Jump to content

How To Write Music


StormblessedSurvivor

Recommended Posts

Do you play any instruments? What sort of style are you wanting to write?

A good start is to listen and analyse music that you like and use the compositional devices you find to write your own music. Imitation is a good first step towards creation, but try not to plagiarise. I often try to imitate and recreate the mood and feeling that a song generates while still using an original melody. Chord progressions can't be copyrighted so go nuts and steal any that you like -- same with drum grooves and rhythms. 

The most important thing is to trust your ears. If something sounds right, it is right, and don't let any sort of theory knowledge or whatever tell you otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't help so much with that. I'm better at writing prose than lyrics. My roommate for a while was doing an exercise where he was writing a sonnet a day, which he said helped his lyric writing a lot. Pat Pattison also has a couple of great books about writing lyrics and I think he has a few lectures up online. Pat did a guest lecture at my university and it was very enlightening.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

It may help to try writing poetry. Songs are music put to words, and it can be any words that fit the tune.

I typically listen to the tune and find a theme that reflects the emotions the tune evoked. Then I put that feeling and theme into words.

Always listen to the tune first. It’s a lot easier to alter words to fit a tune than the reverse. Music first; words second. 

Once you have the words, you should sing them so as to see if they work or not. The tune determines the rhythm of the words.

Basically, when it comes to song writing, follow the music. The music ultimately determines your meter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...
On 2/15/2019 at 9:07 AM, StormblessedSurvivor said:

Well right now, I'm mainly trying to write lyrics.

Get some rhyming word groups and find ways to combine them that are interesting. This is easiest with words that actually have related meanings (e.g. "fall" and "tall" and "crawl" all (heh) pertain to elevation. Something that is tall has farther to fall and then ought to crawl) but can be done with other words just fine.

Alternatively, find a concept that you want to reiterate, then begin multiple short lines with it and end them with words that rhyme with each other.

These are just two methods that I use, there are definitely other ways, probably even better one - though I've never tried them and couldn't say for sure.

There. There's my worthless advice of the day. You're welcome/I'm sorry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I'm a teacher in school,  outlying in music, so during home school I gave them a task to ,ale new lyrics to one Vers and one refrain of Believer by aIagine Dragons, I would then proceed to copy and paste so that they had a class song for the summer graduation. Turns out Imhad given them a pretty impossible task, BUT I managed to make lyrics for them based on the ideas they had. That's my first "composition" since high school.

I have started considering making a song or composition now that I have made massive progress in the chords department (I play keyboard) But we'll see..

Edited by Aphasia85
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/15/2019 at 11:07 AM, StormblessedSurvivor said:

Well right now, I'm mainly trying to write lyrics.

I'm a beginner as well, but from what I've seen there are three main strategies:

1. Craft your vocal melody (possibly by writing it out, or just by singing over your basic chords and seeing what sticks), and then write your lyrics according to the melody, giving you a structure for you lyrics

2. Writing your lyrics, and then writing a vocal melody for the lyrics you write

3. Deciding on a song title, theme or anything that the song is about, so you can write the music and vocal melody and structure your lyrics for the melody. (this is the strategy I prefer)

When it comes to actually writing lyrics, take a look at a song you like, and study it's form, whether it's verse-bridge-chorus or verse-chorus-verse, and write your song in that format.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...