Career Songwriter

If you’re writing a few times a week, you’re speeding down the path to better songs that more clearly express who you are as an artist. Along the path are inevitable pit-stops where strings of songs reflect the same stage in your musical and lyrical development and writing process. Sometimes we get stalled in these stages and find ourselves unable to move past them. When this happens to me, I go back to my toolbox, the big box of songwriting techniques that enable me to throw my song against the wall and see if it sticks. I’ll critique my own song, taking a look at the lyric content, rhyme, conversational quality, title placement, overall structure, the melodic shape, phrasing, note lengths, the harmonic progression and frequency of chords, etc. As I break the tune down into these elements, I often start to see similarities.

Perhaps I notice that several of my latest tunes use the same melodic shape, or the phrasing of the verses are all 4 lines followed by 4 more lines. Maybe I’m stuck on starting on the root chord or using the same melodic intervals. The antidote is to start implementing the opposite tools. Instead of starting on the root chord, I try starting on the 4th or 5th. Instead of large melodic intervals, I try small intervals or just staying on 1 note.

Recently a student asked for some ideas for getting out of harmonic ruts. Below are some of my tools, but add your own as you confront pit-stops in your own writing.

1. As I described above, notice how often you start your verse or chorus on the root chord. If this is typical of your harmonic movement, try starting on the ii-, iii-, IV, V, or vi- instead. Listen carefully to how your instincts tell you to alter your melody based on those changes.

2. Notice how many times you change chords in each section. Is it once per measure, twice, or every two measures? Change up the harmonic rhythm by changing chords more or less frequently than you typically do.

3. Simplify. Movement in both the melody and harmony all the time doesn’t automatically make a song better or more interesting. Try writing a verse over a 1 chord groove.

4. Avoid the root until the chorus. This technique not only changes your starting point, but helps to keep the tension taught until releasing it in the chorus when you do play the root. The root chord offers that great feeling of ‘coming home’, returning to the tonal center of the song.

5. Change the bass shape. Try descending or ascending the scale, moving up or down by whole steps or half steps. Notice how often you change chords, and then increase or decrease that frequency for more ideas.

6. Change the tempo and the time signature. If you consistently write in 4/4, try 6/8 or ¾. Notice your typical tempos, and significantly slow down or speed up for new ideas.

7. Learn a new rhythm on your instrument. If you’re a piano player, try playing quarter notes in the bass, or half notes, or arpeggios. If you’re a guitar player, try a new groove and write the whole first verse or chorus over that single 1 or 2 bar groove.

8. If you play an instrument, put it down or switch to an instrument you’re not familiar with. Try a drop D guitar tuning, try a capo on the 6th or 7th fret and turn your guitar into a mandolin. If you don’t play an instrument, pick one up and sing a melody over a 1 or 2 note bass-line in your left hand.

9. Pick up a CD you haven’t listened to in awhile. Pick a tune at random and play the intro and stop just before the verse starts. Try writing the rest of the song using the intro as a guide for tempo, rhythm, and chord progression. You can always go back later and substitute a chord or two of your own to bring the harmonic progression further away from the original.

10. Go out and buy 5 new records. Sometimes just funneling new music into our heads inspires the growth we need to move on from a plateau.