Songwriting tips: how to write a good song - part 2/3

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So far I have assumed we're writing a song based on the melody, but the inspiration can easily start also from the lyrics: in any case (unless we're writing an instrumental song), sooner or later we will have to focus on whatever the singer will have to sing, and this to some is the easiest part, while to others it can be excruciating.

Writing song lyrics is directly related to the comunication abilities of the songwriter: singing is like writing a poetry, it starts with the basic communication skills but it has much more freedom than writing a normal text, and it's one of those cases in which breaking the language rules is allowed.
Nevertheless writing EFFECTIVE lyrics it's an art that it's been refined since literally millennia, and through the time the artists have developed some good common practices that can still today be used successfully: click here to read 6 tips to write better song lyrics.

Another staple of a song is the riff.
When we hear the word riff the first thing that may come into our mind is usually a classic rock riff, like an AC/DC one, and without any doubt rock, metal, punk etc are all riff based types of music in which the guitar plays a part that repeats and on top of which the lyrics are built, but we can say riff by extension also when talking about other genres of music, for example electronic music or rap, referring to the part of the base which repeats (sometimes it's directly a percussion loop).
Nailing the "riff" is fundamental, because this part will probably repeat in the song much more often than any vocal part, therefore it needs to be cool, fresh and not annoying to the ear.
If you want to know what I mean, check out the 10 best Rock/Metal riffs of all times.

Until now we have talked about "writing" in an ample way, but how do we actually put down the music we're working on?
There are basically 3 ways:
1) by recording it (click here to learn how to record a song).
2) by using musical notation, which means using the classic music sheets with staff.
3) by using tablatures.

A tablature is a way of writing music on paper (or also in MIDI if we're using a computer) which replicates the fretboard of a guitar or a bass, so you can choose the number of strings and then you can write on each string which fret to press.
Written like this it sounds very limiting, but in the recent years music written with tablatures has become very popular, because it's easier than notation, and because with the use of modern softwares it's possible to write music accurately for any instrument and to export it also as MIDI, so you can read it and listen to it at the same time.
A free software that can be used to write tablatures is TUXGUITAR, click here for a dedicated article.


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CLICK HERE FOR PART 3/3


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