Song Writing Tips For The Beginner Songwriter

Writing songs on the keyboard or piano.

As a song writer, you will always end up with a method that works best for you, whether or not you learn the art of songwriting from a professional songwriter.

I can only speak from my own experience as far as songwriting is concerned, so for myself, playing the guitar and a little piano has helped a lot in my own personal style of songwriting.

For someone just starting out with songwriting, I would suggest buying a small keyboard to help get ideas down.

The nice thing about the piano or keyboard is that if you stick to the key of C, the chords are very easy to play.

Another very usable feature for writing songs on the keyboard is the auto accompaniment function. Setting a good beat and style for a song before you write it can work very nicely towards getting inspired.

A note of caution though, is to remember not to use the one finger feature when creating chords, as you won't know what it is that you played.

Why I write songs on the guitar.

The main reason why I write songs on a guitar is because that's my main instrument. Many people who play guitar, even if they are novices at it, somehow, like myself, seem to prefer it as a song writing tool.

As a fairly advanced guitarist, and I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here, heck, I don't even own a trumpet.

Okay, where was I now?

Oh yes, I can use guitar riffs, off beats and various other little music nuances to really get the song happening.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it really helps to have a good mastery of the instrument when writing songs.

Be that as it may, the essence of a good song, and I'm talking from a commercial appeal point of view, is good melody, chords that sit nicely on the ear (no funny pictures please) and a good beat.

How to write lyrics.

Now this is the real scary part, mostly because a lot of people thing they are good lyricists, when in fact they aren't.

I need to make a very clear distinction here between poetry and song lyrics. They are not the same.

The thing with song lyrics is that they don't have to be that good, they still need to be meaningful though.

Good song lyrics communicate a feeling or concept in easily understandable words that have a tendency towards rhyme.

Writing lyrics for songs is a bit of a black art, if you ask me. Listen to the greatest lyricists of our time, and try to get a feel for what they did that was so powerful.

One thing that they do very effectively is communicate. Listen to Bob Dylan, he's very clever and a natural.