The Secret Lyric Writing Technique Pros Use (And You Should Too!)

[00:01] technique in this video that is used by lots of professional songwriters and certainly some of the songwriters whose lyrics I adore and hopefully I can demonstrate some of those to you today as well I love this lyric writing

[00:14] technique because every time I run this exercise in my college and university classes and I've taught at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston and I've taught for Berkeley online for almost 10 years the people in my classes write

[00:28] some of the best stuff they've ever written and my hope is that by showing it to you you are able to use it to generate some really interesting lyrics that resonate with your listeners but do it in a not obvious or clear shadeed way

[00:43] so let's dive in this technique is called Sonic targeting and it's a rhyme based process and it really comes to life when you actually start the lyric life when you actually start the lyric writing process with a title or a really

[00:57] interesting line that is so compelling to you that you know you want to repeat it in at least one or two other sections of your song so let's start with the title and to demonstrate this technique I've come up with the title dancing with

[01:11] fire in the dark now this is inherently interesting to me at least even though I don't necessarily know what it means yet but one of the things that's interesting about it is that it could mean lots of things and the lovely thing about Sonic

[01:27] targeting which is the technique we're going to talk about in this video is that it works as a way to explore meaning when you don't know what something means it also works when you do have a specific idea of what a song

[01:42] will be about once you've got that title so Sonic targeting is a rhyme based technique and in the traditional habitual sort of unthinking way to approach rhyming this line even if we're starting with a title the default way to

[01:58] do this would be to focus on on the last word of the line which in Dancing with word of the line which in Dancing with fire in the dark is the word dark so the way in this default mode that you might go about that is to set up that line set

[02:12] up the rhyme for that line with words like spark Mark hard part something like that which might give you a section of lyric like this you light me up when I least expect it when the night gets cold and hard you're the fuse to Every Spark

[02:29] with we're dancing dancing with fire in the dark so that lyric that has been driven by setting up the rhyme resolution it's logical and the lyric is

[02:41] reasonably evocative I could definitely work with that lyric but there is a more interesting way that will make your lyrics feel so much less obvious and yet still deliver the same feeling of resolution and delivery of your main

[02:57] idea so this is how Sonic targeted Works instead of targeting the word dark which instead of targeting the word dark which is to say the last word in the line what we're going to do is Target one of the other strong vowel sounds in your title

[03:14] other strong vowel sounds in your title so for me dancing with fire in the dark the other strong syllables there are dance or fire and because in the lyric that I've mocked up here I've already kind of targeted the I sound with light

[03:30] and night I'm going to instead focus on targeting the vowel sound in the word dance and what I'm immediately going to do is actually write up a section here do is actually write up a section here that is using endline Rhymes that rhyme

[03:45] not with dark but with dance so let me come up with a little Melody to this lyric so that I can express it to you and then I'm going to break down step by step for you how I went about constructing this lyrics so that you can

[03:58] do it too [Music] you light me up when I least expecting we are shadow puppets hand in hand in

[04:13] we are shadow puppets hand in hand in the night and I only the night and I only CLE and we're CLE and we're dancing dancing with fire in the

[04:25] [Music] dark I you can hear in that little example everything comes together but in a totally unexpected way and here in

[04:37] a totally unexpected way and here in lies one of the core truths of great songwriting when you as a songwriter can deliver the comfort of familiarity which often we achieve through setting up some kind of expectation with rhyme in this

[04:54] case but you also give your listeners the Delight of surprise eyes in this case by resolving that pattern in an unexpected way the experience for a listener is unbeatable it feels something like magic

[05:10] unbeatable it feels something like magic for a listener but more importantly it's that slight angularity it's that element of surprise that actually triggers the attention of your listener and when they're leaning in like that and paying

[05:24] more attention there is more connection between you as the writer and The what we're looking for as songwriters right we're looking for that moment of connection that moment of communion we're really looking to make a

[05:39] difference in the heart and mind of our listeners let's take a look at Sonic targeting in action inside an incredible song by an amazing songwriter and Lyricist Bruno major so inside the Bruno major song in places we won't walk he

[05:55] uses Sonic targeting as one of the main strategies for setting up and delivering the title of this song in places we won't walk so let me demonstrate to you how this works inside this song by playing the first verse for you sunlight

[06:11] playing the first verse for you sunlight dances off the leaves birds of red color dances off the leaves birds of red color the trees flowers filled with Buzzing the trees flowers filled with Buzzing Bees in places we won't

[06:31] this song in places we won't walk the typical way of setting up the rhyme resolution of a line like that is to focus on the word walk of course it's the last word of the line but there are other sounds inside this title line that

[06:48] Bruno major is very very deliberately targeting with the rhyme scheme and it gives us that sense of resolution but in a totally unexpected way and if if you think that that's just a coincidence in this song all we need to do is actually

[07:04] look at the chorus and we can see it happen again in the main Central section of this song so let's take a listen Children Cry and laugh and play Slowly

[07:17] Children Cry and laugh and play Slowly hair will turn to gray we will smile to end each day in places we won't walk to summarize this technique as a stepbystep process here is what I

[07:34] recommend step one decide on an interesting title or line that might interesting title or line that might stand repeating throughout your song aim stand repeating throughout your song aim for 6 to eight words with at least three

[07:47] strong vowel sounds inside the line and it's also really important that those vow sounds are different if your line is something like the lights of the night sound it's not going to have the same effect we need a mix of vowel sounds in

[08:01] that line to achieve Sonic targeting in this way step two is to pick one of these other sounds so the idea is to pick something that's not the last word of your line once you've picked one of those words step three is to generate as

[08:17] long of a list as you can as words that rhyme with it feel free to use online rhyming dictionaries like rhymezone.com or B Rhymes or a physical rhyming dictionary like the Clement w and make sure to include some slant

[08:32] Rhymes so slant Rhymes means we don't just want to rhyme the word night with light sight fight Etc we can also rhyme it with words like time high style rhyme is much more driven and much more interesting when we're connecting the

[08:48] vowel sound so we want our rhyme list in this step to include a variety of different rhyme types and options step four is to write a for six line section

[09:00] four is to write a for six line section that ends with your title line and where at least one or two of the other lines in the section rhymes with that word in the section rhymes with that word that you are Sonic targeting in this

[09:15] section so the technique of Sonic targeting is one that relies on actually starting with a title which is almost like reverse engineering the lyrics by starting with the central idea rather than the first IDE IDE and actually

[09:30] almost working backwards from that centerpiece of the song and if you're interested to explore how another really famous and exquisite songwriter uses a similar reverse engineering process make sure to check out the video right here

[09:46] happy writing guys I'll see you next time