SONGWRITING: PHASE ONE

1. Start off with a basic chord progression. Strum at least two chords that sound good together. Once you feel good with some of the two chord progressions you've came up with, move on to four chord progressions. Once you've established a set of chords of your liking (don't be too picky), sing melodies over this basic chord progression, stopping only once you've settled on a melody. SING THE MELODY LINE, DON'T PLAY. Guitar players in particular have the tendency to come up with melodies that are derived either from memorized 'licks' or melodies that run on forever, there being unsingable (the allowance for breath within a phrase will always be an issue with vocalists, THEY NEED AIR TO SING.
2. (THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL, if you can write on command than proceed to the next step!) come up with 'dummy lyrics' --nonsense lyrics thrown together without much thought so as to have words to sing the melody with. while writing the song "Yesterday,"Paul McCartney used the working title, "Scrambled Eggs." Among the first lines of this not yet revised lyric were,"Scrambled Eggs... Oh how I loved your legs." Later on? story you more thought can be given to the message or as a writer wish to convey. Insofar topics go, anything goes. . . . so long as it's a topic you feel strongly about.
3. A word on form--every good songwriter understands or hears the form of which a progression should take almost intuitively. The verse/chorus song form is the most common of forms in popular music. The VERSE is the narrative part of a song, lyrics change from Verse to Verse. The CHORUS is the part of the song which contains the "HOOK," the most memorable lyrical line of the song. . . the line which most often generates the song's title. In any typical song, everything musical gravitates to the chorus. . . it's the core of the song. There are two kinds of bridges popular within the Verse/Chorus song form: 1) THE TRANSITIONAL BRIDGE--the bridge that is positioned between the verse and chorus. . . . serving as the transition between the VERSE and CHORUS; and 2) THE PRIMARY BRIDGE--which happens only once within a song, usually after the secord chorus, leading into the guitar solo. The Primary Bridge offers completely new music, and a lyric effort to make sense out of what is discussed within the song, so as to come to terms with the situation.
4. Lastly, record your songwriting sessions. Sometimes ideas will come to you so quickly (in lumps of song), that by the time you have finished the first line of lyric, the second or third will have been forgotten.
5. Any Questions? EMAIL ME!

RELATED TOPICS: The Germ Theory: http://www.rodgoelz.com/germtheory.htm