Have you ever gone through a time when you found yourself humming to a song on the radio until your mind starts filling up with your own lyrics to add to the song? Many songwriters have experienced this hundreds of times. Don't fear, you are probably not losing your mind, it is your creativity flowing. You are simply channeling your inner writer through a song that another writer created.
You can try this next time you listen to the radio if you've never had this kind of experience. Start by listening to songs of a band that you really love. Their song may be waiting for your creativity to help improve upon it. There are a lot of advantages to practicing your writing skills to another writer's song; you already have a structured form to work with, you don't have to start from scratch, and there's a set of chords and melody to guide you. And you are beginning with a hit song arrangement that may have been selected out of hundreds of lesser quality ones to be played on the airwaves. You are now the new lead singer and co-writer of a beautiful song.
You will have to ignore the singer on the recording of course, but you are not looking here to write an entire song with other peoples music. The goal is to utilize top-notch recordings to jump-start your inner melody writer. You will have a chance to focus exclusively on THE MELODY with a completely finished song.
I sometimes find myself pulling out a bank receipt, or some other random piece of paper while driving, and jotting down lyric ideas that I came up with while playing around with melodies to another songwriter's song. Other times I might be at a bar or restaurant and ask the waitress for a pen so that I could jot down my ideas on a napkin quickly before they are forgotten. It could be my lyrics that seem worthy of saving, but many times it will be the melodies, with disposable lyrics that I attach to them as placeholders for better crafted ones that I might write later. The lyrics will remind me of the melody when I get home, and then I can write some better words and develop the ideas further.
It is really a cool experience when this happens. Maybe you have been at work and haven't heard any music yet today, and when you are finally released from the slave driver's whip, upon hearing some cool songs, your inner songwriter kicks in like a mad man demanding to participate.
I am not encouraging you to start copying other people's songs. I am simply telling you to use those as inspiration as you develop your own music. A lot of songwriters have made use of songs by famous musicians to jump start their songwriting. It is not copying because you write your own words and make your own melodies. For example, if we were in eighteenth century Germany, where local folk songs or classical compositions and opera were in vogue, then we would be heavily influenced by this music. We are all influenced by the kind of music that we hear within our culture, much like how the phrases that we speak reflect the vernacular of the current times.
Once you have developed your own melody and used your own words the song transforms into a totally different one. Nobody will ever think you found inspiration in a famous band's hit song. After developments in the tempo or chords, you will have magically transformed a song into your own unique masterpiece.
You can use a song to guide you in developing your own chords, grooves and song sections. You are simply using this method to kick-start the songwriting process, which you can then build out with new song structure, progressions, and different feels, and then develop it into your own unique masterpiece.
I suggest that you give this a try while listening to songs on the radio or watching a music video on TV. I am sure hundreds of great songwriters have done so before you. When we have the chance to hear other songwriters' songs we should make use of it to come up with our own songs. Just as people get inspired to write their own poems because of poets they admire, why not start writing songs by listening to those that have already been recorded? Then, perhaps, you will someday write songs that will inspire other up and coming songwriters to create their own.
You can try this next time you listen to the radio if you've never had this kind of experience. Start by listening to songs of a band that you really love. Their song may be waiting for your creativity to help improve upon it. There are a lot of advantages to practicing your writing skills to another writer's song; you already have a structured form to work with, you don't have to start from scratch, and there's a set of chords and melody to guide you. And you are beginning with a hit song arrangement that may have been selected out of hundreds of lesser quality ones to be played on the airwaves. You are now the new lead singer and co-writer of a beautiful song.
You will have to ignore the singer on the recording of course, but you are not looking here to write an entire song with other peoples music. The goal is to utilize top-notch recordings to jump-start your inner melody writer. You will have a chance to focus exclusively on THE MELODY with a completely finished song.
I sometimes find myself pulling out a bank receipt, or some other random piece of paper while driving, and jotting down lyric ideas that I came up with while playing around with melodies to another songwriter's song. Other times I might be at a bar or restaurant and ask the waitress for a pen so that I could jot down my ideas on a napkin quickly before they are forgotten. It could be my lyrics that seem worthy of saving, but many times it will be the melodies, with disposable lyrics that I attach to them as placeholders for better crafted ones that I might write later. The lyrics will remind me of the melody when I get home, and then I can write some better words and develop the ideas further.
It is really a cool experience when this happens. Maybe you have been at work and haven't heard any music yet today, and when you are finally released from the slave driver's whip, upon hearing some cool songs, your inner songwriter kicks in like a mad man demanding to participate.
I am not encouraging you to start copying other people's songs. I am simply telling you to use those as inspiration as you develop your own music. A lot of songwriters have made use of songs by famous musicians to jump start their songwriting. It is not copying because you write your own words and make your own melodies. For example, if we were in eighteenth century Germany, where local folk songs or classical compositions and opera were in vogue, then we would be heavily influenced by this music. We are all influenced by the kind of music that we hear within our culture, much like how the phrases that we speak reflect the vernacular of the current times.
Once you have developed your own melody and used your own words the song transforms into a totally different one. Nobody will ever think you found inspiration in a famous band's hit song. After developments in the tempo or chords, you will have magically transformed a song into your own unique masterpiece.
You can use a song to guide you in developing your own chords, grooves and song sections. You are simply using this method to kick-start the songwriting process, which you can then build out with new song structure, progressions, and different feels, and then develop it into your own unique masterpiece.
I suggest that you give this a try while listening to songs on the radio or watching a music video on TV. I am sure hundreds of great songwriters have done so before you. When we have the chance to hear other songwriters' songs we should make use of it to come up with our own songs. Just as people get inspired to write their own poems because of poets they admire, why not start writing songs by listening to those that have already been recorded? Then, perhaps, you will someday write songs that will inspire other up and coming songwriters to create their own.
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