Are you captivated and inspired by popular music lyrics? Maybe it’s from your favorite artists and you wish you were able to craft your own masterpiece.
However, mastering the art of writing good lyrics is a skill honed over many years. It takes continuous and deliberate practice to easily craft compelling and quality music lyrics. But there are ways you can use to make the process easier.
Thus, in this article, we will provide you with tips on how to write music lyrics following this simple process.
Related Content: How To Master Any Hobby Using The Feynman Technique
Choose your focus
Your focus should always be your starting point. Before anything else, make a decision on which angle you’re taking the song. The point of view you will take will give structure and direction to the entire song. So, decide whether will it be in the first, second, or third person. Will you use concrete or figurative or metaphorical language to convey your message? This process is evidently important in all works of art, whether it’s cooking, painting, or even novels and non-fictional stories. So don’t skip this phase.
Conceptualize the message you want to get across
After you have your point of view set, now decide on the key idea or information you want your reader or listener to take away. Without a key idea or theme, your music will travel in multiple directions Imagine reading or watching a novel with no key message portrayed by the author. The movie will be unrelatable.
So, decide, whether you want to make a song about loving others, or teach about perseverance.
Get ideas for themes from novels, movies, or even other songs in the genre you want to write about. Books can also help with the process of finding ideas.
Brainstorm Ideas
Following the theme, is the coming up of numerous ideas to build up our central message. For starters, look at the lives of people you know for inspiration. Write anything that comes to mind. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just make sure to let out as many ideas as possible.
Remember, the more you practice writing out numerous sentences, the better you get. This is not the first draft so don’t mind making mistakes.
Write The First Draft
Your brainstorming precedes your draft phase. The draft phase becomes far easier when you have enough ideas to choose from.
Look through your sentences for ideas that are creative enough and start developing them into a draft.
Because it’s a draft, the order of information does not necessarily matter at this point. Write about what you want to write and the tweaking comes later. You will order the ideas in a coherent manner after you flushed out your ideas on the page.
Create A Structure For Your Song
Every author is his or her personal style. However, with these general guidelines, you can order your lyrics coherently. As you get good at them, you can start tweaking some of them into your own style.
- Verse 1 (four lines of lyrics)
- Chorus (two to four lines)
- Verse 2 (four lines)
- Chorus (four lines)
- Bridge (two to four lines)
- Chorus
- End (Repeat the chorus and culminate the song)
Slant Rhymes
Songs with rhymes have an aesthetic feel. The more they rhyme, the better they sound. And if they sound better, your listeners will love them. Because most people are not interested in the content of a song as much as it sounds to them.
Considering this, it is best to go with Slant rhymes. They are rhymes that sound the same but have words with ending very different. For instance, “Scent” and “Boot” are slant rhymes.
Meter
This concept used by poets really makes good lyrics. Poets love to measure their songs in meters, verses, and stanzas.
Using this idea, feel the rhythm of each line you write, and ensure they sound alike. Try your best to make them consistent.
Check some of the works of Shakespeare to learn a few ways of arranging your lyrics.
Seek Feedback
Having someone comment on our final piece gives you a new perspective. It can help see mistakes you may have missed for correction. Continue editing, by cutting unnecessary words, and vague words and tightening your final piece as coherently as possible.
Don’t ignore this stage. It will improve your editing, leading to more quality work.
Start Fine-Tuning
Taking your time to collect as many critiques as you can helps you in this phase of fine-tuning your lyrics. Now let’s see how this procedure works. It only takes three simple steps.
First, make available a colored pen or pencil if on paper. And if on a computer, locate your highlighter. With that in place, start going line by line, verse, chorus, or verse, and start looking for the sections you like best and others that seem weak to you.
Second, Now, start circling the words and phrases you find strong and note them down.
Thirdly, start circling the weakest words or phrases and also note them down.
This process is to help you see which words or phrases sound better and ones that don’t. And it will help you revise more efficiently than going through with anything to focus on.
Conclusion
Learning how to create good lyrics takes time and practice. Be patient and write as much as you can. Strike for mastery and you will be writing better lyrics in no time.
Related Content: How To Become A Sound Engineer
Please Share This Article