As a songwriter, achieving a consistently high standard in lyrics writing or song writing can be elusive. You have to be able to create a catchy melody and interesting chord progressions, write lyrics where the phrasing of your song lyrics is sympathetic to the melody, and plan the song structure (song form). As you progress into musical arrangement you have to construct rhythm and harmony, understand the capabilities and limitations of different musical instruments and think about the interplay between two or more instruments as they perfom a composition. You might also want to think of targeting a musical genre, or how one song fits with other tracks on an album.
Writing songs, or even writing lyrics or music, takes the development of many skills, but it also takes a lot of creativity. Improve your skill at maintaining a creative flow and turn your ideas into reality. Don't trivialize what's involved in expressing your ideas and feelings in a way that others can relate to, and don't underestimate your ability to do it!
We've collected lots of song writing tips together for you, including original articles covering techniques, lyric writing, case studies and much more. Plus there's lots of categorised links.
Music Forum
We support a large community in the Songstuff Music Forum. You'll find many songwriters and musicians keen to help each other improve their skills and support their fellow artists. If you want help writing songs, we have dedicated several boards for the purpose of discussing song lyrics, song form and recording in our Song and Recording Critique, Lyrics Critique, and the more general Songwriting Discussion boards, which together make an excellent resource for songwriters.
Articles
We have a growing library of Articles written by a mixture of in-house writers and contribuors working in various aspects of the music business. Subjects include writing lyrics, writers block, song structure or song form, melody, chord progressions, lyrical function, and the placement of hooks plus a look at the related subjects of harmony, rhythm and more broadly musical arrangement.
To highlight just a few articles:
We also offer a great collection of interviews with experienced, award winning songwriters and musicians.
Links
Our links for songwriters are extensive and categorised. In addition to numerous links to general composition resources for writers in the main category, there are dedicated sub-categories.
Sub-categories include:
More...
If you are not sure of a term, try looking it up in our Music Glossary. It's always growing, so if you don't find a term, please suggest it to our staff using our contact page.
If you have experience and are interested in contributing an article, please contact us with details of the proposed article.
