Tips for Songwriting (for the D.I.Y. Rock Star)

(This post accompanies Gab & Jam 104 Tips for Songwriting (for the D.I.Y. Rock Star)

(video: http://bit.ly/Ep104BV2019vid30 and podcast: http://bit.ly/Ep104BV2019pod30 )

This episode is a part of our Blog-vember 2019 trifecta of three posts a day—a video, a podcast, and a blog post. This year the focus is tips for the D.I.Y. Rock Star. We developed these methods through our own decades worth of experiences.

The BIG Take-Aways:

Our songwriting advice?

When writing a song, make sure that the parts that you assemble “speak” to us AND they need to serve the structure of the song. When we write the lyrics first, sometimes it is hard to fit them to music. So, there may be ideas that stood apart from the music that were grand and deep, but don’t pair with the music that we had assumed would accompany them.

Songwriting is a natural process, but lyrics can sometimes be the most difficult part to fit within the “story” of the music. Lyrics are like casting the right actor to help tell this song’s story.

As a consequence, we have a lot of unfinished songs, where there is music with no lyrics and also lyrics that have no music. Sometimes, years later, we will get a feel of how the two of them can meld together to form a song we like. (Songs like “So Much Better”—SoundCloud link: http://bit.ly/somuchbettersc are an example of this. It sat for 15 years before we were able to put the lyrics to it.) On the other hand, though, there are times when we are writing the music and the lyrics reveal themselves immediately and the song is finished in record-quick time. When that happens, the music pulls the lyrics out.