writing songs

[Angus_Poser]

are there any good websites that teach you to write songs, or books maybe? ? ?

[Terje]

Dylan's book, Chronicles Volume I, is pretty good when it comes to describing the creative process. That's what the book is all about. On a deeper level than you might be looking for right now but still, very fascinating.

One suggestion though is to learn some theory and then analyze songs you like. That'll probably teach you more than a book about how to write songs.

[acousticbilly]

I've also been seeking to strengthen my songwriting savvy as of late, and here's one thing I have found that helped me out quite a bit...

The first step is to break down "writing songs" into different components - in other words, there are a number of elements that go into a well-written song, such as:

- Melody
- Lyrics
- Song/Chord Structure
- Orchestration

There's probably more elements that I didn't think of, but the point is that there are quite a few things that go into writing a song. Now, when you look at this, you may realize that you are already pretty good at one or more things on the list, and not-so-good at some others (for me, lyrics are the killer).

Now that you know what skills you need to focus on, it will be much easier to look for resources to help you beef up those skills.