Songwriting: A Personal PerspectiveAward winning songwriter and playwright CHRIS HENDERSON shares his views on songwriting.
I write this article in the hope that other members might be encouraged
to follow suit and share their ideas about songwriting. I for
one would be interested in learning the hows and whats of other
writers around the place. Over the years I have played and written
songs in a fair variety of styles and I shall describe below how
I go about it. I am an accompaniment guitarist and I write songs
on guitar so non-guitarists might find some of this incomprehensible
or inapplicable to their instrument but I have concentrated on
the general approach I take which is pretty much the same no matter
what type of song I am working on whether folk; country rock;
R & B; pop; hard rock.
The Music
I spend a fair few spare time hours playing guitar and come up with numerous chord riffs. I try to connect various ones together until I find a few progressions that meld. Since I'm a pretty standard verse/chorus verse/chorus bridge verse /chorus format writer I try to find three riffs (sometimes I use two in the verse i.e. four all up) to form these three parts of a song. Regarding these riffs, I've learned a lot of upper fret chords and I use them in writing because the nuances of chord inversions and ones with double 5ths and no 3rds etc. make more interesting melodies evolve in my head. More often than not, the actual chords played in live performance aren't exactly the same but the melody is pretty well dictated by the original chords used in the writing. I'm sure most reasonable guitarists would know quite a few of these type of chords and if you want to learn some (or some more) there are plenty of people around who will show you their favourites if you arrange a "jam" with them. Irrespective of the instrument you play it is valuable to play with and learn from good players of your particular instrument. Creating melodies is in my case something that just happens when I'm playing around with chord progressions. I don't consciously sit down and write melodies as I think some songwriters do. I used to have difficulty with melodies because I'm no great shakes as a singer. I've overcome this problem by developing a "recorder" in my head so I can hear a melody even if I can't produce it given my vocal limitations. Some of the best stuff I've written I wouldn't dare try to perform myself. Fortunately I've often got together with good vocalists and in bands and actually physically heard songs I've written for the first time. When it comes to arranging the length (in bars) of the parts of the song it really depends on taste. I'm inclined to write songs that last less than four minutes. My verses are usually about sixteen bars, choruses eight bars, bridges rarely more than eight bars. Also the tempo and rhythm of the riffs is influential. I often try out different time signatures and tempos in the very early stages of writing. You can turn a 4/4 rock song into a folkie or country style by switching to 3/4 (6/8) and vice versa. But I don't really consider length until the final arrangement is sorted out in my head. In verses I try to have no more then three or four consecutive repeats of a chord progression and if the riff is a long one, say eight bars, I'll just do two of them and that'll be the verse. I tend to write verses with two halves in them: 8 bars based around one progression and the next 8 around a contiguous one or alternating them. I aim to get a decent melody that leads fairly naturally into the chorus melody without being too much the same. Choruses are the most important aspect of making a song memorable. I think they need to have a rousing and/or rounding out quality different melodically from the verses without being incongruous or boringly predictable. It is common practice to repeat lyric "hooks" and if you've got a strong musical hook you should use it as the chorus where it's practicable and doesn't mess up other good bits you might have already formatted. The bridges I write tend to feature a rhythm change (or rather tempo since I rarely find changes in time signature work well). Often I use the bridge at the start, after the second chorus (which is sort of standard) and sometimes as a coda if it's particularly strong. Simple three or four chord progressions repeated once or twice are the best in my opinion but you do often hear bridges with a lot more complexity. Instrumental solos are part and parcel of songs written for bands. I usually provide the necessary space in the intro, lead ins and exits of choruses. The best place to do a solo over a verse I find is straight after the bridge. I don't like having solos over the chorus sections but this depends on who ends up playing or producing the material. Soloists generally want to and, I think, need to be given a pretty free hand to show their wares. Solos I ask for are ones which show taste and add "colour" to the complete piece.
Lyrics
Subject matter in the popular song area tends to be a bit of a free for all but there are certain mainstream styles - romance: love and usually the associated highs and lows. I don't mind writing this material but it's important that I distance my self somewhat from my personal feelings/ situation a bit and make sure that the lyrics are accessible to my intended audience. I seek constructive comments from friends and musical colleagues about this. I've written several which I think are great "love" songs lyrically but I have to have an explanatory preface longer than the song before those who don't know where I'm coming from can hope to understand them. To try to "distance" myself from a song I often change to 3rd person (using pronouns he, she, them and it). This certainly gets you out of the "I" syndrome which often leads to very introspective and ego-centric songs. Another way of doing this is to write lyrics which aren't gender specific and then you can work out which sort of voice (male or female) suits them. Some of my songs sound best when performed by a female vocalist even though they may have evolved from my male headset. Social/political comment lyrics are a favourite of mine; there's a danger of getting too like some sort of zealot so I try to be a bit wry a la Ray Davies (The Kinks) and don't take myself too seriously and sound like Billy Graham. There are however many issues which deserve to be and are addressed by songwriters who care about the state of the world we live in, so I'm not shy about writing critiques about issues. I really enjoy sending up some of the attitudes you find in various places, especially Australian ones, since, as is the case with almost everyone, I write my best songs about things I really know and understand thoroughly. Narrative lyrics telling stories have always appealed to me, but I don't like to write long songs. Consequently I often end up writing a" scene" instead of a whole "play". I really work hard to fit a synopsis of a story into the space I've pre-determined in constructing the music. I try not to waste a line or repeat ideas even in paraphrase (except in choruses). It takes perspiration being so particular but it's worth it when you end up with a tale which is complete yet compact. Keeping a song short obviates repetitive and monotonous end product which I find is a problem with narratives. Painting people, places and events in words is challenging. It's often hard to realise that your audience doesn't have all the "background knowledge" you have about the subject. If I'm writing about a person or people I never use the real names (for defamation reasons!) and I avoid being specific about places. I try to make the setting a "general" one so anybody can visualise it for themselves but sometimes you can't avoid it and if the place is famous (or infamous), it can assist the audience's understanding. You can be specific about an event but only if it's well known. The passage of time often makes a "current event" song lyrically obsolete so I keep away from that as much as I can so the song has longevity. My sister is a fairly good free verse poet and I once asked her why she never wrote any rhyming verse. She said that the necessity to rhyme interfered with the clarity and accuracy of the content. However, rhyme is virtually essential in lyric writing I think. It seems to be part of the tradition of the genre and I quite enjoy trying to keep to a rhyme scheme and still cover the subject matter in a lucid fashion. Besides, you can get away with really loose rhymes in songs which you can't in formal poetry. You can use both vowel and consonant rhymes without sounding "off". Also in lyrics you can adjust the phrasing of lines a lot more than you can in poetry so you're not so constricted by required metre of the lines and there's sufficient freedom in syntax (word order) to allow you to get a rhyme on the end of a line. With work, I can usually keep to the rhyme scheme and metre without sacrificing meaning too much. Some standard sound devices used by poets help a lot in creating lyrics which enhance the overall sound of the song. I use lots of internal rhymes (halfway and end of line); they add "bounce" to the lines. Repetition of distinct consonant sounds has a similar effect whereas repetition of vowel sounds can really mellow out lines. It's really handy to have a big supply of synonyms and some people inveterately use dictionaries for this (and for rhyming). I've only done this in desperation but I know it has helped many lyricists I've come across. Onomatopoeia (words which sound like what they mean e.g. thump) can be used to great effect but I don't go out of my way to deliberately use it. Such words usually pop up in flashes of inspiration (rare as they are at times). Using strong and where possible extended imagery (mainly derived from apt comparisons) is a great help in creating vivid lyrics and often it assists in my quest for originality; but clichés can really destroy a song lyrically. Well, that's basically the way I do it. I hope that you've found this interesting and, for some of you, informative and helpful. As I said before, I would appreciate other songwriters explaining their "modus operandi" because I and many others are interested in getting new ideas to help in our creative pursuit/passion: writing songs.
© Copyright C.J.G. Henderson 1996 Chris Henderson has won a recording prize in three Songwriters Events including winner of the BSharp Prize in 1995 and winner of the Working Life Section in 1996. He is also the author of the (musical) play The Life and Times of Dezzy Ripley. Return to Contents Songwriting: Another PerspectiveAward winning lyricist RUTH GOBLE contributes her thoughts on songwriting. 
I read Chris Henderson's article on how he writes songs (in SCALA
NEWS # 51) with much interest, especially what he had to say about
lyrics. I found myself thinking "Yes I do that" and
"Yes, I totally agree" and other similar thoughts all
the way through except for one difference. He writes his
music first and fits his lyric to it afterwards and I write my
lyric first and the tune kind of grows out of the words.
This seems to be a major and interesting difference between songwriters. I have tried hard to write lyrics to an already developed tune and I could not do it. My way of writing (and this applies to play-scripts, poetry and songs) started off a pretty much instinctive. I would get an idea - a single scene of a play, a bit of a lyric plus its musical phrases and I learned to get this down on paper quick. It usually came at a time I was not trying to write anything (!) - doing some routine job, (mind "out -of-gear") waking very early in the morning, travelling on a plane or train or bus, especially on longish trips when you have time and space to let go and let your mind wander. I learned a long time ago to hang onto these ideas or fragments because they tended to be about something that meant a lot to me, something I felt was worth writing about. After that, I do a lot of work on the actual words and structure but the original idea acts as a sort of anchor and stops me wandering too far from my basic theme. I set out to write more, extend the idea, give it a a beginning, middle and end. I write down lines, phrases and words that seem to connect with the basic idea! Sometimes the ideas come as pictures and I write down a description of what I am seeing in my mind, not just the physical objects but the colours, light, contrasts, sounds and smells. I write lists of words that seem to connect, sometimes lists of rhyming words. All this is not the actual writing of the lyric but a process of collecting material for the writing. And when I go stale, dry up, I put it all away over night or for a week or a month. And when I come back to it I nearly always find there's more material, a clearer understanding, and often a number of "problems" will have sorted themselves out. There are occasions, of course, when I come back to it and think "what a load of codswallop" and file it all in the W. P. B. It seems to me to be a process of using my sub- or pre-conscious mind: "It" throws up an idea, I feed assorted information back in and then "it" gives it back, partly processed and further along the way. This may all seem rather precious, sort of "mystical", but it's not. I've talked to a lot of writers, including professionals, earning a a living and found that one in 5 or 6 writers works in this sort of way. The thing is, I suppose - trust your subconscious, only don't let it run away with you. Sooner or later you have to get down to metre, beat, rhyme, number of lines, verse and chorus. What I'd like to know is - how many songwriters, who are musicians first, work in this kind of way?
© Copyright Ruth Goble 1996 Ruth Goble won the SCALA Festival of Original Music (FOOM) Song Competition Live Section 1994 and the FOOM 1995 Manuscript section. Return to Contents My Perspective On SongwritingContinuing our series on Songwriting by SCALA members. This time it's MICHAEL COGHLAN.
Songwriting is one of those feats that seems like a mystery to
those who have never done it, and can be regarded by those who
do it as something akin to having breakfast. I don't mean to
be glib about this, but many songwriters don't understand what
all the fuss is about. It's just something that comes naturally.
I wrote my first song at the age of 19. It was more out of curiosity than anything. But it was stirred by passion, and that' s something that I've learnt about my songwriting from that day on. If I don't feel strongly about something it just doesn't happen. That first song is no great shakes, but 20 years on I still play it sometimes. I guess from the point of view of someone who does write songs I don't understand why people who've played for a long time don't just drift into it, but many gifted musicians don't. It seems a natural progression to me. Now that may not be much help to people reading this who struggle to take that first step towards writing their own material. So what's the process? Well I reckon there are as many ways to write a song as there are musicians in this world. Some start with the lyrics, and others with the music. Sometimes they happen together. The ultimate in songwriting for me was the ONE OCCASION when it all came together in perfect harmony. I have one song that took as long to write as it does to play. That is, it simply popped out one night many years ago perfectly complete. Lyrics and music just fell together in a stream of consciousness and there it was. A finished, complete song that has suffered no editing to this day. In a sense I don't feel like I wrote that song. I was more a medium for a song that was waiting to be born. You might like to try this method, but I wouldn't rely on it. In my experience it's a rarity. What usually happens is that songs take time. They are written in bits at different times -weeks, months, or even years apart. And one day you might play something that fits with something that you doodled with some time ago. And lo and behold - you have a song! You've found that bit that turns a loose musical end into a finished work. I must say I like this method of writing. I've never been one for great discipline and working at my craft (I even hesitate to use the phrase in relation to my songwriting). I prefer to see it as an evolutionary process. However when I discovered that a favourite song writer of mine actually worked, slaved even, for months to get music and lyrics just right I changed my tune a little. I tried it just once. Deliberately working on a song until I got it just the way I wanted it. I worked on it. Lots of people loved it; said they were moved by it. I came crashing back to earth when I entered it in a Goolwa songwriting event and it was completely unplaced! (That tends to be my experience of songwriting events/competitions - which makes me wonder if I'm the right person to be writing such an article!) But that has afforded me with another insight. Judges of these events aren't always right. To quote Robert Childs, "There is no such thing as a bad song - just wrong audiences!" Songs also grow on you - even your own. There are many good songs that don't leap out on first hearing, but with repeated listening etch their way into your consciousness. You as the writer may not be too rapt in a song you've written. It may need someone else to appreciate it before you recognise its worth. Songwriters are often their own worst critics so it can be a good idea to hand over the 'judging' to someone else. Once upon a time a dear friend said that I could write a song a day if I put my mind to it. I doubted him, but I decided to try it. So, one day I spent a few hours determined to write a complete song. And I did it! It's OK too. But usually I don't do that. I wait for the muse to strike me. And as mentioned above, the muse only tends to strike me if I'm feeling strongly about something, and that is very dependent on the kind of life I'm leading. It's bloody obvious that travel is a wonderful source of song, poetry, and art in general. Intense personal relationship happenings (both good and bad) are ripe fodder for songs), but in my experience a more consistent happy life with no dramatic changes does not readily produce songs. That's why I admire those who can write songs about the humdrum. Perhaps it's time for me to start approaching songwriting as a craft, but I need to get over the feeling that it's somehow artificial. Great songs CAN be manufactured. They are not always the result of inspiration. And any song is worth the writing. However, I recently met an Adelaide born musician who chooses to live here the way outsiders might. He stays in hotels, doss houses and boarding houses to get inspiration for his songwriting. How many of us would give up a comfortable home for the sake of the songwriting muse? Ralph McTell (of Streets of London fame) once said that songs are like dreams, and that you have no control over them. I can certainly identify with that sentiment. But I'd hate to think that my current dearth of new songs is a result of having lost my dreams. Perhaps I need to be a little closer to realising my dreams before more songs will pop out. Artists (as in painters) often talk about long periods of inactivity. Writers talk of writers' block. Unless you're incredibly prolific, you will enter barren periods. Just don't take them as the end. They will pass. Don't think that you'll never write another song. The muse will return.
© Copyright - Michael Coghlan 1996 Michael Coghlan has written and performed many songs and was one of the first SCALA members with a commercial release (the tape Leave Me On The Beach). He has also judged in FOOM and Songwriters Event competitions. Return to Contents The Vegy Stir-Fry MethodAs part of the continuing Perspective on Songwriting series - Another (very original) serving from BINDI BLACHER.1. The Hunger
2. The Ingredients The style of the song you write depends on the material available to you. Listen to the artists that inspire you. There's no use trying to write Sabbath if you only listen to Clannad. Personally P J Harvey, Tori Amos and Ani Difranco sit beside the stereo in anticipation most of the time. However, there is also value in not becoming too insular. Be on the lookout for new food! I don't think I'd have a balanced diet if I didn't tune into JJJ or pig out on Taj Mahal or Crimson every now and then! Vary the colour and texture of ingredients. This is art. Feed the senses. 3. Putting it Together This is the point when craft and art merge to create a separate identity ... more zucchini or tomato? ... and do I really want carrots in this? What am I wanting to express and what style best conveys that? For example, today I feel angry. It's not a sharp, fiery anger. More like a dark, gnawing .... My song is heavy and slow with flashes of crimson high notes. The words are strong, but few, and drop slowly into the listener's ear to linger there. (Food for thought: are you writing just for yourself or for other people to taste? Does that affect how you express yourself?) 4. The Flavour Is the predominant taste that of sweet chili sauce or fresh basil, curry paste or coconut? The secret is to find one or two strong flavours and let the others take a back seat. It's too overpowering if you try and encapsulate everything you've ever felt - every song you've ever loved. Just say what you want to say and do it clearly. It's OK if it's a journey, starting at one place and exploring but, for myself, coming home at the end of traveling is a beautiful thing. Circles are nice. (Ignore that advice if you don't want to be nice.) 5. Serving Suggestions So there it is - a delicious meal. You've sampled it a few times - tastes good! Your guests are going to be so impressed. You serve it up .... I think one of the keys to live performance is simplicity. Don't try to work beyond where you feel comfortable. The audience will pick up on your fear but that's OK (adrenalin is a pretty groovy rush - and it's legal). They don't want to attack you. They want to see you do well. They want to listen. Put your focus in what you want to communicate to them and off your shaking fingers. Garnish as you wish. Be adventurous. A dob of yoghurt perhaps? Some fresh parsley? Lovely! 6. Digestion How did it go? How do you feel now? When did they listen and Why? Did you meet their eyes? Does it matter? If you feel good with what you've written that's really rewarding in itself but if you're writing for other people to hear it's a different skill. It's good to get clear about what you're doing. Usually my aim when I play is to affect the audience; to move them. Maybe yours is to make them laugh or dance. The more direct your purpose is, the clearer you'll come across. Last but not yeast .... Never labour a metaphor - he he! Good luck my friends, may the sauce be with you.
© Copyright Bindi Blacher 1996 Bindi Blacher won a recording prize as part of the 1992 Songwriters Event. She has also studied drama and has travelled throughout UK and Eastern Australia. Return to Contents |
Gnawing away at your guts there is a need for something. You
don't know quite what it is. You feel slightly feverish and furtive.
You find yourself hunting through the drawer for a pen. It is
only when you have written half a page of phrases seized from
a brain working overtime that you realise what it is - ahh! A
song! The wok is hot. The garlic sizzles. You're cooking!