5 Mistakes Beginner Songwriters Should Avoid

[00:02] mistakes that beginner songwriters should avoid and I've been a professional songwriter for over 15 years and also been teaching songwriting in some of the best colleges and universities around the world for almost

[00:14] that long as well and I wanted to share in this video just five really practical and actionable things that if I had known at the beginning of my songwriting life I would have started my songwriting Journey at at a much higher level and I

[00:27] think I would have been writing better songs faster and our aim and Mission those insights with you that we've learned over our careers and our experience so that you as songwriters

[00:39] can just write better songs and write them faster so let's dive in as a brief there's so many things that we could talk about but what I really wanted to do is pick five things that are specific and actionable and tangible that if you

[00:54] employ them in the next 10 minutes your songs can actually get better today so the first three are very musical they're very songwriter it's not kind of abstract stuff it's really practical usable stuff and the last two are really

[01:10] about habits and they're really important habits to understand sooner internalize them the more quickly you will write better songs and more of them every single year so the first mistake to avoid as a beginner songwriter is a

[01:26] lyric writing tip and gosh there are just so many things things I could talk about with lyric writing we have lots of other videos I'll pop a playlist up there that you can jump to if you want more lyric writing stuff so the mistake

[01:38] more lyric writing stuff so the mistake to avoid here is mixing up pronouns inside the lyrics of your songs and what do I mean by that what I mean by that is when you sit down to write a song and you are writing from a particular

[01:51] the song and maybe there's another character in the song who you are singing to or about or you were singing this song for them often what I see is songwriters will start by referring to

[02:05] that other character as he or she and then switching the pronoun so I don't mean switching she for he what I mean is switching she for you or the other way around we start talking directly to someone I am talking to you and then

[02:21] songwriter is talking about that very same person not as you but as he or she and it's one of these things that makes particularly at the beginning we we sort of think like cinematographers we're

[02:35] moving the camera lens in and out and it makes sense to us as we move the camera lens in to become more intimate or intense in a song that we start saying you rather than hey or she but for a listener it's actually really really

[02:49] confusing so I want to give you a demonstration very quickly on the guitar of a little song I've just written as a kind of demonstration of this for you to show the kind of habit or the mistake that is so easy to make what we can do

[03:02] to transform it and you'll really witness how that transformation improves the experience and the connection you have to the song she opens a window lights a candle Whispers his

[03:19] [Music] name will you ever be happy again

[03:34] a story about she and she's doing this and she's doing that and then when we want to move the emotional lens closer to this character we say will you ever be happy again so we're switching that pronoun she for you and again it makes

[03:47] sense in the mind of a songwriter but it's quite confusing to a listener you know we use pronouns when we communicate with people to really indicate firstly different characters in a story so if I say something like she walked into the

[04:01] room and you started crying we understand those to be two different characters that's simply how we use and how we process language but the other really important thing is whenever we use a pronoun like you or I it's an

[04:14] indication of where the focus is it's really telling us who the main characters are inside a story so when I switch from she to you even though I'm really talking about the same person it becomes narratively confusing it becomes

[04:29] like C itively confusing and it also becomes emotionally confusing for a listener and these sorts of things register at often a pretty subconscious level but when we clarify things and make those pronouns consistent the

[04:44] subconscious and the conscious reception of a listener all becomes extremely direct and extremely clear so let me sing that for you again where I simply change all the she's to use and you'll hear how everything becomes so much more

[04:59] clear and consistent and that you really are just inside the song you're not trying to like perspective switch which draws us out of the song so let's take a draws us out of the song so let's take a listen to that you open

[05:12] window light a candle whisper his

[05:34] change pronouns when you're really talking about the same person but as much as you can try to keep those pronouns consistent when you're talking about the same character and the effect for a listener is that they will be with

[05:49] you through the whole song they will be simply immersed in the world of your song they will care as much about the characters in your songs as you do the second mistake to avoid as a beginner songwriter is really one to do with

[06:04] songwriter is really one to do with chords and the mistake is this starting chords and the mistake is this starting every section of your song on the same every section of your song on the same chord and one thing I frequently see is

[06:16] there's that problem it's starting every section of the song on the same chord I also see songwriters at the beginning of their Journey really starting the song on What's called the tonic chord which means the chord of the key so if I'm in

[06:30] the key of C the tonic chord is the chord c major so you get song writers kind of starting with C which makes sense at the beginning because what we're trying to do is really establish the key Center and particularly at the

[06:44] songwriters you we want to feel comfortable and secure and safe that we know what key wear in that we can create a melody and cords and create that combination so the instinct is to start on C you know start on the tonic quar or

[06:58] on C you know start on the tonic quar or if we're in the key G to start on G but Let's Pretend We're in the K of C so we start on C and we maybe have some other cool chords

[07:11] yep yeah and we've got this nice little C [Music] progression and here we go and now we're progression and here we go and now we're ramping up to the chorus and we go

[07:24] ramping up to the chorus and we go [Music] so our verse started on C our chorus started on C I deliberately you know

[07:36] played a slightly different progression in the two sections but the problem here is that when we start every single section on the tonic chord on that home cord the ear of a listener has a lot more difficulty hearing the contrast

[07:52] between the sections because the tonic chord that home chord inside a key it's not equally weighted as the other chords it has a lot more weight it has a lot more importance it has a lot more stability as well it really feels like

[08:08] stability as well it really feels like the most resolved cord and so when every section is starting the same way and starting from this point of being very resolved being very grounded the story of the song doesn't really go anywhere

[08:21] you know it's like starting every sentence with the same word the story doesn't progress it doesn't have a dance it doesn't have a flow so the thing to do instead of starting every section with that home chord is to really

[08:37] deliberately change it up to look inside your song even maybe after you've written it to go hm have I done that and what you might find is yes in a majority of your songs you will have either started each section on the same chord

[08:51] and specifically started each section on that home chord so just try mixing it up swap that cord around start a different kind of section by which I mean you know if we're going from a verse into a pre chorus start your pre chorus on a

[09:05] chorus start your pre chorus on a different chord don't keep pounding away are going to kind of sound a bit flatlining like they're not really going flatlining like they're not really going anywhere so the effect of avoiding this

[09:18] mistake is that your songs will have so much more journey to them your sections will have so much more contrast to them and when you're able to create that contrast between sections not only does it hold the attention of your listener

[09:34] but it makes your song become a journey it becomes a story and it has Evolution and flow and that's really what we want in songwriting a little additional Pro tip to try is actually try starting your song not on the home chord so if I'm in

[09:51] the keave of C you know theoretically every chord is available to me in the key of C but there are some chords that are conventionally inside the key of C which will help us really hear that key Center

[10:05] but we don't actually need to play C at all there's so many other chords so I could instead start on an A minor chord and then I could play an F chord and then I could play a G chord so let's even here that I'm playing a minor

[10:22] even here that I'm playing a minor [Music]

[10:54] actually avoiding the C chord all together when it comes in it's actually really dramatic and you feel that there's actually a musical journey and a musical story even in the absence of lyrics so those kinds of little chord

[11:09] choices those simple fixes can make a dramatic difference to your song form and your songwriting the third mistake to avoid is something that I hear all the time when I'm giving feedback to songwriters in our songwriting groups or

[11:25] and there are links in the show notes if you're interested in any of those things but the mistake is this a lot of songwriters when it comes to Melody are songwriters when it comes to Melody are very focused on pitch and lyrics and

[11:39] forget to pay attention to phrasing and the mistake I see all the time is that songwriters will start every melodic phrase on the first beat of the bar so

[11:51] that sounds like I'll go back to that first little song example I played for mean and then sing you A variation of that where we actually create contrast with the melodic

[12:05] phrasing and by melodic phrasing I'm really here talking about where we start the melody inside the bar so this is what I hear a lot in beginner songwriters I hear this you open a window light a

[12:20] candle whisper his name will you ever be happy

[12:39] hopefully is that every single line of lyric is coming in on that downbeat we have a little anticipation at the beginning but the first strong word or syllable comes in on that downbeat here so we go you open

[12:52] so we go you open window light a candle whisper his name and then we go into this kind of second little half of this and again will you ever be happy again so there's

[13:09] this tendency to want to fill all the space and to attach your melodic phrases space and to attach your melodic phrases to where the chords come in but Melody and chords again it's a dance between them and it's really the interaction and

[13:26] the breath and the movement and the ways in which they are not doing exactly the same thing at the same time where we get a lot of the energy and interest in Melody so let me sing it again for you and particularly notice how even though

[13:41] I'm going to start the same the phrases that come after it are all going to start not on that strong downbeat they're going to have more air and more space and certainly when it comes to this kind of line will you ever be happy

[13:56] again again I'm going to very very consciously and deliberately leave a little bit of space before I come in and you're going to hear that the whole Melody the whole song and all the emotion in it suddenly starts to dance

[14:11] you open a window light a window light a candle and Whisper his

[14:37] beginner songwriter and truly I wish that someone had sat me down 20 years ago and given me this little talking to here is to avoid not writing enough so it's really really common at the beginning of your songwriting journey to

[14:52] pour a lot of effort and energy into each individual song and the result is we get to the end of a year and we've actually only finished maybe three four or five songs the other problem is when we put so much pressure on each

[15:08] individual song You Know Not only are we not practicing our craft enough to really progress further and further and further we actually Veer into perfectionism and as the very famous American writer and speaker Elizabeth

[15:22] Gilbert has said perfectionism is just a fear of failure dressed up fancy and made to look like a virtue when in fact it is just getting in the way of our creative life so the thing to do instead of that thing is to Simply write more

[15:41] give yourself the explicit intention to write 10 to 20 songs per year and give write 10 to 20 songs per year and give yourself permission to understand that yourself permission to understand that amongst those 20 songs 70% of them are

[15:56] going to be stunningly mediocre 20% of them are going to be actively sh 20% of them are going to be actively sh and 10% of them are actually going to be and 10% of them are actually going to be very very good and even amongst that 70%

[16:11] of mediocre songs there's going to be a number of them that are worth spending more time on to make them go from good to Great And even the songs quite honestly that we think are mediocre when we play them for other trusted people

[16:25] for feedback it turns out those songs become the Beloved songs with the expectation that not every single song is going to be the song we don't expect it to be we only expect a small fraction of them to be when we give ourself that

[16:38] permission it turns out we can free up our Creative Energy and if we write 30 songs a year and 10% are excellent and maybe another 10 or 15% end up being

[16:50] really good as well well we've actually written like six seven or eight really good songs which is a much higher hit rate than if we liit ourselves to only writing three four or five songs a year the fifth and final mistake to avoid is

[17:05] something that I want to put a little caveat on before I even say what it is really a mistake at all it's a really important part of the songwriting process but not if it's the only way

[17:17] that you write songs and certainly I'm like giving myself 20 years ago a little talking to and the mistake is this the mistake is writing a song from the first line to the last line which is to say thinking that

[17:31] songwriting kind of starts at the beginning of the song and that I write and that eventually some kind of theme will emerge if I just start with a flicker of an idea or an image or a feeling so the reason I put a caveat on

[17:46] that is to say it's a very valid part of the songwriting process to write like little bit but the lesson that I learned and took me too long to learn is the and took me too long to learn is the benefit and value of sometimes starting

[18:01] a song not that way but actually starting from a title starting not at the beginning of the song But at the beating center of the song a title which

[18:13] is to say the hook of your song or that one line that repeats and it repeats one line that repeats and it repeats because it represents a core emotion a central image idea or message a peak emotional statement that is really that

[18:28] beating emotional heart center of the song when we start from that place that is actually the most important part of the song so what we're saying is occasionally start the song at the most important part of the song and build

[18:42] around it rather than always starting from the first line and then kind of seeing what happens one of the reasons why this is such a great thing to train yourself to do occasionally or a lot is when we look inside the lyrics of great

[18:58] songwriters one thing that you see is every single line of the verse lyrics every single line of the verse lyrics from the first line is actually a very deliberate setup to the hook it's not that they started out on that journey

[19:11] and then stumbled upon the hook it's that they had the hook of the song in their mind as they were writing the song and that becomes a Target and everything is deliberately setting up and then landing on that Target so if we look

[19:26] landing on that Target so if we look inside the edge Sheeran song first times for example well the whole Hook and the whole concept the whole Beating Heart of that song is first times he's talking

[19:38] about how special the first times that he had with his romantic partner are to him and how those little moments those little first times are so much more important than the big first times like playing at Wembley Stadium so when we

[19:54] understand that Ed Sheeran knows where he's going we can look at the first line of that song I thought it would feel different playing Wembley 80,000 singing with me he's deliberately describing a first time it's the first time he played

[20:10] an enormous Stadium concert and he's setting up that concept so that when he gets to the chorus and we hear how important the first times with his partner are compared to those first times everything is connected he is

[20:26] setting up that shot so deliberately and so clearly and it means when that hook comes around it sinks into us so much more profoundly and so much more deeply it really feels like the resolution to a tension that has been built but we can't

[20:42] build that tension unless we know where we're going so my call to action to you we're going so my call to action to you as songwriters is to occasionally or a as songwriters is to occasionally or a lot practice starting with a title a

[20:56] hook or a really clear image or Concept in your mind that you're using as your Target and make sure that every single line of lyric leading up to that is connected to it so starting at the Target rather than figuring out what the

[21:10] target is as you go along and if you want a little bit more information about this idea of starting with a title and how to find a good title and what is a writable title check out this video right here it'll help you out a lot I'll

[21:24] right here it'll help you out a lot I'll see you next time guys thanks so much