8 Songwriting Mistakes

I find it helpful to think of rules less as directions that must be followed (as in a recipe) than as EXPECTATIONS created through historical experience. Listeners have internalized expectations developed through years of exposure to popular music, and those of us who work in more unconventional or avante garde styles in fact need their listeners to have these expectations--otherwise the music would seem incomprehensible, not unconventional or avante garde!

Artists are always free to break rules as they see fit, but great artists can't ignore them, because they are always already out there in the minds of listeners. The best course is to learn the rules/expectations for particular styles, internalize them even, and then break them consciously when and as one chooses to break them. Rules broken in ignorance of rules does not produce great art!

This why the great painters learned their craft by copying the work of other great painters--when they smashed convention, they knew what they were smashing, and they could thus control the effect in the minds of viewers.

Rules come after the fact, but songwriters should know them because their listeners certainly do!

Jersey Jack

Jersey Jack: well said!
im sure ignar just sadly shook her head as well.

Actually, Ignar shook his head. :lol:

Diddo, Jack.

Whether we are novice songwriters or experienced, we all follow these rules, we just do them subconsciencously - based on what we haved heard in the past and what we like. To return to a comment made about the Beatles, when they were first starting out writing songs, they didn't set out writing songs with certain rules in mind, "We need to write a song lads with a verse, verse, chorus, verse, middle eight....", they listened to what they liked on the radio and emulated that in their own music. When they "broke the rules," they didnt really break anything, they just wanted to push the envelope on styles of music that already existed or they had written. Changed it into stuff they wanted their song to sound like. Granted, people have a preconcieved notion as to how a song is written and structured, however, if a song is crappy, it doesn't mean any rules have been broken. A crappy song means it's just that - poor lyrics or weak melody.

Now, on another note, I think there is an industry rule which is more of a standard then anything, when writing pop songs. If you are writting songs for a tweener-pop singer like Hannah Montanna or Jonas Bros., it seems there is a standard to appeal to the crowd. You need a really good hook, a build in the song, and of course the ever cheapey octive change at the end.

All I know is, when I am writing songs, I never write to any rules. I might hear a song that inpires me and write a song that emulates that style. The only time I set out to write a certain way is when I say I want to write a song in a certain scale, or time signature. Again, this is how the Beatles did it, writing songs with different elements in mind to challange themselves and produce something unique.

:idea: Bottom line: YOu follow rules and you sound the same as the next guy following the same rules.

That's my two-cents.

Thanks everyone for a very informative thread!

I've read a few books on songwriting but I'm finding that following the groove or word that come to mind seems to work best (provided I try to clean it up later). I've still got a lot to learn but this is the way I feel most comfortable with.

Ciao,

Chris

JUST WRITE SOME SONGS.ALL THIS CRAP ABOUT WANT THE SONG MEANS ETC. MAKE UP ANYTHING.I'M WRITTEN THOUSANDS.IT'S LIKE ANY THING THE MORE YOU DO THE BETTER YOU ARE.IF YOUR NOT NEED A INSTRUMENT CHECK OUR JAMSTUDIO.GOOD FOR WRITING SONGS WITHOUT YOUR INSTRUMENT.FREE FREE.I ONLY LOOK FOR FREE STUFF.HEY I'M CHEAP.ALL THESE SONGWRITING SITES IS A GOOD PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO STEAL YOUR SONGS.I LIKE TO MAKE SHEET MUSIC OF MINE ETC.PUT TEMPO STYLE MEASURES BARS ETC.WRITE AT LEAST A SONG A DAY.

WRITE AT LEAST A SONG A DAY.

Wow, that sounds like practice, which is what it takes. I remember a quote by Bob Dylan early on where he said that he wrote at least 5 song a day and he'd give them away. Practice is the only way to get good at anything. Are you sure one a day is enough?

Helpful, thanks

JUST WRITE SOME SONGS.ALL THIS CRAP ABOUT WANT THE SONG MEANS ETC. MAKE UP ANYTHING.I'M WRITTEN THOUSANDS.IT'S LIKE ANY THING THE MORE YOU DO THE BETTER YOU ARE.IF YOUR NOT NEED A INSTRUMENT CHECK OUR JAMSTUDIO.GOOD FOR WRITING SONGS WITHOUT YOUR INSTRUMENT.FREE FREE.I ONLY LOOK FOR FREE STUFF.HEY I'M CHEAP.ALL THESE SONGWRITING SITES IS A GOOD PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO STEAL YOUR SONGS.I LIKE TO MAKE SHEET MUSIC OF MINE ETC.PUT TEMPO STYLE MEASURES BARS ETC.WRITE AT LEAST A SONG A DAY.

All the caps look so balanced. Is there any song yet on 'shouting' ?

Is there any song yet on 'shouting' ?

Tears For Fears? :lol:

A couple of snippets to glean from this thread...

There aren't really any rules, just collections of observations made over time. In that respect songwriting is like music theory. There is no fine for breaking the rules, but people will notice you've done it. If you are doing it on purpose, great. You know, I love the show "Law and Order". One of the big sticking points when charging someone with a crime seems to be did they have intent. Without that intent, they often can't be charged. So if you are breaking the rules and want the proper credit, make sure you have the intent. In order to break the rules you have to be aware of what the "rules" are.

Write a lot of songs, the more you write the better the odds one of them will be good. I've written at least a couple of hundred. Half of those made it to having chords,melody and lyrics. Half of those made it all the way to being playable. Half of those I really tried to craft into being worthy of playing at open mics etc. Half of those ended up being played out at least once or twice. I've ended up with six that I consider good. One by One (with David Hodge), Lost Summer Days, Don't sleep in the Subway, That's the way it should be, IGFYITA and one you haven't heard yet. That's the ones I consider good, not necessarily anyone else considers good. That's about a 3% success rate for me, but more keepers have been written lately than I wrote when starting out.

Hmm - comparing my "success rate" to Nick's.....

Out of the very-nearly-a-hundred songs I've written as a result of an SSG topic, virtually every single one has at least a melody as well as the lyrics, and I'd say I'd worked out chords for about 90 of them. Looking down the list, there are roughly about 20 I've never gone back to after that particular SSG assignment was finished. Of the other 80, I could play the chords and sing any one of them at a moment's notice....IF I could remember the lyrics!

Of those 80, I'd say about half of them are worked out fully - chords, lyrics, melody line tabbed out, solos written out, bass line tabbed out, with little notes in the margins like "G - 320033 instead of 320003." Not only that, but for future reference, I always write out the amp settings I've used for rhythm AND lead....treble, mid, bass settings, whether I've used chorus or reverb, etc.

And what does all this prove?

Well - nothing, really. Nick's got a life outside guitar, I haven't. I'm more anal than Nick. Nick's more picky than me about what he keeps. All of the above. None of the above.

And what's it got to do with songwriting mistakes? Well - again, nothing really, but I just thought it'd make an interesting diversion. Although, looking at the songs I haven't done much with, nearly all of them are from the first two years - so at least it would seem I'm learning from past mistakes, and that's what the SSG's all about - friendly constructive criticism. There are people who write songs regularly in the SSG who don't believe in rules at all - or make them up as they go along. And they get plenty of positive feedback! And there are people like me, who generally write along the lines of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, solo, chorus, chorus. And I've had quite a lot of positive feedback too! Interestingly enough, a couple of the songs that have had a lot of nice things said about them came about when I deliberately tried to step away from my usual style...

So, are there any rules set in stone? The only one I can think of is, "If you don't write a song, you're not a songwriter!"

The Beatles broke every rule in the book - yes, they wrote a lot of songs in a standard format, but a lot more were highly experimental. The thing is, John and Paul spent years writing in that standard format before they had the courage, and the knowledge, to try something completely different. You've got to know what you're doing before you undo it and start over!

:D :D :D

Vic

Well said

For me, there is one very important test that a song must pass:

Somebody must have sung it.

If that sounds flippant, it's not meant to be. I've waded through heaps of so called 'songs' on various internet sites that fairly obviously had never actually been sung. They may have had potential to be turned into usable lyrics, or they may simply have been very amateurish poetry. But they didn't seem to be songs, because the authors didn't appear to have any plan or clue about adding music, or to have tried the simple test of trying to sing them - which might have quickly revealed elements that needed reworking, and/or directions to follow.

A song probably doesn't have to be any particular length, shape or structure to qualify, but it should have some inherent musicality and pulse that makes it singable or in some way matchable to the normal attributes that differentiate music from mere noise (which in itself can be a pretty endless debate.... :shock: ). Even if the lyrics will be screamed, mumbled, grunted, or spoken there should be some sense of how and why they fit with the music. At least that's my rule of thumb. :)

I don't feel that I need to have recorded a completed version of something for it to qualify as a song, or even to have worked out all the details of the arrangement. But, even if it's only got as far as a few lines of words, I must have at the very least 'sung' them in my head and given the ideas some musical shape.

After that it's up for debate as to whether it worked and what more or less needs to be done... :wink:

Chris

That's a great acid test.

I used to write songs until I was sure they were complete. Then I 'd try to sing them. Then I'd find myself going back to re-write big chunks of the song because they didn't work.

Now I tend to write songs with a metronome or backing track of drums so I can speak/sing them as I write.

Now I tend to write songs with a metronome or backing track of drums so I can speak/sing them as I write.

I usually have a guitar handy....just so's I can strum a few chords, give me a rough sense of how the lyrics are going to sound with a melody. Helps to keep the meter fairly tight, too.
Somebody must have sung it.

Like Nick said, a pretty useful litmus paper.....but it does highlight one of the problems of putting songs up for critique in this forum, or the SSG. The SSG's not too difficult - I've been hanging around there so long I've got a rough idea of how most people's songs are going to sound set to music. Kath's are going to be (bad pun alert) Taylored towards her 12-string; David's are going to be similarly structured, but with different voicings and probably using a capo. Straycat's songs are going to work best with some darker, moody chords; Chefie's are going to be acoustically based as well, driven along by the rhythm of his voice. So when I see a set of lyrics by them (or some of the other regulars) I'm going to have a reasonable idea what they're aiming for.

With this forum, it's different - I don't know the writers as well, and I find it more difficult to step inside their shoes, as it were. A bare set of lyrics, with no indication of what sort of music the writer's planning, is far harder to critique; sometimes a pointer would help. Something along the lines of, "I'm thinking of a fairly uptempo rhythm - something like X's song, P Q R, but mostly based around minor chords.

Nobody's sung those songs yet.....at least when they're first posted!

:D :D :D

Vic