How to Write a Song (Even If You've Never Written One Before and You Think You Suck)

How to Write a Song

(Even If You’ve Never Written One Before and You Think You Suck)

Ed Bell

Copyright © 2020 Ed Bell

How to Write a Song (Even If You’ve Never Written One Before and You Think You Suck) is published by The Song Foundry, Inc.

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Bell, Ed

Book : How to Write a Song (Even If You’ve Never Written One Before and You Think You Suck)

Library of Congress Control Number:  2019910879

ISBN 978-1-7333750-0-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7333750-1-6 (eBook)

First published September 2020

New York City

Cover image by Dark Rider on Unsplash

CONTENTS

OK Cool, Let’s Write a Song

Part 1: Find a Great Song Idea

Part 2: Choose a Lyrical Hook (or Title)

Part 3: Write the Chorus Lyric

Part 4: Write the Chorus Chords, Melody and Groove

Part 5: Write the Verse Chords and Groove

Part 6: Create a Verse Masterplan and Write the First Verse Lyric

Part 7: Write the Verse Melody and Create a Verse Build

Part 8: Write the Second Verse Lyric and Start Putting Your Song Together

Part 9: Add a Bridge

Part 10: Add an Intro and Outro

Outro: Congrats – and What’s Next

Appendix 1: 21 Great Song Ideas for Getting Started

Appendix 2: Chords, Chord Notes and Guitar Chart Cheatsheets

Appendix 3: Verse-Chorus Structure Cheatsheet

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OK Cool, Let’s Write a Song

Once upon a time, there wasn’t a song.

Then, sometime later, there was.

How the $&%! did that happen!? you might ask.

* * *

How do you write a song? It’s a great question.

Should you start with the first verse? Should you start with the chorus? Should you start with a chord progression? Should you start with a melody or a rhythm or a groove or a title or a deep psychological need to write to fix your broken heart?

And honestly, the answer is yes.

And yes.

And yes.

And yes, yes, yes, yes and definitely, if it helps.

In other words, like most great questions, ‘how do you write a song?’ is a great question without a single answer.

You can start writing a song pretty much anywhere you like – and as long as you keep going until the whole song is finished, it’s all good. In fact, one of the reasons songwriting is so rewarding and so challenging – and one of the reasons there are so many different songs in different styles – is that there are hundreds or even thousands of different ways to write them.

But wait, is that it? Did I really bring you here to tell you that you can write a song pretty much however you like?

No, it’s not. And no, I didn’t fill a 300-page book with the single idea ‘Do what you like, champ!!’.

See, the thing with songwriting is that every song ever written is really just someone’s – or a group of people’s – answer to the question ‘what should a song be?’. It’s just their best, smartest, most personal answer – based on their tastes, their experiences, their opinion – to what a song should be.

And in the same way, this book is just my best, smartest, most personal answer to the question ‘how do you write a song?’. It’s just my best, smartest, most personal answer to what the most helpful but fun and down-to-earth songwriting book should be. And specifically, it’s just my best, smartest, most personal answer to what a book called How to Write a Song (Even If You’ve Never Written One Before and You Think You Suck) should be.

Is it the only answer? No.

Is it a smart, logical answer? Absolutely.

Is it an interesting, inspiring, practical, engaging, versatile, powerful and – most importantly – 100% beginner-proof answer that basically anyone can follow? Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that, but yes, I really think so.

In other words, yes, this book is about an inspiring process that anyone with some basic experience with a guitar, a piano or a DAW (a Digital Audio Workstation, like Logic, Ableton or GarageBand) can use to write a song – even if you’ve never written one before and you think you suck.

We’ll talk through a logical, step-by-step process you can use to build every part of a new song from scratch. And – as you’ll find out – we’ll do it in a way that’ll teach you a ton about how songs work, so if you already have some songwriting experience you should find this book useful too.

But as I said, if you’re completely new to songwriting we’ll also do it in a way that covers everything from the ground up. So again, literally all you need to get started is to know how to play three or four chords on a guitar or piano, or be able to find your way around your DAW of choice. We’ll cover everything else.

And if you don’t read music, that’s OK too. Honestly, learning to read music, even at a basic level, is a really good investment for any songwriter to make – even if you only want to write lyrics. But if you don’t read music – and plenty of songwriters don’t – as we work through we’ll talk about ways to record or write down what you create without using notation.

I’ve also made audio recordings of all of the music examples in this book so you can hear them as well as see them on the page. The music examples start cropping up from Part 4 onwards, but if you want to download all the tracks in advance, just go to thesongfoundry.com/how-to-tracks.

So, in short, I’m going to break down one powerful and versatile songwriting process into ten different parts. I’m going to talk you through the practical nuts and bolts of how to put a song together. I’m going to try my best to demystify the songwriting process in a way that anyone can understand, and if you stick with me, I’m going to transform the way you look at songwriting for good.

And sure, there are people who think songwriting can’t be taught. Who think being able to write songs is a talent you either have or you don’t.

Luckily, those people are wrong. Kind of.

Because while it’s true songwriting can’t really be taught – at least, not in the way you can teach someone to drive a car or speak German or calculate the length of a hypotenuse – songwriting can be learned.

With the right tools, principles and techniques, you can get smarter and faster at putting songs together. And you can get better and bolder at using those tools, principles and techniques to answer the question ‘what should a song be?’. And in short, that’s exactly what this book will help you do.

But before we get started on this process for real, we should talk a bit about how this process works – what it is, what it definitely isn’t, and what you can do to get the most out of working through it.

First Things First:

This Isn’t a Songwriting Method

This book is a lot of things. And we’ll talk about some of them soon enough. But first, let me set the record straight on a few things this book is not:

It’s not a cucumber shaped like the Chrysler Building.

It’s not an apology note to everyone I was rude to as a teenager.

It’s not every ninth word of the Geneva Convention put together into a surreal abstract poem.

And – most importantly of all – it’s not a songwriting formula or method.

Come to think of it, the first three were probably pretty obvious. But we should talk about the last one, because it’s at the heart of how this book works, and why it’s probably different from anything else you might have read about songwriting.

You might have heard of some of music’s well-known methods. There’s the Kodály method for learning singing and musicianship. There’s the Suzuki Method for learning an instrument and ear training, while learning how to be a good person (genuinely). Then there’s the rhythm method, which sounds like it’s something to do with percussion but actually – no, wait, that’s something else.

But seriously – music has tons of well-established methods that break down different aspects of music theory, musicianship and/or learning an instrument in an easy and ultra-accessible way. And that’s great.

The trouble is, songwriting doesn’t work like that.

See, when it comes to learning to sing or play an instrument, there’s already a roadmap. And there’s a really clear goal – to perform a piece of music as accurately as possible. So you spend hours and hours developing and refining your skills so you can recreate that piece of music as accurately and as convincingly as possible.

But in songwriting, there’s no roadmap. You have to create it.

You’re not reacting to or recreating something that already exists – you’re creating the thing in the first place. And that changes everything.

That’s why songwriting methods or formulas – even if they’re helpful in the short term – can only take you so far. They give you a box to create in. They give you lines to draw between. But one day, if you decide you want to create something, you know, outside that box – or give yourself your own lines to draw between – what then?

In other words, sure, I could come up with The Ed Bell Method® or The Song Foundry Formula™. And it might help you write one song.

But would it help you write ten songs?

Would it help you write a song you’re really proud of?

Would it help you feel genuinely more creative?

And would it help you feel more alive ?

Probably not.

That’s why songwriting can’t be taught – at least, in the conventional way – but it can be learned. The key to becoming a good songwriter is to learn to think for yourself, try things your way, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and keep going until the song you’re working on is finished.

And that’s why, honestly, a strict method or a formula is the last thing you want as a songwriter – and why this book is going to give you something much better.

It’s why this book is going to help you think, not just copy. It’s why this book is going to help you create, and not just follow. And it’s why – even if you’re familiar with some of the ideas in this book already – we’re going to look at those ideas in a way that may well be completely new to you.

To explain, let’s talk about four key ideas that make this book different.

[1] This book is a process, not a method or a formula.

As you know, this book is just one process – a series of logical, easy-to-follow and easy-to-rely-on steps and techniques for writing a song. It’s not the only way, it’s not even the ‘right’ way – it’s just one smart, reliable way of creating a finished song time after time.

And because this book is about a process, not a method or formula, if you decide to work through it more than once, you’ll get something new out of it every time. It’ll challenge you in different ways every time. It’ll help you learn something new every time – about songwriting, about being creative and maybe even about yourself.

And as you keep growing and learning, you’ll understand more about which parts are optional or can be done in a different order. So what started as a set of strict guidelines to follow might become more of a blueprint, then a scaffold, and – if you keep writing long enough – a fond memory of a charming songwriting guide that got you writing and thinking in new ways. And that’s exactly how it should be.

[2] This book is not just about ‘how’ – it’s about ‘why ’.

In this book, we won’t just look at how to come up with a good title. We’ll also look at what makes a good title good. And we won’t just talk about how to write a good bridge. We’ll talk about why you would – or wouldn’t – want to include a bridge in the first place.

That’s because the exact songwriting process I’m about to talk you through is really only the second most important part of the book. What’s most important is the way all of the different parts of the process help you understand why it makes sense to write a song in this way.

Because even if this process is just one process, the way all of the parts link together definitely isn’t – it’s based on the deep, fundamental principles of how songs work.

You can think of these principles as the ‘whys’ of songwriting – why a good song idea is so important, why a good title should capture your song idea, why repetition in your melody makes it catchy, why you want to start your verses with a strong or dramatic line. We’ll cover all of these, and much, much more.

And honestly, that’s one of the biggest advantages of approaching songwriting through a process instead of a method or a formula – you’ll learn a ton of techniques and ideas that you can apply in every single song you write for years to come. (And again, that’s one of the reasons you’ll still get plenty out of this book, even if you aren’t a beginner.)

That’s also why, if you stick with it, this book will completely change the way you look at songwriting – it’ll help you understand not just what to do, but why you’re doing it. Then, if you build up enough experience to want to write songs in a different way, you’ll be in the perfect position to do it, because you’ll have a ton of fundamental, universal songwriting principles you can rely on to create something fresh, original and polished.

And sure, doing that probably makes this book longer than it would have been if I’d set out to create The Ed Bell Method®. Explaining those fundamental principles means I’m not going to hold back on the detail, and occasionally we’ll have to go fairly deep into some music and songwriting theory.

But as the saying goes, Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. But teach someone to write songs and they’ll spend the rest of their life making a ton of really cool stuff. So all that extra detail will be worth it, I promise.

[3] This is a book about using your instincts.

One thing that doesn’t get talked about enough in songwriting guides is that there’s really no way to write a good song without relying on your instincts. Sure, there are tools and principles and techniques you can learn, but figuring out whether you’ve used them well is usually more about making an instinctive judgment than making an intellectual calculation.

Plus, if you want to write something that connects with people, you have to do that by making human judgments – you can’t just calculate the perfect song by following step 7.4b or using foolproof formula #923.

That’s really the biggest reason that songwriting formulas or methods aren’t helpful – they usually take away the instinctive, messy, human part of songwriting and make it more like filling out a passport application.

And sure, I get it. It’s scary to try riding a bike without stabilizers for the first time. It’s scary to start writing a song without knowing exactly where the creative process will take you. And it’s scary to trust your instincts