
[84:07] So, one thing that we have trouble
doing, I think, is deciding on a single
[84:14] piece of music that we've recorded
that we'd like to write to and finish.
[84:18] And so, an exercise for a day might
be to take 20 minutes, or maybe even
[84:23] less time, 10 minutes, and put that
recording that you made with you
[84:28] playing, uh, an idea, just on loop.
[84:32] And then what I'd like you to do is take
out your laptop or paper and pen and
[84:38] just write feverishly whatever comes
to mind with words that is inspired by
[84:44] the musical landscape you laid down.
[84:46] Now, in a way, you're kind of co
writing with yourself, because you're
[84:50] saying, Oh, I wrote this the other day.
[84:52] Isn't this kind of cool?
[84:53] There's something here.
[84:54] And now you're saying, well,
what does this mean to me today?
[84:58] And it's okay if you're not in the
same inspired space that you were
[85:04] when you wrote that initial idea.
[85:06] Your job now is to say, yeah, what
are those chords telling me now?
[85:13] But I'm in a different space and that
chord progression can help lead you
[85:19] to lyrical ideas that even as they've
come out onto the page in paragraph
[85:25] form, you can drag ideas out from to
serve as pieces of your song lyric.
[85:45] There's a few really wonderful tools
for writing the chord progressions
[85:49] of our songs that I want to share
with you that will help to solve
[85:53] some of the issues that we might
have that we can blame on the chords.
[85:58] One of those is that we can't quite get
enough contrast between the sections.
[86:04] Another one of those is, man, I keep
trying to get the chorus to lift, you
[86:09] know, to really feel like, ah, we're at
the chorus and it just kind of sneaks
[86:13] in, it's just kind of subtly there.
[86:15] And I can't quite get it to pop.
[86:18] Well, one of my favorite
tools is Saving the One.
[86:22] And what that means is, whatever key
we're in, let's say we're in the key
[86:26] of G, I'm gonna wait to play the G
chord till I get to the chorus, so
[86:31] that when that chorus comes and that
G happens, it's like, ah, there it is.
[86:37] Just like Bill Withers in "Lovely Day",
he avoids the tonic, the chord that
[86:43] starts on the root of the scale, For the
section before the chorus, so when the
[86:47] chorus comes, it's like, ah, there it is.
[86:50] So if I'm in G, and that's where
my chorus is going to land, I'm
[86:56] going to avoid it before there.
[86:58] So maybe my verse starts on C.
[87:01] So, da da da, da da
da, da da da, da da da.
[87:09] Now.
[87:13] This is my verse.
[87:24] Notice that I am just using two chords.
[87:27] I'm, I'm using the C major and the D.
[87:31] But the idea here is that I've got two
chords that when I move between them it
[87:36] creates a very simple but potent sound.
[87:41] Now imagine for a minute if I were
to use lots of different chords.
[87:45] Now we're to do Ba da da, bum ba da
da Ba da da, bum ba da da Ba da da,
[87:52] bum ba da da Ba da da, bum ba da da Ba
da da, da da da Ba da da, da da da da
[88:04] You have no idea where you
are in the song and honestly I
[88:08] can't tell you anymore either.
[88:10] There's too much change and so
it becomes a jack of all trades
[88:15] and nothing in particular.
[88:17] So, one of the tricks to making
contrast work between sections and
[88:22] to save the one effectively is to let
your sections be distinctly different.
[88:27] Potent.
[88:28] So I'm just gonna use,
[88:54] now.
[88:54] I could go.
[89:02] And I've come to what might be a chorus.
[89:05] Now, a few things happened for me there.
[89:09] One thing that I'm not going to blame on
the chords is Da da da Do you hear how
[89:14] my melody starts after that downbeat?
[89:16] I played, then I sang.
[89:18] And in the verse, da da
da, I did the same thing.
[89:23] So what I'm sharing with you then
musically is Da da da, there's no hurry
[89:30] to hear what I have to say, right?
[89:32] It's just gonna eventually happen.
[89:35] And when we do that section after
section after section, it begins to
[89:39] allow you as the listener to disengage.
[89:42] So if I'm purely focused on harmony,
though, I think what I was doing is it's
[89:47] gonna work out okay, just going C D..
[89:52] But let me add now a pre chorus
section because some of us then are
[89:56] like, well wait, I wanna pre chorus
to build the energy of this song,
[90:00] get things moving towards the chorus.
[90:02] I'm still gonna avoid the G,
I'm gonna avoid the tonic and
[90:06] I'm gonna go somewhere else.
[90:08] In a key, a major key.
[90:11] I have diatonic chords.
[90:14] We call them the chords that
just seem like they belong.
[90:17] And I think, you know, without getting
into a theory lesson, for G, I've
[90:22] got A minor, I've got B minor I could
go to, I already played the C and
[90:27] the D, and then I've got E minor.
[90:29] that I could go to.
[90:30] Now, there are all kinds of wonderful
inversions, G over B, um, uh, an E,
[90:36] uh, D, D over F sharp, and these are
wonderful to bring into the picture
[90:42] to add subtlety, but I'm going to
avoid doing that at this point.
[90:46] I'm just going to maybe bring in
the A minor for my pre chorus.
[91:25] Uh, ba, ba, Ba da dap, Ba
duh dap, Ba da da Ba ba.
[91:35] So, I went to an A minor, and
I forget where I went there,
[91:39] maybe an E minor after that.
[91:40] But I'm trying to avoid that G, because
if I go to that G, what's gonna happen
[91:46] is it's gonna take us home, and it's
gonna dispel or diffuse all the good
[91:51] energy that I've built up through
the avoidance of that home space.
[91:57] To practice this, see if you can take
a chord progression that you typically
[92:01] use, and identify the key you're in.
[92:04] Now, that's the chord that you're
going to want to save for later.
[92:09] And pop it right up there
at the top of the chorus.
[92:11] And then write around it
until you get to that point.
[92:15] Some wonderful songs that
have been written with this.
[92:18] One of my favorites to use is
Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway."
[92:22] I grew up in a small town When the rain
would fall down I'd just stare out my
[92:29] window I'd just stare out my window It's
not to the chorus that she goes, Ah,
[92:33] da da da da da da da da da da.
[92:36] So it really lands us securely on that
one in the chorus when she's talking about
[92:41] what breaking away feels like, whereas
before, she was talking about problems.
[92:48] Right?
[92:50] So,
[92:52] when the tonic, and in that song it's
a C chord, in the way I was playing it,
[92:59] is used as a passing chord, it's okay.
[93:03] But, when it's used as a place
where I'm going to land and come
[93:06] to rest, then we have a dispelling
of energy happening there.
[93:10] So, try this technique just save the
one a few times in a chord progression,
[93:16] sit down for 10 minutes, write a
progression that you feel saves the
[93:20] one, and then play it down and see how
that feels to you to do that technique.
[93:24] And I think you'll find over time,
you can work that into your writing
[93:29] routine with intuition rather than
thinking so consciously about it.
[93:47] I want to talk about melody.
[93:49] Now, melody comes with great ease to
some of us, and for others of us, it
[93:53] comes with quite a bit of difficulty.
[93:56] And something that I find really
interesting to first talk about is,
[94:00] well, what makes a melody great?
[94:03] When we ask this question,
sometimes we'll get things like,
[94:05] well, it's a very dynamic melody.
[94:07] It's gotta, it's gotta be rangy.
[94:09] It's gotta show off the singer's
vocal, but sometimes it doesn't.
[94:13] And sometimes a melody is
very small and winding.
[94:17] And it has a lot of notes, a lot
of short notes that allow us to
[94:21] deliver a good amount of lyric.
[94:24] Sometimes a melody is just very simple
and structured and basic, and that
[94:30] shows the character of the song well.
[94:32] And other times it's syncopated,
jagged, or the phrasing is very short
[94:37] and unpredictable, and that shares
the focus of the message really well.
[94:43] So it seems to me the question that
we should be asking instead of how
[94:46] do you write a great melody is how
do I write a great melody for the
[94:51] song that I'm currently writing?
[94:53] Because that might be a very different
set of tools than for a different song.
[95:00] It really comes down to what
melodic tools support the message
[95:06] that I'm trying to get across.
[95:08] Just like we would ask ourselves,
what are the chord colors?
[95:12] What is the harmonic rhythm
that supports the message?
[95:17] We ask the same thing for melody.
[95:19] So we can define melody as two elements.
[95:24] It has a pitch element.
[95:26] So what am I singing right now?
[95:28] Right?
[95:28] Which pitches am I singing?
[95:30] And then what is the rhythm of
those pitches that I'm singing?
[95:34] Which is really how
long do I hold the note?
[95:37] And when do I sing it in
the beats of the measure?
[95:40] That's pretty much it.
[95:42] It's just pitches and rhythms
ascribed to those pitches.
[95:46] When I think about melody in this way,
it simplifies the whole landscape.
[95:52] So really what we need to know
are, well, what are the pitch
[95:57] tools that I can play with?
[95:59] And what are the rhythmic tools
that I can play with to end up with
[96:03] something that supports the lyric?
[96:05] And I think, remember what we were
talking about before, where music
[96:10] is the body language of a song.
[96:13] It tells us how to interpret
the words that we're delivering.
[96:18] And so when you write melody with lyric
and we say, ah, the melody, it just flows.
[96:24] What I think we're really saying
is that the melody and all parts of
[96:30] the song have become transparent.
[96:33] And we are only immersed in the experience
of the song, feeling, rather than thinking
[96:40] about the experience we're having.
[96:43] And that is where I want to
take you with these tools.
[96:46] With melody, we get to control
the forward movement of a song.
[96:52] And what that means is, songs have energy.
[96:56] There's like an amount of energy
that we start with, we establish
[96:59] in the front of the song.
[97:01] And I think as writers, we can feel that
energy either moving forward and moving
[97:06] into the next sections of our song.
[97:09] And sometimes when the section's
not working, we don't know why
[97:13] necessarily, but not working.
[97:14] We feel the energy sag and we feel
like, man, the song is too long
[97:19] or the melody is just not right.
[97:21] Or that chord isn't pulling us forward.
[97:24] With melody, These tools
can help us to gain energy.
[97:30] We call it gain acceleration
and push us forward.
[97:34] One of the things that we can do to create
energy is to have a new section come.
[97:41] Now, I'm going to show you
some different ways to apply
[97:45] repetition in a verse section.
[97:49] This can apply to more than just
the verse, but repetition of a
[97:53] melodic theme is the most basic and
useful melodic tool that we've got.
[98:02] I'm going to use this song called
"Hard Place" by the artist, HER.
[98:07] If she had given us only verses
for this song, we may feel after a
[98:14] little while that the energy dips.
[98:17] Because the song doesn't build and grow.
[98:20] So the question is, how do we use melody
to allow the song to build and grow?
[98:26] And the answer is, contrast.
[98:28] We give the listener a new melodic
theme so that it refreshes the
[98:34] energy at that point in the song.
[98:37] And this song has a pre chorus
that comes after the verse section.
[98:41] Now I like this song as an example
because the chords don't change.
[98:46] So what is responsible for creating
forward movement is melody.
[98:53] So we just came out of a
verse that was doing this.
[98:58] Da da da da da da da da da.
[99:00] Ba da da da da da da ba ba.
[99:05] Ba da da da da da da da.
[99:07] Da da da.
[99:09] Right?
[99:10] Just nice and chill.
[99:11] So if the prechorus does this I, I'd
rather fight than lose sleep at night.
[99:22] At least you're all mine.
[99:28] That's a really different melodic theme.
[99:32] Now, I think as writers, we think,
yeah, but how do I come up with that?
[99:38] Right?
[99:38] And a really wonderful way to come up
with a contrasting melody, again, all
[99:44] we're looking for is a new melodic
theme, because as you'll notice in this
[99:49] one, it repeats that melodic theme a
few times before we hear something new.
[99:57] And so what I want to show you is how to
use a drawing to bring up some contrast.
[100:06] So here's what I'm gonna do.
[100:08] No music theory necessary.
[100:12] I'm gonna draw the verse theme,
and here's what it looks like.
[100:16] So I have rests, a couple of rests.
[100:19] Da da da da da da da da Da da da da
da da da da Doesn't it look like that?
[100:27] Da da da da da da da And that's it.
[100:33] So I see a lot of short
lines, that are short notes.
[100:38] And then I write a little note up
here, a little higher on my page to
[100:41] represent a pitch that goes higher.
[100:44] And then a little longer line
for a little longer note.
[100:47] It's my cheat sheet for looking
visually at what's going on.
[100:51] Now this next section.
[100:54] Starts with this.
[100:57] But I, I'd rather fight.
[101:02] Wow, what a different melody here.
[101:05] Look at these long notes.
[101:07] And it has an upward, ascending shape.
[101:13] Alright, the other thing
that's interesting here is,
[101:17] look at these rests here.
[101:19] This melody of the verse starts
after the downbeat in the measure.
[101:24] Play, then sing.
[101:26] That's what happened here.
[101:28] In the pre chorus
though, there is no rest.
[101:32] I, I'd rather fight.
[101:36] And it has a longer, higher note here.
[101:39] So, we start on the downbeat, whereas
here, play first and then sing.
[101:45] Now, as we will find in the chorus
section, we get contrast again.
[101:51] And it's going to look like
a different shape here.
[101:57] And so one of the things
that you can look at.
[101:59] as you're drawing out melodies is the
different shapes that your pitches take.
[102:06] And then of course the other
element that you can look at is
[102:08] the different rhythms that you're
representing in your melodic themes.
[102:13] I always like to say that in a
song all I need to do is write
[102:19] three good melodic motifs that are,
maybe, different from one another.
[102:26] Different enough that they
reignite the song with some really
[102:30] great energy when they come.
[102:32] The rest is just repetition.
[102:35] Now, that, to me, is a lot easier
pill to swallow than, write
[102:39] a whole song, make it great.
[102:41] You know, it's, ah, how do I do that?
[102:43] So, writing the song just pieces
of a song and saying, this
[102:47] piece is the verse foundation.
[102:49] This piece is the chorus.
[102:51] This piece is the bridge.
[102:53] Now I feel like, yeah, I
know what I'm trying to do.
[102:57] And it makes it an easier task to take on.
[103:01] Let me play for you what the
chorus does in this song by HER.
[103:06] Now I'm a songwriter,
not so much a singer.
[103:11] In other words, I gained my singing, the
singing ability that I have from writing
[103:18] a lot of songs and practicing a lot.
[103:20] So I'm really taking this guitar part
too and removing all the elaboration
[103:26] that could happen here, uh, because I
don't want any stylings on the guitar.
[103:33] interacting with what I know to be
the chord colors and the melody.
[103:40] That's all.
[103:40] It's just a skeleton of the song here.
[103:42] So I don't have to be a great
player to write a great song.
[103:47] Yeah.
[103:48] Okay.
[103:49] So I'm going to sing.
[103:51] Now this is a bit high for
me and it goes like this.
[103:55] Uh, here's the pre chorus, but I I'd
rather fight than lose sleep at night.
[104:03] At least you're all mine.
[104:10] And if, if I have to
choose, my heart or you.
[104:18] And I'm gonna lose, yeah, What
if nothing ever will change?
[104:28] Oh, I'm caught between
your love and a hard place.
[104:34] Do you hear that new melody?
[104:36] And it goes way up, at
least for me it goes way up.
[104:40] Sounds great when HER sings it.
[104:42] And then she repeats those
melodic themes again.
[104:46] Now, one thing to notice, because
I said that it's important
[104:50] to notice your tendencies.
[104:53] I may not end up writing a melody that
is that rangy, and I would be missing
[104:58] out on melodies that are an option
for me if I only write for what is
[105:04] comfortable or safe for my vocal, yeah?
[105:08] Now sometimes, writing within what is
comfortable and safe uh, results in a
[105:14] little more focus on a rhythmic melody.
[105:16] For me, if I can't get contrast through
higher pitches, then I'm gonna feel like
[105:22] I need to up the energy of the song in
the chorus, and I will rely on rhythmic
[105:26] tools to do so, which is totally alright.
[105:29] But I think it's also important to
say that our tendencies are shaped
[105:34] by where we feel our strengths lie.
[105:38] And if we ignore other possibilities
around those strengths, then
[105:44] we're missing out on some tools
that could be useful to us.
[105:47] So I'm just going to remember from time to
time that I may minimize my range in the
[105:54] melody because of my vocal limitations.
[105:58] And then I'm just going to address that
in a song and play around with, yeah,
[106:02] I know it doesn't sound necessarily
like I want it to sound, but it's okay.
[106:06] I know I can push the melody up
there because I'm writing a song.
[106:10] I'm not performing the song.
[106:12] Now, the last thing I want you to look at
is where the melody starts in this chorus.
[106:20] We have what if nothing,
nothing falls on the downbeat.
[106:26] Now I play and I sing the word
nothing at the same time, but
[106:29] the phrase starts, before that.
[106:32] So if you remember, the verse
started, wanna believe what you say,
[106:38] started after the pre chorus starts,
but I, I'd rather fight, right?
[106:45] And the chorus starts, what if nothing?
[106:48] What a cool bit of contrast.
[106:52] So it's a very, very simple tool with
phrasing that I'm, I'm sharing right now.
[106:58] And it is that you have three
places that you can put a melody.
[107:02] You can start your melody after you play.
[107:06] You can start your melody at the same
time as you play, or before you play.
[107:12] And if we can say the downbeat
of the measure is where we play.
[107:16] And just by utilizing this phrasing
technique, you can ultimately drive
[107:21] contrast between the sections of
your song in the most wonderful ways.
[107:27] But remember that that tool
exists for you, and I would call
[107:30] that a rhythmic tool of melody.
[107:33] So, this song is a wonderful illustration
of some melodic tools and shaping
[107:39] tools that are available to us.
[107:42] And I think it would be a
wonderful exercise to listen to
[107:46] this song and practice drawing
out the melodies for each section.
[107:53] And then, to push yourself a little
bit further, choose a song that you
[107:59] like by another artist and take five
minutes and draw out the melody.
[108:04] the melody for each section.
[108:07] And just like I did, you can put a simple
vertical line where the bar line is
[108:12] and indicate whether the phrase starts
before or on or after that bar line.
[108:17] And then you can indicate the lengths
of the pitches by the lengths of your
[108:22] lines and where those pitches are
in terms of are they going higher?
[108:27] Are they going lower?
[108:28] Then you can kind of
see the overall shapes.
[108:31] And notice how contrast is
achieved between the sections
[108:37] of songs that you know and love.
[108:39] And if you really want to get practiced
with this tool, do this every day
[108:46] for a month with a new song from
some other artist and see how the
[108:51] tendencies are creating contrast
between sections of a song with melody.
[108:58] And over time, you'll find you adopt
these tendencies into your own melodies.
[109:15] So I started this session on melody,
saying that what makes a great
[109:18] melody really is the melody's ability
to carry the message of the song.
[109:24] And that's it.
[109:26] I want to use Kacey Musgrave's
song, Slow Burn, to illustrate how
[109:31] we can wind up writing a melody
that carries a message well.
[109:36] So, the chord progression of this song,
if you want to follow along, it's just,
[109:40] I'm going to do it in the key of D.
[109:42] I'm going to play it in D major, then A
minor, and then C major, and then G major.
[109:49] And that's it.
[109:50] Again, in this song, it's all the
responsibility of melody to create
[109:55] contrast and forward movement in the
song because the chords don't change.
[110:01] So here's the verse, and again, it's
a nice small little short note melody.
[110:09] I think it carries the lyric quite
well, but I'll let you be the judge.
[110:14] Born in a hurry.
[110:15] Always late.
[110:17] Haven't been early since 88.
[110:26] Texas is hot.
[110:28] I can be cold.
[110:30] Grandma cried when I pierce my nose
[110:37] Now something I'm feeling as I'm playing
this is, wow, there's a lot of rest space.
[110:45] After I finished singing since 88
and pierced my nose, did you notice
[110:51] this long expanse of just chords?
[110:55] That was awesome.
[110:56] And I think about how come I
don't do that in my own songs.
[111:00] And I think one of the reasons
is as a songwriter, I am
[111:05] unconsciously thinking that I constantly
need to give the listeners something
[111:09] to listen to, something to focus on.
[111:11] I can't possibly let my audience
just sit and wait for me, but we can.
[111:16] And it's a beautiful thing when
we give them time to take what
[111:20] we've said in and just sit with it.
[111:24] Now this song creates a gorgeous mood
[111:28] musically.
[111:29] And I love that she's not
clogging it up with lots and
[111:33] lots of words and lead vocal.
[111:36] So I just get time to take the
track in and feel how the message
[111:41] reveals itself, particularly in
the chorus when she comes right out
[111:45] and says what I'm already feeling.
[111:49] Now the verse continues as I
get ready for the chorus here.
[111:54] Good in a glass, good on green, good when
you're putting your hands all over me.
[112:04] Alright, now we got the chorus.
[112:07] And it goes like this.
[112:08] Cuz I'm alright with a slow burn.
[112:15] Taking my time, let the world turn.
[112:18] Did you hear that prosody?
[112:24] The idea here is I'm
okay with a slow burn.
[112:29] She doesn't say I'm all right with a
slow burn and then it burns down and
[112:35] everything gets real hectic, right?
[112:38] She lets me burn away slowly.
[112:42] And she does this beautiful little
melisma, I believe it's called, burn, you
[112:47] know, with her vocal, uh, which is nice.
[112:50] And it gives me something
to, to listen to.
[112:52] But I think what's really critical
to the bones of the melody here
[112:57] is the length of the note and the
comfort that she's able to have with
[113:02] giving me space to just burn away.
[113:07] Now, I'm going to play this chorus the
way it actually goes, but then I want
[113:12] to play it the way that it might go
if we were to use exact repetition.
[113:17] So the chorus keeps going.
[113:20] As I'm gonna do it my
way, it'll be alright.
[113:24] If we burn it down, it'll take all night.
[113:27] It's a slow burn.
[113:32] That's how the song goes.
[113:34] But we might, as songwriters, get to a
point in writing a melody where we've
[113:41] repeated something a few times, and
now we don't really know what to do.
[113:44] So I want to address that
with another tool of melody.
[113:48] So here's the chorus again.
[113:52] I'm all right with a slow burn,
[113:58] taking my time, let the world turn.
[114:05] I'm gonna do it my way.
[114:12] Burn down.
[114:13] It's a slow burn
[114:19] Now what I did there was just
repeat the melodic theme four times.
[114:26] Many, many song choruses do this,
but I think sometimes I get to that
[114:33] second line in the chorus and I've
repeated it in the melody again
[114:36] and I don't quite know what to do.
[114:39] And so what they did here is they
used a tool where we shortened
[114:43] the phrase and immediately start
a new repetition of a phrase.
[114:49] And so I'm all right with a slow burn
[114:56] Taking my time, let the world
turn I'm going to do it my way.
[115:05] It'll be all right.
[115:07] If we burn it down takes all night.
[115:10] It's a slow burn.
[115:14] So they create this sort of forward
movement by using short notes, not
[115:20] singing that long note anymore.
[115:23] And I'm going to do it my
way, it'll be all right.
[115:27] And we're, if we burn it down and
it takes all night, that's where the
[115:32] repetition now of that third line comes
in, but short notes and shorter phrases
[115:38] sung back to back create acceleration.
[115:41] So now the chorus, instead of
kind of sagging or sinking or just
[115:45] becoming, huh, that's a nice course.
[115:48] Now it picks up a little bit.
[115:50] Yeah.
[115:50] And then we sing that
last line, the title line.
[115:54] It's a slow burn, again, and it feels
really good to slow it down again.
[116:00] So you might think of melody as a
process of contracting and expanding.
[116:05] When we expand, it's like using
longer notes and longer phrases.
[116:10] And that sort of slows
us down into the moment.
[116:15] When we contract, we use shorter notes
and shorter phrases, and that gives
[116:22] the feeling of speeding things up.
[116:25] The tempo doesn't change, but we
feel acceleration in those moments.
[116:30] And I think this is a really
useful technique when it comes
[116:33] to melody, when you can remember
[116:36] ah, I can expand or contract here.
[116:39] And when you've expanded for a
while, you can remember, I think
[116:43] I need to contract to get more
energy into the section I'm writing.
[116:47] But we can't keep up that energy forever.
[116:49] Then we expand again and bring
the listener back into a moment.
[116:54] So remember your rest space and
remember that short notes, long
[116:59] notes, short phrases, and long
phrases are really useful rhythmic
[117:04] techniques when it comes to melody to
produce the sound you want to make.
[117:11] A really wonderful exercise is to
practice using rest space in your songs.
[117:18] I know for my own writing style,
which is heavy on the lyric.
[117:22] I lived and worked in Nashville
for a long time and lyric is king.
[117:27] And so my writing style that
resulted from all that focus on
[117:31] lyric sometimes would minimize the
significance of the melody in the song.
[117:37] And there were a lot of words to carry.
[117:39] And so when there's a lot of words, it's
difficult to sing a very dynamic melody.
[117:46] Now, when there's a lot of words,
sometimes the song ends up being clouded
[117:52] with words, very dense, and we don't give
our listener time to take those words in.
[117:58] So we can practice this intentionally
by using a couple of lines of lyric
[118:03] and playing around with the rest space.
[118:06] So I could sing, It doesn't take a lot,
[118:11] a lot,
[118:13] It doesn't take a lot to know I'm there.
[118:19] It doesn't take a lot.
[118:21] Now I'm really intentionally putting
a lot of rest space into this section
[118:26] that's, that's growing because I want to
play with how much rest space I can get.
[118:32] I could draw that back even further.
[118:34] It doesn't take,
[118:38] it doesn't take,
[118:42] it doesn't take a lot Now, there's a point
where for me, if I don't give the listener
[118:49] enough to chew on, it doesn't take a lot.
[118:53] I liked the word a lot in there
because then it completes a thought.
[118:57] And now the listener has something to sit
and think about during that rest space.
[119:01] So, I think rest space is something that
we can always play with and generally most
[119:07] of us as songwriters are not giving our
listeners as much rest space as we could.
[119:15] For them to sit with our thoughts and
really take them in as significant.
[119:19] So practice this idea by taking a few
lines of your own and seeing how far
[119:25] you can push this idea of rest space.
[119:28] Sing part of the phrase and wait longer
than you're comfortable waiting to come in
[119:33] with the rest of the phrase, for example.
[119:36] Do this for three or four sections.
[119:39] Playing with how much rest space you
give yourself and you'll notice the
[119:44] structures of the sections changing too.
[119:46] They'll be longer.
[119:47] You can't say as much as you could
when you're packing the lyric
[119:52] together, which for some of us is a
great thing because it reduces the
[119:56] weight on our shoulders with lyric.
[119:59] Play around with rest space.
[120:00] It's a beautiful tool that adds
significance to what we do say.
[120:05] Because what's left over has
more space to say what it means.
[120:23] I want to talk about just a few
more melodic tools that we can use
[120:28] to make writing a section of a song
come a little bit more quickly.
[120:34] Strummin my pain with his fingers.
[120:37] That's a melodic motif
that most of us know.
[120:42] Now if the next line goes,
da da da dum bum bum bum ba.
[120:48] Now I just repeat it exactly.
[120:51] The melodic motif of line one, but
we know that's not how the song goes.
[120:55] The song goes, Strummin
my pain with his fingers.
[121:01] Singin my life with his words.
[121:05] So what's happening there?
[121:07] This is a really cool technique where
you can repeat the rhythm of the
[121:12] melodic theme, but change the pitches.
[121:15] Here's the golden rule here for
writing a section of any song.
[121:21] You can use repetition while
changing the pitches of a motif but
[121:27] maintaining the rhythm and we'll
still hear it as that melodic motif.
[121:32] And this is awesome because now we know
we could repeat the motif both in its
[121:37] pitches and rhythms if we like that sound.
[121:40] Or we could just repeat the
rhythm and not change it.
[121:45] Billy Joel does this in
"She's Always a Woman to Me".
[121:48] Dum bum ba da dum dum dum da dum dum
Dum dum da dum dum da dum da dum Same
[121:58] melodic motif, just transposed up or
down, wherever you want to put it.
[122:04] And your chord changes will guide you as
to where you're going to start singing
[122:08] that new repetition of the melody, but
it's such a wonderful, wonderful tool.
[122:13] We hear it a lot in the
songs we know and love.
[122:16] So, a great exercise would be to aim
to practice this technique by writing
[122:22] a simple first line of a section.
[122:25] So, you're going to decide on a motif.
[122:27] And then, you'll transpose that motif
by pitch, up or down, according to
[122:33] your chord changes that might inspire
you where to start it now with
[122:37] pitch, but you're going to maintain
the rhythm of that melodic motif.
[122:43] Practice this with a few different
sections and the more you do it,
[122:47] the more you'll feel like you can
naturally integrate that technique
[122:51] in your everyday writing without
being so conscious about it.
[123:08] When we're setting a section of lyric
to melody, we have a lot of choices.
[123:15] And one of the choices that we
can make is, how do I pace this
[123:20] lyric across the bars of chords
that I've got available to me.
[123:26] I'm going to use just a
simple couple of phrases to
[123:29] illustrate how you have choices.
[123:32] Now, let's say the lyric is, if I
never go far, if I never make it.
[123:39] Now, I could sing those back to
back and do something like, um,
[123:48] and if I never go far, And if
I never make it, that's all.
[123:55] Now I had, if I never go far.
[123:58] So I started before the downbeat
and I landed as I played.
[124:03] And then I have this rest space.
[124:05] If, if I never make it, right?
[124:08] But I don't have to do that.
[124:09] That's not the only idea.
[124:10] There's a multitude of
ways to sing something.
[124:13] Let me get rid of the rest
space for a minute and just push
[124:17] those phrases close together.
[124:19] If I never go far, if I never make it.
[124:25] Interesting.
[124:26] It's almost as if now that first phrase
tumbles right into the second, and you
[124:32] almost don't get time to hear what I said.
[124:36] Yeah.
[124:36] The lyric goes by very quickly.
[124:39] I think that when we write lyrics
down on a page, what happens is we
[124:45] start to imagine that the way that
we have to deliver it is according
[124:50] to the way the lines are written.
[124:53] And so then I forget, wow,
I could do, if I never.
[124:58] Go far if I never make it.
[125:03] Why couldn't I try that?
[125:04] You can break your lines up
and allow your instincts for
[125:09] melody to begin to take over.
[125:12] I could even use repetition like this.
[125:14] If I never, if I never, never wake
up, if I never, never make it.
[125:21] If I never go far, far.
[125:26] Now my instinct kicked in of what does
far sound like in terms of melody?
[125:30] What's the meaning of that?
[125:32] If I never, I never, never make it.
[125:36] If I never go far, far, maybe those
long notes show distance, you know, and
[125:46] maybe they don't, but the idea is you
got nothing to lose, nothing to lose.
[125:51] When you start to see melody as
pitches and rhythms, and I can
[125:57] break anything, anywhere, use
repetition, like, cause I'm free.
[126:07] free fallin'
[126:09] I'm sure glad Tom Petty remembered,
I can break this anywhere and
[126:13] I can use repetition of a word.
[126:16] Otherwise, we'd never have that song.
[126:18] So remember that these
tools are available to you.
[126:21] So a great exercise to practice
would be take just two lines of
[126:26] lyric that you have lying around.
[126:27] Doesn't have to be anything significant.
[126:30] And practice looking at them as just
rhythms that you can ascribe to pitches.
[126:36] And you can break those words
anywhere that feels natural to you.
[126:40] Even try some breaking
that doesn't feel natural.
[126:44] Just push record.
[126:45] and sing some variations for three
to five minutes with the freedom to
[126:51] make mistakes, things that you would
later say, yeah, that didn't work.
[126:55] Don't like that.
[126:57] And over time, what you'll recognize
is that you become more flexible
[127:02] with melody and setting lyrics to
melody, where you can make choices for
[127:08] yourself, just observing what happens
of how the melody lifts the words to
[127:15] mean something more than they would
when they're just written on the page.
[127:19] So, try that practice out a few times a
week for a little while, until you feel
[127:26] like you've gained some control over
how your lyrics are setting to melody.
[127:46] When you're writing the melodic themes
for your song, I think another helpful
[127:51] idea is to think about alternating two
melodic themes to make a single section.
[127:56] Now, I like to talk in extremes when
it comes to writing because much of
[128:02] my mediocre writing is sort of living
in the middle ground in subtlety.
[128:09] But when we push our ideas to the
extreme, like I write a very dynamic
[128:14] melody, or I write a very small clustery
melody, and you put those two things
[128:19] together, suddenly I can really feel the
movement from one section to another.
[128:26] Similarly, when we're writing
two melodic themes to live in the
[128:30] same section, it's great if they
do something quite different.
[128:35] So using the tools of pitch
and rhythm, let me illustrate
[128:39] what that might sound like.
[128:41] Let's say I've got a section.
[128:42] I'm going to start with a tempo here.
[128:44] Here's my tempo.
[128:45] One three.
[128:47] Da da da da da da da da da da da da
da da da da da da da da da da da da da
[128:55] da da da da da da da da da da da da da
[129:02] Ba dum dum, ba dum dum, ba dum dum,
ba da da da da, ba da da da, da da da.
[129:12] So I just wrote what would
be maybe a six line section.
[129:15] I had line one, and then I had a
repetition of line one and line two.
[129:20] Remember, the repetition
is not necessarily always
[129:23] with pitch, but with rhythm.
[129:24] And then the third line was,
[129:31] was a different melodic theme.
[129:35] So in this section, I gave you
two melodic themes and the second
[129:41] theme that we heard in lines three
and six was distinctly different.
[129:47] It was more whereas of
line one was more dynamic.
[129:55] So the shapes of these two
motifs were different and the
[129:59] rhythms were different ish.
[130:02] They both had short notes to an
extent, but the difference in those
[130:07] motifs is what allowed me to really
use them together in the same section.
[130:12] So to practice this, see if you can
write a melodic theme for the first
[130:18] line, repeat it again for line two,
and then for your third line, write
[130:23] a long phrase using either long notes
or a different shape in your melody.
[130:31] You can also do this with a four
line section, so if I have a tempo,
[130:38] 1 2 3 4
[130:53] so here you can hear those two
melodic motifs alternating.
[130:58] So one and three are the same and
lines two and four are the same.
[131:03] Listen for this in songs that you
know and love and you'll find that
[131:09] really the maximum number of motifs
we're gonna ever really go for is two.
[131:14] And so again that simplifies our job as
the songwriter where we just need to write
[131:19] two motifs that carry different traits
[131:22] and then they work really well together.
[131:25] Try this out by writing a six
line and a four line section using
[131:32] alternating motifs for a week.
[131:36] Just give it five tries
throughout the week.
[131:39] And again, you don't have to
write words to these, just melodic
[131:43] theme, maybe even over chords.
[131:46] It's such a helpful tool in
designing sections that carry good
[131:52] forward energy where the melodic
themes are distinct and wonderful.
[132:11] Throughout this course, I have tried to
focus on some of the most essential tools
[132:16] for writing melody, lyrics, and harmony.
[132:19] But the most essential part
of this whole process is you.
[132:24] Your willingness to sit down and let
happen what is about to happen is a
[132:32] difficult thing to take on, and indeed,
one of the reasons why many of us
[132:37] don't allow ourselves to finish songs.
[132:41] There's a certain amount of abandon
that we have to apply here, that
[132:47] when we sit down and play, it
doesn't sound like the record, right?
[132:52] When we sing, there are artifacts
in there we'd rather not hear.
[132:57] And when we write lyrics, it's
going to mimic the end result, but
[133:03] it's not going to be quite there.
[133:05] So everything we do is sort
of pointing at the real thing.
[133:10] And so when you're listening to your
own songs back, you might approach
[133:17] them with a critical ear that makes
you want to throw in the towel.
[133:22] And I can tell you that we all
experience this sense of, it's
[133:29] almost what I wanted, but not quite.
[133:32] And it's very hard when you're inside
the artist space to observe how the song
[133:40] feels as it's being shared with others.
[133:43] So give yourself time, give yourself space
and plug in to the flow of creativity
[133:51] often so that the The risk that you feel
of each time plugging in, and is it going
[133:59] to be worth it, gets lower and lower
and lower until you get to a point where
[134:04] you're like, Nah, I do this every day.
[134:06] I do it every day.
[134:07] It's no problem.
[134:09] When I wrote a lot with others in
Nashville, I would sometimes over prepare.
[134:15] What am I going to bring?
[134:17] Do I have a title that's good?
[134:18] What if they don't like this?
[134:19] This.
[134:20] This.
[134:20] And uh.
[134:21] I began to watch others around
me who would just walk into the
[134:26] room and be like, I got nothing.
[134:28] You know, I've written four
songs this week already.
[134:31] And I realized that there's a sort of
calm confidence that we can build just by
[134:40] putting ourselves in a space to receive
ideas over and over again, proving to
[134:47] ourselves that they are going to come.
[134:50] And the only way in which they don't
come is if they don't measure up
[134:56] to what I would like them to be.
[134:58] Just like at the beginning of this course
when I gave you ten minutes to write two
[135:05] sections of a song, you had to deliver.
[135:08] And with a time limit, it now
is limiting your ability to
[135:14] refine the ideas that come out.
[135:16] You can't be choosy if
it's all you have to give.
[135:20] Similarly, some days we're going to allow
ourselves to just brainstorm and let
[135:27] everything fall out on our instruments
or with words that comes to us.
[135:34] And we're going to take that part
of the process and separate it
[135:37] completely from the editing phase.
[135:40] Which is where we get to refine and we
get to choose and say, you know what, this
[135:43] idea, this is really where I said it best.
[135:47] So, editing is a large part of the
process where we get to be in our head.
[135:54] But brainstorming, that's
where we plug into the soul.
[135:57] And it's heart to heart right there.
[136:00] We need both parts of the process
to have a sustainable practice.
[136:06] Now, as you go forward, there are
some things that you can do to kind
[136:10] of prime the pump and make sure that
you're putting yourself in a position
[136:15] to receive the ideas that are there
for you and then bring them to fruition
[136:20] to actually full, finished songs.
[136:23] One thing I like to do is to put a
time restraint on my writing practice.
[136:28] So.
[136:29] My writing day might go like this.
[136:31] I wake up, have my coffee, can't do
anything until that happens, then I sit
[136:37] down at my desk and I do some writing.
[136:40] I might turn on a record from somebody
else that I like, pull up some Spotify
[136:44] music, Apple music, whatever it is, and
then I might do some free writing, some
[136:49] sensory writing while I'm listening, just
letting that drone in the background.
[136:54] I might get up, get a snack,
come back, and just pitter around
[137:00] on the instrument a little bit.
[137:01] And I'm more of a piano player
than guitar player, so I'll just
[137:04] sit and I'll mess around a bit.
[137:07] Then I might lay something down and say,
well, of the 15 minutes I've been joyfully
[137:13] expressing myself on my instrument,
I'm going to put down what I've got.
[137:17] Something that emerged from that session.
[137:20] So again, my, my, my DAW is
set up, so I'm ready to go.
[137:23] I'm just going to push record and lay
down the little thing that I came up with.
[137:27] Maybe it's a section, maybe
it's two contrasting sections.
[137:31] Set that aside.
[137:32] Then I'll go back to some sensory
writing that I did a different day.
[137:35] I'll start lifting out titles
because I know that's an exercise
[137:39] that I can consciously do in
the, in the editing phase.
[137:43] That's not part of brainstorming.
[137:44] So I'll look at the sensory writing I
did and consider, what about that phrase?
[137:49] What about that title?
[137:50] That word's interesting.
[137:51] What would it be if I lifted that out?
[137:54] Now I can do a few things.
[137:55] I can develop some song outlines where
I say, I think if the verse were to
[137:59] say this, and the chorus was to talk
about this, that might be a song.
[138:03] Ooh, what if I scrapped that, and I
reimagined that title in a new way?
[138:08] What would that look like?
[138:09] All right.
[138:10] Now I might pull out a song that I was
working on from a different day, finally.
[138:15] And to be honest, that's the
thing I really wanted to do
[138:18] when I woke up this morning.
[138:20] But instead I said, you know what?
[138:21] That can wait.
[138:22] Right now I'm going to
plug into the source.
[138:24] I'm going to generate.
[138:26] Start each day with generating ideas.
[138:29] Finally, when I get to this point
where I'm working on something from
[138:32] a different day, I listen to it back.
[138:35] I don't like to have the lyric in
front of me when I'm just simply
[138:39] taking music in as a music listener.
[138:42] Because sometimes when I look at lyric,
I become cognitive again and I start
[138:48] to pick it apart and it's calculated
and it's, but that verb and that
[138:51] pronoun and this and that, and the
listener doesn't hear music that way.
[138:56] We just let it wash over us.
[138:59] And I have that perspective
that, you know what?
[139:02] I'm going to pay attention to how I feel.
[139:04] And if I feel like the song is sagging
at any point, I'll address that.
[139:08] And I'll start at that point and
say, you know what, if I did do
[139:11] something different, what would I do?
[139:12] And here we can bring up
tools that we've talked about.
[139:16] What is the melodic shape?
[139:18] Where does it go wrong?
[139:19] How about the chords?
[139:21] Is it the chord that if I
replace that with another
[139:24] chord, it's now moving me ahead?
[139:27] What if I cut that section entirely?
[139:30] What about that?
[139:32] Sometimes the absence of something when
it's giving me trouble is the solution
[139:37] that I was looking for, because I kept
trying to make it work and put it in a
[139:41] position that it just wasn't meant for.
[139:44] So this rewriting phase is
where I spend most of my time.
[139:49] And on a day like this, where I'm finally
getting to the rewriting of a song
[139:54] that I'm in the middle of, I may spend.
[139:57] 20 minutes, half an hour, maybe three
hours, if my excitement extends that long.
[140:04] When I feel it waning, I will close
the book, put it aside, and know that
[140:11] as I continue to take out new songs
each day, the ones that seamlessly
[140:18] begin to finish themselves are the
ones that were meant to be done.
[140:23] Now, sometimes it is good to
beat that wall and decide, you
[140:28] know what, this one is good.
[140:30] I'm not cracking the
nut, but I gotta get it.
[140:33] Gotta get it.
[140:33] So I'm gonna stay up three nights
and three days and get it done.
[140:39] That's okay too.
[140:40] But sometimes there's a sense
that we can't live that way.
[140:45] And so our art has to
work with our lifestyle.
[140:49] And it's okay to say, you know what, I'm
not able to crack this nut right now.
[140:54] So I'm going to refresh, go to a different
song, see what's going on with that one.
[140:58] And where my interest in my
inspiration sort of peaks
[141:02] again, where that spark happens.
[141:04] That's where I'll put my focus.
[141:07] Co-writing is a beautiful way to
reignite the spark, because when you
[141:13] co-write, you're putting yourself
in the space of someone who's
[141:18] suggesting, let's start the song here.
[141:21] How about with these chords?
[141:23] Let's start the song with these words.
[141:25] Let's start by trying to
write for this artist.
[141:28] And you don't ever write for
that artist, so let's see
[141:30] trying, how trying that on feels.
[141:33] So co-writing can be a very
challenging thing to do because it
[141:36] is in a sense saying, you're going
to write with a different process
[141:40] than what comes naturally to you.
[141:43] Go ahead, do it.
[141:44] You know, and it feels like,
well, what do you want me to do?
[141:47] And so when we change our own
process, we are in a way providing
[141:52] ourselves with a collaborative option.
[141:56] But writing with other people
is a beautiful way to branch out
[142:01] beyond our typical stylings and
try a process that's different
[142:07] than how we normally approach it.
[142:09] It stretches us in ways that writing
on our own doesn't, and it can also
[142:14] end up putting us in a position where
our natural skills are not helpful.
[142:21] And so we need to adjust to
what the situation calls for.
[142:37] Throughout this course, we've talked about
melodic tools, and we've talked about how
[142:42] melody is just simply pitch and rhythm.
[142:45] And when we can identify what is the
shape of my melody, what is my melody
[142:50] doing in this area of the song, and
then we can identify any rhythmic
[142:56] qualities that our melodies have.
[142:58] How long are the phrases?
[142:59] How long are the notes?
[143:01] Where am I singing the note?
[143:03] Is it before, on, or after?
[143:05] These are traits that can help
us to decide, is this the right
[143:10] melody for what I am saying?
[143:12] Does this create a great melodic
motif or do I need to look further?
[143:18] And does this create a melody where I
can hear the song build throughout and
[143:24] create contrast between my sections?
[143:27] We've talked about this dance
between lyric and melody, and when
[143:33] our lyric and melody are working
together seamlessly, they lift
[143:38] each other up to become something
together that they cannot be alone.
[143:42] With lyrics, we've talked about
sensory language, and the practice of
[143:47] generating sensory language every day
is simply sitting down with a prompt,
[143:52] and either speaking it, or writing it.
[143:55] And then we've talked about creating
title lists, using outlines to
[143:59] quickly jot down what we think
a section might say if we knew.
[144:04] We've talked about the functions
of different sections, what a verse
[144:07] does, what a chorus does, what a
pre chorus and a bridge can do in
[144:10] a song, musically and lyrically.
[144:14] And we've talked about vantage point,
how a song is rooted in a point in
[144:18] time, and we can look back and we can
look forward, but the vantage point
[144:23] is what says, this is why this song
is so critical to sing right now.
[144:30] We've talked about chords and
their emotions and their great
[144:34] impact on what we're saying.
[144:36] And above all, music is king.
[144:40] Whatever we say lyrically, it gets
its blood flow from the music.
[144:48] This is a beautiful, beautiful symbiotic
experience that we can have with our
[144:53] songs and they can teach us what they're
trying to say as we are writing them,
[144:59] if we stay attuned to their messaging.
[145:03] I hope that moving forward, you
can find the space and time in
[145:08] your life to do the exercises.
[145:11] As much as life gets busy, see if you
can commit to just five minutes a day.
[145:18] Five minutes, especially when it comes
to doing a part of the process that comes
[145:23] with greater difficulty to you, or maybe
comes with a little bit of insecurity.
[145:30] Just sit down and write
that chord progression.
[145:32] The worst that could happen is it's
like the one you wrote before, right?
[145:37] The worst that could happen is that
melody doesn't do anything quite
[145:40] different than you thought it did.
[145:42] And it's all right.
[145:43] Change little things about the rhythm,
change little things about the pitch.
[145:47] Let songwriting become a source of growth
for you in seeing what it can become.
[145:55] I encourage you to set a monthly
intention moving forward.
[145:59] For example, if it would be possible for
you to say, I'm going to write two songs a
[146:06] month, aim to write four, and here's why.
[146:10] I want you to take on the
idea that there is plenty
[146:16] for all.
[146:17] You can generate a list of 15
titles in 10 minutes if you must.
[146:23] And so there's this balance, I think,
of we're going to write with a non
[146:30] judgmental approach, which is not the
same as lack of judgment, but we're going
[146:35] to allow for ideas to come out so that
we can choose the best of those ideas.
[146:41] So set an intention and then
I bet you can exceed it.
[146:47] We are going to have to let that
assessment of, is this a good song,
[146:54] sort of fluctuate for a little while.
[146:57] Because if we take the aperture and narrow
it, so that it's very, very small, and
[147:04] very few ideas can get through there,
we'll find that we're not very productive.
[147:08] And that can feel pretty tough.
[147:11] If the aperture is too large and
too many ideas come out, then we
[147:15] find that that in and of itself
is a little bit tough because the
[147:19] ideas we know aren't our best work.
[147:23] So we're constantly opening
and closing that aperture to
[147:27] adjust to our own intuition.
[147:30] Now, you could also set intentions
like, I want to co-write.
[147:36] Who should I co-write with?
[147:37] I'm gonna identify a few people
that I think have skills that
[147:42] are compatible with mine.
[147:45] Now, I often see people, if you're
comfortable writing lyrics, sometimes
[147:49] we're comfortable with other people
who write lyrics, and we tend
[147:52] to search out like minded folks.
[147:55] But I think it's also good advice
to go out and search for people
[147:59] who need what you do and can make
space for you to do what you do
[148:03] very well within your collaboration.
[148:06] And then they also can
shine doing what they do.
[148:10] So see if you can identify one or
two people in the next few weeks
[148:14] who carry some skills that could
be useful to you in your work.
[148:18] Finishing songs.
[148:20] I hope that you find the tools rise you to
a new level of quality and of process and
[148:30] certainly allow you to finish more songs.
[148:34] Don't forget that part of this process
is not just finishing, but recording to
[148:40] the best of your ability, and releasing,
sharing your songs with others so you
[148:45] can see their impact, feel how they land.
[148:49] And then we go back and we write
and record and release again.
[148:53] And through this process, over time, you
begin to learn who you are as an artist
[148:59] and the unique fingerprint that you
have on the songs that you're making.
[149:17] Thank you for taking this course
and for finishing this course.
[149:21] I really hope it makes a big
impact on your writing and
[149:25] your confidence as a writer.
[149:27] I would love to meet you and the
way for me to meet you would most
[149:31] likely be at a physical retreat.
[149:34] It would be my pleasure to have
you on a retreat where for five
[149:39] days we immerse ourselves in
[149:41] writing and sharing our songs with
like minded people, connecting with
[149:47] like minded writers and musicians is
such an important part of being able
[149:52] to sustain a practice in this industry.
[149:56] It's challenging to be an
island, writing our own material.
[150:00] releasing, recording,
and nobody does it alone.
[150:04] And it would be absolutely wonderful
to have you with us as a voice for
[150:09] songwriters, with other songwriters,
and to see what benefits you as
[150:14] a songwriter in this community.
[150:16] Whether you are doing this as a career
or as a hobby, I hope that you've
[150:21] gained a lot of tangible tools that
you can apply to keep your process
[150:26] moving forward and just have more joy
in songwriting every day in your life.
[150:32] Thank you for spending your
time with me and thank you for
[150:35] letting me into your process.