How To Become A Songwriter

The job of the songwriter is to create a song out of words and music notes.

The music notes includes the melody and the chords. Most songwriters find melodies are far harder to write than chords.

Conversely, writing lyrics seems to be easier for songwriters than writing melody.

In simple terms a songwriter has to be both a lyric writer and a melody writer. A lyric writer who does not write music is not a songwriter but a lyric writer. A melody writer who does not write lyric is not a songwriter but a melody writer.

Thus, the essential tools for a songwriter are lyric and melody.

Let's talk a little about history of the commercial song.

Traditionally a song is written by a songwriter or a composer/lyricist team and the lyric, melody and chords are published on a lead sheet.

How to become a songwriter in this time meant knowing how to compose a lyric, a melody and chords and how to write music and words on a lead sheet.

Up until the 1930's, music was mostly distributed by sheet music to mostly piano players who could perform the song live at home.

When radio came, music could be performed by the radio station piano player and broadcast to the listener in their home.

How to become a songwriter in this time still meant knowing how to write a lead sheet. What changed was the increased number of steps that a song went through to get from the songwriter to the end listener.

Later when records came, the record company piano player performed the music instead of the radio station piano player and the home piano player So, recordings became a more important music distribution form than sheet music.

How to become a songwriter in this time still meant knowing how to write a lead sheet. Except that now, during the 50's andf 60's, the music industry had formalised into the Brill Building model where all the functions that a song went through: fron songwriter to publisher to artist to record to radio to television; were centralised in one building.

As the industry grew, the Brill Building was the business metaphor. With the advent of the Beatles, songwriting functions were moved into the bands, and the independent songwriters found themselves out of work.

How to become a songwriter now meant knowing how to start a band who could play and perform the songs you wrote and create enough buzz for s record label to sign you up. The leadsheet was now mainly used for publishing music rather than for telling other players how your songs go.

When the midi revolution and desktop audio arrived, listeners started making their own recordings in their bedrooms instead of relying on the record companies to provide them with music.

In the middle of all this the songwriter and songwriting skills were blurred. The 80's and 90's saw production technologies explode and become democratised so that any one could record songs.

How to become a songwriter now meant knowing how to create and run your own homestudio and sequencer (which also automatically printed out your sheet music so you don't even need to know how to read music!)

So excited were people by the technology they thought that the technology would actually choose the best notes and lyrics for them. The majority of bedroom, home and commercial studio operators still hold this view. I don't.

My fundamental thesis is that recording technology actually has nothing to do with the essence of songwriting: choosing the right notes to go with the right words.

The technology captures and expresses your notes. But the technology does not choose them. You do.

Here's a simple way to test that view. Sit in your bedroom, home or commercial studio and turn everything on. Now without touching anything, ask the technology to write and perform a melody for you. Then wait for it to do so. Berate your technology if it does not perform. Exhort the technology every way you can, except by touch. Do not touch anything.

Naturally your technology can nothing without you.

But like pre-midi and pre-recoding songwriters, you can write melody without technology, even without a guitar or an instrument.

Why is this possible?

Because melody is an idea. It is a mental construct. It is derived by your brain and fuelled by your imagination. (Not by a high tech spec sheet). Melody creation is a human, cognising process.

And it's you, not the technology, who does the human part.

How to become a songwriter in most songwriting forums and websites means knowing how to become a lyric writer. That's an important part of the equation.

But here at this website, the number one priority in building your understanding of how to become a melody writer.

Showing you how to become a songwriter, adept at talking, reading, writing and playing rhythm, fluent in writing compelling melodic contour within defined melodic span options and fast at writing lead sheets, is the primary purpose of this website.

Because becoming a melody writer is knowing how to find and choose the right notes for your lyrics and a critical step in successfully knowing how to become a songwriter.

Click here to begin learning how to become a melody writer.