Songwriter Advisor Blog

The pop charts have always seen much success with positive, happy, and energetic songs like “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry, “Lollipop” by Lil’ Wayne, and “Forever” by Chris Brown.  But take a listen to recent chart successes like Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love,” Jordin Sparks’ “No Air,” and “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, and you’ll instantly realize how much stronger and more memorable these last three songs, full of strife, conflict, and pain actually are!  There’s really no comparison.

This is how it’s always been.  But why????  No, I don’t believe it’s because we all enjoy each other’s misery even though we’re not too far off when we make this assumption.  It’s probably because we as human beings find conflict much more interesting than sappy love stories.  Maybe there are genetic factors involved regarding our species.  I don’t know one person who can tell me they didn’t try to get closer to get a good view of two boys beating each other’s brains out in a high school hallway instead of leaving the area to go get help.  We all have that primal instinct that conditions our brains to zero in intently and curiously tune in when trouble is brewing!   

Songwriters can take advantage of this concept by writing and having at least a handful of “conflict” songs when they’re pitching material or picking out songs for their next release.

For you staff writers in the Major Leagues of songwriting where you’re continuously competing for song pitches to different artists, you know how challenging and difficult it can be to actually place a song with the artist of your choice.  Your chances go up dramatically when you’re able to show a great, troubled song, because aside from songs like this being extremely marketable, the majority of singers can relate to these songs out of personal experience. 

Performing artists want their listeners to feel their music.  And in this world where there are much too many lonely, hurt people even when they’re in a relationship, it’s easy to see why a song with conflict has a distinct advantage!

One of the most frequent questions I inevitably receive when I’m in a group of friends or in a family gathering is, “Hey Dude, I heard you’re into songwriting.  How’s your blog coming along?  What’s the best way to learn songwriting without spending too much?”  These questions usually come from folks who’ve been closet songwriters, dabbling a little here and there, secretly hoping they can write the next Beyonce hit without any guidance or training whatsoever. 

It’s a mistake to try to tackle songwriting without any basic songwriting knowledge.  It’s kinda’ like blindly walking into a snowstorm hoping you’ll eventually survive and come out the other end, still alive.  Well, maybe not that drastic, but you do need to know what you’re doing and facing so you can have the best chance at continually improving.  You can accomplish this by studying the basics of your songwriting craft and eventually knowing how to gauge your work as well as other songwriters’ work for your improvement. 

It’s true, in pop music, virtually anyone can pull a hit out of a hat but I guarantee you the majority of those one-hit wonders with no training had a tough time placing a second song.  I don’t know anyone in this music industry who’s wanted to be here-today-gone-tomorrow!       

For those of you who’d like to but are unsure about whether or not you can become good songwriters, believe it! Songwriting is a little part natural talent and a whole lot of craft through uncomplicated training. It’s more about getting out there and just doing it than wondering why it is that you’ll never have the talent to blow people away like John Mayer.  How do you know if you haven’t tried?

The training I’m talking about is through websites and blogs like this one or the ones listed in this blog’s footer (see Network Links below). All you have to know is what to look for. There’s plenty of information on how to write songs out there so I’m going to give you the keywords to get started.

To start quickly learning, aside from “songwriting,” “write songs,”, “how to write songs,”, and “songwriting help,” these are the terms and songwriting principles you can type into your web browser:

1. song hook
2. song verse
3. song chorus
4. guitar chords
5. piano chords
6. song bridge
7. song forms
8. rhythm
9. harmony
10. melody
11. how to write lyrics
12. Prechorus
13. rhyming

For example: I took the first entry “song hook,” typed it into the google browser and the first entry was Hook (music) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  This entry pretty much explained the whole concept of what a “song hook” is.

Take each term and read as many website entries as possible and before long you’ll have a pretty good understanding of basic songwriting principles.  Little by little, you’ll see how the pieces of the puzzle start coming together.

Remember, these keywords are merely a starting point and should definitely get you going in the right direction.

Learning the craft of songwriting is very much about gathering information bits at a time, applying it immediately whether you sing or play an instrument, and figuring out where and how you can progressively make improvements. It is conceivable for a newbie songwriter to be creating pretty darn good songs within a year of songwriting training.  As far as writings for Beyonce, I don’t know, maybe that’s a longshot (not impossible).  Hey, does anyone have connections with Beyonce out there?!!!!