5 More Reasons Your Songs Suck

 Last time we talked about some of the reasons you might feel your songs are not as good as the songs you have heard on the radio in the past (let's face it, whatever you write can't suck nearly as bad as half the garbage they put on the radio these days, so at least you have that going for you!). But I digress, anyway, today we are going to explore five more reasons that your songs might not be living up to your expectations. Hopefully, you will find something here that will help you bolster the work you are already doing, and push your song over the top into something spectacular!

1. No Hook - Perhaps your song is missing a key element like a hook. Or perhaps your hook just isn't catchy enough. You will know you have a catchy hook if you play it for someone and they come back the next day, or next week and say "that chorus of your song was stuck in my head all day," or "for THREE DAYS," or "I had to have brain surgery to remove that song from my head!" These are all good things to hear, but if you are not hearing that from your friends and family, then you are not writing strong enough hooks. Take a look at my article on writing a better melody, and perhaps it will give you some ideas you can try to make your hook just a little more catchy.

2. Jarring Changes - Some songs seem to flow from one section to the next as if by magic. Some songwriters can even change keys, or even change multiple keys, and a trained musician might be hard pressed to catch they changed key on the first listen (think Brian Wilson here). But there are some songwriters who no matter how good each part is they just can't seem to connect their sections in a way that isn't disturbing in some way. A good songwriter can build connecting bridges between parts, and that's where the term bridge came from originally. It was a section of music that helped lead the song in a different direction. Today a lot of songwriters use a bridge as a type of C section, but they use Pre-Choruses to be what a bridge was originally back in the day. Whatever you need to do to help your song move to the next section without causing the listeners to have a brain hemorrhage would be time well spent.  

3. Story Doesn't Make Sense - So your lyrics have a story to tell. But does the story make sense? I know that in a previous post I talked about how to add ambiguity into your lyrics to give them room for people to interpret them how they want, but they still have to make some sort of sense if people are to respond to them at all. Now there is room for waaay out there lyrics like "I am the Walrus," where the fact that the lyrics are so strange actually makes the song cool, in a way that "Jabberwocky" is so strange. But with both of these examples, there is still a semblance of  story that the listener can follow. And some songs like "A Simple Twist of Fate," by Bob Dylan also don't make a lot of sense, but there is a feeling of time travel or timelessness that Dylan creates in this song, that he brings in several of his songs ("Changing of the Guards," "Desolation Row," to name a couple other examples) that really makes this song work. It's almost like the weirdness of the lyrics just serves to draw us further into the song in a way that we wouldn't have been drawn otherwise. But taken as a whole the story still makes sense. One of the best bands that could tell a whole story in a few short lines was Fountains of Wayne. Songs like "Someone to Love," or "Mexican Wine," tell a complete story with each verse, and in such simple down to earth lyrics that their simplicity is deceptive.

4. Unnecessary Details - Too many unnecessary details in the lyrics will throw your song off for the listener. We do not need a laundry list of everything the heroin or hero does in the story. Hit the high points and move on. Again Fountains of Wayne are masters of this; learn from them.

5. Poor Chord Choices - One of the most common reasons that a song falls short is related to our first point in the last article, the chords that you choose are poorly conceived. Sometimes songwriters get tired of using the same four chords (this is a good sign, it means you are growing) but instead of picking chords that actually make sense, they jump to weird chords that really break up the flow of the song, or worse, clash with the melody they are singing. If you find that this is happening to you, reconsider the chords you chose and see what happens if you try out a chord that is a little closer related to your melody.

So there are a few more ideas to consider if you feel your songs are deeply in need of help. If you found these tips helpful, you can find out more about songwriting tips and tricks in my new book: "Lyrics and Music: Music Theory for Aspiring Songwriters" available now at Amazon.com, or with several additional Appendices at Barnes and Noble.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011?ean=9781987082982
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011;jsessionid=6F73A94CC7BEF9C130CFFEF90E7B8008.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781987082869
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1097464636
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RM9KZJY

5 More Tips for Writing A Better Melody

This post we are going to get into some less heard of techniques for developing a melody. I have adapted the following techniques from a discipline of melodic writing called counterpoint. These definitions have other meanings to true counterpoint devotees, but I find they help suit my purposes, so I like to use them.

1. Try using Retrograde motion - So let's say you have half of a melody. Maybe you only have two measures. You want to do something else, but you're not sure what to do. Maybe just flip it backwards and play it in the opposite direction.

2. Try using Contrary motion - A variation on the above is what I like to call contrary motion where as retrograde motion is the reverse of a melodic piece, I like to think of contrary as the mirror image of what you originally wrote. So if the piece goes up, you bring it back down, if it goes down you bring it back up. If you write a line that goes up a third and then plays that note three times. Repeat it by going back to the original note, then going down a third and repeating it three times.

3. Oblique Motion - Oblique motion requires another melody line that you are working against. Perhaps it's the guitar line, or the piano line, but basically while the one line remains mono-tonal (that dreaded word from last post), the other melody will rise or fall against it. This works great with harmony lines of a song.

4. Melodic Doubling - A similar but different technique is to double what another instrument is playing. So if the guitar has a really cool riff, then sing the riff with lyrics over it. Maybe stack up a few instruments playing the same riff and it becomes a really ear catching section of the song.

5. Use Chords to Derive Your Melody - Chords can be used to help you out of a jam. If you are playing a progression that you've written, and you start to decorate up your chords with sus2's and sus4's and 7ths and other interesting ways to doctor up the chords, you can add some of those chord voicings to your melody as well.

Bonus:

6. Hooks - Instead of just concentrating on writing one major hook for the chorus, take the time and craft hooks for each section of the song. If you listen to a song like "Bohemian Rhapsody," every part of the song if taken on it's own, could have been the hook of a song. It's a cool way of approaching your songwriting, and it makes your song strong on every single part.  

If you found these tips helpful, you can find out more about songwriting tips and tricks in my new book: "Lyrics and Music: Music Theory for Aspiring Songwriters" available now at Amazon.com, or with several additional Appendices at Barnes and Noble..

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011?ean=9781987082982
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011;jsessionid=6F73A94CC7BEF9C130CFFEF90E7B8008.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781987082869
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1097464636
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RM9KZJY