Ryan Buckner: How To Quickly Think Of Good Ideas For Songwriting

How To Quickly Think Of Good Ideas For Songwriting

By Ryan Buckner

The Holy Grail of songwriting is being able to quickly think of new ideas for songs in a short amount of time. If you are unable to do this right now, it is likely due to the fact that you are using one of four limiting approaches to songwriting. Before you can start writing truly great songs (that express exactly what you want) you must take on several new approaches.
With this in mind, here are two steps you should take right now to get started on creating tons of new ideas for writing a song:

Step One – Learn why your music doesn’t sound how you want it to by downloading a free songwriting guide to help you write music that sounds great. This resource will jump start your creativity to help you quickly think of new ideas.

Step Two – Once you have downloaded the previously mentioned resource, read through the remainder of this article to learn the four biggest mistakes that may be limiting your creative potential right now (use both the article and the resource together to get the very maximum benefit).
Now that you have downloaded the songwriting resource from above, continue reading through the points below to learn the four mistakes that keep songwriters from thinking of good ideas for writing a song:

Mistake Number One – Not Writing With Multiple Instruments
Do you often try to write ideas for songs using ‘only’ the instrument you are good at? Most musicians use this exact same approach and frequently struggle to think of great ideas in their songwriting. Why does this happen? When you only use one instrument for writing songs or musical ideas you not only limit yourself to the same ‘usual’ set of techniques or patterns that you are used to playing but you also limit yourself to the specific style and overall sound of the instrument itself. For example, if you always write on guitar, you will be more likely to play the same licks and phrases over and over. This will limit your music to a ‘guitar songwriting style’ that will make it difficult to write for other instruments you may want to include in your songs. Instead of doing this, choose a few additional instruments and learn how to write song ideas with them. This will open up your songwriting to a new dimension of possibilities and make you a much more well-rounded musician.

Mistake Number Two – Having Nothing To Actually Say In Your Music
If you do not already have ‘something to say’ in your music, it will be increasingly hard to think of ideas for writing a song. There is an endless amount of musicians who have never really thought about what it is that they want to say in their music (they only think about writing cool melodies, guitar licks, etc.). In the long run, you MUST have something to say if you want to be able to consistently come up with awesome songwriting ideas. Inspiration is the foundation for musical creativity and without ‘something to say’ you will quickly find yourself struggling to think of new ideas for songs.

Whenever you go to write a new song, invest time into thinking about the specific thoughts, ideas and emotions you want to express in your music. By doing this, you will greatly enhance your ability to think of new ideas for songwriting because you have narrowed down your options for ‘anything’ to one specific topic. For example, once you know that you want to write a song that expresses the emotion of ‘anger’ it will be much easier to think of ideas for your music because this emotion lends itself to various musical techniques such as using faster rhythms, involving dissonant harmony and so forth.

Mistake Number Three – Not Practicing Your Songwriting And Measuring Progress
So many musicians never improve at songwriting or think of good ideas for songwriting because they don’t think to actually ‘practice’ or measure their progress. For some reason, the majority of songwriters falsely think that creating music is a skill that one doesn’t practice since it has to do with creativity/self-expression. This thinking is totally backwards! Some musicians create a lot of music, but do not have any effective strategies in place for getting better at songwriting and improving their ability to consistently think of new ideas. Similar to how you would construct a practice routine for practicing your main instrument, you must also ‘practice’ songwriting and consistently measure your progress in order to get better. That said, you don’t have to write a whole song in order to improve your songwriting (using this approach may actually take you longer to see in results). Alternatively, target the exact areas you would like to get better at in your songwriting and focus to improve only in those areas with total dedication. When you use this approach, you will quickly become much better at coming up with ideas for writing songs because you will be in the habit of writing in different musical situations with different musical elements (ex: writing great melodies, choruses, vocal lines, etc.)

Mistake Number Four – Writing Music In An Overcomplicated Manner
In some cases, songwriters struggle to come up with great ideas while writing songs and decide that the solution is to ‘add more’ on top of whatever ideas they already have. These musicians have difficulty coming up with creative ideas because they are in the habit of adding on more and more until everything becomes a big mess of lackluster ideas. Songwriters who make this mistake usually take a ‘spray and pray’ approach – hoping that something will ‘stick’ and randomly sound good. Although it is certainly a good thing to experiment by combining different kinds of musical ideas together, this approach will not bring you much results.

To avoid the problem of over-complicating your music, instead focus on using a more ‘simple’ approach. Certainly it is cool to write complex and engaging music, however, when you are struggling to think of new ideas for writing songs you will come up with ideas much more quickly by starting things off simple. In other words, start your songwriting session with just a few chords or a short melody and really focus on getting the very most expression out of just these basic things. Then later after you have worked on these ideas, you can come back to them and ‘add on’ to them to make them more complex if you like (to get advice on this specific topic, download this free guide on how to write music that sounds great).

Now that you have learned four huge mistakes that are ‘limiting’ your songwriting plus the solutions to help you solve them, get started implementing these ideas into your songwriting right away. By doing this, you will quickly see progress in your ability to come up with more/better ideas for your songs. Download this free resource on how to write music that sounds great to get additional innovative songwriting ideas that aren’t shared with the public.


About the author:
Ryan Buckner is an accomplished guitarist and songwriter who has been writing instructional material about guitar playing, musical composition and music theory since 2006. He helps musicians worldwide learn how to write a song step by step on his songwriting website.

Ryan Buckner: The Overlooked Songwriting Element That Will Improve Your Musical Expression Skills

The Overlooked Songwriting Element That Will Improve Your Musical Expression Skills

by Ryan Buckner

Would you like to know how to accurately express yourself through music? To become a highly expressive songwriter, you must dedicate yourself to writing music on a continual basis. You will invest MANY hours of practice into your songwriting before you can write songs that truly sound the way you want them to.
That said, you can seriously cut down the time it takes you to master musical expression and write great songs by avoiding a common mistake made by most songwriters: Overlooking or under-utilizing important songwriting elements. In this article, I am going to discuss one of the songwriting elements that is most frequently overlooked (often causing songs to sound dull and uninspiring). This important songwriting element is “Dynamics.”

NOTICE: If you are currently thinking: “Dynamics? I already know about that... it only means making music louder and softer, that’s all.” ... Then you have already begun to overlook the unique creative qualities of this musical element (this is the same mistake that most musicians make). You see, many songwriters overlook the element of dynamics while thinking of things like which chords to use, how to write a melody or what song lyrics to write. As a result, they miss out on one of the most effective musical tools for powerful self-expression.

The following list contains some of the great uses for dynamics that will help make your music more musically expressive. When you fully utilize dynamics in your music, you will:

1. You will be able to make everything you write sound better without even changing a single note.
2. Create a totally new dimension in your music to emphasize each individual song section or musical part.
3. You will have the power to quickly change how ‘tense’ or ‘relaxed’ the parts of your songs feel

The Fundamentals Of Musical Dynamics
When it comes to dynamics most people understand this to describe the general volume level of a song. However, dynamics refers to both overall volume of the music as well as the individual parts that make up the music as a whole. Whenever you read a piece of music, you will see various letters that are used to display the dynamics. These have been developed and changed over a span of centuries until arriving at the letters we have today. Here are a few examples:

How To Use Dynamics In Music Tip #1: Enhancing Musical Expression Through Contrast
One of the strongest ways to keep the attention of your listeners is using contrasting dynamics. For instance, a common example of this can be observed in most pop/rock ballad songs: Usually, the song will begin with soft acoustic guitar/vocal parts and no percussion. Once the song has made it through the first chorus, the drums come in to add contrast to the dynamic range of the music as a whole. To add even more contrast to the song, there may also be a louder solo section that uses distorted guitar that plays in a higher pitch register. Then after solo/break section has ended, the softer parts take the foreground in the music again to make the contrast stand out. This approach of contrasting louder and softer dynamic levels is great for emphasizing entire song sections to make the stand out from one another. To hear a perfect example of this type of song, listen to Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.

How To Use Dynamics In Music Tip #2: Surprise Your Listener With Silence
One musical tool that is frequently overlooked is ‘silence’. Silence (or “rests”) is an excellent way to increase the expressive impact of dynamics. For instance, imagine if you were listening to loud music with headphones and suddenly the battery ran out on your mp3 player. This would instantly grab your attention and cause you to say “What’s going on? Where’s my music?” This exact reaction can be recreated by using silence to build up anticipation in the listener for what is to come next. Use this idea in your own music by experimenting with different lengths of silence in between your musical phrases to get different expressive results.

How To Use Dynamics In Music Tip #3: Giving More Life To A Melody
To make any melody stick out, emphasize it by using varying dynamics. For instance, begin the melody “loud” and gradually reduce the volume until the notes are “soft”. This technique is known as a “decrescendo”. Additionally, alter the volume level of different notes within a melody to make them contrast with each other and stick out. This is especially useful for adding interest to repeating musical parts in your songs. This will give you the power to express yourself in different ways without altering any of the actual pitches in your melody. Use this songwriting technique guide to learn many ways to become more creative while writing your musical melodies.

Common Situations Where Dynamics Are Effectively Used For Musical Expression
A very underestimated approach that can help you learn how to better express yourself in music is to study the scores of your favorite movies. I don’t mean you need to purchase the actual score itself and read the music… but instead simply observe the way the music is arranged with different scenes throughout the film. This will help you equate the emotions expressed by the actors along with the music and build your ability to express yourself better in your songwriting.

Here are some common examples:
Example One: Expressing a sense of increasing or decreasing emotional intensity with dynamics
Here is type of scene from almost every romance film: The scene takes place at a train station toward the end of the film. Sitting in front of the train, there is a couple who are trying to decide if things can really work out between them (for now, the music is playing a sad, soft melody in the background). After a short discussion, they both come to the conclusion that the relationship simply cannot be sustained due to outside circumstances. “That’s life”, the man says to the woman, “Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to”. The man gets on the train as it begins to board its final passengers. He takes a final look out the window at his lover and sits down at his seat to contemplate what life will be like without her. The camera cuts back to the woman, who begins to cry. It appears as if the story is going to end on a sad note as the man looks down at his feet while flashing back to ‘the good times’ they had together. We watch as the train leaves the station. All seems lost, until suddenly the woman looks up to see the man standing at the other end of the terminal. Now, the music begins building intensity by becoming louder (crescendo). The lock eyes and begin running toward each other (music continues building louder and louder)… until they share a big embrace and passionate kiss! Now the music has reached its loudest point and climaxed, creating a perfect expression of the building tension and release of the situation.

Ex. #2: Using dynamics to create a feeling of surprise
Visualize a scene in a movie like this: It’s 11:30AM and there is a businessman standing at a packed street corner waiting for the “walk” sign to turn on so he can cross. All around him you can hear the sounds of the big city such as cars honking, the roar of continuous chatter and street vendors yelling out to attract new customers (you can also hear upbeat music playing in the background to set the scene). Suddenly, the sign turns on and the businessman looks up from his watch as everyone starts crossing the street in a big moving mass – bumping into him along the way. He adjusts his coat and quickly makes his way across the street. As he quickly jogs across he suddenly trips and drops his briefcase... papers go flying everywhere. He falls to the ground, scrambles to pick them up and stuff them into his briefcase as quickly as possible while losing focus of his surroundings. Finally he grabs the last one... “Gotcha!” he says as he crams it inside. Then, as he stands up to dust himself off you hear the loud screech of a car slamming on the breaks as it comes to an instant stop in front of him.

At the end of this scene, what is a good way that the music in the score could emphasize the stress of the situation? In many cases for a scene like this, you will hear the music quickly build up to end on a very loud group of notes. This feels very surprising when compared with the previous musical ideas played in the background and is very expressive of the sudden shock the character might feel.

Example Three: Using rests/silence to enhance dynamics and add a sense of mystery.
In this last example, imagine a scene in a horror movie that takes place inside of a large, haunted mansion with a man walking around by himself. At this point in the scene, he believes he saw a ghost and begins slowly walking from one room to the next. Each time he takes a step, you can hear the old wooden floors of the mansion creaking beneath him. “Who’s there?” he says out loud (suddenly, you hear the sound of a single cello beginning to build in volume). Out of nowhere, something seems to scurry along the ground behind him. He snaps around to see what is going on (the music stops and there is silence)... nothing there but an old antique rug. The man bends down to inspect the rug, already layered in what seems like a century of dust. “How long has this thing been here?” he wonders out loud. Then his ears perk up as he hears the floor creak behind him. A drop of sweat runs down his forehead and his face turns cold (the cello begins playing again to build up suspense... getting louder and louder). He slowly turns his head around and suddenly everything goes dark. You hear a terrible scream, then... total silence.

After reading the many examples in this article, you should now have a good understanding of the role that dynamics play for musical expression. By making dynamics a main focus in your songwriting, you will be able to write music that better expresses specific ideas and emotions while adding more depth to the individual parts of your songs.

Learn how to become a more expressive songwriter using dynamics and other tools of songwriting by downloading this free songwriting technique guide.


About the author:
Ryan Buckner is a professional musician, guitar player and composer. His online songwriting lessons website contains a free songwriting mini course that has helped many musicians around the world improve their songwriting.

Ryan Buckner: How To Create Interesting Songs That Engage Your Listeners

How To Create Interesting Songs That Engage Your Listeners

By Ryan Buckner

Do you want to know how to create music that sounds exactly the way you want it to sound? The reality is, it often takes songwriters a long time to learn how to write songs that truly express their ideas and emotions in an accurate manner. If you would like to improve your ability to write expressive songs in a shorter amount of time, you will need to gain an in depth understanding about the fundamental concept of “unity and variety” in music. Once you know how this works, you will be able to make songs in a way that engages the listener and creates a sense of balance in your songwriting. Read the rest of the article below and learn more about “unity and variety” and how to use these elements in your songs to become a better songwriter.

What Is “Unity And Variety” In Music?
Whenever someone listens to a song, they are judging how good the music is based on the creative use of unity and variety by the songwriter. This happens either consciously if the person has prior musical understanding or subconsciously in the case of most casual music listeners.
So what is unity and variety in music? “Unity” refers to the idea of repetition, staying the same or using similar ideas during a piece of music while “variety” refers to creating a sense of novelty in a song by adding new ideas, patterns or musical elements. By maintaining a solid balance between both unity and variety, you can effectively engage the listener and keep them interested in your music for a long time. A good balance will essentially utilize the “safe” comfortable feeling of repeated ideas while also mixing in the surprise of new ideas to add tension and interest. If you have ever had the experience of writing a song that seems to lack interest or doesn’t transition well from section to section; you most likely have a poor balance of unity and variety in one or more elements of your music. In fact, many people struggle with this problem. For example, here are various ways that songwriters write music that is “unbalanced” by using too much or too little unity or variety:
1.   A melody is repeated many times note for note with little variance. [overused unity]
2.   The different sections in a song are repeated several times over without any major variation (same lyrics, same melodies, same chords, etc.). [overused unity]
3.   The songwriter writes song lyrics that utilize very predictable ideas that follow clichés with little or no innovation [overused unity]
4.   The rhythm in the notes for a particular part of a song are unpredictable and seem to have no tie-in to the feel of the song as a whole (this happens commonly when people program notes into a sequencer without really think about what they are doing). [overused variety]
5.   The music contains many notes that are not “in key” and don’t seem to have any clear function in the song; taking away the music’s sense of direction. [overused variety]
Get many solutions to the common songwriting errors made by most musicians and learn how to make music that sounds how you want it to.

Creating An Effective Balance Between Unity And Variety In Music
To learn how to write songs that are highly expressive, it is useful to understand how unity and variety are commonly misused (see above) and how they are effectively used to make a song more interesting. The most crucial reason that unity and variety are useful is that knowing how to use them gives you the ability to set up and change the expectations of those who are listening to your music… unity is what you will use to set up your listener’s expectations and variety is what you will use to add tension and interest into the music by surprising them with something new. The formula here is really quite simple; however, should not be taken lightly as it applies to literally all aspects of songwriting.
The truth is, unity and variety is not exclusively used only in the realm of songwriting. This idea of balance in musical ideas or patterns exists because of our universal ability to perceive symmetry in nature. In basic evolutionary thinking, our mind has adopted the idea of seeing symmetrical patterns as something noteworthy because we have been in continual interaction with other animals over the course of our existence. This symmetry for one reason or another has provided us with distinct benefits to help us locate food, avoid our enemies and take advantage of other useful opportunities for survival.
Since unity and variety are not exclusive only to music, you can learn a lot about it by looking into other non-musical outlets. To help you gain a better understanding of this important concept, I have provided a list of examples outside of the musical realm that use unity and variety in an effective manner. Additionally, I have made an effort to tie them together with music to help give you ideas that you can use right now to enhance your songwriting:

Unity And Variety In… Playing Sports:
There are plenty of examples of unity and variety used throughout sports and other games or athletic competitions. For this example, I will use one of my favorite sports to play: baseball. In baseball, it all comes down to the competition between the pitcher throwing the ball and the batter trying to hit the ball. As for the pitcher, he has many options available to him when it comes to trying to get the batter out. In order to do this effectively, the pitcher must concentrate on creating an expectation for the batter and surprising him by varying the speed of his pitches and the location where he throws his pitches. As for changing speeds, this is commonly done by putting together a sequence of consecutive fast pitches followed by a pitch that is much slower. Since a fastball only gives the batter little time to locate and hit the ball (about .2 seconds), he must react very quickly if he wants to put the ball into play. By throwing a pitch that is significantly slower, the batter’s timing gets messed up. This greatly increases the pitcher’s chances of striking the batter out or getting him to make poor contact on the ball (and get out).

How To Use This Idea To Write Better Songs:
By “changing speed” in your music, you can effectively throw your listener a curve ball and engage their interest through the element of surprise. One way you can do this is by writing a song in a slow tempo and creating a section within that song that either speeds up the tempo or uses “faster” note rhythms. For example, consider the song “One” by Metallica that uses a slow/moderate tempo throughout until the end of the song where a drastic contrast is created.

Unity And Variety In… Making A Joke:
Well, it may not be very funny to get into the technical aspects of ‘why’ making jokes works to get people to laugh… but for the sake of songwriting, I am willing to make the sacrifice :)
In comedy, there exists a very basic formula for making funny jokes. That formula comes down to 3 steps: 1. Set up the joke 2. Give the punch line 3. Enjoy your hard earned laughs, international fame and the respect of your peers (…more or less). That said, not all comedians go by the same exact comedy writing formula. Some comedians might use a specific style that amplifies the effect of the joke on the crowd. To do this, they add on an additional punch line to the joke that either makes fun of the other punch line in some way or adds a whole new perspective to the joke itself. This catches the audience off guard and makes the joke much funnier than it was with the original punch line. (For great examples of this, I recommend the standup comedy of Dave Chappelle. He frequently uses this delivery style as part of his main approach to comedy.)

How To Use This Idea To Write Better Songs:
Just like delivering a punch line for a joke, the chorus in your music is often a very important part of the song that requires great attention to detail in order to truly engage the listener. One great technique for changing your chorus in a way that adds a whole new dimension to the music is to change it up in when it is repeated for the final time. So for example, if your chorus has already repeated 2 or 3 times and you are about to end your song with the final chorus; you could try altering it by moving all the notes up by a half step in pitch. By moving everything ‘up’ you create a sudden change that greatly alters the listener’s expectations and the mood of the music as a whole. This is a good way to end the song “on a high note”.

Unity And Variety In… Writing A Script For A Movie:
Have you ever seen a movie that has a surprise “twist” ending? This technique is a very effective way that movie writers can turn your favorite hero or bad guy into a totally new character; in the process changing your entire perception around him/her. There is certainly an art to doing this and the more unexpected the twist is, the more you will be surprised (and in effect tell your friends to go check out the movie for themselves).

How To Use This Idea To Write Better Songs:
The Picardy Third, a technique made popular during the classical period, is great way to express “plot twist” in a song. This technique essentially comes down to changing a single note in a chord during your song (usually a chord at the end of a section) to change it from what was expected to something entirely unexpected. Most commonly this means changing the final chord in a song that was mostly in a minor key from minor to major. For instance, if you are in the key of A minor, rather than using an A minor chord to finish the song, you would use an A “major” chord. This creates a very interesting change in mood that feels very surprising to the listener.

Unity And Variety In… Working Out To Gain Muscle:
If you have any experience with weight lifting and muscle gain, you understand that your body becomes used to the same exercises if you repeat them enough. As a result, your muscle gains will diminish until you can find a way to surprise your body by forcing it to do something it is not “prepared” for. This surprise can come in the form of suddenly adding in new exercises that you aren’t used to and/or using a strategy to gradually increase weight resistance over time.

How To Use This Idea To Write Better Songs:
To make a correlation here between music and the weight lifting example I mentioned above, I am going to describe a common, yet highly effective formula used in songwriting. If you have ever listened to a ballad, you may have noticed the following pattern:
In the beginning there are no drums or percussion instruments of any kind… only vocals or other “softly played” instruments such as guitar, keyboard, etc. The song proceeds through a verse section and the first chorus. Then, upon the repetition of the verse, the drums enter the song and provide it with a louder contrast to keep you engaged in the music.
The reason that this formula is used so often is that it sets up the expectations for a soft, easy listening ballad and then suddenly contrasts this with loud drums that come in during the second verse. Like with adding weight resistance to spark growth in your muscles, this formula adds in a sudden shock to the listener to gain their attention and set the foundation for new growth in the direction of the music.
Give your songs more direction by gaining better knowledge about writing the different parts of a song.

Unity And Variety In… Painting A Picture:
While painting a picture, you can effectively direct the person who is viewing your art to notice a specific idea using unity and variety. One way to do this is utilize a contrast between light colors and dark colors. For instance, imagine a painting that contains some kind of stereotypical depiction of “Heaven and Hell”. This painting takes place from inside a bunch of dark caves with various pits of fire, demons and other monstrosities. As you look “up” from the bottom of the cave toward the very top, you can see a clear blue sky in the distance with the sun, clouds, angels and so forth. If you are viewing this picture, you will have no choice but to notice the contrast between the mostly dark elements in the painting (unity) and the small patch of light with bright colors that represents being outside of the cave (variety). This effective use of unity and variety causes you to think about why the contrast was created (even before you start thinking about the actual idea being presented itself).

How To Use This Idea To Write Better Songs:
To create a sense of contrast in a musical way for your songwriting, you can take a repeating idea in your song and alter it to draw the listener’s attention. One way you could do this is by repeating a common theme in your song (a reoccurring melody, group of chords, etc.) on a different instrument than the one that originally played the idea.
Now that you have read through the ideas in this article, you should have a better understanding of the importance of using unity and variety to create contrast, surprise and added value into your songs. By having a strong working knowledge of this, your songwriting skills will drastically increase and you will be able to create great songs with better consistency. Any time you create songs, song sections or smaller parts within these sections; continually think about how you can use unity and variety in a creative and balanced manner to make your music engaging for the listener.
Learn how to make music that sounds better by overcoming the most frequent challenges faced by songwriters.
 
About the author:
Ryan Buckner is a professional guitarist and composer with many years of experience writing informative articles on the topics of guitar playing, music theory and songwriting technique. On his songwriting lessons website, he shows musicians how to write better music by learning the process of putting together the parts of a song.

Ryan Buckner: The Top 3 Reasons Why Your Guitar Songs Sound Boring

The Top 3 Reasons Why Your Guitar Songs Sound Boring

By Ryan Buckner

Are you frustrated with the quality of your guitar music? If you are not feeling happy with the way your guitar songs sound, you are not alone. Many guitar players are clueless when it comes to translating their guitar playing abilities into great music. That said, you definitely CAN create great music for guitar; however, before you can do this you will need to learn how to think creatively during your songwriting process.
To start writing songs on guitar that sound the way you want them to, you are going to need to incorporate many creative approaches into your songwriting process. By integrating several methods together, you will have less trouble coming up with interesting ideas since you are not held back by the limitations of merely using a single approach. This will help you maintain a consistent flow of ideas to help you write guitar music more creatively. In order to give you more strategies to use for creative songwriting, I have put together three of the most limiting approaches that are used by guitar players while writing music. For each point, I will describe why the approach is limiting and (with this in mind) how you can write songs on guitar in a way that will bring you more results. Here are three approaches that you will need to improve, change or integrate (with other approaches) in order to become more creative in your songwriting:
1. Overlooking The Significance Of Each Note You Use In Your Music
Every great songwriter consistently looks to get the most out of every note he/she uses to create music. As you write music with guitar, it is important for you to use this mindset as well. For instance, in many cases, guitar players overlook the finer details in their music while using ‘chords’. In the mind of these guitarists, chords are simply big chunks that serve the sole purpose of being placed below the melody line as a part of “natural song structure”.
This mindset is extremely limiting because chords are much more interesting and useful than this. Chords are essentially made up of several individual notes that function as “melodies” when moving from chord to chord. By recognizing this, you can greatly improve the way the notes of one chord lead into the notes of another; this will make your guitar music flow much better as a whole. In order to do this on guitar, try using the following approaches:
· Don’t use the same chord positions all the time. Utilize the different positions on guitar to the same chords you normally play in a different way. This includes playing “slash” chords (also known as inversions) to help you develop different bass lines.
· Whenever you used chords pay attention to the notes that they share in common with one another. By using these chords one after the other you create smooth transitions in your music.
· Begin by writing a nice bass line. Next, start adding more and more notes over this line until you have made a chord with at least 3 unique notes. Use this process to complete a progression of chords that contain individual notes moving by ½ or whole step from each note to the next note after it.
Here are a couple of additional songwriting ideas to think about as you write music on guitar:
· Play the same note in different positions on the fret board in order to get different tones. For example, notice the difference in tone when you play the open high “e” string versus when you play an “e” note by fretting the 5^th fret of the “b” string or 9^th fret of the “g” string. One way you can creatively use different tones in the music you are writing is by playing the more “bass/mid range” sounding tone to compliment a very “treble” sounding musical passage.
· While writing guitar music, utilize different picking styles. Many guitarists only use a pick while writing guitar music, which limits their options when it comes to tone. Try adding an entirely different sound to your music by utilizing finger style parts in your music. For example, rather than using a pick to play the notes of a clean (no distortion) arpeggio, use your fingers to add a distinct, soft dynamic to your music.
2. Only Writing Music Through Improvisation On Guitar, Without Planning Anything Ahead Of Time
The overwhelming majority of guitarists create their music without spending much time at all to actually think about what they want to write about. Instead, they use the approach of grabbing their guitar and playing through familiar patterns or licks until something starts to sound good. The truth is, if you are using this as your only approach for songwriting, the chances that you will NOT be able to think of great ideas increases significantly. Why is this? The reason for this is that such an approach for writing guitar songs is actually counter-intuitive to the way the natural songwriting process works. To illustrate my point, imagine that you were going to make a painting. If you wanted to pain a great portrait of someone, would you tell them to stay home while you tried to guess what they look like by randomly moving your brush around on the canvas until something resembles a face? Of course you wouldn’t. Instead, you would invite the person you are trying to paint to come to your studio, have them sit in a chair, observe the way the light hits their face and carefully paint until you have expressed your idea on the canvas as accurately as possible. This same concept rings true in music. The better you understand what you are trying to achieve with your music ahead of time, the more likely you will be to accurately convey this idea in the songs you write.
In order to get better at expressing your ideas as you write songs on guitar, focus on writing out the ideas you want to express for about 30 minutes or so before you pick up your instrument. As you do this, organize your ideas into different categories such as “emotions”, “events” or any other groupings that you would like to use. Once you are satisfied with the ideas you have written down, choose a few of them to use in your song. Next, think critically about the different ways you can express these ideas by using different musical elements. For instance, think of songs you have listened to before and how you felt during certain parts of the music… what was going on musically that made you feel that way? …how did the lyrics work together with the music being played? Additionally, you can even create a map of how each idea you want to express will be used in each section of your next song. There are many different ways to do this, try to be as creative as possible in this process.
Once you have thought of the ideas you most want to express in your music, get started creating the music side of your song by learning how to write better guitar riffs.
3. Writing Songs Exclusively On Guitar While Avoiding Other Instruments
This common songwriting approach used by guitarists is by far one of the most limiting. If you write your songs by using this approach, your musical ideas will be restricted exclusively to the patterns and techniques that come from your guitar playing habits. This means that each time you write a song, it will be made of similar ideas, note rhythms, scale patterns and other things that you usually play on guitar. This will cause you to run out of ideas fast and your songwriting will become repetitive over time. That said, of course you DO want to write guitar music (as a guitarist), but even so, most music that contains guitar also contains bass guitar, drums, vocals, keyboards or various other instruments. In order to write great parts for these instruments, it will be beneficial to not restrict yourself to guitar only during your writing process. By writing your music using a combination of different instruments, you will open up many new possibilities for your songwriting and the overall quality of your music will increase greatly.
To start using this idea in your songs, set your guitar aside and try writing 5 new songs and/or song melodies by using another instrument as your fundamental songwriting tool. As an example, you could use the keyboard to create the overall direction of your music by mapping out the chords of your song. Additionally, you could use drums to think of the rhythms you want to use in each song section or perhaps bass guitar to develop the bass lines that will help carry your song’s rhythm. After you have chosen and instrument and begun writing, you can go back and integrate the other instruments of the song (this includes guitar) together with the ideas you have thought up. By using this approach of writing with alternate instruments, you will quickly improve your overall songwriting creativity and learn how to write better parts for instruments other than guitar.
The more you practice creatively using and integrating different approaches together in your guitar music, the faster you will improve your songwriting skills. In this article, you have learned various ideas to help you write guitar music with fewer restrictions on your songwriting process. By putting these ideas into practice now, you will better retain the information and get the most benefit.
Get started right now using the ideas from this article to enhance your songwriting and learn how to write better guitar riffs.
About the author:
Ryan Buckner is a professional musician, guitarist and songwriter. His online songwriting lesson site contains a free songwriter mini course as well as many other instructional songwriting resources.