The 3 Best Ways to Start a Song (Beginner vs Expert)

[00:02] believe is that there is a right way to start a song. In this video, I'm going to show you three radically different ways to start songs. What you're going ways to start songs. What you're going to see is that while there is no single

[00:15] correct way to start a song, there are ways that professional songwriters do it differently. And if you know what they are, you will never have the blank page paralysis experience ever again. And not only that, you'll also learn some of the

[00:30] fundamentals about great songwriting. Let's dig in. 99% of beginner songwriters will ask me the wrong question. I'm going to tell you what that is. I'm going to tell you why it's wrong. The question they ask me

[00:45] is, I've got this idea. Should I start with the lyrics first or the music first? How do you start? Do you start lyrics first or music first? The underlying question in this question, which is really the underlying fear, is

[01:00] which is really the underlying fear, is that there is a right way to start a song. But maybe even more than that, that there's a wrong way to start a song. There's a way that is going to suffocate the potential of a good idea.

[01:14] But here's why this is the wrong question. Because there truly is no wrong way to start a song. But there are probably many more right ways than you think. The first method for starting songs is

[01:30] all about chords. And what I'm going to do is open up some options for new already be doing. And then I'm going to show you how experienced songwriters go about using chords and thinking about using chords to kickstart the

[01:45] songwriting process. Simply putting three or four chords together as a way to start writing songs is not only a totally natural way to begin a song, but it's also a totally legitimate and valid way to kickstart the songwriting

[01:58] process. It's certainly how I started as a songwriter back in the day before I anything about chord relationships. I handbooks and, you know, pick some chords from American Pie and some other

[02:11] chords from a Beatles tune and just kind of smash them together hoping for the best. And usually something interesting would happen and away I went. With that said, there are some better ways to put chords together than to kind of throw

[02:23] them at the wall and hope for the best. And I'm going to show you three of them. key, we could absolutely just pick the chords at random. That's again a

[02:36] legitimate way to do it. And now that we're inside a key, even just picking them at random is going to give us a set of chords that really belong together, that create a very solid harmonic foundation that a melody is just going

[02:50] to naturally emerge from. And that's fine. But what I want to do here is give you three more systematic ways that you can pick chords from inside a key that are going to really train you to think more like a songwriter rather than like

[03:05] a chord jammy jammer. The first technique is to start your chord progression away from the one chord of the key. So if I'm in the key of C major, well the chord C major is my one chord. It's my home chord, also known as

[03:21] the tonic chord. But there are six other chords that are also in the key of C major. Now for any new songwriters who begin the music theory journey and say, "Yes, I understand the concept of chords in a key." There's such a strong

[03:35] temptation and habit to say, well, if I'm in the key of C major, then I better start on the chord C major. That is an assumption. That is not true. assumption. That is not true. [Music]

[04:08] Sounds really musical. And that's just one example. And in the free PDF handout that I've created that you can download in the video notes right now, I've written out a few more examples of chord progressions within a key that start off

[04:23] the one that still have that one chord in the progression, but not as the first chord. The second systematic technique actually takes this idea a little bit further. In this technique, what we're going to do is actually avoid the tonic

[04:39] chord entirely. This is based on a really important understanding that we really important understanding that we don't need to play the chord C major to be in the key of C major because all the other chords are inside the key. They're

[04:54] all built from the same seven notes of the key of C. So they're all giving the ear the information that they're in the key of C. So by avoiding the one chord completely, what we're doing is starting with a sense of tension. Let's hear it

[05:09] with a sense of tension. Let's hear it in practice.

[05:33] You can hear how musical that sounds and when we actually sing some melody over it that it creates a kind of energy. And the energy is that it wants to resolve. And that's great. That gives your song so much energy and it gives it journey.

[05:49] It keeps a listener engaged because they're waiting for the song to resolve. And the third technique here now that we are dancing inside the chords of a key are dancing inside the chords of a key is to end your chord progression on one.

[06:02] is to end your chord progression on one. So start away and then end on that tonic So start away and then end on that tonic chord.

[06:20] You can hear in that example that the beauty of that approach is that we start with tension but actually do resolve it. And when we resolve it at the end, it feels like some kind of full stop. It gives a pause. It gives a moment. but

[06:34] it's a very different kind of energy than a chord progression that has no C major chord in it at all. So, those are a few new options for beginner songwriters using chords inside a key, but using them systematically. And

[06:49] again, you can download the free PDF right now. It has chords in multiple keys with multiple different chord progression suggestions that you can put progression suggestions that you can put into practice right now.

[07:05] songwriters who have a good or decent grasp of music theory will go about using chord progressions to kickstart the songwriting process. Learning this method is really the key to unlocking an almost infinite supply of chord options

[07:20] and variations and building your chord vocabulary as a songwriter. Here is the shocking truth about how experienced songwriters use chords. What we most progressions from other songs and songwriters. But it's not about just

[07:35] lifting a whole chord progression wholesale. It's not actually the stealing of the chord progression where the magic is. It's what experienced songwriters do with those chord progressions where the magic and the

[07:49] infinite supply really comes into play. Experienced songwriters will hear something that interests them or tweaks their ear. They will learn that chord progression, but then they will alter that chord progression in systematic

[08:03] ways. They will change the key, change the tempo, change the time signature, and change the context of where that chord progression lives inside the song form. What the hell do I mean by context? What I mean is if I've learned

[08:18] a chord progression from the verse of a song, well, I'm going to change it in systematic ways and then put it not inside the verse of my song, but maybe inside the chorus or the bridge of a song of my own. For example, I'm going

[08:30] to play you a chord progression and I want you to try and guess what song I want you to try and guess what song I stole this chord progression from. stole this chord progression from. [Music]

[09:03] It comes from a song whose original key is F. And that song sounds like this. yesterday. [Music]

[09:15] The idea of stealing chord progressions is of course actually uncontroversial. I mean, it's the way that we learn to do anything. The real creative act and the real transformation of this idea and the way to create this kind of infinite

[09:29] supply of different chord ideas is by systematically changing things you learn in a way that puts it through your filters, puts it through your style, the that you want to hear it and turning it into something new and something

[09:44] different. But what it means, which is glorious, is that anytime you sit down and listen to any song on the radio or in a playlist, whatever it is, that song can become the raw material for something new and something straight

[09:58] from you. With melody, there are a few easy ways to make a melody sound interesting straight away, and I'm going to show them to you. But when I show you how experts really think about writing

[10:14] that a melody does not need to be interesting at the beginning in order to end up being beautiful. The first way to come up with a melody is simply to draw

[10:26] a small set of notes from the scale or key that we're in. So, I'm going to keep it simple and stay in the key of C. And the first way that I'm going to start generating an interesting melody is actually by keeping it relatively

[10:39] simple. Then what I'm going to do is introduce some variations to turn the dial up on the interesting factor. [Music]

[11:08] that's going to make that little simple melody just a bit more interesting by a degree. Okay, the first variation is to use a combination of steps and leaps. So, step melodies are where all the notes are next to each other in the

[11:23] scale. So that was a step melody. It would also be a step melody if I went right. That's also a step melody. A leap is when we leap over one note to the next. And leaps can be small or they can be big. Beautiful melodies will often

[11:37] have this characteristic of combining steps and leaps inside of them. So let's turn the dial ever so slightly. Take just a little bit more interesting with a small leap inside of it. Doom

[11:54] [Music] be

[12:07] d [Music] introduce to turn the dial up on the interesting factor is the variation of note duration. So note duration is simply how long or short you hold a note

[12:23] for. Thus far, all these notes are held pretty much the same length of time. So variation. And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to pick one of the notes longer. And the other notes are going to kind of fall around it so it fits in the

[12:37] phrase. I don't need to think about it too hard. I'm just going to pick one, going to introduce some really interesting variation. Let's give it a go. be there.

[12:59] introduce here is the variation of space or silence. I'm actually going to introduce a small pause or a breath inside that melodic motif. And again, it's just a way to create some variation and create some more interest even in

[13:13] such a small little phrase. Let's give it a go. Here's

[13:28] how experienced songwriters think about starting with melody. [Music] Experienced songwriters are less concerned with starting out with a melody that is inherently interesting

[13:41] and more concerned with what they do with the initial idea. how they are going to repeat and vary the initial idea regardless of what that initial idea actually is. For example, if I play this melody for you,

[14:02] melody, Key, but it's what Beth Hovind did with that melody that makes it great. And similarly, if I sing for youa, it's not setting off any fireworks until you repeat it and vary it until you have

[14:19] you repeat it and vary it until you have the song Firework by Katy Perry.

[14:31] >> Here is a simple exercise and example of how you can implement this way of thinking about melody. very quickly in your own songwriting. So, let's use the little melody example, the four note example from earlier. And what I'm going

[14:46] to do is repeat that melody, but then I'm going to think about variation. So, one of the things about that little melody is that it is a rising melody. Starts low and goes high. A very easy way to

[14:59] create variation is to ask yourself, what's different to that? And what's different to an ascending or rising melody is a falling melody. So I'm going to repeat that little rising melody twice. And then I'm going to introduce a

[15:12] that. And you're going to hear that this small simple idea becomes a larger melodic phrase that has quite a lot of melodic interest in it because of that variation.

[15:26] variation. [Music]

[15:49] So starting out a song idea with a melody is less about necessarily finding a melody that is inherently interesting and sparkly. It's much more about thinking, what am I going to do with this small fragment or motif? And that's

[16:04] where the idea really is. In practice, of course, professional songwriters are melodies. But overall, it's not that initial melody idea that is really going

[16:16] to define whether a song lives or dies. It's much more about what you do with that initial idea and the journey that it then goes on. For new songwriters, it's very natural to start a song at the beginning. Now,

[16:33] else are you going to start a song?" But when I show you how experienced songwriters tend to start songs, you'll see that there is a difference there. With that said, the first line of a song is an incredibly important line, and

[16:47] actually finding something interesting and compelling that contains some kind of mystery or question in it can be enough to spark a whole song idea. The first way that is tried and tested even amongst professional songwriters is

[17:00] simply to look around your room. Describe what you see. Describe what you smell, hear, taste, touch. What's happening? What are the objects? What are the thoughts, feelings, or ideas that immediately arise when you simply

[17:15] in? I look around my studio here, and I've got a window that is north facing. And when that blind is up, there is a square of bright blaring sunlight that moves across my room during the day. That might give me a line like this. A

[17:31] square of light moves across my room, burning the wood of my guitars. Another great exercise that can generate wonderful first lines is the six-word story. The most famous example of this comes from an anecdote about Ernest

[17:46] Hemingway, the American writer, who famously became extremely dismayed when he found in a local newspaper a classified ad, which he declared was

[17:58] better than any story he himself had ever written, and it was six words long, and it read, "Baby shoes for sale, never worn." Set yourself a 10-minute timer and see how many sixword stories you can come up with. Another brilliant short,

[18:15] sharp, and effective method for coming up with great first lines is to do 10 minutes of sense writing. Now, I've talked extensively about sense writing in lots of different videos. So, rather than going over it here, I'm going to

[18:28] point you up here to another video that is just about sense writing that you can dip into after this video. It's a detailed explanation of what sense writing is. It's a 10-minute timed freewriting exercise that generates a

[18:41] freewriting exercise that generates a huge quantity of descriptive, vivid, image rich language and is basically guaranteed to give you an endless quantity of interesting and compelling first lines for any song. Another great

[18:55] method for first lines in any song is a technique called in media res. So that's the fancy literary term for basically starting in the middle of action. Starting in action. So rather than descriptive, have the main character of

[19:10] your story, whether it's you or someone else, in the middle of some action. For example, I'm walking away for the first last time. She's taking that portrait off the wall. You pick up the phone, though you know it won't work. Or even,

[19:23] I am driving down 85. There are many more ways that we can think and talk about writing compelling and interesting first lines. And I'm going to point you again to this video right here, which is all about first line techniques. While

[19:38] it is very common for new songwriters to begin with the first line of a song, it is often not the go-to method for experienced songwriters.

[19:52] habit not of beginning with the first line, instead beginning with the title title of the song, we're not really actually even talking about what the song is called at the end of the day. What we're talking about is a title

[20:08] What we're talking about is a title line, sometimes also called a hook or a refrain line. It's a single line that is actually going to repeat somewhere in the song. And it's a line that represents the core idea, the central

[20:24] message or the main image or emotion at the beating heart of the song. Experienced songwriters will make a habit of collecting titles separately to all other kinds of ideas. Here are some titles that I've collected that function

[20:40] as the starting point for a song. The Wrong Way Home, Never Have I Ever, 11 Ways to Keep Your Lover. Why are these titles as opposed to just kind of lines of lyric? Well, they're titles because they are full of potential. Inside them

[20:56] is the DNA of an entire song idea. And there are many different ways that I could approach these titles. They could mean many different things. They could apply to many different circumstances. Often for experienced songwriters, a

[21:10] Often for experienced songwriters, a title is even more potent when it's not just the title itself, but it's the title plus a concept for the song. So, it's one thing to say, you know, I have this idea where I want to write a song

[21:23] about how easy it is to slip into traditional gendered domestic roles once you have kids, despite your best intentions. That's a kind of general idea, but this really turns into a song

[21:36] starter when I say and I'm going to call it inside job. The reason this is incredibly potent as a song starter is because when I have a title, I can use that title to start to generate other lyrics and imagery and ideas very, very

[21:53] that. And very quickly what I'm going to do is generate other words and images that spring up from inside or being inside and especially inside a house. So I get walls, room, windows, floors, prison, cage, dark, shadows, table,

[22:09] chairs, dry, right angles, quiet, electronic, screens, bed, whispering. immediately come simply from the word inside. The other thing I'm going to do immediately is also create a small pallet of words that is the opposite of

[22:26] inside. So what's the opposite of inside? Outside, sunshine, wind in my hair, rain, wild, wilderness, screaming, running, playing, jumping, sunset, sunrise, storm, grass, green, trees, flowers. Now, let me do the same thing

[22:40] for job. I'm just going to come up with some words related to job. work, pay, wages, salary, cleaning, sweeping, transaction, pay, earn, quit, retire, retirement. Now, I have not only the thing I want to write about, I've got

[22:53] the title, and from the title, I have this pallet of words I'm now going to use to paint the idea very efficiently and very effectively. Here's an example of a lyric that I wrote in about 5 to 10 minutes, just using that initial raw

[23:08] material. We don't even need to talk about it. I'll just stay quiet in the four walls of my mind. Wipe the crumbs from the table. Leave my inner thoughts in a corner on the floor. Somewhere outside, the sunshine is streaming. The

[23:22] flowers are screaming my name. But I've got work to do. It's an inside job. The reason experienced songwriters write like this is because they know something important about great songs. That if you start with the hook, you're starting

[23:39] with the target in mind. And when you know what the target is, you can know what the target is, you can deliberately set up everything else to point at that idea. The result is a song that feels unified, cohesive,

[23:55] purposeful, and the experience for a listener is that when you actually land on the hook, the hook feels incredibly satisfying because everything else has been a trail of treats leading up to something that feels inevitable, but

[24:10] also surprising. Remember to grab the free PDF with those chord progressions. And if you're looking for more ideas on lyric writing, you can check out this video right here. Happy songwriting, guys. I'll see you soon.