We all know how hard it is to write down and structuralize your own lyrics perfectly. Its a difficult nut to crack. Amateur songwriters usually get stuck and they end up jeopardizing the whole process. Well its time to put those embarrassing situations to an end because we sat down and analyzed lyric writing process and we came up with song writing ideas for you to embetter your skills.

Before i unlock the vault, i need to highlight most crucial factors to consider first before you choose your song title or before you dive into writing.

important strides to song writing

Finding inspiration for your music is what each every writer do . Whether you are a beginner or a professional, a rapper, a pop artist you need to have more information to spit out, which is derived from or inspired by your past life experiences. By doing this it will be way more easier to deduce your song theme. For example "thank u, next" , a song byAriana Grandewhich was inspired by her own past relationships experience, how her ex-boyfriends taught her extra life lessons.

Perfection

Do you know the reason whyKendrick Lamaralways conquer when it comes to " lyricists of the year " category , its because he is a peferctionist. He is unwilling to settle for a song that is not perfect or lyrical content which does not meet high standards. In an interview, he described his writing procedure as a time taking process as it goes hand in hand with extensive research (e.g community problems, gradual evolutional changes, love and relationships, reading widely like novels) before lyric writing. You need to be a perfectionist, ensuring that every word or phrase you are writing down is derived from a situation that hinders someone and you are trying to solve it, so that your content will be significant.

Do a wide research

You should have more information about the field you're operating in . I mentioned this before, for you to do this you need to be super hungry for more information relatable to any life situation, thus reading loads of different books, researchs, checking how most dominating artist write their lyrics e.t.c. For example, you can study how Billie Eilish write and merge her lyrics with instrumentals. This tactic will help you to merge your research with your own lyrics.

Isolation

For you to be more creative, you need to isolate your self from your everyday surroundings, im not saying you should abandon your family and friends but you need to find an isolated quiet place, carry everything you need to use like your laptop or any other studio equipment for production and find a place where no one can bother you . Some of the best writers likeJ. Colewho was renting a house, far away from his everyday environment just for him to be more creative during the writing session of his album.

Associate with other writers

For example its inappropriate for a football player to associate with tennis players often. You should always associate or befriend with other songwriters often , if possible hang out with greatest writers whenever you get the opportunity so that you follow their tactics, how they write their lyrical content, also you will have the opportunity to share your thoughts.

Now that i covered basic tactics you should memorize and follow, Its time to get to the core part of the story.

Essential song writing ideas you need

I mentioned this before, you content should be derived from your past life situations and merge it with other related issues you searched or read about before. Why should you do this?, so that your music will have depth. For example you can write information related to your family issues, referencing to a past family fued or you can write about your relationship history, how it impacted your livelihood. Its inappropriate to write about heartbreak or about a woman cheating on her husband , if you have never experienced it before. These two people are extremely different, a person telling a story that he or she saw before and a person who created a story just to achieve what he or she want.

Follow this lyric writing prompts chart

Draw two big boxes at the top of a plain A4 paper, check the above image. Mark the first box as a box of you past experiences and then the second one will be the box filled with your researched information.

From your past experience box, you are going to pick one situation and its effects or aftermaths and mix it with a relatable searched information from your box of researched information. Make sure they relate. By mixing these two, you are going to deduce a title, theme and write a song from those situations , e.g :



YOUR PAST EXPERIENCES (plus its effects, aftermaths e.t.c) + A RELATABLE RESEARCH (something you searched about related to your past experiences)

For example



Theme - life issues



JOB LOSS (and its effects, aftermaths e.t.c) + HOW PEOPLE RESPOND TO JOB LOSSES

Structuring your song - verses and chorus / hook

Deducing a song's structure is not that challenging . Nowadays a lot of big names with most dominating hit songs follow this pattern -



VERSE: describing you job and how you lost your



CHORUS: how loosing your job affected you.



VERSE: what happened after you lost your job and its negative effects



CHORUS: how loosing your job affected you.



BRIDGE: life lessons, after you lost your job and how you reacted accordingly.



CHORUS: how loosing your job affected you.



And for anticipation, you can add a 'lift' or 'Pre-Chorus' between your verse and chorus . Make sure to add unique sounds or melodies on pre-choruses and verses for listeners to easily engage and follow your song.

Rhyming

In the course of deducing your lyrics, you need to find rhymable words to connect with each other at the end of your lines. check"follow god" BY Kanye West



I was looking at the 'Gram and I don't even like LIKES

I was screamin' at my Dad, he told me, "It ain't CHRIST-LIKE"

I was screamin' at the referee just like MIKE





Rhymable words are LIKES - CHRIST-LIKE -MIKE



Search about the above track and discover how he structuralized his rhymable words and practice or listen to any rap song. Avoid obvious rhymable words like using simple - common words - e.g "hat", "cat", be creative and find unique rhymable words e.g rare big words like "Educatress", "Embrace" e.t.c or your lyrical content might end up being too common and uninteresting.

Working on melodies and chords

Working on chords that support your melody is way more easier than you ever thought. You need to pick 3 or 4 phrases, phrases from your chorus and phrases from you verse. Your next step is to say them out loud. Say them again. You might want to put emotions on this. Due to your emotions or feelings you invested, you will discover a newly made natural melodic structure, tone and rhythm automatically. After this, you will automatically deduce a starting point of your chorus melody. Repeat the natural melody again and again until you are satisfied or you may repeat the whole process until you get what you want.

Working on your verses and choruses

This is an important step, why?, because we want to make it easier for connections between your verses and choruses, aslo for your song to have direction. Its not a hard task, do it as i mentioned before:



VERSE: describing you job and how you lost your



CHORUS: how loosing your job affected you.



VERSE: what happened after you lost your job and its negative effects



CHORUS: how loosing your job affected you.



BRIDGE: life lessons, after you lost your job and how you reacted accordingly.



CHORUS: how loosing your job affected you.



After this process you must connect your verses with choruses.

Record your song

One last step in our song writing prompts course. Obviously most people always use a piano or a guitar with vocals on it to support the drums, hi-hats, snare e.t.c . The reason why they often use these two tools is because a piano or a guitar easily trigger emotions. Keep on going with both the instrumentals and vocals until you feel safe and comfortable with them. You must record for short periods of time and then break for a while so that you won't jeopardize your song and emotions behind the song.

using song writing softwares to deduce lyrics

If you are not able to write your own lyrics there are many great songwriting tools used by amateurs. There is "Noteflight" - a free software and the most simplest.



There is this one i highly recommend - Apple's Garage Band .





Few notes to remember

Remember to be perfect an always practice day and night because this process needs time and effort. Take every writing session you do seriously because you need your lyrics to be listed on the most "crucial writings list"



You should always be open to anyone trying to educate you whether you know that certain info he / she is trying to teach you or not.



I highly recommend you to attend lyric writing competitions whenever you get a chance. Why? , this will improve your writing skills and you might have a greater chance to meet greatest writers. You will be able to track how other writers handle lyric writing job.