Simple Tips When There is No Music!

I just came across a random article about tips for how to write a song without music and I just wanted to see how the instructor was going to break it down into layman's terms. I knew it would have to be something brief particularly if the audience you are aiming for are new, struggling lyricists and possibly even those who have been in the game for awhile. This lesson was on a guitar lessons website so I was even more curious to see if there really was much difference between writing a song that would later be accompanied by an acoustic instrument or not and it appeared not to be the case with this quick lesson.

First, she talks about how one can use a beat and drum track to help one write and this is true whether you have a melody in your head or not. You don't have to record and edit right away, just jot down and brainstorm to the drum track. In future articles I will revisit this in more detail but for now I am just responding to the simple tips I saw in this lesson. Next she talks about melody and how one can just mumble nonsense over the beat and later build on that. I think even the mumbling has to make sense at some point! You can create a melody without having a music theory background but it does take some music knowledge about pitch, rhythm, and tone to help get your point across through chanting or singing.

The instructor then points out lyrics and structure and recommends to listen to how other artists in your genre structure lyrics, what a chorus is, and if you want to sell commercial music to keep the lengths of your songs at three minutes. Its true that one of the best ways to learn how to write in any genre is to follow other successful formats and structures from that genre and because of radio formatting, songs cannot be more than four minutes long on the radio. I will talk about this and the value of a chorus in future articles. These tips were very useful as one person commented and are a good starting point for any writer but of course one needs to really research this topic some more and practice writing without music to make that smash hit before the music arrives!
(In this photo, Luciana Segovia, Singing Instructor for GMC Staff)

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