Fix[1]

Fix Your Songwriting Problems – NOW! | by Gary Ewer ________________________________________________________________

© 2012 Gary Ewer and Pantomime Music Publications. The contents of this document may not be copied or reprinted in any form without written permission from Gary Ewer and/or Pantomime Music Publications

2

Fix Your Songwriting Problems - NOW!

If you can solve these seven basic songwriting errors, you’ll be well on your way to music that builds an audience base!

oes songwriting make you happy? How do you calculate songwriting success? If the measuring tool you’re using is sales/downloads of your music, I’m going to go

out on a limb here and say that you likely aren’t very pleased. Most of the songs being written today by the vast majority of songwriters will never be heard by anyone except a few friends and family.

But perhaps that’s enough for you. If your family and friends pat you on the back after each gig and tell you how much they enjoy your tunes, maybe that’s all you need. I don’t say that facetiously. Happiness is not for me to define for anyone.

But I’ll go out on a limb once more: You’re reading this because in fact you are not happy with the state of your writing. More specifically, you’re feeling one, some or all of the following:

1. Your song melodies sound like aimless wandering. 2. You find chord progressions difficult or

impossible to create. 3. Your lyrics sound confusing and lacking in

imagination. 4. You can’t find the inspiration to write your next

song. 5. The last song you wrote sounds a lot like all the

others you’ve written. 6. And except for a few fans, you can’t build an

audience base for your music, and you don’t know why.

Any one of those circumstances will cause frustration to set in, which leads to writer’s block, and… So this is where you are now. Songwriting is supposed to be fun, or else why do it? These are issues I cover in my 6-eBook bundle, “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting”, but I want to give you some help right now.

D

Most songs

being written

today will never

be heard by

anyone!

Frustrated songwriters are not addressing the real source of their frustration.



3

So What's the Problem?

ou can tell a lot about what songwriters think is important by seeing what they’re searching for online. I’ve been selling my “Easy Music Theory with Gary Ewer”

program for the past twelve years, and have been providing songwriting materials since 2005, in addition to working side-by-side with my own students, so knowing what people are looking for has been a great concern of mine. The number 1 phrase being searched online by songwriters for the past decade is: chord progressions. If you can’t create a good chord progression, then it’s natural that you’ll want to search for some. But though chord progressions are easy to find, the first statistic I gave you is still true: most songs will not build an audience base, and most songs are never going to be heard outside the writer’s circle of family and friends. So you may be looking for chords, but that may only be part of the problem. In short, you’re possibly not addressing the real source of your frustration. The fact is that songwriting success comes from following some basic principles.

Not rules – principles. Back in 2004 I began researching hundreds of songs from the past 6 decades in preparation for writing “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting.” That research led me to develop eleven basic principles of songwriting. I didn’t invent those principles, of course, but rather identified them based on research and observation. Each time I analyzed a hit song, I set out to discover why the song was so great, and to determine how other songwriters could learn from it. As I worked with my own music students, and listened to songs that up-and-coming songwriters were sending to me for analysis, I could tell that the songs that were working were the ones that adhered to those basic principles. And for the ones that had problems, I kept seeing the same errors surfacing over and over again.

In fact, I was able to identify seven basic songwriting errors prevalent in most of the music that was being written and sent to me for critiquing. These errors are certainly not the only ones present in failing songs. But beyond doubt they are the errors that rate as the most numerous. And they are certainly the ones that have the most responsibility for compromising the quality of the music I was listening to, and causing the greatest sense of frustration.

Y

Most

songwriters are

not addressing

the real source

of their

frustration.



4

Solving Your Songwriting Problems

want you to take your time, and read through the next section slowly. Let the description of each error sit in your mind a bit. Once you’ve got a handle on the

description of each of the seven songwriting errors, it’s time to apply that knowledge to your own songs. If you aren’t as happy as you think you should be with your music, I am convinced that you are going to see one of those errors suddenly become obvious as you turn your attention to your own music. And that will be exciting! You’ll have finally pointed yourself in the right direction, and songwriting happiness will be just around the corner! Are you ready? Here are the seven basic songwriting errors that I see constantly in the songs sent to me for analysis:

ERROR #1: THE FORM OF THE SONG IS CONFUSING.

ertainly that can’t be the biggest problem facing songwriters today, I can hear you saying. But when we speak about form, we’re not just talking about the overall

structure of a song (verse-chorus-bridge). We’re talking about why songs are created in sections, and how to make those basic forms work. Did you know:

1. Chorus melodies normally should be higher in pitch than verse melodies? Without knowing that crucial principle, you may be inadvertently compromising your song’s form.

2. Verse lyrics are generally in a narrative style, telling a story, describing situations and people, while chorus melodies tend to be emotional outpourings. If your song is not demonstrating that principle, you’re confusing the listener.

3. Verse and bridge chord progressions can tolerate a lot more innovation and interesting twists and turns, while chorus progressions are often shorter, more strongly pointing to one chord as being an important tonic chord.

I

C

As a songwriter,

you need to get

the various

components of

your song working

together.



5

4. A pre-chorus provides a suitable connection between verse and chorus, and makes most sense if a) the end of the verse is far away in pitch from the start of the chorus; or 2) the verse is short, using few chords.

There is a lot more that can be said here, but the point is: as a songwriter, you need to get the various components of your song working together, working with the form of your song.

ERROR #2: THE MELODY LACKS SHAPE.

f people aren’t humming your melodies, it could be that they lack a sense of shape and contour. Melodic shape is a crucial part of what makes it easy to remember

tunes. So if you find that your melodies are unremarkable, check them against this list:

1. The notes of most good melodies move in a mainly stepwise fashion, with only occasional leaps. This means that from one note to the next should often be an adjacent letter name.

2. Melodies with too many leaps are often hard for audiences to remember, and harder to sing.

3. Melodies are easier to remember if there is a climactic high point. 4. The rhythms used in melodies should tend to be more active in verses (i.e.,

using quicker note values) than in choruses (which should use longer note values.)

It’s a good idea to think carefully about when and where you’ll use leaps in a melody. A leap means that the melody jumps up or down suddenly, and that action quite often means an increase in emotion. You’ll want to carefully consider the lyric that accompanies the melody in those spots. A lyric that is well-placed to take advantage melodic shape makes a stronger connection to the listener. A song’s melody can have several climactic moments, because each section within a song needs to have a memorable shape. However, the climax that occurs in the chorus is more significant than anywhere else. Keep in mind as well that bridge (also called middle-8) melodies often have a significant climactic moment as it approaches its connection to whatever comes after. Climactic moments are a key ingredient for melody

I

A good melody

needs to work in

partnership with

other song

components,

particularly lyric

and rhythm.



6

recall. Melodies that meander up and down seemingly at random won’t make the kind of impact that’s needed for someone to easily bring it to mind it later.

ERROR #3: CHORDS SEEM TO WANDER AIMLESSLY.

hen we say that a chord progression wanders aimlessly, we mean that it lacks a harmonic goal. Think of it this way: you decide to go for a walk. You step

outside your house, take a few steps to the sidewalk, and then proceed down the street. But before you take more than a dozen steps, you quickly switch to the other side of the road. After a few more steps, you reverse direction. Once you get to the end of the street you reverse direction for a few steps, then cross back over. And so on.

It’s not difficult to see how such a walk would be confusing to anyone accompanying you. Your erratic journey seems to have no purpose, no direction, and no goal. Anyone walking with you would feel uneasy and confused. How could your journey be improved? How about this: you proceed down the street, taking a left turn at the end. You continue to walk toward what seems to be a green area. You cross the street and enter a park. As you continue through the park you change direction onto a cobblestone path and see a beautiful fountain looming ahead. You walk until you reach the fountain. When you get there, a flock of birds fly overhead. You take in the beautiful site for a few moments, and then you turn to head home on mostly the same streets you used to get there.

That’s the kind of walk that makes sense. It has a goal, and even if your walking companion doesn’t know what it is at the start, it begins to become apparent as the journey progresses. Even if the goal seems to change, it still makes sense. If, for example, it appears that the fountain in the park is the goal, but just as you reach it you turn and head toward a magnificent waterfall, it still all makes sense.

W

A chord progression

is a musical journey.

You may not know

what the goal is when

it starts, but good

chord progressions

help you make sense

of every little turn.



7

That’s how a good chord progression works. It’s a musical journey. You may not know what the goal is when it starts, but good chord progressions help you make sense of every little turn. It’s why we call them chord progressions, and not chord successions. So the things you’ll want to remember are:

1. Keep the tonic chord (i.e., the chord that represents your song’s key) in mind as you create your progressions. Think of progressions as little journeys away from and back to the tonic chord.

2. Keep progressions from getting too long. The longer a progression, the more it gains that “wandering” feeling, and the more obscure the tonic chord becomes.

3. Predictability, at least with chord progressions, is a positive characteristic. Songwriters like to think that everything they do is unique, but with regard to chord progressions, following a tried & true formula is hardly ever a bad idea.

ERROR #4: STRONG AND FRAGILE CHORD PROGRESSIONS ARE USED HAPHAZARDLY.

hord progressions can be loosely categorized as being either strong or fragile. They are not opposites of each other, per se; you should dispel the impression that

strong ones are good and fragile ones are bad. In many songs, fragile progressions produce lovely harmonic journeys. But it’s very important to know the difference between the two, and when to use them. A strong progression clearly points to one chord as the tonic chord. The tonic chord, as mentioned in the previous section, is one that represents the key your song is in. C is the tonic chord of a song in the key of C major. Strong progressions in C are difficult to see as being from any other key or mode. There is nothing ambiguous about them. To use an architectural analogy, strong progressions are the studs and frame upon which the building (the song) gets created. For example, the progression C F Dm G C sits solidly in C major. It starts and ends on C, and the chords in between all come from C major. It’s an example of a very strong progression.

C

Strong progressions

point directly to the

tonic chord; fragile

progressions point a

little more obliquely.



8

The progression Dm Em Dm Em Am G Am is what we would call a bit fragile. That’s because those chords can be used in at least two different keys or modes. The chords all exist naturally in C major, but the progression itself has no C chord, something that creates a bit of ambiguity. Also, the chords match up with the ones found in the mode of A Aeolian. This ambiguity doesn’t make the progression undesirable at all. It’s actually quite a lovely set of chords. But you need to know when it’s a good idea to be ambiguous, and when it’s a good idea to be tonally clear. Verses and middle-8s (bridges) are great places for fragile progressions. That’s because verses and bridges sometimes need the creative touch that comes from tonal fragility to enhance the story. But choruses are different. Because choruses are usually much clearer with respect to purpose (choruses allow you to express your emotional state), a strong progression helps to intensify those emotions. You’ll notice that one of the things that strengthens a chord progression is having adjacent chords within a progression move by 4ths and 5ths. In the strong progression listed earlier, from C to F is a 4th, as is Dm to G, and G to C. So strong progressions point directly to the tonic chord; fragile progressions point a little more obliquely. Here are the things you will want to keep in mind with regard to strong and fragile progressions:

1. Keep fragile progressions mainly for verse and bridge, and allow the chorus to use stronger ones. Having said that, verse and bridge progressions can use strong progressions.

2. Entire progressions can be seen as being mostly strong or mostly fragile, and it is also useful and relevant to describe parts of progressions as being one or the other.

3. Even a song section that uses fragile progressions still needs to keep the tonic chord somewhat firmly in its sights. “Fragile” should not be taken to mean “excessively aimless and wandering.”

ERROR #5: INDIVIDUAL SONG ELEMENTS ARE WORKING AT CROSS-‐PURPOSES WITH EACH OTHER.

s we learned from Error #1, no one song element acts in isolation from the others. This particular error, where the various song elements (melody, chords, lyrics, etc.)

seem to be working against each other, is a very common one. Often it’s difficult for a listener to pick this error out. All they know is that according to the lyric and subject matter, they should be feeling, say, introspective and somber, but the instrumentation

A



9

sounds light and airy and the melody sounds aimless. The parts aren’t working well together. It’s all tricky, because it’s possible for you to go a bit overboard trying to get a particular mood across. Sad songs can sound a bit trite and overdone if you decide to go with the stereotypically sad effect of choosing a minor key, a slow tempo, with a

heartrending vocal style. In other words, it’s possible to go a bit too far with having components of a song working together. Such a song starts to sound overly predictable and stale. Performance style has a lot to do with how an audience hears a song. And so if all the songs you write are accompanied with a driving instrumentation, the audience can only guess at the emotion they’re supposed to be feeling. So here are a few questions to ask yourself when it comes to making sure that the various elements of your songs aren’t inadvertently weakening each other:

1. Do emotional moments in my song’s lyric line up with high notes and other significant or climactic moments in my melody? High notes will have more impact if an emotional word or image happens there.

2. Is there a sense of predictability to how frequently chords change throughout my song? This is called harmonic rhythm, and it helps to strengthen everything else if listeners can usually anticipate when one chord will move to the next one.

3. Does my song’s tempo seem to work well with the subject matter? Don’t be afraid to experiment to get the maximum effect.

4. Are the fluctuating energy levels throughout the song supported by instrumentation, melodic range, rhythm, and general volume?

ERROR #6: YOU'RE RELYING ON A HOOK TO SAVE A BAD SONG.

n my eBook, “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting”, I talk about the 10-cent ice cream cone as being that thing that keeps people coming back to the local fast food joint.

In that sense, the ice cream is a hook. There’s usually no pretence by the restaurant that the ice cream is good quality, and in fact, it’s probably not. A lot of people will choose one restaurant over another if in addition to what restaurants normally offer they get something else at a very low price. But look deeper at what sales like this are

I

It’s possible to go a

bit too far with

having the

components of a

song working

together.



10

really saying. The 10-cent ice cream is a store’s way of saying, “We’re offering pretty much the same fare that all the other stores do, so we’re willing to sell something at a very low price to differentiate ourselves from the competition.” Put that way, it sounds like a hook is just a cheesy way to get people through the door. But it’s not necessarily the case. Especially in music, a good, high quality hook may not necessarily mean that there’s no other way to get people interested. In fact, most hit songs on the Billboard Hot-100 list have hooks that are a vital part of the chorus, and contribute positively to song structure. On the downside, a repetitive hook can have the unfortunate effect of dumbing a song down and drawing attention to itself to the point where the rest of the song doesn’t matter a whole lot. But a good hook can be that extra feature that makes a good song better. Which gets me to what I really want to talk about. Sometimes a hook can be so catchy, so memorable, that it’s masking other problems that the song has. A typical scenario might be that a song is finished, but the songwriter feels that it’s a bit boring. So she develops a hook that adds a bit of extra zing to the song. But what she’s ignoring is the real reason for the song being boring: that the song’s energy was not well thought-out or planned. So by adding a catchy hook, you’ve gone from having a song with problems, to having a song with a great hook – that has problems. It’s important as a songwriter to develop an ability to listen to your songs objectively. Each component of a song should be able to stand on its own as a problem-free section. If you find yourself saying, “This verse is OK, I guess, but I really think the chorus hook will make up for it”, you’re treading on thin ice. It’s better to address those verse issues directly before even considering what a good chorus hook will do for you. In short:

1. Adding a hook to a bad song gives you a bad song with a hook. 2. Make sure that all elements of your song work well both individually and in

combination with others. 3. Not all songs need a strong hook. Many Beatles’ tunes, for example, use

hooks that are musically restrained and understated.

Sometimes a hook

can be so catchy,

so memorable,

that it’s masking

other problems.



11

ERROR #7: YOU'RE WAITING FOR INSPIRATION.

ne of the greatest myths of the creative arts is the belief that the creative process must start with inspiration. It often doesn’t, and it’s important that you

understand this important fact, because you can waste a lot of time waiting for inspiration to kick in.

If you ask most songwriters to describe the creative process, they’d tell you something like this: “It starts by the songwriter feeling inspired. This leads to the creation of musical ideas which get written down or otherwise recorded. You simply keep writing until the inspiration stops, and which time the songwriter stops. The process starts again when inspiration kicks in once more. This is a bit worrisome, because in that definition it’s not even clear what inspiration really is. You simply work until you don’t feel “inspired” to write anymore. Then you wait. Sometimes a day, a week, or longer. If it lasts for more than a few days, we call it writer’s block. You might do some things to try to get things flowing again: go for a walk, talk to other songwriters,

force yourself to write, and so on. As a songwriter, this must surely be intolerable. It makes songwriting seem hit-and-miss, and you would fear that a block could happen at any time. Fortunately, the truth is a bit different. Songwriting does not usually start with inspiration, it starts with work, something like this:

The ability to spontaneously create ideas “out of thin air” is something that most humans have. Whether you realize it or not, that is how most music begins – simply imagining a musical fragment. You then write it or record it. This little shot of creation

O

One of the greatest

myths of the

creative arts is the

belief that the

creative process

must start with

inspiration.



12

causes a shot of inspiration. Inspiration then helps you create the next musical idea, and inspiration starts to grow. So as you can see, inspiration comes from songwriting, not the other way around. And there is evidence to support this. Research Robert Boice, back in 1982, conducted an experiment with academic writers who were suffering from severe writer’s block. During certain weeks he punished the writers with fines and other “negative contingencies” if they missed writing deadlines. He found that during those particular weeks, their productivity rose! Browbeating them into writing worked. For these academics, the ultimate solution to writer’s block was: get busy and start writing. Once they started writing, they felt inspired to keep writing. To say it again, inspiration comes from songwriting, not the other way around. There is another kind of inspiration that we should mention here, and you’ve experienced this yourself, no doubt. There are times when you feel inspired to write after attending a great concert, hearing a rave review of your music, or after hearing a motivational speaker. But that kind of inspiration, the kind that’s injected from outside the songwriting process, usually has little staying power. It causes you to sit down and write, and for the moment it’s very exciting, but it can tend to fade rather quickly. It’s the quality of your musical ideas that generates the most important and relevant inspiration. You’ll find that at times you’ll conjure up a bit of melody that’s really great, and the ensuing inspiration becomes part of the creative process that then creates the next bit of melody. It can happen so quickly that it almost seems as though inspiration itself that was the start of the process. But in most cases, inspiration comes from within, as a reaction to the quality of your own musical ideas. I can say it no better than the musician/author Ernest Newman: "The great composer... does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working." Waiting for inspiration is, quite frankly, a waste of time. You need to be writing daily in order to make your songs better. If something isn't working, don't throw it out. Just put it away, and start something new. Keep everything you try to write in a scrapbook. You'd be surprised what will eventually make its way into a song. In fact, simply follow this advice:

It’s the quality of

your musical

ideas that

generates the

most important

and relevant

inspiration.



13

1. Set up a daily writing schedule for yourself, for at least 5 out of 7 days. Sometimes life’s little problems will try to interfere with that schedule, but if you can stick to that schedule, you’ll find that writer’s block is less likely to become a problem.

2. Don’t feel that you must write a full song every time you sit down to write. On some days, you may simply try to work out a melodic phrase that’s only 4 beats long. Just be consistent.

3. Don’t assume that a day without good writing to show for your efforts is wasted time. If it took you one entire writing session to get a chord progression to work, that was time well spent. And it’s possible that you might use an entire writing session to realize that you need to restart your song. That’s a normal part of the creative process.

And another thought to keep in mind: A day without musical ideas is not abnormal, and it doesn’t mean you have writer’s block, any more than a day without rain would mean drought. It’s normal for the creative abilities of the mind to ebb and flow. When you feel that you’ve tried and it’s not working for you, it’s OK to take a break and skip a day or two before getting back at it.

Are Those The Only Problems?

It would be silly to say that those seven issues are the only ones that ever come up in songwriting. Every songwriter is different, and so are the kinds of difficulties that can be encountered.

But in reality, there are dozens of potential stumbling blocks that can keep a song from being great. And what should be of greatest concern is this: it only takes one small problem to compromise the quality of your song.

However, there’s good news in all of this. Your song may actually be very close to being the kind of tune that could become a hit. If one small problem can kill a song, it follows logically that you simply need to solve that one problem.

It just requires you to get control of your songwriting!

But how do you do that?



14

I am confident that this eBook has given you some ideas for moving forward and becoming the best songwriter you can be. But that was thirteen pages of ideas, and there’s much, much more to learn.

That’s where “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-‐eBook Bundle comes in. With the eBook Bundle, you’ll get almost 400 pages of songwriting instruction:

how to work out a plan for each song;

how to add chords to a melody;

how to write lyrics that captivate an audience;

how to write song melodies that partner with chords and lyrics;

how to create an energy map for your songs that generates momentum;

how to apply the contrast principle to your music in a way that makes people want to keep listening to your songs;

how harmonic rhythm helps you to know when to change chords;

how to properly use chord inversions (“slash chords”);

how to change key;

how to balance song complexity with simplicity;

how you can almost instantly create hundreds of chord progressions using simple formulas;

how to practice your songwriting skills efficiently; These eBooks are available separately, but right now you can save 56% and download the entire bundle!

CLICK HERE to read more

CLICK HERE to Buy the Entire bundle for $83.75 $37 USD



15

ABOUT GARY EWER Gary Ewer received his B.Mus degree in Music Composition from Dalhousie University in 1982, and then continued studies with various composers at McGill University. His career has been mainly in the teaching of music at all levels of education from grade school through to university: music theory, ear training, composition, arranging and orchestration.

Gary also has conducted choirs, orchestras and bands. His compositions, mainly for choirs and orchestras, have been composed for, and performed by, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Symphony Nova Scotia, The Elmer Isler Singers, and many others.

Through his high school years, Gary’s main interest was in pop music; Genesis, Yes, and Chicago were his main influences. His university training was largely Classical, but far from abandoning his interest in pop, he saw how, on many levels, pop songwriters and Classical composers were all attempting to do the same thing: compose musical works (though in very different styles) that takes listeners on a coherent musical journey. His interest in the relationship between the pop and Classical worlds eventually led him to write a text for songwriters (“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting”) that analyzes hit songs in much the same way a Classical musician would analyze a symphony: by showing writers what works, why it works, and how to use those same kinds of ideas in their own music. Gary is has recently finished a senior instructorship at Dalhousie University to devote himself to composition, trumpet playing, and to conduct music clinics with musical learners of all ages. He owns Pantomime Music Publications, a company through which he distributes much of the choral music he writes. He is the author and developer of “Easy Music Theory with Gary Ewer”, a 25-lesson DVD-based course in music rudiments. He also maintains the very popular ”Essential Secrets of Songwriting Blog”. That blog gets well over one thousands visits daily from songwriters looking for ways to improve their skills. If you have any questions about any of Gary’s products, he welcomes your email:

[email protected]

Fix[1]

Documents

Transcript of Fix[1]