Song writing tips: Writing a good Chorus

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A lot of songwriters argue that the chorus is the most important part of a song, well they are right in one side which is that the chorus is a very important and fundamental part in your song, but as i told you before you should take care of all of your song parts equally and use the right songwriting techniques to produce a hit song!!!

As we cleared in the "song components" lesson, the chorus is the part that comes directly after the verse, it's the part where you are going to be using a higher energy level. The energy level is built gradually until it reaches the end of the chorus. With the chorus i advice you to use as many songwriting ideas as you can, because it's a very recognizable part even by non songwriters.

Let's analyze the chorus to see how we can construct it:

- The first part of the chorus should be an extension of the verse in an energy perspective.

- When you reach the half of your chorus, you should put an intense increase in energy and musical loudness if you can, and that will continue to the very end of the chorus.

- The end of the chorus represents a decrease in energy level to be able to connect to the 2nd verse.

Like the verse, the chorus could be 4, 6, 8, 12, 16 bars long according to your song theme and composition.

Song writing tips: Writing a good verse

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As we mentioned in the lesson "song components", the verse is the part of the song that comes after the intro and before the 1st chorus. This part is where the vocals start, that's why it's a very important part, today we're going to learn the right songwriting techniques to write a wonderful Verse.

We've said in the "take care of your intro" lesson that the intro mint to grab listeners attention and sets the mood for them, so by the end of the intro you should already have your listener's attention.

The verse works the same way, you have to keep your audience's expectations on, so they always expect more and better. If you can do that, your verse will be great as well as your song.

The other aspect, is that the verse has an increased energy level comparing to the intro, so you have to build your verse along with your energy increase, until it reaches the chorus. The beginning of the verse represents it's lowest energy level, and the end of it represents the highest. So try to begin with low energy and by the middle of the verse you should increase loudness in your instruments as well as your vocals until the end of it.

The length of the verse usually is 8 bars, but you could find some that are 4, 12 or even 16 bars. You should choose a verse length according to your lyrics and song theme.

Usually most songs have 2 verses, whether there are ones that have 3 and require a bridge to connect the 2nd chorus and the 3rd verse. You can choose between maintaining the same energy level between verses or an increased one gradually from the 1st verse to the last.

Take care of your Intro

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As part of the songwriting techniques used in songwriting, the INTRO has a special place because it's the one that introduces the song, so if you can't have your audience's attention by the end of the intro, you'll never have it.

The intro is the first part of any song, it is so important because it sets the mood for the listener. When you hear an intro you'll make expectations, after that, everything will be based on those expectations. The intro gives us a clear picture about the song theme and composition, it also introduces all the other parts of the song, so it's good to have a good rhythm and harmony in it.

Intro used to be very long, but in modern music it's very short, because of this, you have to make it unique, catchy and has a very good melody, so try to come up with many songwriting ideas to form a good intro.

Usually the vocals start by the end of the intro and the beginning of the 1st verse, so try to make a good impression about your song.

From an energy perspective, the intro whether will have a constant energy or a built energy (increase in energy to connect to the verse). Sometimes the intro is used as a connection between the 1st chorus and the 2nd verse, that gives a special feeling and a well balanced energy.

The general rule suggests that an intro represents half as long as the verse, so if you have a verse of 4 bars the intro will be 2 bars...etc.

How to use the right songwriting techniques effectively

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Imagine that you spend a lot of time searching for effective songwriting techniques and you end up finding meaningless content online, this way you will lose so much time and effort and you'll end up giving up. The general rule suggests that you have to apply everything you've learned before ending up fueling the tank "memory" with everything you get your hands on.

The most important thing in songwriting is to be able to use the right songwriting techniques effectively, that will save you a lot of time and effort. In order to do this you have to follow these easy song writing tips:

1- Application is the key: try to apply the songwriting ideas you've thought of before they go away, this means that you have to test them and what they can offer you as well as your songs.

2- Learn the basic techniques first: This is very important!!! try to learn the fundamentals first, so you could have results very easily and with no time, if you start with complicated stuff, they will ruin you life and you will find yourself in a place where you can't apply anything you've learned.

3- Be yourself: Try to come up with your own songwriting ideas, your musical style as well as your purpose behind your songs, and don't just copy other's ideas.

4- Tie it to a goal: You should have goals in your songwriting career, so make a goal and tie it to a deadline, but in the same time don't push yourself too hard.

Keep expanding your chord vocabulary: Added Chords

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The only reason behind learning more chords or at least how to construct them, is not exhausting your brain or something, the only reason behind this it to give your songs many beautiful colors and provide you with more choices and songwriting ideas, so it's like painting, the more colors the more attraction, but be careful, as not all the colors could be put together, the same thing applies to notes, so make sure to follow the right songwriting techniques when using them!!!

The chords that we'll be learning today are called "add chords", these chords are used a lot in songs, because they provide a more colorful sound. From their name, we can see that these chords have one more note than the normal chord (major or minor).

Most people get confused of the difference between "sus" and "add" chords, so follow with me carefully. A sus chord requires the removal of the 3rd note of the chord and replace it with other note, in the case sus2, it's the 2nd note of the scale. Add chords keep the chord the same with the 1st, 3rd, the 5th and adds an additional note to it, in the case of add2, it's the 2nd note or interval of the scale.

Csus2: 1st, 2nd, 5th ===> C - D - G
Cadd2: 1st, 2nd, major 3rd, 5th ===> C - D - E - G.

While you can add more notes to your triad, the most common add chords are the ones with one added note.

Mistakes you should avoid when writing songs

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An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962). While this is absolutely true, mistakes are the only way of making progress, but i'm going to show you how to avoid things that will slow down your progress, but it's OK if you make mistakes, because if i have not committed a lot of mistakes, i could have never done anything, and i'm sure it's the right case for you.

Here are the most common mistakes people do when songwriting:

1- Lack of organization: organization is the key to every success including songwriting. It's true that songwriting ideas come and go accidentally and instantly but you have to organize your learning and practicing time.

2- Lack of methodology: this is may be the most crucial element of songwriting, if you don't follow a songwriting method, you'll end up swimming in a sea of ideas without even having a song, so make sure you follow my songwriting methodology or try to figure out what works for you.

3- Pushing too hard: some times people push themselves too hard until exploding. From my experience i noticed that the time i'm exhausted my productivity goes down, so give your self a break when you run out of songwriting ideas and return other time to finish your task.

4- Learning too much and applying nothing: This is very important, because you need to apply the songwriting techniques you've learned and not just keep learning because it will handicap you from producing amazing songs with the knowledge and ideas you've acquired.

These are the most common mistakes people fall into, just make sure you follow my song writing tips and i assure you that you'll end up writing great songs in a very short period.

Do you really need to know how to play an instrument?

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This question is very controversial, some people emphasize that you need to know how to play an instrument in order to compose music or write songs, others think that you don't need that, the only thing you need is some songwriting techniques and ideas + a good music writing software that you can mix all together to produce a song.

Well, the 2 sides have a point, but let me explain to you a little. It's true that you don't need to know how to play guitar or keyboard to compose music, because these instruments are just an application of the music theory you've learned, you can use a songwriting software to compose you music, but...!

While this is true, i totally encourage you to learn at least one musical instrument, because this is what music is all about, music is meant to be heard and played, the other thing is that it will take you forever to learn music theory without an instrument. The instrument will give you lot of shortcuts and make your learning very fast.

So take my advice and start learning a musical instrument, but it's OK if you don't have one, because you just need a songwriting software or even a paper sheet to write down your songwriting ideas.

What else can i add to my chord vocabulary? (Suspended chords)

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Are you tired from trying to figure out how to play suspended chords or "sus chords", well i'm here for you. By the end of this lesson, you'll going to be able to play any sus chord you want. While suspended triads "chords" are used a lot as one of the best songwriting techniques to add flavor to your songs, i'm going to show you the exact way to play them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4329908160/

The only thing that you're going to remember, is that sus chords doesn't have thirds (3rd) in them, that means that they are neither majors nor minors, because it's the 3rd that identifies the major and minor chords. Usually with these chords, we take away the 3rd and replace it with the 2nd or the 4th.

So:

A suspended 2nd chord (sus2) has these notes in it: 1st - 2nd - 5th
A suspended 4th chord (sus4) has these notes in it: 1st - 4th - 5th

Csus2 is: C - D - G
Csus4 is: C - F - G

That's it, try to use sus chords to expand your songwriting ideas arsenal, in order for your songs to appear non repetitive and unique.

Expanding your chord vocabulary

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A lot of people seem afraid from chord theory, they think it's too confusing and complicated to learn, that's why they don't expand their chord vocabulary. You know that you have to use a variety of chords in your songs, that's why i'm going to reveal some great songwriting techniques that you can use to expand your chord vocabulary.

As you know it's very hard to give exact rules to music theory, that's why every songwriter works with his own techniques, but fortunately, that leads always to the same thing. Let me give you a cool thing: don't bother yourself with a lot of techniques and rules that you'll be ending up confused with, the 2 main things that i need you to learn are "The major scale: the absolute of songwriting techniques", which is the golden technique and "What are Intervals?" where we've talked about a very important thing which is: intervals and their names, in this lesson we're going to see how we can use them to name and modify triads "chords".

In the lesson "First of songwriting techniques you should learn: song key", we've seen how to harmonize the major scale so we can extract chords from it, we take the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of the scale to form a major chord, this means that you can choose your root note let's say C, pick the 3rd and the 5th of the C major scale and you got it "C major chord"= "C - E - G".

Major and minor triads have 1 difference which is that major chords have a major 3rd, and minor chords have minor 3rds which is a semitone or half step less than a major 3rd. If we take the example of C major chord, the 3rd which is E becomes Eb=D# (the same). The C minor chord has these notes "C - Eb - G".

These are the most used chords in music "major and minor chords", we will learn more chords in the next lessons.

What are Intervals?

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While many people wonder what these are, i can tell you that these are probably the most important thing in music theory, so learning them will open an infinite number or gates to your music composition and also an understanding of most of the songwriting techniques that we'll be learning.

The definition of an interval is very simple, an interval is the distance between 2 notes, they are measured from the lower note to the higher one. If the 2 notes are played successively (separately), the intervals are called "Melodic". If the 2 notes are played simultaneously, the interval is called "Harmonic".

Intervals can take different shapes including: major, minor, perfect, augmented, diminished.

As i said before, the major scale is the standard of the music theory, so let's go from there and name the intervals of the major scale depending on their sizes:

Unisons, Seconds, Thirds, Fourths, Fifths, Sixths, and Sevenths.

The unison, fourth, fifth and octaves are called "Perfect intervals".
The remaining intervals of the major scale: second, third, sixth, seventh are called major.

- If we lower a major interval by one half step "1 semitone= 1 fret on the guitar's fretboard", we get a minor interval. if we raise a minor interval by one half step we get a major interval.

- If we lower a major interval by 2 half steps (1 whole step= 2 semitones), we get a diminished interval. if we raise a diminished interval by 2 half step we get a major interval.

- If we raise a major interval by 1 half step, we get an augmented interval and the opposite is also true.

In the case of perfect intervals:

- If we raise a perfect interval by 1 half step in becomes augmented.
- If we lower a perfect interval by 1 half step in becomes diminished.

The last case is the case of a minor interval, if it's raised by 2 half steps (guess what it will become), yeah you're absolutely right "augmented".

These are what you're going to be using as major songwriting techniques and also as songwriting ideas to use more chords and add flavors to your songs.

What's next?

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In the lesson of "First of songwriting techniques you should learn: song key", we have learned the first and one of the most powerful of songwriting techniques that we're going to be using in every song we write.

We've extracted 7 chords and learned "how to name them", by this you should have a lot of songwriting ideas coming to your head about how your song will look like and what key you're going to be using in you song.

While we can use all the 7 chords in our song, we should keep an eye at the chord succession or what we call "The chord progression", because some progressions are strong, some are medium and some are weak, so be careful!!!

By learning this you can make sure that every note in your song, whether it's in the chords or the melodies, belong to your key that you've chosen, so put your head on the pillow and don't worry.

By combining the right techniques of writing song lyrics and collecting some songwriting ideas, you'll be able to write your song easily and without pain.

How the hell i know if the chord is major or minor or...?

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In the previous lesson "First of songwriting techniques you should learn: song key" we've seen how we can harmonize the major scale "Extract chords from it", and by doing that we had 7 chords that we know they belong to a specific key which is in the last example is "The C major key".

You've noticed that i wrote the chords names without telling how i did it, so in this lesson i'm going to show you one of my best songwriting techniques to identify a chord from the notes in it.

In the last example we've seen the C major scale:
C - D - E - F - G - A -B - C - D - E - F - G - A -B
C   -     E   -     G                                     (C major)
      D    -    F    -    A                               (D minor)
            E   -     G   -    B                           (E minor)   
                  F    -    A   -    C                     (F major)
                        G    -   B   -     D                (G major)
                              A   -    C    -    E          (A minor)
                                   B    -    D     -   F    (B diminished)

We are going to name these chords using these 3 easy steps:

1- Take any chord you want and play it while concentrating on the notes in it.

2- Try to play the corresponding major scale to it (if it's the C major chord, play the C major scale, if it's the E minor chord, try to play the E major scale).

3- The last thing is to compare the notes of the chord with the notes of your scale:

- The C major chord has (C - E - G), in the C major scale these notes represent (1st, 3rd, 5th), that's why the chord is a C major chord.

- The D minor chord has (D - F - A), in the D major scale these notes represent (1st, b3, 5th), so when it's a flat third we call it a minor chord.

- The B diminished chord has (B - D - F), in the B major scale these notes represent (1st, b3, b5), so when it's a flat 3rd and flat 5th, we call it a diminished chord.

I think this was clear, but if you have questions don't hesitate and comment.

First of songwriting techniques you should learn: song key

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People always get confused when they begin writing songs especially writing music or melody, they usually ask questions like what chords am i supposed to use, what scales, what, what, what...?

Don't bother yourself with this, because i'm going to show you how exactly professional songwriters write their great songs everyday. So the key factor to write a harmonized and good song is to know what keys are.

The key of the song is where all the notes belong, it's like a form of music, or some rules that will make you stay on the line and never commit wrong things. The song key is named by 2 factors which are: the type of the key (whether it's major or minor), and the name of the key (the name or the root note).

You remember the lesson of "The major scale: the absolute of songwriting techniques", that's all what you are going to need to understand keys, how awesome is that!!!. You only need to construct your chords and you're done.

Chords are constructed from the 1st, the 3rd and the 5th note of the scale, we call the chord construction from the major scale "harmonizing the major scale". So let's see the example of the C major scale and try to harmonize it by picking the 1st, the 3rd and the 5th note and move to the next note as a root note...etc

The C major scale:
C - D - E - F - G - A -B - C - D - E - F - G - A -B
C   -     E   -     G                                     (C major)
      D    -    F    -    A                               (D minor)
            E   -     G   -    B                           (E minor)   
                  F    -    A   -    C                     (F major)
                        G    -   B   -     D                (G major)
                              A   -    C    -    E          (A minor)
                                   B    -    D     -   F    (B diminished)

These are our 7 chords from our C major scale, so you can use them without getting into trouble (but be careful).

Note: The funny part of all of this is that the chord succession in any major key is (major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished), how cool is that!

Song components

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Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life "Ludwig van Beethoven", well this is the best quote from the best musicians (to me!), while this is so true, song success is compared to it's stability in it's energy level, that why this lesson will reveal to you one of the most powerful songwriting techniques.

Every song has components that make it unique, while there are many patterns to choose from, i'm going to show you the most simple, sweet, powerful and used one. we mean by components the form of the music.

I'm sure that you heard something like: chorus, verse sometimes, but you didn't know how and when they're used. These components are phases that you are going to go throw to give a pleasing experience to your listeners.

Most of the songs uses these form components:

1- Intro: from it's name it means that it introduces the song, we use slow playing and low octaves or keys to make the listener get ready.

2- The verse: Increase in energy and playing with the start of lyrics (vocals), lyrics most will be narrative.

3- The chorus: this one has the most energetic level, lyrics in this component are less narrative and seem almost like quotes.

4- The verse (2): same energy as the first one except with different lyrics.

5- The chorus (2): The same as the first with mostly the same lyrics as the first.

6- Bridge: This is what connects the 2nd chorus with the 3rd and last one, it introduces a different melody and increases in energy until it reaches the last chorus.

7- The chorus (3): Decreased level of energy in the beginning and then increase until it matches the 1st and the 2nd one.

8- The outro: From its name, it represent the end of the song, so it makes the fade away of the song.

These are the most popular and used song components, they will give you some songwriting ideas to begin with, good luck. 

Songs: the good, the bad and the ugly?

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So what really makes the difference between a good song, a bad or even an ugly one. The answer to this question is very controversial, it was answered by many songwriters, but no one made it simple so anyone can understand it.

Before we answer this question, let's go back in time and try to identify what's the factor that made you love a specific song for example, try to remember with me if it's the melody, the chords sequence used in it, the simplicity, the complexity, the lyrics, the right songwriting techniques...etc.

I'm sure that everyone of us has a different point, that's because we love songs from our own background, so there are people that like deep songs, others like simple composition, others like complex composition...etc.

But we haven't answered the question yet!!!?that's because there is no exact answer to this, but let me give some hints:

What all of humans have in common with music?

- A good song is the one that uses an honest language.
- A good song is the one that uses a pleasing melody to the ear.
- A good one is that has a very easy and memorable Hook.
- A good song is the one that uses the right songwriting techniques.

These are the most important factors that make great songs, if you have more don't hesitate and comment.