Article - Songwriting Part 2

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The Songwriters Starter - part 2

Collaboration

Many great songwriter collaborate. If you cannot write a decent lyric but have some really dandy ideas for the music find a lyricist who can't write music.

Lennon and McCartney collaborated. Elton John once announced on international television that Bernie Taupin is the best lyricist that ever lived and you will find that the lyrics of all of Elton John's songs are by Bernie Taupin. Andrew LLoyd Webber might never have written 'Jesus Christ Superstar' without Tim Rice.

If you know somebody who writes nice lyrics offer to put them to music. It will be an interesting adventure for you both. Two heads are sometimes better than one.

The chord progression

Having established a verse and a chorus the easiest thing to do next is to establish the chord progression. It is easier to build your melody from the chords rather than trying to add chords to your melody. Before starting it would be a good idea to get yourself a copy of my 'ChordFinder' ebook which will help you develop a good understanding of the most popular progressions and why certain chords lead to others. It is an essential tool for any budding songwriter's kit. It is currently available free with a copy of 'Learn To Play Keyboards'

As a starting point you can use somebody else's chord progression. Chord progressions are not subject to copyright and it invariably happens that many songs share the same progression. You notice I said this was a starting point not a finishing point. You will move on from here as your skill increases but get started somewhere.

You might currently be playing a piece and like the chords used so, if it fits your lyric, why not use that as a starting place. You don't have to keep to the same beat count for the chords but fit the progression to your lyric.

Sit at your keyboard and play the chord progression you have chosen together with your chosen rhythm and recite your lyric. There will be obvious points at which you will wish to change from one chord in the progression to the next. It will be suggested by the lyric and the mood you are trying to create.

Here is a progression to fit to the 4 line lyric of the verse in part 1 of this series.

Em, D, Em, D, C, G, F, Em

Play that in 4/4 time and see if you can fit the chords in as you recite it.

Here is one arrangement with 8 bars in 4/4 time. I picked a slow and dreamy tempo of 100.

Em	D	Em	D
Nights in white	satin	Never reaching the	end
C	G	F	Em
Letters I've	written	Never meaning to	send

Play that through twice for the first two verses.

Now let's look at the chorus.

Em	A	A	C
'Cause I	love you	Yes I	love you
C	Em	D	Em
Oh, how I	love you

Make sure that the chord sequence in the chorus is different. Don't have the chords fall in the same place and make sure the rhymes are different to the verse.

Having got that to our satisfaction we can now repeat the two verses followed by this chorus and why not add a final repeated chorus to end on.

That's it for part 2 - get part 3 here

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