Let’s talk about songwriting today.
First, let’s recap my journey here for the new peeps:
I took about a 2 year break from making music…
In 2019, I had an epiphany…
I knew that I wanted to focus on music again…
To use what I’ve learned over the years and apply it to the music business…
And most importantly, to create great songs that I love.
At the end of June, I started producing and writing again…
Things were going well.
I wrote about 5 songs, but then…
I got writer’s block.
When I tapped the Evernote app on my iPhone, it filled my screen and all I saw were one liners and blank, black pages.
(I got some sort of night-mode on, it looks pretty slick)
Then something interesting happened:
I decided I needed to focus on getting better at producing before I focused on songwriting, but not just that…
I set myself a wild target…
I had to upload 100 beats to my beat catalogue by the end of January 2020.
After that, I spent many long days mixing and mastering…
I spent many long days producing beats and finishing old projects…
From before the sun shined through my window and hit my whiteboard…
…Until the darkness that filled my room forced me to turn on the lights…
I was working.
So, did I hit the target?
About halfway through January.
(they’re scheduled to come out until about February 13th)​
Now I’m focused on songwriting.
I actually just finished writing a song earlier this week…
I’ve recorded a draft (after many, many, MANY different ideas and takes).
And I’ll hopefully finish it up this weekend and get it out next month…
We’ll see what happens…
Anyway that’s the story.
Now I’ve been studying songwriting and I wanna share some things you’ll find useful…
So, what I just did above is I told you a story…
You’re probably thinking “obviously” but there’s more to it than that.
I used a few specific writing tools to make me working, which is boring, sound interesting.
Now, I admit, I tried to keep it as brief as possible so it’s not the most fleshed out of stories but here’s the point:
I used a structure called “The Hero’s Journey”
It’s a common structure that’s used in movies, books and….
…you guessed it – songs.
(You didn’t guess it did you?)
Here’s the basics:
– Hero of the story has a goal – or change in circumstance
– Hero goes off on journey
– Hero makes a plan to succeed
– Hero hits a wall – Or the antagonist throws a wrench in the plans
– Hero tries something else or realises something
– Showers of success and money.
Okay the last part wasn’t serious, but you get the point.
Check out some of your favourite films and see if they follow this formula.
Reply with your results, tell me which films do or don’t follow this formula…
isn’t that the best homework? Watching movies lmao.
Most (successful) media is based on the ancient principles of storytelling.
This is the same formula mandem used when they were starting religions back in the day…
The same formula used in Greek myths…
Etc. all them old stories, you get the point.
Our brains are hard-wired to understand this stuff.
So when you use it in your songs and you use it well, you’ll get people more engaged.
They’ll remember your songs…
I also included some sensory language that get’s the reader (or listener) to feel and relate more…
But, we’ll dive deeper into that later…
(so don’t miss my emails…)
What you need to know right now is:
You should develop a story throughout your song to keep the listener interested…
For example, here’s a storyboard for a song called Pineapple on Pizza:
Verse 1:
I used to like green apples
They were great
Chorus:
Now I prefer the taste of pineapple, especially on pizza.
Verse 2:
Green apples are old news.
I’ve tried something else called a woman and it’s way better.
I love women with a PASSION…but…
She broke my heart…
Chorus:
Now I prefer the taste of pineapple, especially on pizza.​
You see how this tells a story?
Both verses lead into the chorus but they’re coming down a different road…
The example artist can’t get away from that delicious combination of pineapples on a bbq sauce pizza base, with melted cheese, pepperoni, sausages and jalapenos.
First he’s eating it happily, simply because it’s better than apples.
Then he’s eating it sadly because he got his heart broken and it’s comfort food.
That’s story development.
Get it?
I’ll dive deeper and give more explanations in future videos on YouTube.
And, if you steal my fruit love song concept I want 40 percent…
Another common thing films do is:
Fade to black at the end.
So what should you do?
Well, you should fade to silence at the end of your song.
It’s easy enough to do and it sounds way better than ending your song abruptly…
(sometimes you can break this rule and get interesting results, but don’t break it without a reason.)
And the good new is:
I’ve just uploaded a video that’ll show exactly how to fade out your song in fl studio…
Click this link and watch it now:
All the best,
Jay ” Songwriting In Progress” Cartere
P.S.
In the last email I revealed one of the tools in my arsenal:
One of the most time consuming and annoying things when you’re making music is trying to find the right drums.
You probably have more drum kits than you care to count…
Searching through those drum kits to find the RIGHT sound is tedious AND it’s boring enough to stop you finishing that beat…
That’s where this tool comes in…
It’s called XO.
It’s made by XLN (the same guys that make RC-20 – they know their stuff).
And, it turns the drum searching process into something engaging and easy.
You wont have to waste 30 minutes of your life opening folder after folder, clicking that left mouse button again and again…
Because this plug-in sorts all your drums by sound and tone… (making it easier to find the drums you WANT)
And it has a beautiful interface (it looks like a universe with a bunch of stars) where you can select your drum samples and drag em into your project.
That’s not all:
XO also has a drum sequencer you can use…but I haven’t tried that out much because it only has 2 bars…
In the last email I also sent you a video showing you how easy it is to use XO and save buckets of time.
Now, click the link below to find out more about XO and download the trial for yourself:
