Arranging, Writing Lyrics & Finding Inspiration: 8 Tips for Songwriters

Humans love music. It is, and always will be, one of our greatest fascinations. These days, people create millions of new songs every year. Only a fraction of those songs end up reaching a large audience.

There are very few industries as competitive as composing and arranging music. That is why so many people turn to songwriting for beginners guides to help them with songwriting tips.

Read on to learn more about writing song lyrics and every other tip for writing amazing music!

1. Focus On Quantity At First

One of the most important songwriting tips is to make sure that you are actually writing songs. Many people spend so long studying the theory of writing and arranging music that they find it very difficult to actually sit down and make a song.

On top of that, songwriting for beginners can be intimidating. Many people are worried to start because they feel like they will probably not write a very good song.

The saying, "the perfect is the enemy of the good" holds a lot of weight here. If you wait to start songwriting until you are going to write a perfect song, then it's likely that you'll never write any songs at all.

The biggest obstacle for most songwriters is actually writing at all. Once you have crossed that basic line, you can focus late on developing quality rather than just quantity. Many would say the opposite, but focusing on quantity of songs at first could be beneficial to your songwriting abilities.

Of course, the more that you write, the more that you might struggle with organization. The right software tools can help you with file backup and track management.

2. Be Ruthless With Your Taste

Once you have spent enough time proving that you can really generate songs, it is time to focus on your taste. One of the most important songwriting how-tos to keep in mind is that you should be ruthless in cutting out songs that do not make the cut.

Many people are afraid to criticize bad songs - it can be pretty awkward! That can make it difficult for you to find out if your songs are really as good as you would like to think. In many cases, that means that you have to rely on yourself to figure out if a song is good or not.

With this in mind, be ruthless when you are choosing between your many songs. Pick only the very best. If you end up with hardly any songs at all, then you simply need to focus on writing more.

You may not be thrilled about the prospect of writing plenty more songs. However, it is much worse to settle on mediocre music. If you want to find real encouragement when you perform music, then you want to make sure that the music is genuinely good.

At the end of the day, if you believe that your songwriting is great and you perform it with that level belief then you are bound to resonate with someone.

3. Never Underestimate The Power Of Simplicity

Many musicians learn all about complicated music theory. They learn about unusual chord progressions and unique melodic rules.

However, in many cases, these rules only get in the way of writing good songs. Many of the best songs in history do not have anything interesting going on that you can see on paper. Instead, they are  simple chord progressions with perfectly standard melodies.

At the very least, you need to prove to yourself that simplicity does not mean you are failing to be creative. In fact, creating a great piece of music while working within the bounds of simplicity can be the best mark of true creativity. It's often the most simple tunes that are the catchiest.

That means that you should focus on writing simple songs a significant amount of the time. If you do want to play around with more complicated ideas, you can do that on the side.

However, do not be surprised if your simple songs turned out to be some of the best.

4. Rely On Your Ear Instead Of Theory

When you are trying to figure out if a song or a piece of a song is good, you should be focusing on your ear. Your ear and your body will tell you if a piece of music is good. Good music makes you feel intense emotion or inspires you to move your body.

These signs may be harder to precisely define, but they are much more effective than things like music theory. No chord progression is good enough to make every song that uses it a good song.

The same basic principle applies to melody and lyrics. Focus on writing music that is enjoyable to listen to rather than impressive on paper or in theory. Only once you can reliably produce songs that people enjoy should you move on to augmenting them with more complicated music theory.

5. Add Some Chaos To Your Songwriting

In particular, it can be difficult to write melodies. There are so few rules to follow about what note should come after the previous one. However, many people often end up falling into the same patterns over and over again because they are familiar to them.

That is where the role of chaos can help you with songwriting. Introducing a little bit of chaos into the songwriting process can lead you in directions that you have not considered before.

Take one of your simple songs and practice playing it only mostly correctly. Every so often, allow a mistake to creep in.

In some cases, you might discover that the mistakes actually make the song sound better. Even if the mistake does not make this song better off by itself, there is a good chance that it will give you new ideas.

6. Spend Separate Time Writing Song Lyrics

Elton John is one of the most famous and successful legends in the music business. However, not everybody knows that he very rarely writes any song lyrics at all. Instead, he leaves writing song the lyrics to Bernie Taupin, his songwriting partner.

This used to be an extremely common practice in the music industry. In fact, in many cases, there would be three separate people responsible for the music, the lyrics, and the singing of a piece. It is only more recently in history that people have tried to combine all of these roles.

Writing song lyrics has almost nothing to do with writing melodies and choosing chord progressions. It is a fully separate skill.

Don't be afraid to write music without knowing what the words will be. In many cases, having a structure that you have to force words to fit into can actually help you figure out what words to write.

7. Focus On The Elements Of Musicality

Many people fail to give musicality the emphasis that it deserves. Musicality refers to things like tiny differences in the duration of notes that might appear to have the same duration on paper. It also includes things like tiny differences in the spaces between notes and the loudness or softness with which notes are played.

Many people find that the right musicality can rescue practically any chord progression or melody. That makes it even more unfortunate that most people do not give it the attention that it deserves.

The song "Ain't No Sunshine" is extremely simple. It even repeats the same two words "I know" over and over again 26 times. But it is the musicality of the performance that turns simplicity into art.

As you write songs, try to write with musicality in mind. Think less about making the melody impressive on paper and more about writing a melody that you can make become impressive by performing it with musicality.

8. Find Different Sources Of Inspiration

Many people struggle to write songs because they have certain sources of inspiration that they turn to time in again. Finding the inspiration to write new songs can be as simple as finding new sources of inspiration.

One of the most obvious ways to find inspiration is to listen to new music. Consider branching out and listening to genres that you do not listen to most of the time. You can also get in touch with a musical community to provide you with ideas.

You can also find inspiration outside of music. You might try to depict in music the experience of some aspect of nature or a human relationship.

Alternatively, you can take inspiration from something like the audio of a television program. Focus on the sounds and voices you're hearing and play notes that corresponds to each of them. This might sounds like a strange tactic but there's no reason to not try it!

You will find that this really takes you outside of your usual songwriting routine. You may generate melodic ideas very unlike any you have generated before.

You can apply the same basic idea to chord progressions. Hunt around until you can find chords that best approximate a feeling you are trying to match from a television program or other source of inspiration. This will also force you to explore new spaces in songwriting.

Understand How To Find The Song Inspiration You Are Looking For

We hope that some of the ideas in this brief article about how to find song inspiration when it comes to composing and arranging your songs have been helpful for you. There are so many rules about how to treat the chorus, the bridge, the melody, and everything else related to your song structure. That is why there are so many songwriting books out there.

To learn more about how to compose and arrange music, along with other essential tips and advice, head to Aux Connect. If you want to get in touch with potential collaborators or need a platform for storing all of your songwriting ideas then Aux is the place for you.