---
title: 'Full Songwriting Course: Becoming a Songwriter (+Free PDF Guide)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=cNBn5miA8EA'
video_id: 'cNBn5miA8EA'
date: 2026-07-10
channel: 'Andrea Stolpe'
---

# Full Songwriting Course: Becoming a Songwriter (+Free PDF Guide)

> Source: [Full Songwriting Course: Becoming a Songwriter (+Free PDF Guide)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=cNBn5miA8EA)

## Summary

Andrea Stolpe presents a comprehensive, free songwriting course designed for writers of all levels. The course covers essential and uncommon techniques used by industry professionals, focusing on melody, lyrics, chords, and rhythm to transform ordinary songs into extraordinary ones.

### Key Points

- **What Makes a Song Magical** [01:28] — Songs become extraordinary when writers understand what resonates with them personally. Key elements to control are melody, chord progression, rhythm/groove, and lyric.
- **Exercise: Create a Playlist of Influential Songs** [04:43] — Make a playlist of 10 songs that hit you straight to the heart. Analyze them for melodic stylings, lyrical tendencies, chords, and rhythmic feel to discover patterns that express what you value.
- **Write What You Know** [06:41] — Instead of trying to write what others will like, write what resonates with you. Use your own experiences—like humid Minnesota nights or struggling musician moments—as material.
- **Exercise: List Things You Know** [10:31] — Spend 15-20 minutes making a list of ordinary things you know (e.g., your dog waking you up). The ordinary becomes extraordinary in song because meaning resides in insignificant moments.
- **There's No One Right Way to Write a Song** [11:52] — The only right way is the way that finishes a great song. Process is a skill that can be adapted. Changing your process (e.g., starting with chords instead of lyrics) can lead to new styles.
- **Lyric Writing and Prosody** [17:01] — Lyrics get shape and color from the musical landscape. Prosody is the agreement between lyric and music. The same words set to different music change meaning and character.
- **Destination Writing Exercise** [20:56] — A daily practice of sensory writing (taste, touch, sight, sound, smell, movement) for 5-10 minutes without judgment. Use a prompt (time, place, person) and write freely to generate raw material.
- **Templates for Storytelling: Setting the Scene** [30:15] — Start a song by setting the scene (e.g., Sara Bareilles' 'King of Anything' or John Mayer's 'Why Georgia'). This engages the listener in a moment, making what follows more meaningful.
- **Vantage Point: Past, Present, Future** [33:03] — Every song has a vantage point—the moment from which the story is told. Use past, present, and future time frames to move the song forward. The bridge often looks to the future.
- **Using a Lens in Lyrics** [41:29] — A lens tells a concept through an image (e.g., a relationship through a tornado). Collide a concept with an object and use sensory terms from that object to describe the concept.
- **The Importance of a Title/Seed Idea** [46:37] — A recurring seed idea (title or repeated phrase) gives focus. Verses show something; the chorus tells what it means. Start a title list by collecting phrases from books or everyday life.
- **Point of View and Pronouns** [52:26] — Point of view (first person, direct address, second person, third person) affects how the song connects with the audience. Changing pronouns can transform a song's feel and meaning.
- **Harmonic Rhythm: When to Change Chords** [59:43] — The frequency of chord changes affects energy. Changing chords less often feels expansive; more often increases energy. Use this to contrast sections (e.g., verse vs. chorus).
- **Rhythm and Feel Define a Song's Identity** [68:57] — The same chords played with different rhythms create completely different songs. Listen to new music weekly and play along to develop a vocabulary of feels and grooves.
- **Simplifying: Focus on One Element at a Time** [74:25] — It's okay to set aside some elements while working on others. For example, just pluck the root of each chord to explore chord choices, as in Bill Withers' 'Lovely Day'.
- **Saving the One for Contrast** [85:45] — Avoid the tonic chord until the chorus to make the chorus feel like a release. Kelly Clarkson's 'Breakaway' is an example: the verse avoids the tonic, and the chorus lands on it.
- **Melody: Pitch and Rhythm** [93:47] — Melody consists of pitch (which notes) and rhythm (how long and when). Great melodies support the message. Use contrast between sections by changing melodic themes.
- **Melody Carries the Message: Kacey Musgraves' 'Slow Burn'** [109:15] — The melody's long notes and rest space convey the 'slow burn' feeling. Expanding (long notes) slows down the moment; contracting (short notes) creates acceleration.
- **Melodic Motif: Repeat Rhythm, Change Pitches** [120:23] — You can repeat the rhythm of a melodic motif while changing the pitches (e.g., 'Killing Me Softly'). This maintains unity while adding variety.
- **Pacing Lyrics Across Bars** [123:08] — You have choices in how to set lyrics to melody. Break lines anywhere, use repetition, and experiment with rest space. Tom Petty's 'Free Fallin'' uses word repetition effectively.
- **Alternating Two Melodic Themes in a Section** [127:46] — Use two contrasting melodic motifs within a section (e.g., one dynamic, one small). This creates forward energy and distinctiveness.
- **Final Advice: Embrace the Process** [132:11] — Separate brainstorming (generating ideas without judgment) from editing (refining). Set time restraints, start each day with generating ideas, and allow songs to finish naturally.

### Conclusion

The course provides a comprehensive toolkit for songwriters to improve their craft by understanding melody, harmony, lyrics, and rhythm. The key is consistent practice, self-discovery, and separating the creative process from the editing phase.

## Transcript

Hi, I'm Andrea Stolpe, and
welcome to Becoming a Songwriter.
I made this course because I wanted
something comprehensive that songwriters
of all levels could use to dip into some
of the more common techniques and then
also some of the more uncommon techniques
that I think songwriters working
in the industry find really useful.
I really wanted this course to be free
as well, so anyone, no matter your
circumstance, could benefit from the
tools and strategies you find here.
At the ends of the lessons are exercises
that you can use to structure your time
that you have available, whether it's
a very short ten minute period while
you're waiting to pick up the kids from
school, or a longer stretch when you have
really time to sink into your writing.
I've also created a PDF guide that I
hope will help you to visualize how these
tools are laid out through the course,
and how they interact with each other.
You can find that in
the description below.
I really hope this
course is useful to you.
If you find you're benefiting from it,
please like this video, subscribe to my
channel and send this course to someone
that you feel could benefit from it.
Thank you for being here and I can't
wait to hear how these tools and
strategies are helping you to answer
that calling in your life to create
something beautiful through song.
Let's go.
What makes a song magical?
When I work with songwriters, they're
often at a point where they've
been writing songs for a while, and
they want to move their songs from
being ordinary to extraordinary.
These are the things that we'll
be talking about throughout this
course, and things that I know as
writers inspire us to be able to take
greater control over our process,
and over the result of what we make.
There is some language that we can use
when it comes to the lyric element.
Well, it helps us feel strongly
about the idea, or it takes us to
another place or it sings well.
When it comes to melody, it's
hooky, it's catchy, it's memorable.
When it comes to rhythm
and groove, maybe it's fun.
It's danceable.
It's got momentum.
It's got drive.
There are many ways to describe why a
song is effective in making us feel like,
wow, that was a moment I enjoyed having
and I want to have it again and again.
I think the way in which we can
take our songs from ordinary to
extraordinary and our process from
something that just happens to
something deliberative is in knowing
what resonates with us as a person.
Now, when I listen to a playlist
of music that I've curated for
myself, that represents what I've
liked over the decades, there are
similarities amongst that music,
even though it covers quite a lot of
ground in terms of styles and genres.
I know that I really appreciate
lyrics that tell stories, and
it's really kind of where I find
myself writing most of the time.
I know that I struggle to create
groove and rhythm from the get go in
the songwriting process, and I was
brought up to think melody and lyric.
And so if I start my process with
more groove and rhythm, I end up
satisfying an element of my songwriting
that tends to get left behind.
I hear myself enjoying rhythmically
driven songs, production that's full and
intricate and detailed, but I also enjoy
a simple acoustic single vocal demo.
There are many, many ways to express
our songs in terms of production.
But the key elements that I want
to be listening for as I begin to
understand who I am as a writer and
how I want to express myself is in
the songwriting elements themselves.
We can control melody, we can control
the chord progression, the rhythm and
groove, and then finally the lyric.
And in those four elements lie many,
many possibilities to discover who
I am as a writer and artist and
to be understood by my listener.
What I would like for you to do to begin
this process of understanding your own
artistry is to make your own playlist of
10 songs that have been influential for
you along your musical listening journey.
These are songs from other artists that
just simply hit you straight to the heart.
And when you listen to these songs, I
want you to pay attention to what are
some of the important markers with regard
to melodic stylings, lyrical tendencies,
chords, and then rhythmic feel.
And I want you to see if you can find
patterns throughout these songs that
express to you what you value, what
needs to be there to create a magical
experience that you resonate with.
Rather than just a song that's functional.
Listen for a few days, take a little
bit of time to really steep yourself in
these songs, and it might be interesting
to share your playlist with a few other
people and get their response as far as
what are some of the elements you hear.
In general, how do these
songs make you feel?
Are they intricate and detailed?
Is there a delicacy there?
Are they empowered and bold and brazen
or agressive, and dynamic?
What are some of the qualities
that are coming out in all of
these songs that might give you
insight into what you value?
When you're done with this exercise,
come back and we'll look a little bit
more into this idea of writing what
is you and what you know as an artist.
A familiar story for us as artists
and writers in the industry is that
we keep trying to write what we think
others will like or want to record,
only to find that we're recreating
what others have already made.
And we keep pushing up against this door
that represents sort of success on the
other side and recognizing that until
we really just write what we know, and
write what resonates to us, or write
what we would want to listen to, we never
quite actualize the vision that we have.
So, write what we know is a wonderful
piece of advice to keep giving yourself
throughout your writing process.
Some of the things that I know: I
know Catholic Mass from 10 years
old at midnight on New Year's Eve.
I know humid Minnesota nights and
playing outside until 9: 45 at night
when the sun was just going down.
I know going out to the deli at 1 in the
morning, the only one that was open 24
hours, and hanging out with songwriters
and drinking  coke and trying to stretch
the coke as far as it'll go because
we couldn't afford to get more food
that night as struggling musicians.
I know things that I could write about
and the limitation is how I see those
fitting into the scope of a song.
As we develop as writers, it's
important to make space for writing
about the things that you know about.
So give yourself time to discover who
you are as you develop as a writer.
There can be a tendency to gauge
how successful our songs are by
comparing them to other songs.
But if we stop there and just continue
to write what we believe another
artist might be able to sing and
contain, then we're only allowing
our own art to flourish as broadly as
it might look on a different artist.
I believe that each of us, even though
we might label ourselves as a songwriter,
we must become artists because it is
through our being that we express the
things that resonate with us and as human
beings will resonate with the universal.
How we discover and refine our own
artistry is the same as it's always been.
We write.
We record.
We release the music, and
we share it with people.
I think this hasn't really changed,
even as the industry around us,
and maybe the modality in which
we do these things, changes.
But whether we share on a large scale,
or just with our intimate, small
audiences, Maybe family and friends.
The act of putting music out there and
releasing it and allowing others to
embrace it develops us as writers and
artists and puts closure on where we
were at the time of making that art.
And then I think we can reflect on
what we've made, take time to enjoy
it and recognize where we might go
as a result of having made that art
and over time that act of writing,
recording as best we can, releasing
in the manner that we can and allowing
others to to hear it and embrace it.
Then we can begin to reform and
transform ourselves over time
and become more of who we are.
I would like for you to do a
little exercise right now that'll
just take about 15 to 20 minutes.
I want you to grab something to write
with and go sit by a window and I want you
to make a list of things that you know.
Now, it could be short little bullet
points like I know about my dog leaping up
onto my bed at 5am and staring me in the
face while standing on my chest, right?
I know about the door slamming
when my toddler, um, gets up
at 2am to use the bathroom.
I know about there being a sink full
of dirty dishes, uh, and everybody's
gone to bed and it looks like
I'm loading the dishwasher again.
Now you know a little bit about my life.
Make a list of things that you know about
and they'll seem insignificant, but the
thing is about song, the ordinary becomes
extraordinary because there is meaning in
the insignificant moments that we live.
This is where songs reside.
Make your list.
Put it to the side and come
back for the next lesson.
There's no one right way to
write a song except for the
way that finishes a great song.
And that can be different
from song to song.
I tend to start with lyrics most
of the time because lyrics for
me take the longest to finish.
And I get a little bit anxious
when I've got a lot of great music
that I like and then no words.
There are different ways to write and
whatever way empowers you to feel like
it's gelling and the song gets done and is
shareable, that's the way to keep going.
Sometimes when we're in situations
like a collaboration, we find
that we have to be flexible in
the way that we approach a tune.
If I'm writing top line, as the
producers are building a track, I
need to come up with melody and lyric
that suits the structure of the track.
So my process has to adapt to
what's given to me in the room.
But if I'm at home on my own writing,
inevitably I'll pick up my guitar and
I'll start strumming something and sing
a little something or have a few lines
of lyric that begin the song for me.
And I'll set those to a little bit of
melody and chord progression and groove.
The way we start affects whether
or not we finish, and so process is
a skill that we can use to adapt.
So if we typically start with melody
and then we add words and then finally
we go and we add chords, sometimes
we might find that our excitement
about the chords is just not there.
They're kind of an
afterthought all the time.
Now, consequently, if we're leading with
melody, it can be that the reason why
we're doing that is because we feel most
capable of writing melody, or perhaps
we're a strong vocalist, and that's
what we do to lead the song and make
sure that something is hanging together.
I like to switch up the process
sometimes and recognize that, you
know, when I start with lyrics,
I tend to get a lyric heavy song.
The lyric tends to be the
leading edge of my tune.
When I start with chords and groove,
though, and then I sparsely pop some
melody in there with good rest space and
some other elements that put music as
the leading edge, Then, I can pull back
on the lyric and say, you know what?
The lyric is icing on the cake now.
And I have just created a new style
that I would not have created had
I gone with lyrics first as always.
Sometimes I'll sit down and pay
special attention to the chord
progression that I'm using.
Because again, for me, classical
piano growing up, lots of Mozart going
through my head, which results in
lovely melodic phrasing with no groove.
And so if I sit down and I just focus
on feel on harmonic rhythm, what
are the chords and what's the rhythm
with which I'm playing them, then
I can feel better about moving into
my strength areas, knowing that I've
taken the time to develop something
harmonically that I'm really happy with.
So process
can be a result of our strengths, and we
can think more intentionally about our
process and change it up a little bit to
put us more in line with writing something
we love and actually finishing songs.
I would like for you to do an
exercise in which you can examine
your process a little bit.
Think about how you normally write a song.
Now, this may change from song
to song, but one way to identify.
Your process might be to look at
what you feel really competent doing
when it comes to writing a song.
Do you tend to pick up your
guitar and strum some chords?
Do you not play an instrument and
instead start with lyrics or melody?
What comes with great ease for you?
Now think about what's challenging
about the songwriting process.
What do you tend to do last?
Because it's hard.
Now, when we consistently write with the
same process, it dumps us off the bus
at sometimes, worst case, an unfinished
song, and it never sees the light of day.
So think about your process and how it
interacts with your perceived strengths
and weaknesses, and consider how changing
that process might change the result
and the song that you get from it.
Let's talk about lyric writing.
Lyric writing can be
a little intimidating.
And I think that where I'm going to
take you throughout this course, I hope
will make you feel more empowered to
write lyrics that you feel intrinsically
are right for the music you're making.
Lyrics get their shape and
their color from the musical
landscape that they're in.
So, you can think of music like the
body language that carries the words.
The agreement, or the way
that the lyric and the music
interacts, we call that prosody.
What do the words and
the music make together?
If I take a simple phrase, like "hold
on", and I set that to different
musical landscapes, the meaning of
those words is going to change, and the
character with which we're singing them
seems to change as well.
So let me show you what I mean.
Let's say I start with a little
bit of a, like a rock vibe.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on.
It's got a sense of drive.
There's a little bit of power.
There's some edge to it.
But let's say that I take those same
words and I position them over a
landscape that's, uh, finger picking.
Hold on,
hold on
So here there's a sense of longing, of
kind of playing with someone or something
or, um, kind of wanting to be lifted up.
It's a really different
character, different feel.
Now an interesting thing is when we start
to understand that the lyric can be a
product of the music that we make, if we
make music first, or that the music is
where we go when we write lyric first and
we're drawn towards that musical sound,
we begin to understand what our sound,
our unique sound, can be and also how we
can change and manipulate pieces of that
sound by not assuming that we have to
go there with our musical landscape with
those words and that we have to go to
those words from that musical landscape.
Ultimately, what I think we can
be the controllers of in our own
songs is the connection between
the words and the music, and they
should always create something
better than the two on their own.
So, an example of this, imagine
Etta James, not me, singing.
Singing at last.
At last.
Why sing a long note there?
Why set it that way?
Why not?
At last my love has come along.
You know?
Well, it's, it's true in both times, at
last my love has come along, but all the
pull, at last, she's waited a long time.
And you can feel it with the music
that also shares that message,
and really makes it come alive.
So, instead of thinking
as lyric writing as a
challenging portion of songwriting that
we need to overcome or just squeeze
by, I want us to start thinking of
lyric writing as a way to express
more through words what the sound
that we're already making expresses.
One of the best exercises for writing
better lyrics is to do a form of
writing called destination writing.
It goes by many names, sensory writing,
object writing, descriptive writing.
You might even call it journaling,
but I'm going to put a little more
definition on just that idea of
journaling as we go through this practice.
Destination writing is the process of
releasing Our thoughts and feelings and
descriptive writing in its raw form.
So, unpracticed and non judging.
And we do this for several minutes
a day, every day, so you can get
into the flow and stay in the
flow of just generating words.
Now, what is  descriptive writing
and how do we see it in the song
lyrics that we know and love?
I want to share with you what
descriptive writing can look like
as a lyric so we know where we're
going when we do this practice.
I've chosen Randy Newman's
song called "Baltimore".
It's from the very beginning of this
song, highly descriptive, so listen
to this lyric with your ears attuned
to taste, touch, sight, sound,
smell, and movement in the verbs.
And what you'll notice is there's
quite a lot of imagery here.
You'll see visually what
the words are saying.
Beat up little seagull on a marble stair.
Tryin to find the ocean,
lookin everywhere.
Hard times in the city,
in a hard town by the sea.
Ain't nowhere to run to, there
ain't nothin here for free.
Waitin for a train, drunk
lyin on the sidewalk.
Sleepin in the rain.
And they hide their faces.
And they hide their eyes.
Cause the city's dying
and they don't know why.
Oh Baltimore, man it's hard just to live.
Oh Baltimore, man it's hard just to live.
Just to live.
Do you hear the imagery coming through
in many of the lines here in this lyric?
And it goes on to contain a lot more.
Now this is characteristic
of Randy Newman.
He gives us imagery to enable
us to feel what he feels.
It's like a keyhole looking
at the world through his eyes.
Regular practice.
Writing with sensory language in
mind,  allows us to become more
attuned to the language, the
whole amount of language that is
available to us when we write lyrics.
Now, not all songs need sensory language.
The Weeknd has a wonderful song
called "Die For You", and this
song has no sensory language,
and here's what that sounds like.
I'm finding ways to articulate
the feeling I'm going through.
I just can't say I don't
love you because I love you.
Yeah.
It's hard for me to communicate
the thoughts that I hold, but
tonight I'm going to let you know.
Let me tell the truth, baby.
Let me tell the truth.
Yeah.
Now, I don't know about you, but
when I write lyrics like that, my
little red flag, cheese flag goes
up big time, and I start to think,
how do I know if this is good?
And I start to ask kind of
these existential questions.
What is good lyric?
What is lyric?
So I want you to remember that
good lyric  is an evaluative term
based on how well the lyric and
the music dance together, okay?
So our goal is to figure out for
each one of us as unique songwriters
what that balance of sensory language
and non sensory language is to
engage our listener with the musical
experience that we're providing.
Let me give you a verbal example of
what sensory writing could look like.
And this is just going to be me
keying into imagery from a memory.
Fireworks with my brother back in 1984.
Alright, here I go.
We're in the cul de sac.
I'm still skinny.
Skinny like nine year olds can be,
shooting up awkwardly, crooked teeth.
My brother and his friends, he's
three years older, and they're
dancing around a carbon snake, they've
just lit the tin cans glinting on
the asphalt in the July 4 heat.
And it's 7 p.
m., but it's still gonna
be light for hours.
And the poplar trees and the cotton
are floating through the air.
And I see my dad with his socks
pulled up in his sandals and his
shorts on and his knobbly knees.
And now looking back, it makes me smile.
And my mom.
Standing there in her gardening
clothes with the dirt on the
knees and the sweatpants.
And the hat, the sun hat
that covers half her face.
Uh, sunscreen, obsessed with not getting
skin cancer by the time she's older.
And I watch the bursts of light and the
sparklers and the neighbor kids with their
grimy hands and snot dribbling noses.
And I think about this time
that seemed to pass so fast.
And the way that the fireworks crackle
above our heads, and my dog, a collie
dog, mutt, runt, barking at the hot
air balloons, and the flush of the
heat as it rises, this colorful balloon
into the sky, and it's July 4th, and
these times will never be back again.
Okay, so, This is this process of
kind of losing yourself in the moment.
And when you find that you might be
drifting away, or, or, or even your
mind going blank, you can gently
pull yourself back to the moment,
and just continue where you left off.
Having a non judging spirit
is really helpful in this part
of the songwriting process.
And non judgment is not the
same as a lack of judgment.
I'm just gently nudging myself
back to what is inspiring to
me, to what resonates with me.
Whenever a new image pops in, I just
tug at that one just a little bit
and let it take me to a new image.
This process, the more you do it, The
more thoroughly you will feel that you've
uncovered, uh, ideas and expressed them.
And at this point, it's very natural
to think, well, Where's the song?
So it's not about writing the song.
This is about a daily practice.
And also, then later on, we'll uncover
how to take these gems that naturally
seep from, from us and our history
and our culture and, and who we
are, and turn them into things that
are meaningful to others as well.
But for now, take this
opportunity to do this exercise.
I want you to start a daily practice
and start it right now where you
take five to 10 minutes every day
and do a form of sensory writing.
Again, if you'd rather use your phone
or turn on some recording device or do
it on your laptop typing or freeform
with a pen and pencil, it's okay.
Whatever way you do it.
Choose a prompt.
It could be a time like January 1st, 1992.
It could be a place like sitting in
an airport seat, waiting for a flight,
or it could be a person like your
uncle Joe with the weird mannerisms.
Anything that inspires
you to begin writing.
Now, here's the thing.
Observe your tendency to want
to edit what you're making and
reserve the editing for later.
Also, don't use any form of
judgment over what you're making.
Just assess when you feel like you're
moving away a little bit from the taste,
touch, sight, sound, smell movement,
just draw yourself gently back.
And then when you feel like you've
come to a point where you've
expressed maybe a small paragraph to
a few pages, everybody's different,
close it down and put it away.
And don't look at it again, do another
one tomorrow and another one the next day.
And over time, you'll find
yourself becoming more and more
comfortable with the process.
And then we can start to look at a little
bit later how these ideas contain gems
for songs, sometimes in their stories
and many times in the language that we
use, um, to actually make music from.
But for right now.
All they are is our entryway
into the creative cloud that
is around us all the time.
One of the most challenging things
about lyric writing is that we many
times have a story we want to tell.
And it's hard to understand what
do I need to say and what doesn't
need to be in the song to tell the
story and engage the listener to
feel as strongly about it as we do.
I want to share with you a few templates
that you can use to determine what
belongs in my song and what doesn't.
One of the simplest ways of approaching
a story is to start by setting the scene.
And this occurs in different
mediums, whether it's movie and
film, or whether it's books.
We first see the characters in
their environment, and then we begin
to understand what it all means.
As an example of this,  is a Sara
Bareilles song called "King of Anything".
So here's how this goes.
Keep drinking coffee, stare me down
across the table while I look outside.
So many things I'd say if only I
were able, but I just keep quiet
and count the cars that pass by.
Do you see the scene?
It's so vivid and so clear.
John Mayer has a song called "Why
Georgia", and it goes like, like this.
I am driving up 85 in the kind of
morning that lasts all afternoon,
just stuck inside the gloom.
Four more exits to my apartment,
but I am tempted to keep the car
in drive and leave it all behind.
So again, wonderful scene
setting going on there.
Okay, I want you to take a few
minutes and do an exercise.
I would like for you to go to some
of the sensory writings you've
done and I want you to look for
lines, phrases that set a scene.
A scene in which your character is living
and breathing and experiencing something.
And I want you to make a mental
note of how that scene is just like
Sarah Bareilles scene, just like
John Mayer's scene, but it's yours.
It's something in which you are engaging
the listener in a moment in time.
So that what you say in your song after
laying down that scene now becomes
more significant and meaningful.
When you're done, come back to me and
we'll do the next part of this process.
Setting the scene is a
great way to start a song.
Many, many songs do this.
When you set the scene, our
listener is in the now with us.
Right there in that situation.
When we go to tell a story, we
can end up commonly writing, this
happened, then this happened, then
this happened, then this happened.
And we lose a sense of the
moment that we're rooted in
while we're singing the song.
Some songs do tell you what
happens sequentially through time.
"Cats in the Cradle", "The Gambler",
things happen as the song moves along,
but real life doesn't go from here's this
problem that I've been having and here's
how I overcame it and here's how I feel
now in three and a half minutes, right?
The length of a song.
So what we tend to do is we root
ourselves in a moment and we
tell what's going on right now.
And we tell what happened to get
us here, and we tell what do we
think the future will be like.
And from these time frames,
we can deliver the story.
This I call vantage point.
Every song has a vantage point.
It's the moment from which
we are telling the story.
And it's the moment that gives
the song the reason to be told
right now, as opposed to later
on when the story fully unfolds.
Let's say I'm writing a song
about a challenge that I'm facing.
Maybe I'm feeling nervous about moving
into a new space in my life or a new
phase, and I don't know what to expect.
That challenge is the height of the
emotion that I'm feeling right now and
so it deserves to be the first verse.
When I'm expressing this challenge, if
the chorus comes and it's the culmination
of this, ah, it's really hard and
I don't know what to expect and I'm
worried and I hope it's going to be okay.
If I continue to tell you about this
challenge and how much more nervous
I am, the song doesn't move forward.
And so the purpose of looking at past,
present, future, and establishing
the vantage point is to really begin
to understand how to tell the full
story I want to tell and make sure
that the song keeps moving forward.
Pharrell Williams has a
wonderful song called "Happy".
And he begins the song by putting
us in a scene where he feels happy.
And listen to the sensory language here.
Now he starts with a non sensory
line, but boy does it make me
want to listen for the next line.
It might seem crazy what I'm about to say.
Sunshine, she's here.
You can take a break.
See that sunshine?
It already makes me feel
like what he's talking about.
I'm a hot air balloon that could
go to space, with the air like
I don't care, baby, by the way.
More imagery that just uplifts.
Now, the whole first verse is
dedicated to allowing me to feel
the main message of the chorus.
So by the time he gets
there, I already feel it.
He says, cause I'm happy.
Clap along if you feel
like a room without a roof.
Great imagery right there.
And I'm happy.
Clap along if you feel like
happiness is the truth.
That line just tells.
Uh, I'm happy.
Clap along if you know
what happiness is to you.
I'm happy.
Clap along if you feel like
that's what you want to do.
So the chorus just tells
me what it is, direct.
Now, the second verse of this
song takes that idea of being
happy and flips it over.
Because imagine for a minute, if
he kept giving us more examples
of what happiness feels and looks
like he might be like, well good
for you, I'm glad you're so happy.
But what about me?
You know, what about this other side?
And so he says, alright I'll look at that.
Here's how the second verse starts: Well
here come bad news talking this and that.
Right?
Well, give me all you got don't hold
it back Now, this is an example of
a song capturing the whole picture.
So at any point in a song that
you're writing, you can look at the
solution and the problem, or it's
a, if it's helpful to you, you can
look at the now or before the now.
All right, in my example of the challenge
that I'm facing moving into a new phase in
life, I could look back and say, you know
what, I used to feel really good here.
This phase used to fit me.
New York streets and the busyness
and the clamoring and the noise
and the buildings and the, and the
stress, man, it was invigorating.
And after a while, I felt myself become
part of the shadow of those buildings.
I felt myself.
overwhelmed, maybe my
voice muffled by the noise.
And now here I am thinking
I'm in a new phase, right?
So I've given you a backstory and
I've also contrasted the challenge
with how it used to feel invigorating.
So whenever you're looking at the
content of a story that you want to
tell, see if you can push the content
to its extremes in the solution.
Or problem.
Time frame of here's how it is
now, here's how it used to be.
Sometimes these extremes they help
us to understand how to move the
song forward through its sections
and help us to really expose all the
information the listener needs to really
feel connected to the transformation
that the character is going through.
The final timeframe of future is often
handled in the bridge, which I will
talk more about later, but the bridge
is often a look into the future.
Kelly Clarkson has a wonderful song that
was a very big hit and called "Breakaway".
And in her bridge, buildings
with a hundred floors
swinging with revolving doors.
I don't really know where
they'll take me, but I gotta keep
moving on, moving on, moving on.
So she shows us an example of an
intimidating vision and that despite
the risk, she's gonna keep going.
And that is futuristic thinking and a
beautiful place for our bridges to go.
So I would like you to try
an exercise of your own.
I want you to think of a concept that
you feel passionate writing about.
And it could be a title, or it could
be just an idea like the one I had
about being in a place now in life
where I feel I'm entering a new phase.
And I feel excited but also
intimidated by that change.
And I want you to map out the
concept in terms of what is the now?
Is my singer experiencing a challenge?
Or is my singer experiencing delight,
um, uh, joy, excitement in this moment?
Or peace, calm?
What's the now?
Now, taking that, what would be the past?
What led up to this moment?
Or what is the considering the flip
side of that excitement and that joy?
And then one last look into the future.
What could be the future
that's held for the character?
Map out this different parts
of your song just for a moment.
Don't take too long, maybe 10 minutes,
and see if you can see the broader
view of your song in an outline of
sorts before you dig into actually
writing a real lyric and music to it.
Have fun.
So, I've talked about setting the
scene and letting the first verse of
a song establish the point in time
and the place in which it's happening.
And then we've also talked about vantage
point as a way to tell a story and know
what parts of the story to deliver in
the song and when, in terms of past
present and future.
There's another style of lyric
writing that can help us to know
how to express what we want to
say, and it's called using a lens.
A lens is when we tell a
concept through an image.
So for example, I can talk about a
relationship through the lens of a
tornado, and that relationship carries
elements of a tornado, like it's spinning
and it's violent and it's dynamic
and it whips up, uh, the earth and
everything it passes and it carries it
with it and sets it down somewhere else.
Now, I can change that concept
to something else that seems to
be characterized by those things.
Let's say divorce.
I could talk about a parent's divorce
through the lens of a tornado.
Using a lens is a wonderful way to allow
our lyrics to carry a distinct style
that doesn't require that we put the
song in a particular time and place.
Now, let me show you how a lens
might look in terms of a song lyric.
This is the song, "Who Are You Mad At?"
by, uh, Jordan Schellhardt.
You come through the door
like a hurricane, rattling
walls and window panes.
Blow off the roof and let it rain on me.
Then you get silent right after the storm
and leave it to me to patch what's torn.
I said I'm sorry, but
I'm not sure I should be.
Do you hear the words that
reference the hurricane?
And they even say the word
hurricane right in the first line.
That's the lens.
A lot of times when we're
writing, We initiate a lens
in our lyrics, but we miss it.
When we describe things like her hair
falls like a waterfall, we are, in
fact, giving the listener an image, and
we can play off of that image, or we
could just let that image go when we
play off the image, what we are doing
is allowing ourselves the ability to
do sensory writing around that image
and then liken those sensory terms
to the concept we're writing about.
So we're colliding a concept with
an object that can be our image.
Look for this idea, this lens in other
songs that you know and love and you'll
soon find that verbs like rattling windows
come out over and over again.
These verbs, these descriptors of taste,
touch, sight, sound, smells, and movement,
they come from the lens and then you
can use them to give shape and color to
the concept you're really talking about.
It's a beautiful way to envision a more
abstract metaphorical lyric style that
might be more appealing to you if you
don't want to write so direct and tangibly
in your lyrics.
Here's an exercise for you with Lens.
I would like for you to
make a list of nouns.
Let's say 10 nouns that
you think are interesting.
And then, look at a song concept that
you would feel inspired to write about.
And I want you to hold that song concept
under the lens of each of those nouns.
So, you're going to imagine Popcorn.
That's my noun.
Let me look at, uh, a relationship
that I'm thinking about
through the lens of popcorn.
That relationship is unpredictable.
It's fun.
It's greasy.
It's salty.
It's something that is a
little light in my life.
Maybe it's under pressure.
Maybe there's points of steam,
heatedness in that relationship.
But all in all, it's, I
think, a little bit fun.
Popcorn.
Now, if I change the lens and I go
through all of my ideas of nouns,
I'm going to get ten different songs.
But ultimately, the practice here is
to loosen up, let yourself take on
different lenses for a single song
concept, after which you can pick
your favorite and write that song.
Whatever kind of music
we're trying to write.
Having a seed idea in a song that recurs
so that the listener recognizes it as
a familiar thought of words, or words
and music, or melodic theme, or chord
progression, this is what allows us to
communicate a singular, potent thought
to our audience and for that to be
understood and recognized again and again.
When it comes to lyric writing, the
seed idea that helps the listener
understand where they are in the song
and what it is really that we're trying
to tell often comes down to a title.
Now, whether it is the actual title
of the song or the phrase that is
simply repeated often is up to us.
Of course, some songs don't carry
the repeated line as the actual
title of the song, but I'm going to
set that aside and say that it is
important to have focus in a song.
And the way that we can do that is
to allow for a title phrase to come
back and be positioned in areas
that show itself as a main idea.
Some songs have the title right
up front and repeat it often.
An example of this might be Bill
Withers "Ain't No Sunshine".
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's
gone, and she's always gone too
long, anytime she goes away.
Wonder this time where she's gone, wonder
if she's gone to stay, ain't no sunshine
when she's gone, and this house just
ain't no home, anytime she goes away.
Another example would be
"Blackbird", The Beatles.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life.
You were only waiting
for this moment to arise.
Blackbirds singing in the dead of night.
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.
All your life, you were only
waiting for this moment to be free.
Our tendency is to write every
song all the time, right?
We want to say it all.
But the most magical song experiences
that I've ever had, and that I hear
people reflecting back to me over and over
again, is a song in which it asserts one
point clearly, concisely, beautifully.
That's our job, just one.
And a verse, the job of the verse
is to say, here is the supporting
detail that makes me believe that one
thought is true, and it's so true that
there's nothing else I need to say
in this song to make it song worthy.
Verses often show us something.
The chorus tells us what it means.
Catching a clean,
effective title is an art.
Here are some titles that artists have had
success with, and I want to investigate
just for a minute what might be qualities
of these titles that make them shine.
Here's a title.
It's "Cool".
Just the word cool.
"Fake Out".
"Death Wish".
That's interesting.
"Speak to Me".
Depeche Mode.
Sometimes a title is just
clean, simple, direct language.
Now, other times a title
can be eye catching, like
"Superpowers" by Daniel Caesar.
"Back 40 Back", Luke Combs, right?
What is back 40 back, man?
That's kind of interesting.
Sometimes you will find that your
intuition about a title has more to do
with the way that it flows or doesn't flow
than what the words are actually saying.
And this is a beautiful thing because
it's that feeling, again, that body
language that the music is creating for
those words that often let it seep into
our skin and become art instead of just
something on our to do list for the day.
So.
I would love for you to take a
few minutes to begin what we would
call a title list for yourself.
Take a notebook or make yourself a digital
document on which you collect titles.
You could do this by setting
aside 20 minutes one day a week,
saying, today for these 20 minutes
I am going to collect titles.
You could go to some books that you
enjoy reading and just open to a
random page, scroll down for phrases,
words, anything that might pop out
to you that has title potential.
You don't have to know, you
just need to be open to what
a title might be telling you.
Jot the title down.
and set it aside for a later date.
But start your title list so that when
you have time to write, some days you
can go back to that list and consider
if any of those titles speak to you.
There's one more element of lyric
writing that I'd like to share
with you that affects how we
are perceived to our audience.
When we write, we naturally take on
a point of view with which we write.
And the point of view
comes out in the pronouns.
So, when I use first person point
of view, I have I within the song.
I am speaking to you,
or he, or she, or them.
When I use direct address, I am
directly addressing you as a person.
You and me.
When I'm using second person narrative,
it's, you know, when you, when
you feel this and that happens and
when you dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
And so I, as the singer and delivering to
the universal audience, a sense of, Hey,
I'm slightly outside this experience.
I'm just relaying the information.
When I'm addressing the third
person, I'm saying he and she,
and they do this, think this, and
isn't that the truth for all of us?
I'm the narrator, and I'm
outside the song, so I can
say what I want to say here.
And none of it is necessarily how I am.
I am just reporting the news.
So, how is point of view really useful
to us as the songwriter and how am
I going to use it to create the kind
of connection that I want to create?
Well, I think one of the first things
that we can do as songwriters is to simply
notice the point of view that we're using.
When we notice the point of view,
we can change the point of view and
experiment with how changing those
pronouns affect how the song delivers.
Let me give you an example.
Here's a song called "Never
on the Day You Leave".
It's a John Mayer song
and it goes like this.
Now it's never on the day you leave that
you wonder what you still believe in and
you can't remember why you said goodbye.
You'll hear an old familiar sound and
hope it's her when you turn around,
but never, never on the day you leave.
So, I understand, from this point
of view, that John is expressing a
truth that might be my truth too.
And she is gone, and so naturally,
her is a distancing pronoun that
works really well to further
reinforce that she's not there.
They've left.
It's over.
Now let me try changing the pronouns
just to see what happens to the way
you perceive me as the singer, and the
information that you get from the song.
No, it's never on the day I leave
that I wonder what I still believe in.
And I can't remember why we said goodbye.
And I'll hear an old familiar sound
and hope it's you when I turn around,
but never, never on the day I leave.
So now, interestingly, I think
the song becomes more personal.
Perhaps in a manner that doesn't
translate to all of us, but it's
just one person's experience.
And it might even be a
little confusing that way.
When we change the point of view,
we are changing the relationship
between the singer and the audience.
We're changing the way
the information lands.
And so, as a writer, even if I can't
predict the effect that a change in
the pronouns is going to have, it's
worth trying, and it's another tool
that gives me the ability to step
outside my song and hear what the song
is telling me that it could be saying.
Right?
So it's a wonderful tool to be aware of
the point of view and to be able to change
it so that I can find the soul of the
song and how the concept really breathes
life with a particular point of view.
Sometimes not having pronouns
at all creates the interest
that we want in the lyric.
Going back to Randy Newman's
song "Baltimore", listen
for the lack of pronouns.
Beat up little seagull on a marble stair.
Tryin to find the ocean,
lookin everywhere.
Hard times in the city,
in a town by the sea.
Ain't nowhere to run, there
ain't nothin here for free.
Waitin for a train, drunk
lyin on the sidewalk.
Sleepin in the rain, and they hide their
faces, and they hide their eyes, cause
the city's dyin and they don't know why.
For the first time.
Late in the song we hear the word they.
They is quite distancing.
I don't know who they is and I
think I'm not supposed to know.
It's just a group.
That I don't belong to, and
they're basically strangers.
And so the lack of pronoun there,
I would say the use of no pronouns,
helps to emphasize the desolation
of that experience, the separateness
that he's describing, the tough times.
So, consider your pronouns.
And know that you have control over
whether you use them and where you use
them and which pronouns you use to create
the feeling that you want to create.
So a great exercise can be to find a
song that you've already written, pull
it out, and just exchange the point
of view for a different point of view.
Go from first person to third
person, or from second person to
first person, or to direct address.
Haphazardly, without being able to see the
future of what's going to happen, stand
back and observe what the change causes.
Now sometimes you might realize,
wow, that totally didn't work, this
new point of view confirms that my
old point of view was the right one.
But sometimes, changing point of view
results in a breakthrough moment for
a song, where what once felt cheesy
and forced now feels authentic and
real, and sometimes the point of
view just calls out, finally, now
I know how to finish this song.
So I would encourage you to find a song,
something that you've written, that might
be stuck or stalled or something that
you're not quite sure if it's done yet.
Flip the point of view and
see if it doesn't give you
new insight into the song.
A foundational piece of our
songs is clearly what we're
doing on the instrument.
And I don't know about you, but when I
go to write the chords and determine the
feel with which I'm going to play those
chords, I can get a little sidetracked.
And the reason is, I think it's
natural to want to move away
from the typical places we go.
I know what I've been doing
for years on guitar, for years
on piano, with my chords.
And so sometimes it feels
like there's nothing new.
Nothing really interesting that
I'm, I'm doing and the way that
I approach songwriting can then
become very lyric and melody based.
If I don't spend some time giving
my instrument the chance to speak.
And so what I'm really talking
about is the chords and the
harmonic rhythm of the feel with
which I'm expressing those chords.
I think most of us are looking
for interesting chord progressions
when we go to our instrument.
And, uh, certainly, we can wind up
with some really wonderful, like
some really interesting bass movements,
some one major chord, uh, a flat seven
chord, you know, a flat three, um, and
just get real deep into a, where can
I go now that's an interesting color?
But, only doing that leaves behind
another wonderful area of harmony that
is accessible to us without really even
knowing chord names and kind of addressing
the instrument with music theory.
And that is paying attention to time, time
signature, and when we're changing chords.
I'd like to use a Sheryl Crow song called
"Strong Enough" as an example of this.
Now, when I play, I'm going to be
playing chords that we all know if
we've been playing guitar a while.
I'm playing an A major, a D major,
an F sharp minor, and an E major.
So it's in the key of A.
And in this song, what's
interesting to me is how the chords
transition from one to another.
If I were given those chords,
I might go 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,
3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4.
You know what I'm saying?
One chord per measure and then I'd
wonder why I'm not terribly inspired
to write the melody and the lyric.
And so here's what Sheryl
Crow did with "Strong Enough".
And it has a wonderful movement
that really creates beautiful
prosody or dance with the melody.
God I
feel like
hell tonight.
Tears of rage I cannot lie Be the
last to help you understand, are
you strong enough to be my man
So, the movement here happens
near the end of the measure, so,
God I feel like hell tonight.
And I think, wow, what if I had
remembered that I don't have
to change chords every bar?
Or, in the middle of every
bar in 4/4 and beat 3, right?
So it has such a beautiful lilt to it.
This idea of when we change chords
is really wonderful because then we can
use it to contrast sections of our song.
So, for example, if I have a
song that I'm playing and I
know the verse goes like this,
one two three four five six one.
I'm going to use two notes.
Two chords,
so each chord lasts two measures.
Now look when I change
now, that clearly was a new section.
And did you feel the energy pick up?
It's a result of two things going to a new
chord, but changing much more frequently.
Not much changed in the
range of the melody.
It's all due to doing
something different here.
And again, these aren't chords that
you don't know if you've been playing
too long, so it's really about the
frequency of the chord changes basically.
The more frequently I change, the
more energy I infuse into the section.
The less frequently, the more
expansive I make it, the more
sprawling it begins to feel.
And that could feel peaceful and content.
Or maybe it feels a little bit, um,
Maybe it feels a little
static and anxious.
Ba da da, da da, ba ba ba ba ba
Ba da da, da da, ba ba ba ba ba
So here I'm staying on one
chord for a long, long time.
And that might create kind of a
tension, like, Oh, when is the
tension going to relieve, you know?
So, when we change chords is a really
beautiful technique that you can
apply anytime because you simply
don't need more chords than you have.
A really great exercise to take
yourself through a few times a week
would be to just take 10 minutes
and choose a few chords and play
around with changing the frequency
with which you play those chords.
So let's say that I've got A major
and D major and I want to play
around with real basic 1, 2, 3,
4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2.
Now I can change chords elsewhere.
4 1 2 3 4 1 2,
3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2.
Or I could stretch it out.
1 2 3 4 3 4 1 2 3,
3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 3
4.
Right?
And so not having assumptions about
how these need to go, I can open
up a lot of possibilities for how
the song will progress from here.
So take 10 minutes and just play around
with assumptions that you might have
about when you should change chords and
stretch those assumptions out a little
bit and you'll find that you come up
with sort of new progressions, new
feels just from that simple exercise.
Nobody doesn't know that song.
And it's really interesting
because there's not much to it.
And yet, it's the rhythm with which
those chords are expressed that
makes me realize it's that song.
Right?
If I change that and I go
Now it's not that song anymore.
Same chords.
So, the rhythm, or the feel, the harmonic
rhythm with which we express our chords
really affects the identity that the
song takes on, and furthermore, it
helps to establish who the character is.
Now, remember this idea
that music is king?
You can choose all the chords you
want to choose, except if it doesn't,
correctly express the character with
the harmonic rhythm, we will not get
the full scope of that character, right?
So guitarists learn this by playing
along with songs that they love and they
develop that right hand flexibility,
which for us as songwriters would mean
that we get to develop a vocabulary of
rhythms and feels that can then help
us to write different styles of songs.
Now, we could go with
something more rock, right?
And just because of this feeling
now, a melody is coming to me that
has more of a rock groove to it.
If I finger pick, Um, I took
my love, I took it down.
Suddenly, I get a little
sentimental, right?
I climbed a mountain, I turned
around, and I start to feel this
sense of looking back and reflection.
It's just wonderful, but it's that
harmonic rhythm, that mood, that feel,
that takes me to that place lyrically.
So, if you feel that you're writing a lot
of the same songs over and over again and
that is kind of a point of stuckness to
you, then something that you can do is
absolutely, first of all, listen, listen,
listen  to music, music, particularly
outside of the music that you typically
listen to, because what we want to get
is some new influences on our right hand.
If you're strumming with your right hand,
we want to get some moods and feels that
take us to new places with our content.
So how much should we listen?
I recommend that you listen to at
least one new record every week.
If you can, more is always great.
But to take that a step further, pick a
song on the record that you resonate with.
And play along with it.
Now it could be that you have to
mute the strings because it's a
mess and you're not even able to
play in the key that it's in, right?
And you bring out your capo
and it's still a mess, right?
It's okay.
Just try to let your right hand
actualize a little bit of that feel.
And then,
you might even record yourself laying
down your best guess at what that is.
And then later you can pull it out
and try writing over that feel.
And we don't even really need
chords here yet at that stage.
We can simply strum, get the feel
into our bones, and then write
something inspired by that feel.
So I would recommend doing that.
Once a week, if you've got the
time, but definitely a few times a
month, and it'll help you to develop
a vocabulary with which you can
write new songs and inspire you.
A really great exercise that you can do
anytime, anywhere, is to put on a record
and pay attention to the feels and the
grooves and how they make you feel.
And when you're listening to something
and it's inspiring you, to write that way,
take that groove and start to sing some
of the titles that you're developing in
your title list over that mood and groove.
The idea here is not that you need
to come up with your own unique and
original moods and harmonic rhythms
every time you sit down to write,
but you can borrow from what
other people are doing within a
genre or outside of your genre.
And just experiment with how the things
that you say lyrically and your melodic
ideas feel over those grooves and rhythms.
And this can then unlock a whole new
style of songwriting for us that we're
just using other artists to inspire us
with and create a template together.
Try this out for a few minutes every
day and see what comes to you from
the titles that you have connecting to
the music you hear from other people.
Sometimes it's intimidating to manage
to capture words and melody and
chords and feel all at the same time.
So I want to tell you that it's okay and
sometimes even preferable to put some of
those areas aside while you work on one.
Sometimes, uh, folks who don't
play an instrument will say,
Oh, I hear it in my head.
I know what I want to hear, but I
can't find it on the instrument.
And I'll admit it was sometimes
when I'm, I'm, sitting with my
instrument, I will search around to
see where do I think I want to go.
And of course I, I know all the normal
places to go, but sometimes we hit where
we want to go by accident and sometimes
we have to look for it a little bit
and we'll know it when we hear it.
So there's nothing wrong with
saying, well, I don't know, I'm
just going to look around a bit.
But one of the best ways I think
to set some of these things aside
is to say, you know what, I've got
Five fingers, but they don't need
to all be playing at the same time.
I'm just gonna, gonna do one.
I'm gonna capture a note in
the chord and for me, it's
gonna be the root of the chord.
And I'm gonna use this song,
Bill Withers "Lovely Day".
Amazing song.
And I'm going to just pluck the
bass, which is the root of the chord.
And I want to look at why did he
choose the chords that he chose?
And what is so great about
this E, to a C sharp, to an A?
Why those?
Because under a melody, we
can play a number of different
chords to capture the emotion.
So, the first line of the song is, When
I wake up in the morning, love, And he
goes, When I wake up in the morning, love.
So it starts on the root of the scale.
And it's in the key of E.
So it's, When I wake up
in the morning, love.
And sunlight hurts my eyes.
And something without warning, love.
Bears heavy
on my mind
So the idea here is that he plays
very simply the root of the scale.
First, the key, the the, the, the E.
Now, why start on the e?
When he plays, when I wake up in,
I'm singing a note that collaborates
beautifully with the key.
When I wake up and when I wake,
it's the fifth over that E.
It's very agreeable.
And so I think that sets
the tone for the whole song.
It's almost like he's saying,
all right, when I wake up in the
morning, love, it's not awful.
Like it's not, um, I'm drowning
in, in all my troubles.
It's all right.
It's all right.
You know, take this with a
pinch of salt, a little bit.
When I wake up in the morning, love.
Right?
There's a little bit of challenge.
That morning, sometimes like, uh,
not sure I want to wake up yet.
That's what this C
sharp minor does for me.
It's a little dark, right?
A little darker.
It's darker than this.
This says, um.
Little pain, little, little twinge.
And then he goes, the
sunlight hurts my eyes.
That's a little bit painful, right?
Just a little, it's not a, I'm
going to die under the pain, but
it's just a little, little jab.
So what I'm saying here is that the
chords are very intentionally chosen.
And when you write a lot of songs.
Or, you know, Bill Withers, uh,
was an amazing artist because he
didn't release a lot of albums.
And yet, um, many of his songs
are just pristine, I think.
There's such intentionality in how the
chords are able to bring out the message.
Now, the song goes on to say, and
something without warning love.
It bears heavy on my mind.
It's not bears heavy on my mind
that that really bears heavy.
Right?
If he goes back to that C sharp minor,
bears heavy on my mind, he's got a little,
uh, to me there's a little strength there.
It's a little like, yeah,
I'm able to deal with it.
Stay tuned and we'll see what comes next.
Kind of a feeling.
And then there's a little pre chorus
that happens and it goes, then I look at
you and the world's all right with me.
You know, it's like,
what are those chords?
Just one look at you.
And so the feeling here, you can
even look at it as it's a C major.
And then he goes up, he lets the
chords rise and it's a D major
there as far as I'm looking at it.
Skeletally.
Uh, then I look at you and
the world's all right with me.
How do you say It's all right with
me over a dark chord like that?
An E minor.
It's so interesting.
So the colors of the chords, I'm gonna
call them colors, but the emotion
that they cast over the words will be
different for every song you write and
you have to attune to, what do I feel
the message to be now that I
move from this chord to the next?
And it's a beautiful, um, dance
that we take with our song as it
shares with us what it's meaning.
Then, we get to this chorus.
Uh, I know it's gonna be Then,
here we go back A lovely day Right?
So it really is a lovely day
because now we've come home.
We're over the E major again, the world
is bright, despite the, the uncertainty
that we've had in this pre chorus,
and we're staying away from the E,
so that when we come back, it feels
.
like, wow, we've really arrived.
It's a beautiful, beautiful,
lovely day, just like he says.
Now, if you know this song, you'll
know that the chorus is just
one, two, three, a lovely day.
Then the backgrounds are
creating the movement.
Lovely day, lovely day,
lovely day, lovely day.
And he just gets away with
this chorus that is One phrase
over and over and over again.
And I say, get away with it because
I think part of me is envious.
Why can't I write something
that simple and profound?
And I think that it is a keyhole
into a secret of magical songs.
Magic happens when we are
potent with our ideas.
Just like with melody, we write a distinct
theme and we allow ourselves to repeat it.
With harmony, we allow for distinction,
not necessarily complication.
So, whatever your skill set is at this
point in time, whether you can move your
way around your instrument in a manner
that shows master level or whether
you're just beginning, I want you to
take heart in that we don't need to be
able to express for writing the bones of
the song, a guitar part or a piano part
that is expertly crafted and played.
What we're interested in in the writing
of a song is really how do the colors of
the chords that I've chosen just simply
played as they are interact with the
message in the lyric, and the rhythm
with which I'm playing these chords
help to express that message as well.
If you're someone who tends to lay
down a lot of recordings of musical
pieces without lyrics to go with
them, you are in a beautiful spot
because you have all these wonderful
chord progressions that are sharing
with you a character, a personality.
And now it's your job to mine some of
those personalities for the imagery
and the language that they share.
So, one thing that we have trouble
doing, I think, is deciding on a single
piece of music that we've recorded
that we'd like to write to and finish.
And so, an exercise for a day might
be to take 20 minutes, or maybe even
less time, 10 minutes, and put that
recording that you made with you
playing, uh, an idea, just on loop.
And then what I'd like you to do is take
out your laptop or paper and pen and
just write feverishly whatever comes
to mind with words that is inspired by
the musical landscape you laid down.
Now, in a way, you're kind of co
writing with yourself, because you're
saying, Oh, I wrote this the other day.
Isn't this kind of cool?
There's something here.
And now you're saying, well,
what does this mean to me today?
And it's okay if you're not in the
same inspired space that you were
when you wrote that initial idea.
Your job now is to say, yeah, what
are those chords telling me now?
But I'm in a different space and that
chord progression can help lead you
to lyrical ideas that even as they've
come out onto the page in paragraph
form, you can drag ideas out from to
serve as pieces of your song lyric.
There's a few really wonderful tools
for writing the chord progressions
of our songs that I want to share
with you that will help to solve
some of the issues that we might
have that we can blame on the chords.
One of those is that we can't quite get
enough contrast between the sections.
Another one of those is, man, I keep
trying to get the chorus to lift, you
know, to really feel like, ah, we're at
the chorus and it just kind of sneaks
in, it's just kind of subtly there.
And I can't quite get it to pop.
Well, one of my favorite
tools is Saving the One.
And what that means is, whatever key
we're in, let's say we're in the key
of G, I'm gonna wait to play the G
chord till I get to the chorus, so
that when that chorus comes and that
G happens, it's like, ah, there it is.
Just like Bill Withers in "Lovely Day",
he avoids the tonic, the chord that
starts on the root of the scale, For the
section before the chorus, so when the
chorus comes, it's like, ah, there it is.
So if I'm in G, and that's where
my chorus is going to land, I'm
going to avoid it before there.
So maybe my verse starts on C.
So, da da da, da da
da, da da da, da da da.
Now.
This is my verse.
Notice that I am just using two chords.
I'm, I'm using the C major and the D.
But the idea here is that I've got two
chords that when I move between them it
creates a very simple but potent sound.
Now imagine for a minute if I were
to use lots of different chords.
Now we're to do Ba da da, bum ba da
da Ba da da, bum ba da da Ba da da,
bum ba da da Ba da da, bum ba da da Ba
da da, da da da Ba da da, da da da da
You have no idea where you
are in the song and honestly I
can't tell you anymore either.
There's too much change and so
it becomes a jack of all trades
and nothing in particular.
So, one of the tricks to making
contrast work between sections and
to save the one effectively is to let
your sections be distinctly different.
Potent.
So I'm just gonna use,
now.
I could go.
And I've come to what might be a chorus.
Now, a few things happened for me there.
One thing that I'm not going to blame on
the chords is Da da da Do you hear how
my melody starts after that downbeat?
I played, then I sang.
And in the verse, da da
da, I did the same thing.
So what I'm sharing with you then
musically is Da da da, there's no hurry
to hear what I have to say, right?
It's just gonna eventually happen.
And when we do that section after
section after section, it begins to
allow you as the listener to disengage.
So if I'm purely focused on harmony,
though, I think what I was doing is it's
gonna work out okay, just going C D..
But let me add now a pre chorus
section because some of us then are
like, well wait, I wanna pre chorus
to build the energy of this song,
get things moving towards the chorus.
I'm still gonna avoid the G,
I'm gonna avoid the tonic and
I'm gonna go somewhere else.
In a key, a major key.
I have diatonic chords.
We call them the chords that
just seem like they belong.
And I think, you know, without getting
into a theory lesson, for G, I've
got A minor, I've got B minor I could
go to, I already played the C and
the D, and then I've got E minor.
that I could go to.
Now, there are all kinds of wonderful
inversions, G over B, um, uh, an E,
uh, D, D over F sharp, and these are
wonderful to bring into the picture
to add subtlety, but I'm going to
avoid doing that at this point.
I'm just going to maybe bring in
the A minor for my pre chorus.
Uh, ba, ba, Ba da dap, Ba
duh dap, Ba da da Ba ba.
So, I went to an A minor, and
I forget where I went there,
maybe an E minor after that.
But I'm trying to avoid that G, because
if I go to that G, what's gonna happen
is it's gonna take us home, and it's
gonna dispel or diffuse all the good
energy that I've built up through
the avoidance of that home space.
To practice this, see if you can take
a chord progression that you typically
use, and identify the key you're in.
Now, that's the chord that you're
going to want to save for later.
And pop it right up there
at the top of the chorus.
And then write around it
until you get to that point.
Some wonderful songs that
have been written with this.
One of my favorites to use is
Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway."
I grew up in a small town When the rain
would fall down I'd just stare out my
window I'd just stare out my window It's
not to the chorus that she goes, Ah,
da da da da da da da da da da.
So it really lands us securely on that
one in the chorus when she's talking about
what breaking away feels like, whereas
before, she was talking about problems.
Right?
So,
when the tonic, and in that song it's
a C chord, in the way I was playing it,
is used as a passing chord, it's okay.
But, when it's used as a place
where I'm going to land and come
to rest, then we have a dispelling
of energy happening there.
So, try this technique just save the
one a few times in a chord progression,
sit down for 10 minutes, write a
progression that you feel saves the
one, and then play it down and see how
that feels to you to do that technique.
And I think you'll find over time,
you can work that into your writing
routine with intuition rather than
thinking so consciously about it.
I want to talk about melody.
Now, melody comes with great ease to
some of us, and for others of us, it
comes with quite a bit of difficulty.
And something that I find really
interesting to first talk about is,
well, what makes a melody great?
When we ask this question,
sometimes we'll get things like,
well, it's a very dynamic melody.
It's gotta, it's gotta be rangy.
It's gotta show off the singer's
vocal, but sometimes it doesn't.
And sometimes a melody is
very small and winding.
And it has a lot of notes, a lot
of short notes that allow us to
deliver a good amount of lyric.
Sometimes a melody is just very simple
and structured and basic, and that
shows the character of the song well.
And other times it's syncopated,
jagged, or the phrasing is very short
and unpredictable, and that shares
the focus of the message really well.
So it seems to me the question that
we should be asking instead of how
do you write a great melody is how
do I write a great melody for the
song that I'm currently writing?
Because that might be a very different
set of tools than for a different song.
It really comes down to what
melodic tools support the message
that I'm trying to get across.
Just like we would ask ourselves,
what are the chord colors?
What is the harmonic rhythm
that supports the message?
We ask the same thing for melody.
So we can define melody as two elements.
It has a pitch element.
So what am I singing right now?
Right?
Which pitches am I singing?
And then what is the rhythm of
those pitches that I'm singing?
Which is really how
long do I hold the note?
And when do I sing it in
the beats of the measure?
That's pretty much it.
It's just pitches and rhythms
ascribed to those pitches.
When I think about melody in this way,
it simplifies the whole landscape.
So really what we need to know
are, well, what are the pitch
tools that I can play with?
And what are the rhythmic tools
that I can play with to end up with
something that supports the lyric?
And I think, remember what we were
talking about before, where music
is the body language of a song.
It tells us how to interpret
the words that we're delivering.
And so when you write melody with lyric
and we say, ah, the melody, it just flows.
What I think we're really saying
is that the melody and all parts of
the song have become transparent.
And we are only immersed in the experience
of the song, feeling, rather than thinking
about the experience we're having.
And that is where I want to
take you with these tools.
With melody, we get to control
the forward movement of a song.
And what that means is, songs have energy.
There's like an amount of energy
that we start with, we establish
in the front of the song.
And I think as writers, we can feel that
energy either moving forward and moving
into the next sections of our song.
And sometimes when the section's
not working, we don't know why
necessarily, but not working.
We feel the energy sag and we feel
like, man, the song is too long
or the melody is just not right.
Or that chord isn't pulling us forward.
With melody, These tools
can help us to gain energy.
We call it gain acceleration
and push us forward.
One of the things that we can do to create
energy is to have a new section come.
Now, I'm going to show you
some different ways to apply
repetition in a verse section.
This can apply to more than just
the verse, but repetition of a
melodic theme is the most basic and
useful melodic tool that we've got.
I'm going to use this song called
"Hard Place" by the artist, HER.
If she had given us only verses
for this song, we may feel after a
little while that the energy dips.
Because the song doesn't build and grow.
So the question is, how do we use melody
to allow the song to build and grow?
And the answer is, contrast.
We give the listener a new melodic
theme so that it refreshes the
energy at that point in the song.
And this song has a pre chorus
that comes after the verse section.
Now I like this song as an example
because the chords don't change.
So what is responsible for creating
forward movement is melody.
So we just came out of a
verse that was doing this.
Da da da da da da da da da.
Ba da da da da da da ba ba.
Ba da da da da da da da.
Da da da.
Right?
Just nice and chill.
So if the prechorus does this I, I'd
rather fight than lose sleep at night.
At least you're all mine.
That's a really different melodic theme.
Now, I think as writers, we think,
yeah, but how do I come up with that?
Right?
And a really wonderful way to come up
with a contrasting melody, again, all
we're looking for is a new melodic
theme, because as you'll notice in this
one, it repeats that melodic theme a
few times before we hear something new.
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.