How to Write Better Songs

It’s easy to lose motivation to create music when everything you write and compose sounds too basic and cheesy. There are lots of small, easy tricks which can change a bland song into something which sounds much more creative. 

Before I get into my tips and tricks, you should know that I will mostly be talking about guitar here, specifically acoustic as this is what I use to write songs more than any other instrument, but many of these tips can be applied to other instruments such as piano. I will also be talking about lyrics as well as instrumental tips as both elements are equally as important.

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Lyrics – escaping clichés & writing maturely

Writing lyrics that haven’t been overused is hard when the same phrases and words are constantly shoved unwillingly down our ear holes through years of pop music being churned out and played repeatedly. A lot of songs are recycled versions of hits from the 80s and other previous decades, so the best way to escape writing overused lyrics is to expand your lyrical vocabulary by listening to a wide range of genres and finding artists who write lyrics in a different or more poetic way. When you find a new artist or song you like, always look up the lyrics and study how they are written: What is the structure like? Is there a rhyming pattern? Does the song barely rhyme at all? Look out for extended metaphors and similes used throughout and pick out which of these elements you like, and work on them within your own pieces.

Symbolism and metaphors are a great writing tool, an artist that comes to my mind when I think of these things is Melanie Martinez, her whole first album had a running theme of childhood to represent darker topics such as the songs ‘Dollhouse’, which talks about difficult family life and not knowing what really goes on behind closed doors, or ‘Sippy Cup’, which discusses many societal issues such as drugs and alcohol. Instead of just writing out the topic you want to get across in your song in an obvious way, writing about it metaphorically can make your song much more thought provoking and clever. 

Lastly, don’t stress it too much. Don’t put pressure on yourself to make things rhyme perfectly, not all songs rhyme and that’s more than okay. Write out notes on the topics you want to explore in your song first, write things down that don’t make sense, record voice notes of random thoughts and feeling that come into your head in the middle of the night that you can use later. Also, using a thesaurus to find better word choices never hurt either. Spend time with your lyrics, craft and edit them until you feel you have the best version. 

Some extra tips:

Don’t use phrases such as ‘baby’, ‘tonight’, ‘under the moonlight’ (although I am guilty of using that phrase myself) etc. Look for better words to describe emotions such as love, heartbreak, joy and sadness. Also don’t use too many pointless ‘yeahs’ or ‘woahs’ or it gets a bit weird. 

Some of my favourite artists who write incredible lyrics are:

• Hozier

• Sam Fender 

• FKA Twigs

• Loyle Carner

• Arctic Monkeys

• Hayley Williams/Paramore

• Wet

• The 1975

• Deftones

• Brand New

• Novo Amor

Composing the music – finding new ways to play old chords & more

I had a friend at school who was in my music class who told me he always removed one finger from a chord to make it sound more interesting. I found this tip extremely useful and still use it now. Play a normal chord such as an A or a C chord and remove one finger and see what it then sounds like, it may sound completely weird or it might just sound beautiful and you can then move from the regular chord to the version of it with the removed finger. I have shown an example of this below. 

Play around with the positioning of your chord, slide up a normal chord shape to a different fret and see what it sounds like – there are limited options as to where you can play open chords but sometimes it works perfectly in a different fret! Strumming patterns and finger picking also makes all the difference to how your chords sound, try out new patterns to give your music a bit of extra dimension. 

If you’re new to learning guitar, after you’ve learnt basic open chords, try to learn barre and power chords, they can be quite tricky to get used to and they definitely hurt my hand to begin with, but these chords are a lot more interesting and provide a different sound to your standard open chords, I would say most songs are written using them rather than open chords, especially if you want to play songs that are mostly written for electric guitar rather than acoustic. 

Last but not least, TUNING!

There are so many different tunings you can play around with on guitar to compose a beautiful song with. Drop D is perfect for heavier, rocky songs, or (my personal favourite when writing anything for acoustic guitar) open D sounds incredibly sweet and light. I played around with that tuning after I learnt ‘She’ by a YouTuber and musician I used to watch as a teenager, Dodie. Listen to how beautiful the chords are for this song.

All she does is pretty much slide three fingers in the same position up and down the frets. Easy to do and so pretty to listen to. There are so many apps you can use as well as a standard guitar tuner to help show you what notes you need and how to get into a different tuning so use these to help you. 

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Learning existing songs that you love can help you pick up new chords and new ways to play, so make sure you do this regularly, and don’t be afraid to take inspiration from other songs and shape them into your own. Read lyrics and poetry as often as you can to eliminate the cringey pop lyrics were so instilled with and can easily reproduce. Remember to write about things your passionate about, don’t write a song about love for no reason, pick a specific element about being in love or a certain relationship/person instead. Pick issues and subjects that have meaning to you or things that have affected you so you can have your own personal spin on them. 

Most importantly, believe in your own art. It can be really hard to like your own music, and you may find that the next day after writing a song you may hate it, but it's important not to abandon it, go over it and edit it until you’re happy again and remind yourself why you loved it so much when you first created it yesterday. Putting yourself out there as a musician is scary, especially when you’re sharing your own material, so make sure you have confidence in yourself and the music you make. 

Email me: racheltroberts1999@gmail.com

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