Songwriting 101: The Basics
By Dave Byers | September 29, 2007
A song needs to do three basic things to impress a listener. Call it the songwriting triangle:
- It needs to draw the listener in with an interesting lyric
- It needs to be catchy, as a song must please the ear rather than just reading it like a poem
- It needs to have good sound structure
Below I will explain some of the basics of good structure and some common songwriting terms. If you have all three sides as strong as possible from the songwriting triangle, you will give your song its best chance at success.
If even one of the sides of your triangle is weak, your song usually does not stand a very good chance at pleasing your listeners. So as you work on improving your writing, focus in on those three areas. Study hit songs and look at those three areas while you’re listening.
- Lyrics
- Catchy parts
- Sound structure
Now, lets go over some basic songwriting terms and structure fundamentals:
A song is composed of several pieces. A stanza is similar to a paragraph in a book. It’s simply a section of grouped lines. Usually a song will have multiple verses and a chorus made up of stanzas. A verse is a stanza with at least two lines that give the details of the song.
The chorus is a section of lines that generally contain the catchiest part of the song. Usually the chorus contains a songs hook. A hook is a phrase of words or music that catches your ear and usually gets stuck in your head. It is often the title of the song too.
In most cases, a song contains a chorus that is the same or has only very small changes to its content each time it’s repeated. Some songs have no chorus, but very few. For example, a song format of AAA would mean three verses with no chorus. More on this later.
Some songs use a bridge as well. A bridge usually has a different length than a verse and usually has different music accompaniment. A bridge usually will “sum up” a song’s message, or flash forward or backwards in time or often give a different perspective or surprise twist to a song.
Here we’ve mentioned “usually” and “generally” and words like that because there are no rules in songwriting. For every hard and fast rule you can list, there is a hit song out there to break it. So, instead let me give you some basic guidelines or principals to build your songwriting foundation.
In the next section, we’ll discuss how to use rhyming in your songs. So let’s continue.
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Loading ...About the Author
Dave is the founder of WritingSongs.com and the Christian Songwriters Organization. He has been writing songs since 1979. His book Songwriting Fundamentals is full of helpful hints for both new and seasoned songwriters. Visit Author's Website.
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From nally
well i want to know what melody is about,am a good lyricist but just cant get good melodies