songwriting for smarties?

[ladylazarus]

I've been trying to read some songwriting advice, and I've really been helped, especially, by Robin's shortcuts book. However, I find that a lot of songwriting advice says "you don't have to read music!" or "you don't have to understand theory!"

My problem is that I started off as a classical and jazz musician, and I've had musical theory out the wazoo. Not a problem, really, but are there any songwriting books for people like me? I tend to really overcomplicate my music now that i'm trying to write popular songs. Any advice for me?

[Casey H]

I've been trying to read some songwriting advice, and I've really been helped, especially, by Robin's shortcuts book. However, I find that a lot of songwriting advice says "you don't have to read music!" or "you don't have to understand theory!"

My problem is that I started off as a classical and jazz musician, and I've had musical theory out the wazoo. Not a problem, really, but are there any songwriting books for people like me? I tend to really overcomplicate my music now that i'm trying to write popular songs. Any advice for me?

If you want to write popular songs, the best thing to do is listen to songs in the genre you want to write in- pop, rock, country, or whatever, get familiar with the melodies and chords used and try to emulate that. Having the music theory background won't hurt at all!

I'm going through something similar write now in that I'm writing some good songs but they don't emulate current trends enough. As a child of the 60's, I tend to use more complex chord structures, chords out of the song key, etc. So the answer for me is really the same as for you. Listen more carefully to what you want to emulate and let that guide you.

Can you narrow down "popular songs" more?

Best,
Casey

[Kolstad]

I've had much enjoyment from Jai Josefs' book "Writing music for hit songs", as well as his audio tapes on grooves. Very informative, and if you have jazz experience, you can do the stuff in minutes after reading/listening.

[mojobone]

Use your knowledge of theory to analyze what's popular-recontextualize melodies, remelodize popular chord progressions, deconstruct popular songs or do theme and variations. Blatantly steal riffs and re-work them using rhythmic displacement-there are lots of ways to leverage your superior training.

[dasvon]

@mojobone... you know you never "steal".. you "emulate"...

I would agree with mojobone that the easiest way to write a "popular" song is to dissect the popular songs out there. And with knowledge of music theory, it's easier to hear and undertand the impact of certain chord changes or having one melody over another with the song you are reviewing. Many good bands are trained musicians, other just grow a good ear, either way the good songs tend to funnel down to certain theoretical conclusions that are appealing to a general audience.

My best cheats are to listen to one artist, take a rhythm from one, chord changes from another and emulate certain melody style (fast, slow, stacata, twang, whatever) that gives that artist their "sound" and put it all together to make a song. Then I'll get comments of "That sounds a little like so and so" but the tricks I used are so distance from the original that it simply sounds like a good popular song that the artist in question might wish to sing. This works great for when submissions are asked for in a certain style.

There's good suggestions on here for books and certain lots of online subject matter, but the main ingredient is that most pop songs in any genre have a positive feeling. Even in a song about dying for instance, "Live like you were dying" , its about a man dying is uplifting with a spiritual feeling of hope to it.

One great rule of thumb, and I've forgotten whom I should credit this to (not my idea), is to always write the song to appeal to women. Dont' write a song that would insult a woman. Whether the singer is male or female, the best all around appeal is a song that a woman feels good about. Even if you write a male-bashing song, women will mostly like it, but even then, write it with a purpose of why this certain man or men are bad as opposed to most. That will gain respect from both genders.

Keept it general, not too specific and you can write a CD full of songs for the next American Idol.... i.e. songs about emotions that reach a general audience: love, angst, rebellion, coolness... and NEVER about hate unless its catchy, kitchy or funny such as Miley's "7 things". Specific songs (referencing a city, a storyline about mill workers, or personal preferences.... like "Santa Baby" since we're in the season....) usually tend to stylize the artists, if you're writing for one person.

I wish I had your education and talent, but then, you could benefit from teaming with someone who has written some good songs but needs tweaking on getting that emotional hook from having some good theory applied to the music and melody aspect of his/hers song.