Transcripts
1. Course Intro: Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome back to another course with
yours truly key Orion, the man who is obsessed
with making great music and teach you how to make
your own into today's course, I want to talk to you
about songwriting. After writing songs
for ten plus years, I've been making beats, mixing, engineering, making music ended. These are some techniques, strategies, secrets,
if you will, that I want to share with
you that have helped me stay creative over
that last decade. They'll have a course project. They're gonna be three or
four main points that I want to talk to you
about that'll help get your creative
juices flowing. And then we'll wrap up the course with a couple of kinds of last final tips
to get you out of here and send you on your way. This is not going to be some incredibly crazy complex
structure or program. These are key is quick
and dirty tips on how you can step up
your songwriting today. If you feel like you're
in a creative rut, if you've been having
trouble writing songs or if you just want some general good practices
for writing better songs, this will be the course view. So set aside maybe 20, 30 min for every
beverage of choice, get locked and loaded and
I'll see you on the inside.
2. Course Project: For the course project, I want to see some of your written songs or if
you have the guts to do it, post whatever it is that
you're working on online, either a screenshot
or if you have something recorded that
you're willing to share, you can share your
Spotify or SoundCloud link wherever you
host your songs. But I want to see your work. I think it's just as
important to show your work as it is to
learn the concepts. So don't just leave
me high and dry. Take these concepts
and don't do anything. I want to see the songs
that you guys, right? So if you had a recorded, would be happy to listen to it, give you some feedback
for if it'd be easier, just want to take a screenshot. I'm cool with that too, but make sure you actually
put this to practice. And that is the course project. So let's get to
the expectations.
3. Expectations: When it comes to
expectations for this course and what you
can expect out of it. This is a skill like
anything else, right? So these are going to be tips, strategies, secrets if you will. But like any other skill, songwriting takes time
and it takes practice. I think one of the key pieces to becoming a better songwriter is, first of all, writing
songs, but also studying, looking at what songs you'd
like. Why do you like them? What are these
excellent songwriters doing that you
gravitate towards? And so I want to put that out there that
these are things that you can use in your songwriter
tool belt moving forward, but don't feel like you have to write number one
songs overnight. So come into this, knowing that whatever
you make is good enough, it is a song. And the key to this
entire process is just to writing, just making songs. Making music. Don't overthink it. It doesn't have to be a smashed, doesn't have to be a number
one hit out the gate, right? What comes naturally to you? It comes to your heart. You, some of these
strategies implement them in if you stick with it. I think it'd be surprised
with the results.
4. Understanding Song Structure: When it comes to
songwriting structure, there are, this can look like
whatever you want it to be. So I don't want to
put you in a box. The point of this lecture, this part of the course,
is just to give you some ideas of how typical
song is kinda break down. Every genre will have
its own sort of a style. So hip hop, rap and R&B might look different
than a pop song, which might look different
than a folk song. So for you, you can write
whatever you feel like writing. That said, I want to give you some general guidelines
and structures, having some limitations
I've found to be incredibly beneficial
with my creativity. I know a lot of
times as artists, we think that having structure limits us
in some capacity, but actually find a lot of
freedom in those limitations. When it comes to a
little bit more, I'd say modern music. So this will be your R&B, Hip-Hop, become like 1
million different ways. But often what
you'll have is safe. It's hip hop and
rap. That's most of the music that
I've made before. You'll have some sort
of a four-bar Hooke. You'll have some
sort of a 16 bar verse, another four-bar Hooke. They've been lost 16 bar verse. And then maybe some
sort of a bridge, and then the hook again, and then an outro. It can be very simple. A hook can be four
or 8 bar or 16 bar. It depends. You can get
as creative as you want. But typically, a four-bar Hooke, or in a bar hook is very
common in this type of genre. When it comes to bars, for some reason,
I'm not sure why. For a lot of rappers they have
a hard time counting bars. But for 16 bar verse, again, if you look at examples, that's just kind of a
nice size to rock with. In the older generation
of hip hop rap songs. They tend to have three Vs. Now they didn't have to. They tend to be a
little bit shorter. And if you look
at even something like what's pop in
my jack Harlow, that song that was
a smash in 2020. He comes out with this
little four-bar Hooke and then he just
wraps for what is it, 32 bar, something like that. At 30 to 40 bar. He has the hook at the
end, and that's it. And so that ended
up being like one of the biggest
songs of that year. And I think it was
just a freestyle which he tacked on the
first 4 bar at the end. So don't overthink this. If you want to see a genius when it comes to song
structure checkout the weekend because he has some smashes that of
course you know him. And he's a good example
because his songs are huge. But looking at his
song structure, they're really simple, right? It's not like he's
writing a ton. He'll have maybe
4 bar of averse, 4 bar for a bridge, for bars for the hook. And then I'll have 4
bar for a new verse. And then I'll just
repeat the bridge. Repeat the hook again, outro, maybe the hook again,
and that's it. So don't over-complicate it. If you find you write
a killer for Bars, use those 4 bar again
later in your song. It doesn't have to be a
masterpiece every time. A real key with songwriting, especially if you start
studying goods songwriters, is you'll see the
use of repetition. So don't over-complicate
your song structure. Every rapper RMB, keep it first, maybe six or eight or 16 bar, hooked to maybe for 8 bar. Wash rinse, repeat as needed. Maybe have a bridge
or an outro that's for 8 bar if you want
to get a little fancy. And that's it.
5. Using Reference Tracks: When it comes to learning
any sort of skill, practicing any sort of scale. Right now I'm learning
photography, videography. I'm really into those.
It's the same approach to learning that I used
when I was making beats. The reason I was writing songs and that I use when
I'm engineering. And that is, have a
direction, have a reference. Choosing a reference is one of the key pieces because you
know where you want to go. If you just jump into whatever the new skill is here, It's gonna be songwriting. And you just start
writing randomly. That can work. But what works much
more efficiently is to know what it
is that you love. Why are you attracted to the writer that
you're attracted to? What is it about those
songs that you bike? Because you don't have to
reinvent the wheel here, right? Originality is something that
is a rare breed these days. Everybody is influenced
by somebody. So I think a lot of
times we're averse to using references because we feel like we're stealing or because we want to feel like
we're completely unique. And of course your
special snowflake. But the real key when
it comes to references is using that and then
compare your work to that. Keep coming back
to that reference. If there's a song that
you'd like, analyze it. Don't just think, Oh, I like it because it
makes me feel good, like really dig into
what the song is. Is it the imagery? Is it their structure? Is it the way that they are using metaphors like there are so many pieces to this that
having some sort of end goal, knowing where you're going is going to be
incredibly important. So I want you to pick a song before you jump into
this song that you love. Study it for a little bit, figure out why you love it, and then keep referencing that, coming back to it as you
continue in the process.
6. Senses: When it comes to tip number
one, secret number one, this is something
that I learned when I was taking a
verse writing class when I was in my early
20s and my teacher, she was amazing and
we'll be writing poetry. And she would always tell me, Qia lick the carpet. Which sounds maybe a
little derogatory, but what she meant by that was, use all of your senses. I think it's very easy to fall
into songwriting cliches. I'm guilty of this too. We write about what we feel. It's always, I'm feeling this. Make me feel this or I
feel it's about feeling, right, which is important. It's important to feel things. But we have so many other
senses available to us. And what she told me when she said like the carpet
was she's telling me incorporate all
the other senses. Do you have available?
She said Qia, put me there, put me
in that situation. If you're on the street, right, you can see something. You can feel something,
but you can also hear, smell, what do you taste? And so that is
something that for me, I think brilliant
songwriters do very well, is they're able to put you in the place by incorporating
all of your senses, maybe not all of them
all the time because that can get maybe a
little bit carried away. But Frank Ocean is
one of my favorites. And he'll talk about this a lot. In terms of colors,
of things are Whoa, talking about always
have something smells or if he's
kissing somebody, that's about how they taste
these different pieces of what it means to be part
of this human experience. It's more than just
like the woe is me, kind of cliche feeling thing. Listen, I've operated this too, so I'm not knocking new,
this is new to you, but I really tried
to push myself these days to think
about how else can I incorporate my senses and make this more of
an experience for the Leicester to draw them in. Whether it's something sounds like what somebody tastes like, somebody smells like, right? These are very potent pieces to our lived experience and also a really powerful tool that you can use if your songwriting. So that isn't
necessarily a secret, but that is a big piece
when I get hung up and I'm writing a song and
it feels a little bit flat. I think about how else
can I put my listener in the song by incorporating
another one of my senses?
7. Stealing: This next piece of
songwriting advice, the snake secret, is using stories or stealing
other people's stories. I'm gonna be honest,
right now my life, things have been great,
but pretty mellow. I have been focusing on my work. I've been building my business
and it's been great there. Other times my life when things are maybe a little
bit more exciting, maybe fall into some
situation shifts, you're fallen in
and out of love, you gotta dramatic breakup. Things are a little
bit more dynamic, you can say right now
because things for me are a little bit more
balanced for wow, that this is something
that I use a lot. I end up stealing stories. I'll have conversations
with friends, with my brother,
with acquaintances. Different people
that you meet will inspire you differently
in different ways. The story doesn't always
have to be your own. This is something
that I've talked to other beginning songwriters about because it is such
a personal art form, we feel like it has
to be our experience. But this can be a
great practice, even if you don't do
anything with the song, to push herself to write
somebody else's story. So you put yourself in that position and write
as if that were you. If I have a friend that's going through a
dramatic breakup, as they tend to do. I will then, just
right from my friends, I'll write my friend's story from a first-person perspective. So I'll just, I'll take that
story and I'll talk to him. I won't even let them know,
but I'm just getting, I'm getting inspired by other people's stories and then using that as kind
of emotional ammo. So this doesn't even have to be, if you don't want to try
to use friends stories are afraid that they will be mad at you or
something like that. Take someone who's on TV, you watch a soap, take your
favorite movie character, like writing other
people's stories from a first-person perspective, can be incredibly powerful. And I actually do this often, especially depending on where I'm at in my life have
I don't have anything particularly
exciting going on as someone who leans
more than RMB genre, I'll try to go out and find love stories and then
write about them.
8. Stories: Secret and strategy
number three, when it comes to songwriting, is, we talked a little bit about last time about
perspectives, stories. This time, I want
you to write from somebody else's
perspective entirely, rather than using a story from a friend and making
it first-person. Try writing maybe about yourself from somebody
else's perspective. If you're a fan of
RMB and hip hop, you'll definitely
know these songs. So putting people in
conversations with each other in this song as another songwriting
technique that I love. It's almost like a
call and response, where one character
is writing to another character and they
can both be first-person. One is guilty
conscience by M&M, Dr. Dre, M&M Andrei have done
this numerous times. I think that's super cool. Another example is J Cole. I think J Cole has
done this really well, especially on two
different songs. The first one is
his song loss ones, which is on one of
his first albums, where he is talking from
two different perspectives, from his perspective
and then the perspective of his
partner, his partner. And it's about
having an abortion. It's just really emotional song, but it's beautiful the
way they'll even maybe changes voice a little bit and get some different
perspectives. Another song that I love and Ms. Jay Gould does this is
a song, wet dreams. He is a conversation
again between him and a classmate
in high school and things are getting
a little hot and heavy in the whole
conversation ends up by the end of being flipped
on its head because he leads you through this path of what your thinking
is going to happen. And then from the perspective
of his classmate, the whole song gets
turned on its head. And this is something that
I don't do enough of, but I really liked this idea. If I ever get stuck,
I can't seem to use my own experience aren't stories that are inspiring me. I'll try to inhabit
different characters. Nikki menarche is a great
example of this too. She has kinda different
characters that she embodies M&M, Of course, yes. Slim, Shady? Yes. Marshall Mathers like having different people in
conversations with themselves, can create for really
interesting song ideas. So that's number three that I
recommend if you're having, if you feel stuck in
your own songwriting, this one can be really helpful
to get you out of Iraq.
9. Conclusion + Final Tips: So I want to wrap up
with a few final points that I think are super helpful. Again, doesn't happen overnight. Be easy on yourself. Put in the time. Continue to write songs, study who you really love
and you'll get there. Another point, speaking of
studying who you really love. Analyze your references, find songs that you find
moving that you enjoy, and really take the
time to analyze them. What did they do that
made you feel that way? Why do you like them? Is the musicality or
is it the songwriting? Break those down? And I'm not afraid to say it, steel straight up if it's an E minor and they write
about rain falling outside, make a song in E minor
and write about rain and see if you can get something at least close in that ballpark. Anytime you're learning
something new, there is no shame in using those influences and
doing your best to try to replicate and
get in that ballpark. Because doing that,
you'll at least see what that person is doing
that you love so much. So whether it's making beats,
I recommend the same thing. Find b2, love, try to make them. It's the same as songwriting because you'll start
to see the techniques. I love Frank Ocean. So I study a lot of
Frank Ocean songs. And that's where
able to see, oh, that's what he's doing there. He took this perspective, he used this metaphor
in this part. He's actually using a
bridge throughout the song. It's there all these things that you learned from
a really studying rather than just listening to it and thinking that
you like it or not. So that would be my
biggest piece of advice when it comes to using
a reference track is really analyzing it. Give yourself time. Analyze it. Last but not least,
when it comes to creating songs, use
personal experience, steel stories and characters and conversations with one another if you're having a hard time, again, all the song
examples linked up. Hopefully, you enjoyed this. Thank you so much. Link up
your course projects below. I'm excited to see
you guys make, and I'll see you on the
next one. Take it easy. Piece.
Kia Orion, Artist & Music Producer
