Help from those more experienced

Hi everyone. First time posting here. I have been playing guitar for most my life and have played out in bands (mosly covers) and have spent most of my time working on technique and learning other songs, not writing my own. I've recently been inspired to come up with my own material and can use some help.

Here's what my approach has been so far: independently from each other I've come up with lyrics and different chord progressions and/or riffs. I'm now trying to figure out which go together based on feel, rhythm, mood, etc. Its not working out so well. Is there a better way to approach this? I seem to get the inspiration to write lyrics at times when I'm not around a guitar.

I'd appreciate any advice and your time.

Hi, mrspag. Welcome! It's great that you're here and that you want to learn the secrets of songwriting. One of my favorite songwriters said that it's a mysterious process, like going on a snark hunt.

I don't think there's any one way to write a song but it's not uncommon for many songwriters to work on the chords, tune & lyric all at the same time. You sit down at the piano or with your guitar and start working out a melody line, then as it starts to emerge you get a feel for what the song's emotional undercurrent might be. Words and phrases start to emerge as well.

That's one way: doing all three in a kind of gestalt.

I think the hardest way for me to work is to write the lyric first then try to come up with a tune to fit it. I almost invariably end up changing the lyric as the tune starts taking shape because the rhythms of the melody shape the rhythms of the lyric.

On the other hand, when I write the chords, guitar riffs etc. and melody first the words naturally take shape around them, which works better for me rather trying to force the melody to fit the words.

The problem is probably that music is a kind of right-brain phenomenon and words are left-brain.

So if I were you I'd take one of my tunes, and instead of trying to lay one of my lyrics down on top of it, I'd just strum and hum and let my mind wander until some new words that fit the mood of the tune start to emerge.

It's not easy!

I hope this helps!

Hey, mrspag! Welcome!

Of course, there is no one way it all happens. I usually find it easiest to work with a guitar in hand or occasionally on a keyboad with a nice Rhodes or acoustic piano dialed up) but I've also written songs on banjo and mandolin (neither of which I'm adept at... actually, you can add keyboards to that    ) and even while riding my motorcycle (years ago).

One thing, I've never had much luck with was working backward from a single guitar riff. But that doesn't mean others can't or that anyone should ever throw away a good riff (or lyrical line for that matter) that doesn't have a home yet. But then I don't really work riff oriented music. (Maybe I should, I loved riff music when I was a kid. Peter Gunn, Shotgun, the surf instrumentals... maybe the 70s ruined riff rock for me, I dunno. heh  So many great riffs, so many lame tunes and lamer bands.)

For most of us, it takes a lot of what the old folks used to call gumption -- that grit-your-teeth-put-your-head-down-and-get-on-with-it determination that lets you get through something when every volitional bone in your body is screaming, You could be doing something fun and easy right now!

Because, at first, writing songs can be a real drag. Why? Because you're going to be writing bad songs.

This is just how it goes. (Unless you're one of those people who believes everything he does is pure genius -- but it's already clear from what you've written you are not afflicted with that sad condition.  ) 

So, you're going to be writing stuff that seems like crap to you. You're going to be frustrated. You're not going to know quite how to get beyond writing crap.

This is all normal. 

I'd been writing fiction and poetry for some years before I took up guitar in college at 20. And I thought I was pretty hot. (See the sad affliction described above. heh ) But then I put my pen to trying to write songs since I had somehow struggled to the point where I could play two chords with something vaguely approaching rhythm, I figured it was time to move on to writing great songs, only to find that I was somehow trapped in writing horrible crap. If I didn't try to make it rhyme, it came out weird and unweildy and flat and uninvolving or stiff. But when I tried to come up with rhymes, they were sub moon-june things that seemed to 'write the songs' themselves looking for the next rhyme word... 

But I'd already found that the only way for me to begin to crack the guitar was to just plow forward, overcoming my great antipathy to repeated actions (don't ask me why, something I might as well have been born with -- the more I do something physical in one sitting, the worse I get... it's bizarre but it's the way I am... I have to practice until I reach a critical point where it all really goes to hell, do something else, then come back and practice the original thing some more... it's bizarre -- but before I developed the discipline to break off at the appropriate time, I would go into a fugue of repeated action and growing frustration that would soon turn to rage... Lotta fun, that. heh  (We all got our own crosses to bear, eh?    )

Anyhow, we're all different, but most of us will be frustrated when we're starting out because what comes out of our pens and keyboards will, for a while, likely seem below us. It's a given.

You're going to be pushing yourself to write, particularly in the early stages, because it won't be fun. And pushing yourself isn't easy or fun, generally. But it's a row you gotta hoe if you want to get to the point where it's eventually 'easy' (easier) and is finally fun (or at least satisfying   ).

Grab your axe, put pen to paper (or hand to keyboard), and just start grinding.  

The main thing is to keep at it until something clicks - until you discover a method of working that works.  What Lee said I totally agree with - the most common method you hear about people using is to develop the lyrics and the music at the same time more or less.  But even this method can have endless variations.  

I don't use any one method all the time, that's for sure.  Sometimes I write the lyrics first. Similarly to what Lee said - when I take my pre-written lyrics and start working on the instrumental parts, the lyrics usually come under heavy revision.

Coming up with purely instrumental ideas is the easiest thing for me - I can do that all day long pretty much.  So I have far more chord/strum/picking/keyboard ideas than I could ever turn into fleshed out songs.  Whether they're any good or not in the context of an actual song just has to be worked out (or not.)

The most important thing for me is to find the very particular mood that the song is after.  And hang onto that mood, 'cause it can get lost in the labor.  The mood is like a seed with a DNA code that will dictate the final form the song will take when it's all grown up.  All other considerations are secondary to that all-important mood.  I don't define the mood to myself in a rational sense.  I just feel it's there or not.  But it's still a very particular thing, like the taste of an orange or the feel of silk.  That's the subjective spirit of the song.  All the rest is objective stuff that embodies and hopefully does justice to and communicates that subjective seed.  

nat whilk ii

Perfectly said.

There's a bunch of great feedback here. I agree with everything I've read so far.

I'll add one thing that I sort of already felt but really understood after reading a Lee Knight post from a few years ago.

Melody consist of two parts. Pitch and rhythm. Pitch is what most people focus on, but I think for lyrics... to really write great lyrics, rhythm is where you should start.

To explain further, words have a natural cadence when spoken. Certain syllables get stressed. If we pay attention to that when writing lyrics our songs will not sound forced. They should sound good when spoken. Sometimes you can even match up stressed syllables in lines to add continuity to melody.

I think this is the reason why alot of folks have more success writing lyrics to established music. Sometimes words are brilliant on the page but because of the way accents within the natural cadence of the words works, they might not sound good sung, or at least be very hard to make work.

I struggled with writing lyrics for a long time. A trick that I sometimes use now when I have a lyrical idea but don't have a piece of music in mind is just to write it to a stock country, soul, or blues progression. The beauty is that words that sound natural sung one way usually sound good sung another because you've already tapped into the natural cadence of the words.