Songwriting Tricks and Secret Every Songwriter Should Know
The process of writing songs gets more fun the better you get at it.
The more you know about harmony, melody, and song form, the better your songs will get.
That knowledge also makes the songwriting process much more effective, and hence less tedious.
The feeling you get after you wrote a new song in barely 15-20 minutes, is unreal.
You sit there in awe and wonder listening to the finished song; wondering how you wrote something so beautiful in such a short time.
Following song-writing topics that I teach, will get you there.
These topics boost any student’s songwriting power and abilities instantly.
Following List Shows Some of The Songwriting Techniques My Students Fall in Love With
- Theory of chords and scales pertaining to songwriting.
- Song Form and structure.
- Bar Chords
- Hybrid Chords as Passing Chords Creating More Harmonic Flow and Direction.
Examples of songs:
a. Instant Karma (John Lennon)
b. Always a Woman (Billy Joel)
c. Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton)
d. All The Young Dudes (David Bowie, Mott The Hoople version) - Static Chord With Bass Motion Underneath to Create Motion and Direction.
Examples of songs:
a. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles)
b. The Ballad of a Thin Man. (Bob Dylan)
c. In the intro to Sunny Afternoon (The Kinks), and the bass line underneath the A chords in the verses. - Line Cliches
Examples of songs:
a. Cry Baby Cry (The Beatles)
b. Something (The Beatles) - (Unbarred) Bar chords with open strings added for rich textures.
- Pedal Points
- Drones
Examples:
Joni Mitchell
Indian music
Folk Music. (Bag pipes, Irish Folk, etc…) - Ostinato
- Modal Interchange
- Constant structure
- Secondary Dominants
- Tritone Substitution V7’s
- Dim 7th chords
- Open tunings
- And so much more.
When you know how to apply all of the above, and you’ve written about 5-6 songs per technique, you’re a huge step closer to being a really great songwriter.
Over time I will post blogs explaining the above techniques in greater detail.
For now: see if you can find the chord charts to the above song examples in the list, or use your ear, and see if you can figure out the chords and learn to play the songs.
The best way to learn about songwriting is by learning tons of songs from the masters and analyzing what they are doing.
However: learning about harmony and theory speeds up the learning process in songwriting tremendously.
Write Better Songs with The Ultimate eBook On Songwriting
Be on the lookout for the songwriting eBook that I’ll publish in the next couple of months.
It will of course explain all the above in great detail.
There will be tons of song examples so you see how the great, famous songwriters use all of these techniques in their songs.
I will keep you posted on the eBook.
You can learn more about songwriting when you click on following titles: How To Write Chords To Your Melodies, Some Scale And Chord Theory and Understanding How Chord Progressions Work.
Conclusion
Hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com if you have any questions, or if you would like to book a lesson.
These free lessons are cool, but you will never experience the progress, joy, and results that my students experience in lessons when you’re learning by yourself from blogs and videos.
That is why people take lessons: way better results and progress, much more complete information, exposed to way more creative ideas than you can get from a blog or YouTube video.
There is only so much that self-study can accomplish.
If you want to see amazing results and progress in your guitar playing, buy your first lesson here and get started ASAP.
- 1 Lesson = 75
You’ll impress your friends and loved ones in no time with your guitar playing!
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Thank you for your support!
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