Ten Turds II - Arranging Parts (Patreon)

New here? Wondering where to start? Click here

Hi Everyone,

In this video I develop one of my "turds" from the previous "Songwriting Challenge | Ten Turds."

Essentially, if you like one of your "turds," it must not be a turd! It may actually be a nice song seed thing! But now what?

In fact, if you chose one to work on, you should probably stop calling it a turd. It is now a "song seed," though I didn't mention that in the video. Remember, calling it a "turd" in the first place was just a sneaky way to not put too much pressure on yourself to "write something amazing."

This lesson is about developing a (somewhat) organized system to get your "song seed" to a place where you can start taking it a little more seriously.

We're not finishing the song yet, we're developing it. Seeing what it needs. Seeing what it wants to say.

You could think of this as a mystical thing where you get to know the song and figure out what it wants to say, but you could also see it as a practical way to quickly shape the song into an organized arrangement without thinking too much about how many millions of options there are in the world. How many millions of things you COULD write about. Narrowing in and organizing is the idea here. Don't overwhelm yourself with the possibilities. Keep it simple.  In this video I help you

a) understand the meter of your B.S. lyrics and learn how to use that to your advantage

b) use the meter to tinker with writing new lyrics to replace your B.S. lyrics

c) write some cohesive starter lyrics to get a sense of the content of your song before committing to the "real" lyrics

d) arrange your basic Verse-Chorus sections into VCVC, then into IVCVCBC or whatever arrangement makes sense to you, based on how the song feels so far

e) how to approach writing a bridge with either a "lean in" bridge or a "somewhere new" bridge

I hope you enjoy this exercise!

Post your lightly arranged "song seeds" on the community forum. Remember, they don't have to be polished or make sense or even sound amazing - it's all about learning the process so that you can learn to develop your quick ideas into more thoughtful, meaningful ideas.

Check out the Lesson Archive for more Songwriting lessons

P.S. Random encouragement: Remember that you're learning the process of songwriting right now. That means not everything you write will be amazing or even good. But the more you practice writing music, the more you get a sense of what you like to write. If you fall in love with the process of songwriting more than the final product, you'll end up writing more and you'll end up with more music you LOVE eventually. It takes practice, like everything else. So don't beat yourself up if you feel like your song seed "sucks."

I put "sucks" in quotes because we are ALWAYS harder on ourselves than we are with other people's music. Two things to remember:

1) NO ONE is used to hearing a song that isn't professionally recorded, mixed and mastered. No one hears songs that are in the process of becoming songs. What you're creating is something that professional songwriters hear all the time. I've written tons of songs by myself and with others that were very rough and awkward in the beginning and ended up pretty cool by the time we finished recording them.

2) You are always going to hear your own music "wrong." By that I mean, it is simply impossible for you to hear your own music from a purely outside objective perspective. Your music literally SOUNDS different to you than it does to other people. For that reason, it's easy to think you "suck." This is why it's so so so important to trust the songwriting process. Kind of like you'll never hear your own voice the way others do, even on a recording. It's the same with songwriting and with any creative endeavor. You being part of the process changes the way you interact with the product. Other people will always hear it differently than you.

Sorry for the rant but I know SOMEONE needed to hear that. You can do it. Songwriting is for everyone who wants it. You can do it. You can make lovely music. Just believe in yourself and PRACTICE WRITING MUSIC.

Ok if you read this whole thing, congratulations. Also, this is my last video with long hair. Cheers.