Transcripts
1. Promotional Video: Name is Sandy Millar,
and I've been a professional touring musician
and have been teaching music for the last 26 years at music festivals,
schools, and workshops. It was due to the inspiration on my students that kept asking me, Do you have any online videos? So I decided to make a class. I'm so thankful every single day for the encouragement
from my students, because I currently have
over 150,000 students across the US and in every
single country of the world. To start this class, you
won't need any experience. You can start as a
complete beginner. I've designed this class
to be an easy step by step instructional guide to unlock the secrets to
writing better songs. By the end of this class, you should be able to write a more cohesive song that
has a deeper meaning to you. This class is for songwriters seeking to improve
their songwriting. Within this class, you'll
learn how to get started, where to get inspiration, and we'll break down
the parts of the song. I will also take some time
to touch on writer's blog, finding rhymes, co writing,
and being organized. Then finally, we'll
walk through some of my favorite books and ways to connect with a global
songwriting community. Keep in mind this class is
for beginner songwriters, and I truly believe that even an advanced
songwriter may get some good little nuggets
from this songwriting class. For your class project, you'll take steps of crafting
your own original song. Please submit a verse and a chorus that
you've been working on. This can be a brand new idea or it can be a sign that you've been
developing over time. The goal is to share
your creative process, receive feedback, and refine
your songwriting skills. This project is a great
opportunity to experiment with different styles,
themes, and emotions. Whether you're a
seasoned songwriter or just starting out, let your creative juices flow. Remember the most
important thing is to express yourself authentically
through your music. Thank you for taking the
time to look at this class. Feel free to look at
the class content, and hopefully we'll
see on the inside.
2. How To Get Started Writing Songs: You're writing songs, you can apply these tips to
any genre of music. It doesn't really matter what your favorite style of music is. I think these tips will help you become better songwriter. That's the ultimate goal here just to help you
become a better song. How do you get started
writing a song? That's the tricky part for the very beginner who's
never written a song before, what I'm going to suggest, which is not my advice, it's advice from a guy named Harlan Howard and he's written over 4,000 songs,
maybe even more. He suggested that you
take a song that you love and rewrite the lyrics and then take the chord structure
and rewrite the chords. Then all of a sudden, you
have a brand new song, I guarantee you
will sell nothing like the song that you
love, which is great. It's like if you're building a house and you have
to do the siding, need some scaffolding,
get up there. If you can think
of it like that, this is the scaffolding
of your song. I need to have a
core to get started. I spent a lot of time
studying lyrics and I even got so crazy one day
that I read all of Bob Dylan lyrics because I think Bob Dylan is a brilliant writer. I studied his lyrics. I studied Snoop Dog lyrics. I studied the Carter family. I studied Bill Monroe. What were the lyrics?
What were they writing? Then what I would do is I
would read the lyrics and then I would come up with my own idea of where
I want a song to go. Like the song has meaning. What does that
meaning mean to you? You can take that song and make it your own by
just reading the story, and then coming up
with your own stories. That's another
really good way to get ideas on how
to write a song.
3. Alliteration Radio Rhymes: Okay, so for this next tip, I'm going to talk about
the title a little bit. So the title, I feel like that when
you're writing a song, everything should relate back to the title, somehow some way. So let's say you're
writing a song about dirt and dirt's your
title, and you know, you want to talk about
maybe mud racing and trucks and being out in
the field in the country, or if you want the song
to be about gardening, it can all be about
flowers and how the flowers are grown in the garden, and it's
all about the dirt. So I know that's just a
simple sample of a song, but just an idea to get you relating back to
the title, super important. Okay. Let's move on
to Alliteration. I love alliteration and songs as long as
it's not too much. I'm just going to give you some quick examples
of alliteration, which might help you get your
mind rolling a little bit. But Alice's aunt ate apples
and acorns around August. There's a lot of A's on
that one and a lot of iteration in that one Carrie's
cat Claude her couch. Larry's Lizards like
leaping lizards. That's a crazy one, anyway, just little samples
of iteration. Think about that a little
bit when you're writing your songs because it does help with the
flow of the song. Keep alliteration in mind. For this next tip,
I want to talk about saying it in 3 minutes, around 3 minutes, especially
if you want to get on radio. We have a song. It's called
Good Old Days of Bill Monroe and a song when I
originally wrote this song. I was nine I think 9.5 minutes or
something crazy like that. I don't even remember the
exact amount of time it was. It was all very long song. What I had done with this
song, just to give you an idea of another route that you can go when
you're writing songs, is I decided to take
Bill Monroe song titles, and then I put them
in a story format. Again, there were so many verses because he has so many
songs that he's written. I took all of his titles and I decided to put it
in story format. Then what I did is I knew I
wanted to get it on radio. If we were going to get
this song on radio, I needed to get it under
for sure, 4 minutes. I had to cut this song down and just redo it a little bit. But it's fun to go back and
look at the old version and go, I remember that verse. Maybe you should put
that verse in there. No. I like the song
the way it is. Yeah, we had to get it
cut down for radio time. So keep that in mind
if you want to get on if you want your
songs on radio, you need to find out
what radio time is. Typically, for like hit songs, I think it's about 3:18 to 323. They've cut that
down over the years. I think it used to be a
little bit higher than that, but now that is the slot. Keep that in mind if you're
going to try and write for radio. All right. Next tip. People always ask me about
how do I get rhymes? How do I find the
rhyme in a song? And this is my advice. It's all been done before. Okay. I know that seems
like a simple answer, but what I did one day, I was telling you
about Bob Dylan and how I studied Bob
Dylan lyrics, right? What I did one day,
this is crazy insane, but I made a spreadsheet. I made a spreadsheet of
all of Bob Dylan's rhymes, the ends, not his lines, the ends We his rhyming words because I think
he's a brilliant rhymer. Sometimes I wonder if you just pulls something
out of the air. I don't even know.
He's just brilliant. I encourage you,
make a spreadsheet. The rhymes are already there,
so all you have to do, you got your rhymes and then write the line
in front of it. Just a crazy tip, and it makes finding your
rhymes a lot easier. However, now one more thing is that never write the
song just for the rhyme, though. That's super important. You don't want to just like, Oh, I'm going to throw this word
in there because it rhymes. You still want stuff
to make sense. Keep that in mind also when
you're finding your rhymes.
4. The Title: When you're picking
your song title, you really want something
that's going to pop. That's catchy. It's really going to
drive your point home. You want your song
title to be unique. If you're having a hard time
coming up with a song title or an idea for a song,
go to bookgenator.com. I think maybe it's book title
Generator. I'm not sure. But anyways, it'll
generate book titles for you for all kinds of writers and you just might get
a really good idea. Sometimes I'll take if it has one title here and
another title here, I'll take the two titles and combine them to make
it more interesting. I have thousands of titles that I've got in my Google Docs. Just sitting there, waiting for those songs to be written. It's a great place
to get titles. Think about it. Red Solo Cup. That's a great song title. It's like everything
leads right back to the Red Solo Cup and the parting and you know
what the songs about. It's a great song title. Blue Mona, Kentucky.
That's a Bluegrass song. Blue Moon of Kentucky. It's a song title that pops. Will the Circle B Unbroken
is another great song title. Sound of Silence. That's sound and silence are
actually opposites, which is it's a
really unique title. Sound of Silence.
It's a great title.
5. Parts of the Song: Let's talk about the parts of the song that are
really important. I want to just go over
my top six things that I think are super important to
having a really good song. Your title is super important. Your opening line
really important. Setup line, which we'll
talk about in a little bit. Making sure that you stay in the correct person.
That's a big one. A lot of people flip flop. Then imagery is important. Then last but
definitely not least, I feel like this
is probably one of the most important things is
being genuine in your songs. Singing about stuff
that has meaning to you is going to make
your song, really great. Title. Let's talk
about the title. You definitely with your title, we talked a little bit
about this before where you want I feel like everything should relate
back to the title. All of your lines
somehow try and get them relating back to the title that'll help
make your song better. Also just challenge
yourself once in a while. Just try even writing
a song with one word. It's just something different.
It's just a great exercise to try and challenge yourself. Write a song that has a
title with one word in it. However, I feel like your title needs to
be really unique. So like red. Hey, that's a great actually it's a great song title, right? And some other great song titles that I want to just
mention Red Solo Cup. Man, you know what
that song is about. It's about a party. And then Will the Circle be on Broken? That's a great song title. So my other favorite song
titles are Sound of Silence. The reason why I love this title is because it's
sound and silence. Sound of Silence, opposites. That's very creative.
I love the opposite. Then Bridge Over Troubled
Waters, really good song title. The opening line, in my opinion, the opening line is the most
important line of your song. Your first line has to be powerful and it needs
to grab your listener. Here are some great
first line examples that I like to use in my
workshops that I teach. Please allow me to
introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste. Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to visit you again. Yesterday, all my troubles
seem so far away. Tip number three is your setup
line is really important. Your setup line to your hook
line, really important. Think about this when
you're singing your chorus. The line right before your
title or your hook line, which in most cases the title. Again, I like using
opposites. Here's a good one. This is a special Consensus
song that I heard. That's a real good problem. As long as you can solve them, that's a real good
problem to have. You have good and problem.
They don't really go together, but in this case, it
works really well. It's a good problem to have. That's one of my favorites
and then another one, the Song remembers when. The setup line is and then I
had forgotten all about it. The payoff line is the
song remembers when. You're saying, and then I had forgotten the song remembers remembers when forgotten
and remembers. They're opposites. I
like the opposites, using those in a song. Tip number four within the parts of the song that
are really important. Writing by staying in
the correct person. Making sure your he's
and she's and Is and weaves and haves and
hats are all correct. If you're in the present,
stay in the present. If it's a woman singing
and singing about the man, you got to keep it that way. Tip number five, Imagery ain't a picture
with your lyrics. Then number six, which I
feel is really important, which I've already
mentioned, just be genuine because that's going
to come out in your song. Really be sincere when
you're writing your songs.
6. Melodic Structure Talk: Okay. Sound writing
tip number four, I want to just touch
on your melodic structure for just a little bit. Your melodic structure should be and rising and falling of notes and staying within a couple of notes or having
intervals or lips. You have your rhythmic
structure, experiment with long, long short and long notes, hold it out long, long short. You know what I mean,
or switch it around. Just changing your
rhythmic structure. Your chord structure, so picking a song and
changing the chords up, which we've already talked
about, you can do that. Then tempo structure, so experimenting with
different tempos. If your song, we had a
song that was really slow and I wanted to be really dirgy because it was
about a girl who's getting abused and the
song is called shackles. So I really wanted
it to be dirgi. Then it was really
interesting because we got into the studio
and we're like, man, this album, there's a lot of
really slow songs on here. We need a pick me up. I took that song and I made it fast and it ended up
being really interesting. I'm really glad we
did it that way. But it's cool because we have
two versions of the song. We have a slow dirge version. So depending upon the mood, if I'm feeling dirgy
I'm going to play slow and if I want a little
pick me up for a sad song, I'm going to play fast. Experiment with your
tempo changes, for sure.
7. Clean Up Never Throw Away: This is tip number five, which is never throw
anything away, ever, ever. Really
important tip. I always stress this at every one of my
workshops that I teach. It's really important that you keep everything that
you've ever written. You may get sick of it and
you go, I don't like that, but you just crumple up and
throw it in the garbage and the thing is
that if you keep it, you could always rework it. I just want to tell you
a quick little story. I have a friend who had
written a bunch of songs in his teens and early 20s
and I want to say maybe 20, 30 songs, something like
that that he had written. They were a little
bit more popular, something that might have
worked for commercial radio. Well, his style of music changed and he became more
of a rootsy and Bluegrass more folky and so he decided he didn't like
any of those songs anymore, and he threw them all away. And now he's in his
30s and he regrets it. He's like, Oh, I wish I had those songs because he could have taken them and he
could have reworked them. And so very, very important
to always hang on to stuff, even if you don't like it you might not like the
line the way it is, but in two years from now or five years from now, you
can go back to it and go, Oh, I can reword it this way and make it and turn it into
something that you love. Be sure to never throw
anything away. Oh
8. Writers Block Or Not: Okay. This is tip number
six for songwriting. This is one of my
most favorite ones, and I'll tell you
why it's because every time we teach workshops, I can guarantee
I'm going to have somebody that asks me
about writer's block. I know you may think I'm crazy, but my response is, I don't believe in
writer's block. I don't. I just I feel like there's 1 million songs
that you can actually write. If you get stuck on an
idea or you get stuck, you can always come
back to it later. So, you might be stuck for a year or two
years or three years. One time we had one song,
it took us three years to write that song. But
finally, it came out. So when people say, I get
stuck, I get writer's block, my advice on that is, go back to the inspiration
video and watch that again and just look at all the places that you
can get inspiration from. You can read an
article 0N Google. You can go for a
walk, you can go to a place that you've
never been to before. You can This is a big one. Get a co writer. If
you're stuck on a song, have somebody else
help you finish it. Yes, I do believe that you
can get stuck on songs, but there's another
song to write, write another one and
move on from that one. You don't want to
do that you don't want to do that with all of your songs because
if you did that, you never finish anything. Sometimes you just have
to hunker down and say, A I'm going to finish this song. But yeah, get some
help, get some help. That's a great way to finish
a song if you're stuck. One more thing just on
that writer's block. I do relate to people who say, I have writer's block because I felt like I had writer's
block for eight years. But the truth of
the matter was I just wasn't really
inspired to write. I think I was too
happy or something. There was a period of
time where I was really happy and it made it really
hard for me to write. But, yes, so find places to
get inspiration or again, get somebody to help you and then you'll be able
to finish your songs. That is a great tip. Good luck with that one,
and no more writers black.
9. Pair Down Your Song: Tip number seven. Tip number seven for
songwriting is less is more. So if you can say it in five words instead
of eight or ten, say it in five words
instead of eight or ten. Meaning, take out your s and Is and ifs and buts
and he's and she's and weaves and thes there's lots of words is another word that
you could take out. A lot of times I find myself
using that word a lot. But take it out. You don't
necessarily need it. And sometimes when we think
of writing a sentence, it has to be
grammatically correct. Well, when you're
writing a song, that's not necessarily the case. So definitely say it in
less words if you can. So have fun with that, relook at your lines and see if there's
anything you can take out.
10. What About Song Writing: For the next section, which is tip number eight, we're going to talk about
co writing a little bit. I've really the last
couple of years gotten into co writing songs and I love it
because my co writer, a lot of times will come up with ideas that I would
have never thought of. It's just a great way for you to bounce your ideas
back and forth. Then I think ultimately you just come up
with a better song. Let's talk about the tips
that I have for co writing. Number one, show up on time. If you're going to set up a songwriters co
writing session, be sure that you arrive on time because it's really
important to people. People's time is
valuable. Respect that. I would say also avoid
unnecessary distractions. Turn off your cell phones. Try not to answer emails. Your during, I know
this is basic stuff, but it's important
to go over it. Another tip is be open minded, really try to respect the person that you're co writing with because
no idea is a bad idea. If somebody comes to a
songwriting session with an idea, try really hard to even if
you don't like the idea, just say, how can we
branch off on that? How can we make it even
better instead of just being negative and shooting
the idea down? Be open minded to
people's ideas. That'll make you a
better co writer. Sometimes my lyrics are
really on the surface, and I'll go to
Chuck or I'll go to another Tony or Tim
or whoever it is. I'll go to them and I'll say, some line most of these
people I feel like I can just do this with because they're
not going to criticize me. I'll say some line that's
really on the surface. But what will happen
is it'll trigger them to say, a whole new line. Don't be afraid to say
what's on your mind. Okay, so I would say that when you're in a
co writing session, you want to brainstorm and think of what's the
song going to be about? Then the main thing is try
to really stick to that. Try and stick instead of
branching off too far because that can
become distracting and it can be a time waster. Really try and stick
to that topic. If the topic isn't working
for either one of you, then switch topics, but then
make that decision together. Really try and stick to the
main point of the song. I think that'll help you become
a better co writer also. If you're stuck with
your co writer, again, just get up and walk around, go outside for a
second, take a break. It's okay to take
breaks and then come back to it because maybe
you'll clear your head. But another thing
that I love to do is if I'm stuck in a
co writing session, my co writing sessions, I like to do them apart. I have a hard time writing in
the same room with people. So because my brain is going so much that I like to
have my own time to sort it out and
then maybe present that idea back to the co writer and say, Hey, what do
you think of this? Maybe in that time
he's working or she's working on their ideas, and then we can cross
reference them. A lot of times I like
to get on Google. I will Google something. If we're talking about a topic
or what is the song about? The song is about breaking up, I might look on Google, breaking up songs and start reading those lyrics because all of a sudden there's
a trigger word. You're stuck, use the triggers. Another thing that's
a really good idea when you're writing
songs is to try and keep some recorder going because I found this happened many times where my co writer or I said something really
great and we're like, Oh my gosh, that would have
worked so well on the song. But then 2 minutes later, we can't remember what we
said or how we said it. If you have that tape
recorder going and iPhone, whatever it is, you
have something, a recorder going, it's
going to help you. You can go right back
and go, there it is. Same thing with melc structures. A lot of times forget melodically what we
did and I'm like, Oh, man, I wish we recorded that
because it was so good. But then sometimes people say, Well, if you
can't remember it, then it wasn't
meant to be, and so you have to almost
get that mentality. But that's a little bit harder
for me to get to oh, well. Another thing you can do is when you're finished
with the song, make just a rough
recording of the song. You recorded all your ideas
or you recorded the session. Now when the song is
complete, do the final, just a really rough
draft, whatever it is, just on a handheld recorder, so that you have
it and it's there. I also suggest
that maybe both or three or four cowritersH many other people you have in the room, everybody record it. Everybody has a copy of it. You can take it
home for a while, listen to it, and go, Oh, what if we were to change this little
piece right here? It just can make it better
if everybody records it. You definitely want to respect your co writers and not
use something that they've said in a session and use it in your own
song without permission. You can ask them if it's okay. A lot of times somebody
will say, Yeah, it's fine. But be respectful of that. Another really good
tip for co writing is to remember that this song is the most
important thing. When you're writing and
the song is going away that you didn't think it should go or you weren't
sure you wanted it to go. Sometimes there's a
reason why that happens. Let this song go where
it's supposed to go and you'll find in the end you'll
most likely a better song. Just let this song
take the lead. One other thing that
I really like to do in a co writing session is keep the energy level
up as much as you can. You want to stay positive if
things aren't going well, it's really easy to go, I
wish I was going better. But if you can stay positive
in the writing session, I think it'll help and it'll make people want
to write with you. Again, try not to knock
down people's ideas and try and encourage because they'll feed off your co writers
will feed off of that. Yeah, have fun with it. Keep it light. Keep your co
writing session light. H
11. Lets Get Organized: Okay. Throughout this course, you've heard me talk
about Google Docs. I want to just talk about being organized and how I chose to get organized with Google Docs because I had written
so many songs that I needed to figure out a way to organize all my songs. I have so many completed songs, and then I have tons
of uncompleted songs. How can I find them all? What I did is I decided
to get into Google Docs, and then I created folders for my songs and I'd like
to show you a sample of. I have my completed
songs, folder, and then I have my co writes because now
I have co writers, and I needed to have all
of their names in a folder of who I was co writing
with because I was starting to write with so
many different co writers. Then I came up with
all these titles. Remember I was
telling you about my titles that I came up with. I wanted to have a folder
just for my titles. Then I have different
categories. I had my bluegrass folders, my blues folders, my Christmas, et cetera, the ones that
weren't categorized yet. Then you can see in my case, I write a lot of lyrics. To start with. I
write the lyrics, and then I usually like to
have a co writer finish them. Under my Bluegrass category, let's just look at
that for instance. I've got Bluegrass, and
then I have Bluegrass, another folder called Bluegrass needs lyrics and then
Bluegrass needs music. Basically, the bluegrass
that needs music, the lyrics are all there and they might just need a
little bit of tweaking. The idea of the song and the structure of
the song is done, and then the lyrics can change
depending upon the music, the melodic structure
of the song. Then I have that needs lyrics. If we go into the Ns, lyrics part, I can show you
that I have percentages. If I have 5%, it might be just a title on the line
that I have in that song. Then if I have 75%, I know that this
song is almost done. One night if I'm sitting
there and I'm like, I just want to
finish these lyrics, I'll open up that 75% one and see if there's
anything that sparks. Can I come up with
any ideas on how to finish this song so that I can at least end up
in the Nan's music folder. Again, lots of
different categories that I've come up with gospel, kids, military songs, wedding
songs, pop, rap, reggae. You can come up with
whatever folders you want, but I needed to be organized. This might be a way that you can get organized too. I
hope that helps you.
12. Resources: My number ten
songwriting tip is, I'd like to give you
guys some information on some books and different
associations you can join and some links
that I love to use. I'm just going to go over some of them really
quickly here. One of my favorite
ones and I feel like I've learned a
lot from these guys is a songwriters
association called Songtown USA and it's
run by two guys, Mary Dotson and Clay Mills. I have never met the guys,
but they're just awesome. They seem like they're
really genuine. They've got tons of videos
out there on songwriting. I've learned a lot from them. My songwriting has improved since I joined
their association, and they have lots of videos out there that you
can watch Like I said, they've got an
association you can join. Every single month,
you can have one song critiqued by I believe
one song by your fan, all your friends on Song town, then your peers, and then
you can have a mentor, one of their pro mentors do a song critique a song
critique for you also. It's a great way for
you to get your songs. I think it's very inexpensive
to join the association. So look into that at sngtownsa.com or their
website is suntown.com. In Minnesota, we have the Minnesota Association
of Songwriters, which is a great organization also. Look into joining that. I know that there's the Nashville
Songwriters Association. Almost every state,
not every state has a songwriters Association,
but there's a lot of them. If you can't find one
let's say you're an IO, they don't have an
association there, join Minnesota.
We're pretty close. You can do stuff online, and get some ideas
from your peers. It's a great way to meet
new like minded people. Definitely check into that. Another link that I
want to share with you is I watched a YouTube
video from Ralph Murray, vice president of
ASCAP at the time, and he did a great
YouTube video. I'll give you that link. I learned a lot of stuff from
just watching this link. Rhyme mean help. People
talk about Rhymes a lot. I wanted to touch a little
bit more on this because there's some great
websites out there that can help you
with your rhymes. Back in the day, it was a good old fashioned
Rhymrs dictionary, and you had to
search through it. Now, you can actually
just type in one word and it'll come up with all the
rhymes that you need. Www mr.com is one of them. Me zone.com is another one, and then another one
I like is brimes.com. For lyric help, I was talking about reading lyrics
and studying lyrics. A website that I really
like to go to to read lyrics ATZyric or A Zyrics. It's www.azlyric.com. But you can go in there.
You can type in an artist, you can just do
this in Google too. You wouldn't have to
necessarily go to AZ Lyrics, but I just like
how it's laid out because it's just
the lyrics in there. There's no chords or anything. I don't get distracted
by the chords. I just read the lyrics and
like I said, study the lyrics. And then write my own story of what I think the
song would be about. That's another great
resource for you. I also wanted to talk about
some of my favorite books that I like that
I've read that have helped me with songwriting and I'm just going to basically I'm going
to put this list. I'll put this list
up online so you can see some of my
favorite books that I like that I think
will really help you.
13. Bonus Billy Currington: It's just a bonus tip
that I want to throw in. Chuck and I, we decided to do a songwriters challenge and try and write a song
for Billy Carrington. I've never really
done that before where I actually took an artist and had to write
a song for them. Of course, our song
didn't get picked or anything I didn't get past our songwriters Association so that Billy actually
got to hear the song. But our cute little song
is called Get Of the Grid. Is just fun, and lighthearted. And of course, we had
never really written any country songs up
until this point. It was just a fun
little challenge. Basically, what I did is I studied everything I could
on Billy Currington. I literally have nine pages of information on
Billy Carrington. I've read every single interview and article I could find on him. I watched on YouTube every single video I
could find on him. Found out what he
liked and he wanted to sing fast up tempo fun songs, and so we tried to
write that song, and it was all about getting off the grid and he's barefoot, he likes to be barefoot. We talked about being on the beach and he
likes sweet tea. We tried to incorporate all of those things into this song. It was a really,
really fun challenge. I guess the main tips
that I want to give you, if you're going to try
and write for an artist, study the artist as
much as you can. Would they sing the
song? They're not most likely going to sing a song about a homeless child
or something sad, like a drunk dad. You know what I
mean? They're just not going to sing something. Most artists aren't going
to sing songs about that, you should really try and find out what kind of a
song they would sing. Will it make the singer
look good or bad? That's another is it going to make them look good or is it going to make them look bad? I found in country music, a lot of those songs are
song about the women. It's all about you and
how beautiful you are and you is within the
first 20 seconds. If you want to try
and write a hit song, study study the charts, study exactly what
the structure is. All these country songs, especially when we got
into studying country, a lot of them have
the same structure. I would say most of them
have the same structure. So it's verse, pre
chorus chorus, verse, pre choruse chorus, bridge chorus out,
something like that. I mean, it's all
the same structure. Study your study
your chord structure and you'll have a better chance of writing a hit song if
you want to go that route. Again, if you're going
to write a song, you probably don't want
to write a song that has a lot of anger in it or
it's a song about you. It's all about me,
me, me, me, me. You want to try and
write about other people and make people feel good. Just going back to
this Billy Carrington thing for just a minute, I studied all of his tempos. I found exactly what tempo
most of his songs are in. I narrowed it down even further. I narrowed it down to the
keys that he sings in. I wanted to put my song on a key that he would
maybe sing it in. Again, if you're going
to write for an artist, really study hunker down
and study that artist, and I think that'll
help you have a better shot at getting
your song out there.
14. Bonus Where to Get Inspiration for Songwriting: In this section, I want to talk about where do we get
inspiration for songs? One tip that I'm going to
give you is take a road trip, get in your car and drive because there's 1 million
songs on the road. It doesn't even have
to be very far. Just go to the next town or go someplace that you've
never been before. Read road signs and look at whenever we cross
over river, I'm like, Oh, would that make a
good song title or would that fit really well in
this particular song? We need a portion of this
song to be about a river. So let's use that title
or maybe use the name of the river in in the song. Read Billboard signs. This
is one of my favorites. When we're driving, because
we're on the road a lot with the band is I'll see a
farmhouse, like a farmhouse. Then I sit there and I look
at the house and I go, gosh, there's a
story in that house. Then I try and visualize
what that story of that farmhouse might be about. Are the people
that live there? Is it a family? What
were their lives like? Maybe they were farming wheat their whole life
or whatever it is, if you can maybe visualize the couple that
live in the house or maybe it's a single
person who lives in that. Whatever it is, whatever
comes to your mind, let your subconscious
do the work for you there, reading signs. Sometimes we were up way up
north in Minnesota and I saw this town called Cobblestone Cobblestone Cove, I think it was what it called. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that'll
make a great fiddle tune. We haven't written it yet, but it's that's a great fiddle name. I put that in my titles. I'm like, that
would make a really good fiddle tune someday. Another thing we are
way up north in Luzon and there's this thing
called Devil's Kettle. I'm like, what it is, it's a pool of water
and they're not really sure they dropped ping pong
balls in there and they dropped all kinds of stuff in there and it never
would come out. They never could find it. They put chemicals down there to try and figure out where die, die down there to try and figure out where it actually goes to. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, that would make a really
good title for a song. The Devil's kettle. When
you're taking these trips, read road signs,
read billboards, read the green little signs that as you're coming
into towns, little towns, sometimes I got my
best song titles from just the sign in a
little tiny town. Getting in touch
with your senses. Your sight, smell, touch,
taste, and hearing. What do you see around you? Let's say you have a song
started and you're stuck on it. If you can visualize so read a line and then just
see if you can visualize, or you can smell
a certain smell, or you can taste
something or you can touch something,
or what do you hear? Apply your senses to
your songwriting. It'll really help you
get that imagery out. Just really paying attention
to everything around you. Colors are another great
way to get imagery out. Use your colors, red, blue, purple, green,
yellow, et cetera. Use those colors to
paint a picture. Go to coffeehouses.
This is a great tip. I think I got this from
Mary Chap and Carpenter. No I'm pretty sure it was her
that said she used to go to coffee houses and
would listen to people's conversations and then would write the song
about the conversation. That's a great way
to get song ideas. Go to coffeehouses. Or let's say you're a
student who's in school, sometimes your friends will say something in school
that's really, really funny or whatever, just jot it down
because you might be able to use it in
a song later on. Again, if you're an adult
and you're out with friends, drinking or having a good time or just partying, whatever, and somebody says
something funny, just jot it down or somebody says something
really serious, jot it down. Okay, so if you're a songwriter and you're a little bit stuck, one suggestion I have is going to someplace that
you've never written before. Go to a park, go sit on a bench you've never
sat on, go by a lake, go under a bridge, go by a flower garden or walk
through the botanical gardens. It's a great place to
get some inspiration. This may seem a little odd, but even I've spent
time in cemeteries, just looking for inspiration, getting in that
feeling like you know, like when you're standing there over somebody's
grave, it's so sad. And so, you know, I'll read I'll read the inscription on the grave
site and I'll try and, you know, visualize
that person's life. And maybe it's my way of
writing their legacy, writing something about
them still, you know. So try that. I suggest that too. It's a sad experience, but sometimes we get
inspiration from being sad. So that almost make me cry. Anyways, let's move on. I want you to look at book
titles or maybe even go to a bookstore and just read
the titles of the books. And all of a sudden, boom, there's a title for
your next song. You don't even have to go
to the library to do that. You can actually or bookstore. You can actually
go online and just get a list of book
titles and then go, Oh, I like that as an idea. I'm going to take
it and run with it. Necessarily if it's
not the title, you can use it maybe in a
line somewhere in your songs. Another thing, movies.
Look at movies. That's another great way to get inspiration for your titles. Sometimes when we're
watching movies or we're watching a TV show, I'll sit there and I'll have my little computer because I type almost
everything out now. But on my computer
and if somebody says a really great line
within the movie, I'll write I'll jot it
down or I'll change it a little bit so that it fits me. This fits me better this way. Be always paying attention because there's inspiration
out there everywhere. This is one of my favorites. I got this from a gal
named Donna Ulysses, who is a Bluegrass artist. I went to one of her songwriting
workshops and this was one of the fun ones that I like to share with
all of my students. She suggested that you take scrabble tiles and put them in a bag or hat or
basket or whatever, and then pull out a tile, and then so if it's a W, you just write down
every single word that you can think of
that starts with a W. I thought that was really,
really good advice. It's just a great exercise. I wanted to share
that with you also. If you don't have
scrabble tiles, you can definitely use write out letters of the alphabet,
however you want to do it. It's a great way to
exercise your brain. We talked about
movies and books. You can also look
through your CDs. Books movies, plays,
CDs, all that stuff. There's tons of
inspiration there. Look for something that
somebody said on Facebook. It's another great place.
Definitely, this is a tip that is really helpful is relax
when you're writing. Just try to get your mind clear. If you're struggling,
just get up and walk around the room
or walk around, like I said, go someplace new. Another place to
get inspiration is call somebody that you
haven't talked to in a while. Read stories online. I actually read this
story about a girl who set herself on fire
and it inspired a song. It's not a song that
I share with people, but it was such a
traumatic article that I read that these girls, it was so sad, they set
themselves on fire. It was horrible. It stirred some emotion in me, and then I got a
song out of that. Read stories online,
news articles, that kind of stuff
online, that'll help you. Another great way
to get inspiration is by joining a
songwriters Association. There's a lot of people out
there that don't know that these exist and you can
join them even online. You don't have to
necessarily be there. A lot of them have
online meetings. They have live
feeds or they have videos online on their
association sites. A lot of times with these
songwriters Associations, you can get two of your songs
reviewed a month for free. You have the monthly association or the yearly association fee, which in most cases
is not very much. It's nice because then
you get this feedback. You can get feedback
from pro writers. You can get feedback from your peers, which
is really helpful. And then they don't take
any rights to your song. It's just free advice and
you can take it or leave it. The one thing that
I found out about our songwriters association
is it's non threatening. I feel like everybody
there is super supportive and I was
actually surprised. I thought maybe when I go to my meetings, I felt
uncomfortable. I didn't feel
uncomfortable at all. I found it very helpful and everybody was so
genuine and nice. So I definitely join some
songwriters associations. We already touched on this a little bit, but
I'll touch on it. Again, study different
songwriters. You've heard me
mention Bob Dylan. I love Bob Dylan
and his writing. He's a great songwriter,
very creative. Some other people you
can Taylor Swift, the Carter family, Dolly Parton, Lady Gaga, you know, Prince, Tom Waits,
townsmans aunt. You know, Tom T Hall was a
great songwriter, John Prine. Like I said, I even read some of Snoop Dog's lyrics
and, you know, there's some swearing in there, which I didn't apply in
any of my songs, but, you know, it's just inspiration. It's just a way to
get inspiration. Okay, so another great tip is use lines that you came up
with from previous songs. Let's say you have a bunch a bunch of lines
that you've written, but you're having a
hard time coming up with coming up with a
song with those lines. So what I would suggest
is take the lines, cut them into just
little each line out, print it off or write it
out, put them in a hat, pull them out, and then write the lines down and see what
a song you can come up with. It's another really
good exercise to try and get some new ideas. I think when you're
writing a song, if you're writing it
for other people, the idea would be to make
them feel something. Obviously, you want to make
people feel something, whether you make them
cry or laugh or smile, you just want to make them feel. If you're going to
try and get into songwriting as a profession, you want to definitely
make them feel something, let them forget about their
troubles for a while, just a little bit for 3 minutes, even if it's 3 minutes, I'm going to forget about
my troubles for 3 minutes. If you're writing it for
yourself, then that's okay too. It's just for you and
that's all that matters.
Lesson Pros, Learn from the Pros
