Transcripts
1. Introduction: It's really important
when you want to learn an instrument to be inspired, and what better way to
be inspired than to create the songs that you
will be learning from? I've met so many
people who have had negative experiences
with music lessons. Whether their lessons
were too strict or maybe they were learning
a style of music that they couldn't relate to. This class is designed
to foster a passion, creativity, and love
for songwriting before diving into
the technicalities. My name is Clover. I'm a singer-songwriter and holistic songwriting
teacher based in New York. I got my degree in music from Bard College and started a songwriting school
called Soulstice where I teach private lessons
to help musicians build confidence and connect
their life experiences and emotions to music. I've performed a New York
City's classic venues like Rockwood Music Hall, Pete's Candy Store, and Pianos and I have played so far sound shows
across the country. I was invited to participate
in NBC's The Voice and selected to perform at
WNYC's Next Best Thing. Most recently, a song
that I co-wrote called Power was featured on ABC
for women's history month. In this class, you will learn to play an instrument using the therapeutic and creative
process of songwriting. I will be using two of
my original songs as examples to guide you
through each activity, as well as writing a song
alongside you as we go. We'll start off with a
mindfulness activity to help you get into a
flow for songwriting. Then we'll dive into
choosing your song topic, writing lyrics, and
vocal melodies. Learning chords on
piano and guitar, and eventually
recording your song. I'm so excited to
teach this class because I have
personally felt and seen the benefits of
having songwriting as a medium for expression and a
way to learn an instrument. I can't wait to
share it with you.
2. Class & Project Overview: I'm so happy that you're here. Welcome to the class. In this video, I'm going
to give you an overview of the project and what we'll
be doing in the class. The project for this class
is going to be making a recording of your
own original song. You might not believe it now, but by the end of this class, you will have written
your own song and have improved
on piano or guitar. To get there, we're
going to start with a mindfulness activity
to help strip away whatever it was before
in the day and get you into a state where you
can flow into writing. Song writing is an
incredibly intimate process, and sometimes it can be
difficult to get into that space if we haven't
calms the mind first. We'll use a journaling
exercise to find a topic for your song, where you can write
about anything that's coming up for
you in the moment. I will also provide
some prompts for you if you're having trouble coming
up with a topic of your own. You'll learn how to find musical references for
the lyrics of your songs. In the lyrics video, we'll find some of your favorite
artists to help inspire your writing style and find
your own writing style. Once you're ready to
learn some chords, you'll choose your video, whether it's piano or guitar, and you'll learn
basic chord structure and then eventually take those chords and put
them in your song. The general structure of a song includes verse,
chorus, and bridge. We'll talk about the order of those elements and then how you can deconstruct them
and put them back together in whatever
order you want. We'll do some vocal exercises to help you find your voice, and then talk about
how you can get comfortable singing while
playing your instrument. After we do some vocal warm ups, we'll explore how you can express yourself
through vocal melody. Once it's time to perform
and record your song, we'll talk about some tips for getting you comfortable playing. You'll finish this class with a video or recording
of your song and a written component
where you can express what the process
was like for you. You'll also find yourself
more confident on piano or guitar and officially
be a song writer.
3. Guided Meditation: In this video, we're going
to do a guided check-in. So feel free to go
grab a warm drink and find somewhere comfortable
to sit for the meditation. [MUSIC] Gently close your eyes and begin to focus
on your breath. The rise and fall of your belly as you
breathe in and out become familiar with the
rhythm of your breath. Is it fast or slow
that everything around you fade away as
your breath becomes your only point of focus? Begin to guide your breath
to a comfortable pace. Now picture an orb of light
floating above your head. This orb contains the medicine, contains all you believe
you are lacking, and is here to bring calm and relaxation to
your body and mind. Watch the orb as it drips down your forehead over your eyes, cheeks, and your
nose, your mouth, down your neck, and shoulders
releasing all tension as it moves through your body, down your arms, your chest, and back, your hands and fingers as your body starts to
feel with this is light. It moves down through your
belly and your thighs, your knees, and your calves, your knuckles, your
feet, and your toes. Now see your body
as it is completely filled with this orb containing everything
you could ever need. Take note of how
your body feels now. The rhythm of your breath. Now imagine that each
time you breathe in, you're breathing in this orb of everything you
could ever need, and each breath out, you're releasing that which
no longer serves you. When you feel ready, start to wiggle your fingers and your toes waking up your body, taking on one more deep breath and open your eyes. Now that you've
taken the time to mindfully bring yourself
into the moment, feel that calm, an open
state that you're in. This is what will allow
you to flow while writing. We aren't perfect so sometimes feeling of shame and
judgment might come in, but just be aware of them and try to bring yourself
back to the state. In the next video, we'll
be picking our song topic.
4. Choosing Your Song Topic: [MUSIC] In this video, we'll
be choosing our song topic. Almost all of my songs are about personal experience and
processing that experience. Whether it's a breakup
or falling in love, or general frustration
with how the world works. I always turn to songwriting. I'm going to be using
two examples as we move throughout the class
of my original songs. I Don't Use Your
Name and Sunman. I Don't Use Your Name is
a song that I wrote about a troubled relationship when I felt like it was
time to move on, and this was song was my
way of processing that. And I don't use your
name but I could, I don't like playing games
but I'm good at them. I'm pairing that song with sun, which is a song I wrote
a few months later. After the breakup, I
was really focused on personal
development and music, and I wasn't searching
for a relationship when I found my next partner. This song is about
finding love in unexpected places and realizing that where I was looking before wasn't quite right for me. Through focusing on my music
and practicing self-love, I met someone with so much ease. I always thought that
I'd fall in love with the man in the moon, but my man, he
lights up the sun. I chose these two
songs because they represent two sonic qualities. One being very
upbeat and positive, while the other one is a
bit more somber and sad. There are many different
emotions you could be feelings, so as we get into journaling,
write about them. [MUSIC] Now we're going to do a journaling
exercise where we do some free writing and try to
come up with our song topic. If you're getting stuck, just write your thoughts, and once the time is up, I'll provide you with some prompts. [MUSIC] Welcome back. I can't wait to
hear what some of your potential song topics are. If you were struggling
to come up with a topic, I'm now going to provide a few potential topics
for you to choose from. Choose a scene from
a movie or TV show. Watch it without the sound, and write a song that goes
along with the scene. Write a song for your childhood self from the perspective of
your current self. Write a song for a friend, maybe you know someone
who's going through a hard time or is in need
of a celebratory song. Write a song from the
perspective of an object, like a flower, pet or a pair of shoes. When was the last time you
were overjoyed or heartbroken? Maybe writing about that might
feel like a nice release. Now that you've chosen
a topic for your song, we're going to
start getting into writing lyrics in
the next video. Remember that there are many different ways to write a song, and this is just one of them. Once you learn all the tools, you can do it in any order
that flows naturally to you.
5. Writing Lyrics: Lyrics can be as simple or as complicated as you'd like. But simplicity is not a
bad thing in songwriting. If you want the listener to understand the topic of
the song and your story, one way to do that is
through your lyrics. Another way is through the
general feel of the song that you create through your
melody and chord choices. If you want the lyrics to be abstract, you can
do that as well. You develop your
own lyrical style through trial and error. The more you experiment, the more you find
your own style. If you're not sure
where to start turning to some of
your favorite artists. What's their writing style like? Do they rhyme or not? Do they use a lot of
words or very few? Are they bold and
provocative with their word choice or is it
very easily digestible? Don't be afraid to learn from some of your favorite artists. You are uniquely you and
you can learn from them, but you'll never sound
exactly like them. Now for an activity, pick one to three of
your favorite artists and analyze their lyrics. These references can be helpful throughout the
songwriting process. To help you learn how to analyze your favorite songwriters
and their lyrics. I'm going to break
down two of mine. The first example
I'm going to use is Phoebe Bridgers smoke signals. I think Phoebe does
a great job of using storytelling and
something really interesting with her
rhyming as well. Starting with, I
buried the hatchet, it's coming up lavender, bringing something dark, growing
into a beautiful flower. Acknowledging that the future
is unwritten and the past is a hallway with many
different rooms of memories. Comparing someone who was anonymous to being
a concrete wall, expressing that they
can hide and you can't. I also love the indirect rhyming of lavender and corridor, then transitioning
into a direct rhyme between Hall and wall. I think that Phoebe does
a great job of using simple lyrics and words
that we can understand while also being very creative with her metaphors
in this piece. I think when a lot of people
think of songwriting, they think that you
always have to rhyme. This is a perfect example
of how that isn't true. She rhymes sometimes and then
other times she doesn't, and it still flows perfectly. Now I'm going to
share some lyrics from two of my own songs. The first one being, I
don't use your name, which we heard earlier. Since I wrote this song
while we were still in a relationship and we hadn't
officially broken up, I felt like I needed to be
playful with my word choice in order to make up
for the uncertainty of the outcome of
their relationship. This is my way of writing lyrics that made me
feel confident and powerful while
also acknowledging that I didn't want to
play games anymore. Sometimes it's easier
to write about difficult topics when you
use a little bit of humor. The next example we'll
talk about is Sandman. This goes back to finding
love in unexpected places. The moon represents the dark and I'm fitting
relationships I found myself in while the sun represents the new positive relationship
I found myself in. The takeaway here
is to use symbols. Think about things that
mean something to you in your day-to-day life
and how you might be able to bring
them into a song. During the journaling exercise, I wrote down a few song concepts and then did a free write. The general themes that were coming up for me were winter, darkness, music as
warmth and light, and the symbol of a radio. Last winter I spent
in California. This winter I'm on
the East Coast, so I'm a little bit
nervous to be here for a few months in the shortlist days of the year and the coldest
days of the year. That's what I decided to
write my lyrics about, since we just
talked a little bit about using symbols and rhyming, I tried to incorporate
that into what I wrote. The town got quiet. Did someone turn the dial down? Cars keep passing. I can't even hear a sound. Radio static in my mind. Can't change the
channel if I tried. Snow is falling and
winter has arrived. Since the radio kept
coming up for me. I wanted to use that as a symbol during my first few
lines of the song. That's why I wrote did
someone turned the dial down? I can't even hear a sound
radio static in my mind. Can't change the
channel if I tried. Then I also focused my
rhyming on the words down, sound, tried, arrived. When taking your free write
and trying to put it into lyrics without a melody are
trying to sing it first. I would suggest making shorter phrases or
sentences that you could potentially put
together and find words that you can use
if you want to rhyme, that would fall at the
end of the phrase. For example, did someone
turn the dial down? I wrote that lyric
first and then I knew that I could
potentially rhyme with down. I came up with, I can't
even hear a sound. Then also while writing
these phrases or sentences, try to use a similar number of words or syllables as
you're writing them. Now that I've given you an
example of the song that I started to write and my process of getting
into my lyrics. It's your turn to see
if there's anything in your journal entry
that you want to extract and try to
turn into your lyrics. Once you've come
up with your idea, try to write four
to eight lines of lyrics using the concepts
that we've discussed. Remember that this is
just a starting point and our lyrics can change
and evolve as we go.
6. Major & Minor Chords: [MUSIC] In this
video, we're going to talk about chords and some basic music theory through the lens of emotional
expression. What I mean by that is that the chords for
your song should match the vibe and the topic
that you're writing about. If you're writing a happy
song or an upbeat song, there are chords that
can invoke that feeling, and the same goes for
if you're writing more of a sad and somber song. We're going to get into what those two types of chords
are and how to play them. You will learn how to play these chords on your instrument, piano or guitar, in the following video. But if you aren't interested in learning an instrument
and just want to sing, then you can skip to
the vocal melody video. Please remember that this is all relative and once you learn
how these chords work, you can decide where you want to put them and what
they mean to you. First, we're going to
talk about major chords. Major chords are often described
as having a happy sound, or, I like to say, a lack of tension. If this is a sound
you're going for, then maybe choose one of
these chords to work with. Major chords are made
up of three notes; the root, the third,
and the fifth. The first chord that
we're going to talk about is the C major chord, which is based off of
the C major scale. Here's C on our piano and the
C major scale goes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, and each note in the
scale also has a number. Well, the first one is one, but also known as the root, then we have [MUSIC] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. When we talk about
a major chord and the fact that it's
made up of the root, the third, and the fifth, in the case of C major, it's made up of [MUSIC]
C, the root, E, the third, and G, the fifth. Some other major
chords that might be helpful for you to use are [MUSIC] F major and G major, which are also made
up of the root, the third, and the fifth. In F chord we have
F as the root, A as the third, and C as the fifth. With G major, we
have G as the root, B as the third, and D as the fifth. These chords all work together really well because they're all based on the C major scale, which we went over for,
which was [MUSIC] C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Since all of them
use the white notes, they all work
perfectly together. Minor chords, the ones
that are described as sounding sad or
having more attention, are very closely related
to major chords. The only difference is
that the third is minor. With C major, we had C, E and G, and with
C minor we have C, this is called E flat, and G. We can do the same
with F and make that minor, and G, make that minor. It's just a one note difference. Some minor chords that you
might want to try using in your song might be A minor, which uses A as the root, C as a third, and E as the fifth, or E minor, which
uses E as the root, G as the third, and
B as the fifth. These also all work together because they use all
of the white notes. If you stay there, white notes,
you'll have no problems. A minor and E minor
also work with C, F, and G because they're
all in the same scale. Here's what it might sound
like if you use them together. [MUSIC] This is C, A, minor, F, G, E minor. These are all the
chords we talked about, and it already
sounds like a song. I'm so excited for
you to try and see what you can come up with. Major and minor
chords can be used together to create moments
of tension and release. A lot of our favorite songs, the songs that we
all know and love, use similar chord progressions. Incredibly common
chord progression that we often hear is C, G, A minor, F, and it has a more
optimistic or happy sound. Let's look at some examples. I think we all know these. [MUSIC] Another common chord progression that is thought to
have more of like a sad or melancholy
feel is A minor, F, C, G. Let's listen to
an example of this one. [MUSIC] As we talked about earlier, the major chords have this more of like happy
feel or less tension, whereas the minor
chords have a bit more of a sad sound
or more attention. Starting on the C chord gives
us a more optimistic feel, whereas starting on
the A minor chord is a little bit darker. Now I'm going to play
some chords for you, see if you can hear if
they are major or minor. [MUSIC] Now that your
ear has gotten used to the sound of major and minor, go listen to two or three
different songs and see if you can hear the major and minor
chords within them. Next up, we're going to
get into how to play these chords on
piano and guitar.
7. Piano Chords: Let's do a quick refresh on what we talked about in
the last video. Our first chord is C major. [MUSIC] To make up C
major, we have the root, which is C, the third, which is E, and the fifth, which is G. The other
two major chords we've talked about were F [MUSIC] and G. [MUSIC]
To make F we have F, [MUSIC] A as our third, and C as our fifth. For G [MUSIC] we
have G as our root, B as our third, and D as our fifth. Eventually, you're going to
want to add your left hand in for more depth in your song. When you do that, you
don't have to play [MUSIC] the full chord. You can actually just play
the root of each chord. If you were playing C, [MUSIC] you would play the
C chord in your right hand and the root of the C
chord in your left hand, the root being C. Same goes
for F [MUSIC] and for G. [MUSIC] When you're creating more depth and adding your
left hand into the mix, you don't need to
play the full chord [MUSIC] because it can
just get a bit muddy. It's unnecessary to
have all [MUSIC] of the same notes being
played in both hands. Playing the root emphasizes
the quality of the chord. As you can see, I'm playing this lower C note
in octave lower. An octave meaning
eight notes lower. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. What would it sound
like if I played it two octaves lower? [MUSIC] Can you hear the
difference? [MUSIC] The lower C is much more bassey and
has the deeper sound. When you're deciding where you want to play your
chords on the piano, I would consider thinking about the emotional quality of what you're singing
or playing about. Maybe if you're singing
something a bit more intense, [MUSIC] you want to get deeper. Maybe if you're
singing something more intimate [MUSIC] or
lighthearted or I don't know, it depends on what the
vibe is for your song, you might want to play higher. I think it's important though
to remember if you are singing whatever
you're playing on the piano is your accompaniment. You don't want to play
anything that's going to be louder than or
overpower your voice. Quick refresh on the minor
chords we talked about. The first one was A minor which is [MUSIC] has A as the root, C as the third, and
E as the fifth. The second one is E minor. It has E as the root, G as the third, and B as the fifth. Now I'm going to
choose two chords to play back and forth so you can see how you would
switch from one to the other. I'll choose C and F, and I'll play with both hands so you can see what
that looks like too. [MUSIC] It takes practice to know where your
fingers are supposed to go on the piano to
make these chords, but there are ways that you can make it easier for yourself. For example, when I was playing and going
from C [MUSIC] to F, my right hand was
moving to get from C to F. But I knew that
with my fingers here, I could just use this one to
hit F rather than moving. Over time, you'll find
these shortcuts for ways that you don't have
to move your hands or fingers so much to
reach the chords. Now I want you to pick two chords to practice
playing back and forth. Try to count to four or
to eight if you need a little bit more time before switching from one
chord to the other. If this is super easy for you, then maybe try doing a
four-chord progression. I'll do a quick
demonstration if you want a little more guidance. What I mean by counting to four or eight would be like this. [MUSIC] One, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Or if you don't
want to press down every time counting like this. [MUSIC] One, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. If that's too fast for you, counting to eight
instead of four.
8. Guitar Chords: In this video, we're going
to learn how to play our major and minor
chords on the guitar. The first chord that
we're going to talk about is the C major chord. Now in case, you
don't already know, we have six strings
on the guitar and their names are E, A, D, G, B, and E. These
little bumps here, these are called the frets. These help us know where we're going to place our fingers. For the C chord, one version of the C
chord looks like this. We put our pointer finger on the B string of the first fret. Then we take our middle
finger and we put it on the D string of the
second fret and our ring finger on the A
string of the third fret. It sounds like this. Now, if this feels a little
bit too tricky for you, we can do a simpler C, which is just with
our first finger, and we only play
these three strings. If you're just starting out,
you can try that one and then you can work your way
up to the full C chord. The next chord that
we're going to talk about is the F major chord. It's very similar in
shape to the C chord. We just move our fingers
down a little bit. We'll start again with
our pointer finger on the first fret. We actually want to try to bar these two strings together. It takes a lot of practice and strength to be able to
get both of them down. Just take your time and
work on getting that. Then we're going
to take our middle finger and we're going to put it on the G string on
the second fret, and our ring finger on the
D string on the third fret. When we play them all together, it sounds like this If you're looking for a more advance way to play the F chord, you can play the
bar chord version where we bar on the first fret. The next major chord that we're going to
learn is the G chord. For the G chord,
we're going to place our middle finger
on the E string, on the third fret, our pointer finger
on the A string on the second fret and our pinky, or if you want to use
your ring finger, you can on the high E string on the third fret, and
it sounds like this. Now we're going to talk
about some minor chords. The first one we'll
learn is A minor. We'll start by putting our pointer finger on the B
string on the first fret. Then we have our
middle finger on the D string on the second fret, and our ring finger on the G
string on the second fret. It sounds like this. When you're playing A minor, you just want to be playing
the bottom five strings, so leaving out this top one. Our last minor chord
that we're going to talk about is E minor. It's only two
fingers. Super easy. To play this one, we take
our pointer finger, and we put it on a string
on the second fret. Our middle finger right next to it also on the second fret, on the D string.
Sounds like this. Now that we've learned some major
and minor chords, we're going to pick two to practice playing back and forth. I'm going to do C and F. Notice that when I'm
playing back and forth, I'm strumming four times
each to help myself count between changing chords. If that feels a little
too fast for you, you can change it to
eight instead of four. A general tip for getting
better at switching around from chord to
chord is to start slowly. Your fingers will start
to memorize where to go. If you give them the time to, by going slower, it'll
help them remember. Like I said, if four
is too fast for you, slow it down and start to think about where your
fingers are going to be moving to before going there. You already have the next chord in your mind before
you get there. Now I invite you to go choose two chords of your own
to practice this with. If that feels too easy for you, feel free to make
it four chords. I'll show you what that
looks like as an example. Go ahead and choose a
few chords to work with. I can't wait to
hear how it goes.
9. Song Structure: In this video, we're
going to talk about the general structure of a song. This is a structure
that once you learn, you don't have to follow, but it is helpful to know when
writing your first songs. The general structure of
a song is usually verse, chorus, verse, chorus,
bridge, chorus. My song Sunman directly
follows this structure. Let's take a listen to it from the verse through the
chorus and into the bridge. I also want to give
you an example of a song that does not
follow this structure. That is Bohemian
Rhapsody by Queen. If you already know this song, then I'm sure you
know what I mean. But if you don't, be
sure to listen to it and go to the link in
the class description. This song is ever-changing and each section feels like
you're in a different world, yet it flows together so nicely. In Bohemian Rhapsody,
although they don't use the general song structure
that we're talking about, they're still telling a story and they have a
structure for this. They have a beginning,
middle, and end. The beginning is more soft
and it overtime gradually builds into a climax and then comes back down for the
end of their story. The first section of a song that we're going to talk
about is the verse. This is the listener's
introduction to your story. So in this space,
you can introduce any characters or
setting in your story, as well as the emotional
feel of your song. You can do this
through your lyrics as well as the chorus
that you choose. But when I sit down
to write a verse, it's usually very
conversational. The melody that I'm choosing, because I feel like this is the introduction
to the story, I want the listener to feel, even though I'm singing, I want it to feel
like storytelling. Maybe the melody of the verse doesn't
move around so much, so that it feels more like
I'm speaking to the listener rather than singing or some combination of
speech and song. Now that you know the
definition of a verse, let's listen back to the
first verse of Sunman. Let's talk about the lyrics of this
section for a second. The first line is, ''I always thought
that I'd fall in love with the man in the moon.'' This line introduces
another character other than myself, whoever this man
in the moon maybe. "But my man, he
lights up the sun." There's this moment of, you see the process of the lighter and how maybe they once thought or felt one thing, and that is shifted
and they're sharing that with you and
that's their story. "Every morning waking
up to the sound of a brand new tune written by
rays playing the big spoon." I feel like that's setting the scene and
giving you a place, ''every morning waking
up to the sound of a brand new tune
written by rays.'' Like seeing the sun coming, waking up in the morning. This is introducing you
to the place of the song and also the general
emotion of the song, which is pretty joyful. The next section of
the song we're going to talk about is the chorus. This is where you
share your theme, your main concept, and whatever message you're trying to share
with the listener. The chorus is a section of this song structure that
often repeats multiple times, so it becomes a home
base for the listener. This is usually the
part of the song that, at least in pop music, is the most catchy and people
will be singing along to. So if you want to
write that song, then you would definitely turn your attention to the
chorus and really think about the melody and
chords and lyrics here so that it can be
accessible for your listeners. After listening to those two sections of Sunman, the first verse and the chorus, you can hear the differences in how I'm delivering the story. In the verse, like I said, it's a little bit
more conversational. Then in the chorus, it really opens up into
these longer phrases. The phrases aren't
longer, but at least the way that
I'm seeing them, I'm holding notes
out for longer. It's a very different
feel than the verse. The next section of the
song is the bridge. This is a section where
you get to introduce any new information that the listener hasn't
heard yet lyrically, as well as potentially
some new chords that you haven't played in
the verse or the chorus. The bridge presents an
opportunity for you to introduce a new idea that the listener hasn't
heard yet in your song. This could totally shift their perspective about what they think the song is about or whatever you give to them
could be in support of your overall theme that you've been talking about in
the chorus so far. Now we're going to listen
to the bridge of Sunman. In the case of the bridge of Sunman, it really just provides us with more information
about this sun man. In this case, it's not really shifting the perspective
of the listener, but it's in support of
the themes of the chorus. The chords in the
bridge of Sunman are completely different
than the chords of the rest of the song,
as well as the feel. There's a lot of like starting
and stopping and space for the vocals to really be
powerful and shine through. I also feel like there's this, the song has been really happy and not that this
section isn't happy, but there's a little
bit more emotion in it, in both the way that
I'm singing it and also the lyrics
that I'm sharing. I feel like they're a
little bit more personal. The rest of the song,
the lyrics are really nice and sweet and loving. But I feel like the bridge is a section where I say
things that maybe I would have been
afraid to say before. Really declaring my
love for someone in a way that can be
a little bit scary. When you're putting
your song together, although these are all
separate sections, it's really important
that you are intentional about how you have them flowing into each other. How do you have your verse
flow into the chorus? How do you have your chorus
flow into the bridge? You do want them to feel
like different sections, but you want the transitions
to be very fluid. I'll talk more
about how to create fluid transitions when we get into working on the
melody for your song. The activity for this
video is to go back and look at the descriptions
of verse, chorus, and bridge, and look at the lyrics
that you've written so far and see where they might fit into one of these sections. Once again, the lyrics
and the verse are working towards telling your story,
introducing the characters, introducing the setting, and any information that you want to give to the listener right away. The chorus, once again, is the main concept
for your song. The thing that you really want to get across to the listener. The lyrics here would
support that main theme. Remember that the chorus
is the homebase of the song for the
listener because it's repeated multiple times. Be really thoughtful with
which words you choose here if you want them
to be singing along. The lyrics that you have so far, will most likely not be your lyrics for the
bridge because we don't have enough of our
story written out yet. If you do want to work on
lyrics for your bridge though, remember that it's
an opportunity to present a new idea
that potentially shifts the perspective
of the listener or supports your main
theme of your chorus. Once you've decided which section your lyrics
are best for, go back to those chords that we worked on and the ones
that you chose that you really liked
and try to start playing those chords while
having your lyrics in mind. In the next video, we're
going to go over melody, so we can also start
incorporating that.
10. Vocal Warmups: [MUSIC] I like to do
warm-ups before starting to write some melodies because it allows me to just warm
up the full range of my voice and allow
myself to have access to a lot of
different nodes. Whereas if I don't warm up, my range is a little
more restricted. Similar to when we did the mindfulness exercise
at the beginning, warming up gets our
body and our mind and our vocal cords into a space
to be really exploratory. Before I start actually singing, I like to get my body loose, so I might shake it out. I might shake out my hands
and if I'm standing up, I'll do like more of
a full body shake. One thing you should know
about vocal warm-ups is that you're going to look
weird and they're very funny, and that's just the way it is, so we have to get over
that at some point. [LAUGHTER] You shake it out, then we shake our head a bit, maybe do a little
bit of stretching. I like to just do soft
stretching of the neck. You can do that on both sides. You can take your time here. If you want to pause the video, please do and get
your full stretch in. You can do some
rolling of the neck. Whenever you're ready,
you can go the other way. Let's get into some warm ups. First thing we're going
to do is a lip trill, which is this sound [NOISE]. Some people have a really
hard time making this sound. If you are one of those people, it can be really helpful
to very gently to press your fingers into your cheeks to help push your lips together
to make that bubble. [NOISE] If you still have trouble and you
can't make that sound, you're welcome to
just do like an a sound [NOISE] instead. Let's do three lip trills. We're going to start at
the bottom of our range, go up to the top, and
then come back down. That would look like this. [NOISE] One more. [NOISE] Now we're going
to take that sound of the lip trills and [MUSIC] we're going to add some
specific nodes to it. [MUSIC] If you have
a lower voice, you can start here [MUSIC]. I'm going to start on A, I can't sing that low. But if you can, you
can start there. This feels more comfortable
to start up here. [NOISE] That's where
I'm going to start, and it's going to
sound like this. [MUSIC] Since you're
not playing the piano, you can continue to put your fingers here
if that's helpful. We're going to go up the scale, and back down. Here we go. [MUSIC] You can stop
whenever it feels like it's getting too high. [MUSIC] Now we'll go back down, [MUSIC] A few more.
[MUSIC] The last one. [MUSIC] Awesome.
Great job, everyone. [LAUGHTER] Lip trills are a
really great way to warm up the voice because it doesn't put a lot of strain
on your vocal cords. When you're bubbling doing
that bubble lip trill like [NOISE] you can go a
lot higher in your range. I actually find that I can go a lot lower in my range as well, so it's a great way to warm up. If you're interested in learning some more
vocal warm-ups, feel free to reach out to me and I'd love to
send you some more. I hope you're feeling warmed up. Let's get into
writing some melody.
11. Vocal Melody: In this video, we're going to talk
about vocal melody. So just like when you're writing your lyrics and your chords, you want your vocal melody to evoke the feeling that you're trying to express in your song. What we're going to
do is we're going to take a short section of your lyrics and some chord progression
that you've been using, and we're going to
put them together. You're going to play the
chord progression over and over again and sing
the same line of lyrics over and over again in as many different ways
that feel good to you. You can try singing
really low in your range. You can try singing really
high in your range. You can try singing the
whole thing on one note, it's important to know that not everything is going
to sound good. But in order to learn what we like and find our own style, we need to explore and try different things and make,
they're not mistakes, but like sing something that
sounds bad in order to know what doesn't feel right
for you and what does. Let's give it a try. So there's something
about that melody that I chose for I don't
use your name that, which feels very playful
to me emotionally. I think that's why I ended up choosing that with the
lyrics that I have there. I don't use your
name, but I could. Those are like playful, cheeky-ish lyrics
that I've written, so I wanted a melody
to match that. Let's listen to Sun Moon for a different melodic perspective. So when writing the melody
for The Bridge of Sun Moon, I knew that I wanted it to be the word that's coming
to mind is like, epic. I have the word
rise in my lyrics. Born on the longest
day of the year, you know how to
make the sun rise, and I don't know if this
was on purpose or not, but I ended up having the
melody that I was singing also rise and the lyric of rise, which I feel like subconsciously that thing tends
to happen a lot if you're expressing yourself
emotionally and you're making that emotional
connection between the lyrics and the melody. I felt that was a
good example of where the emotions of
both the lyrics and melody are very in
tune with each other. Then there's another thing about the melody in this section. It's very much like. It stays, that's very much
like in one spot. Then there are these peaks that come after when in the
moments that I want it to be the most epic or the ones that I wanted to shine through the
most lyrically. There's also that
part of that's like. That's a moment where I want it to be
a really big build. So the melody up until
that point is pretty much like 1-3 notes, and then it has a big jump in those moments that I want
it to really shine through. So there on rise, I'm very deliberately
rising the melody. It doesn't have to be that way. It could be. I definitely jump
up with on with you But if I didn't. It's very much like monotone there until I get to. That's where I had
the moment of like, this is going to
be the big moment. I have the very
like simple melody leading up to the
big moment, where I jump up in my vocal range. The activity for
this video is to write your vocal melody to
the chords that you have. So I would suggest turning on if you have voice
memos on your phone, just turn that on
before you even start. Don't think about it and play
the chords, like I said, probably a million times and mess around with different
melodies that you like. Then you can listen
back to your recording and pick which ones feel
right for your song. If it's too difficult for you to play and sing at the same time, you can just record you
playing the chords first and looping that and then singing different melodic
ideas along with that. Eventually, it would be great if you could play
and sing at the same time. If you're wondering what it might feel like when you
found the right melody, it's a very intuitive feeling. Remember, you're the one who's going to be singing and
performing this song. Whatever you decide should
feel right in your stomach, like in your intuition. If you play and sing
something and your emotion is really coming through and you feel that connection
with the music, that's what you should
be looking for. When you feel that connection, you've found your melody, don't question whether or not other people will like
it or if it's good or bad. If you found the melody
and it feels good to you, that's the one you
should be singing. I'm going to play you the
melody that I came up with for the song that I've been
working on for the class. Using the chords that
I shared with you before this is what
I came up with. When making decisions
about this melody, I'll play some potential
alternatives in a second, but because I wanted
this to feel like a storytelling and kind of like get the listener
familiar with a melody, I repeated the first
melody twice, so I had. The repeated. Then like I said
with the chords, I wanted to shift
the emotion there. Not so much shift, but really
intensify that emotion. As the chords change
Melody also changes I also knew that I wanted
one of my melody to feel it was like closing out
that part of the verse. Maybe I'm going into
a new section next. I wanted the verse to feel melodically it was
coming to a close. I'm just going to try singing a random melody with
the lyrics that I have and the chords that
I have so you can see how a song can go in many
different directions. Now, it feels like another song. It's similar because it's the same chords and
the same words, but it could go in a completely
different direction. So when writing your melodies, some key things to think
about we've already discussed are really not having any judgment when you're
exploring melody, being really creative with where you sing in
your vocal range, trying to sing low
in your range, higher in your range, jumping
from one to the other, trying just singing a
melody on one note, which maybe sounds silly, but I feel like it's a
really good exercise to just know what's possible. Remembering that the emotional
feel of the melody is the most important thing and the fact that you
feel connected to that will show through
to the listener. The listener will
hear that and feel that if you feel
connected to your melody. One more thing to mention with melody is thinking
about patterns. For example, in my song
I mentioned that I sing the same melody twice before
introducing a new melody. Maybe play around with
different patterns in your melody as you're
working through your lyrics. So go ahead and find some
melodies that you like. Don't be precious with them, just explore and next
we're going to go into making our own
chord based tab.
12. Writing Out Your Song: In this video,
we're going to talk about how to write out your song with the lyrics and the chords on
a piece of paper. It's super helpful to write out your song and have this sheet so that if you forget
what your words are or where you're
supposed to play the chord, you can always reference it. It's also helpful
to have to give to a friend who might want
to play the song with you, or if you're just singing and you're not
playing an instrument, you can give it to an instrumentalist who
maybe play guitar or piano. Who can play the chords
for you while you sing. I always write these
out for my bandmates so that they can play my
songs with me for shows. Two key things before I go into giving an example
of what this would look like are that it's really
important that you write the chord above the word that
you want it to be played. That is how your bandmate, your friend or you will know when to switch from
one chord to another. Then the other thing
is that if you want one chord to be played
multiple times in a row, you don't have to write
it out every single time. Writing it at the beginning
of the phrase is enough. Here's one I made for,
"I Don't Use Your Name." As you can see, all of the chord changes
line up with the lyrics. Once I get to a certain word, if a chord is above it, I know that that's when I change. The activity for this class
is to write your lyrics and chords out and make your
own lyric chord sheet. This can be really fun if
you're a visual artist, you can hand-write it and
make it into an art project and it's pretty special to have a handwritten sheet
of your song. If not, you can go into a Word document and do what I did for "I
Don't Use Your Name." I personally like
handwriting them, but when I'm going to give
them to a bunch of bandmates, it's pretty helpful to
have them in Google Docs. Now I'm going to
make my chord and lyric sheet for the song that I'm working on for this class. The way that I do it is I play the song and while I'm playing, I stop when I get to
the chord change. For example, the town got quiet, I'm playing C on the word quiet, so I'm going to write C and give it a little box
above the word quiet. The town got quiet, and I'm playing C over and over, but I'm not writing it
over and over again. The town got quiet, did someone turn, on the word turn,
I'm going to F, so I write F. Turn the dial
down cars keep passing, C. I can't even hear a sound, F, radio static, A minor, in my mind G, can change the channel, F. If I tried snow
is falling D minor, and winter G, has arrived C. You don't have to do this but if
I'm handwriting it, I just find that
boxing them can be helpful in keeping them
separate from the lyrics, it's super simple that's it.
13. Practicing & Recording: This is practicing and
recording your song. In this video, we're
going to talk about some tips for practicing
and recording your song. Playing an instrument, singing, and writing your own song are incredibly difficult
things to do. Doing them all at the same time, well, that really
just takes practice. You're going to
have to be patient and very kind with yourself as you practice playing and singing your song at the same time. Here's my advice for practicing
to be performance-ready. The first thing to remember is that perfect is
not the goal here. Remember that the audience
will feel the most impact if you are being authentic, and true to your emotions
and the emotions that you're trying to
relay in your song. Sometimes we can't control when we're performing
and our voice cracks, or we sing a wrong note. When that happens to me, I use it as an
opportunity to sink deeper into my emotions
during the performance. My second tip is
to take it slow. As we talked about in
our chord's video, it's really helpful to give
your muscles of your fingers and also your brain when you're remembering
lyrics and melody, time to memorize what
they have to do. The slower you practice, and the slower you
start your song, the more time you
give to your muscle, and your brain to remember
what chord they need to play, what note they need to sing. Eventually you can
start speeding it up, but I would say
starting slower than you think is the
best place to start. Next, I would consider
incorporating some meditation or
mindfulness practices, maybe some breathing into
your pre-performance routine. If you want to,
you can go back to the mindfulness exercise that
we did at the beginning, or just simply taking
a few deep breaths before your performance
or your recording can really help
get you grounded. My next tip would be to play your song when you feel ready
for someone that you trust. Maybe having a friend come over, or a family member, playing them your
song or sending a voice memo to
someone you trust. Usually when I am
working on a song, maybe when I finish writing it, I play it for my partner or send a voice
memo to a friend. I like to do it when
it's pretty fresh, so I don't get too attached
to how I'm playing it, and maybe can receive a
little bit of feedback before I make the final version. Here's a little side note, when I'm writing a song and also practicing it
for the first few times, I really like to be alone. When practicing your
song or writing, I think it's important to
think about your setting, where you are, who you're with, maybe you know yourself and you know that you create
best when you're alone. Finding a room where
you can close the door, or making time to be
alone to practice or to write your song, that could be really helpful. It's totally fine. We're all different with
how we like to create. Some people like to create
and collaborate together, and others like
solitude when creating, and every form of
creation is perfect. One last thing that I
wanted to share with you is that your fears are not facts. A lot of us who haven't
done a lot of performing before have all of these
fears as to what could happen once we get on stage. The most important thing when you find yourself
in that situation is what I said before to
sink into your emotions, and really have that be your
focus of the performance. Forget about the
technical side of things. You've done all your practicing, you're ready to perform. Most likely those fears
will start to wash away once you do
more performances. Once you've practiced
your song enough and you feel ready to record, feel free to record a
voice memo on your phone, or if you work in
GarageBand or another DAW, you can record in there. But think about this recording
as more of the demo, just to get the song in
the sonic world where you could share with a
friend or a family member, or even post it as your project and share it with me so I
can give you some feedback. It's important that
while you're recording, to think about the best
space to record in. If you live on a busy street, maybe finding a quieter
space in your house so that outside noises won't
get into your recording. It's helpful to record a demo
for yourself because this is a moment that you've captured in your
songwriting journey. You've written your first song and it's up to you whether
you want to share it or not, but the fact that it's
recorded is really special. If you continue to write songs, you can see how you progress, or just look back and
listen to the ones that you've written in the past. Maybe get some
inspiration from them. Maybe make changes as
you grow to those songs that you've written
in the beginning. Once again, once you've
recorded your demo, if you're excited to share it, please share it with me. I'm happy to give you
feedback or just listen. I would love to hear it. If you're someone
who wants to share your song publicly on Instagram, please tag me
@soulsticesongwriting so I can see your video.
14. You Made It!: Congratulations on hopefully
writing your first song. I'm so thankful that you've
come along with me on this journey and I can't wait to hear
what you've created. In this class, we have talked
about many things. We did a mindfulness exercise and we talked about
how it can be really helpful to ground yourself before writing
and performing. We talked about chord structure, writing lyrics, how to come
up with melodic ideas, how to write out your song with your chords
and your lyrics together, how to practice your song and how to prepare for
performance or a recording. If there's one thing
that I want you to take away from this course, it's that at the core of songwriting is your emotion
and your emotional intention. Remember to let that guide you through your
songwriting and through your process and if you do that and stay in
your authenticity, I'm sure you will write
something truly fantastic. Please remember to
upload your project. There are directions
below on how to do that, so I can give you some
feedback on your song. If you didn't
complete a full song, but you wrote a
verse or a chorus, or maybe just one
section of a song, feel free to upload
that as well. I really hope you
enjoyed this class. If songwriting is something you want to continue to pursue, please visit my website,
soulsticeschool.com. I teach private and group
songwriting lessons with a similar approach to what
you saw today although we can dive much deeper
into your process. [MUSIC] If you want to do that. You don't have to do that though if that's not your thing. [MUSIC] Thanks for taking my
Skillshare class. See you again soon.
CLOVER, Singer-Songwriter & Music Teacher
