PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Need help new to song writing

Hey guys am an artist from uganda.I need help please on how to write a song. Your help is worth it.

Hello Musgiq and welcome to the forum.
Can you provide more detail on what you're looking for?
Song writing is a vast subject.

Hi Mugiq,

I'm assuming, possibly wrongly, that you're using or planning to use Band-In-A-Box for songwriting.
If you are, Henry Clarke has some good tutorials on YouTube that may be helpful.
You'll find the tutorials here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNGYsTA3YLQSZv0fgfcy0ukVF7zW2JSJu

or you could go to his main channel and also listen to some of the songs he's made with BiaB. A lot of the song he does are 'covers', so may not be quite what you want, but should help to understand how to use BiaB.

The best way to learn how to write songs is to ...










Start writing songs.

I often tell people that writing a parody of some other song is educational and great practice.

If you analyze the original song well enough that you can match the structure, rhymes, accents, and even syllables you will have insight into how that song was written. Then you can pick a different song and do it again. Repeat as necessary.

If your problem is composing music, this won't help. But for lyrics and song structure, it's a useful tool.

Excellent advice. I couldn't agree more.

If you want to be caught in the trap of musical form/structure, comfortable progressions, conventional melodies & harmonies then start copying/changing what has come before.
Alternately you could start but opening BIAB by picking a style you like the sound of, changing some components of it to suit your taste and then bang in chords until you're like the sound of them together.
Far, far too many people are trapped by "the rules" of Western Musical tradition which is really only based on a couple of centuries of music that was controlled by the very rich and very powerful or you could, I suppose heed those who say learn the rules to break them, but it's a trap. Ignore the rules and mix things you like to make the stew you want.
UNLESS you want to work in an established style, with all of it's attendant requirements.

This is a very general question. It's like asking for help painting a picture, but not specifying what should be in the picture, what style, what technique (oil, pencil, airbrush, etc.).

So the first question would be: what genre?

You are demonstrating here a breathtaking - I don't know if it is ignorance or misrepresentation - of what music theory even is and of it's purpose.

OP has 2 posts. Claims to be from Uganda. Asks the most generic question ever. Never comes back to the post.

Yet folks still try to help which is very nice. Does give me a chuckle though that you guys think this is a real question.

+1 John,
Even though it appears I was the first to be bamboozled, this continuation gives me a chuckle too.
But in my defense I tried to ask for details which places some of his "skin in the game". No details, no help.

Is there a term for such a fellow? Is it troll?

This happens more often than it should. Pay attention to what you are responding to folks. We all want to help, I get it.

Most of us will give the benefit of the doubt.
I certainly did, though, wonder if I his lawyer wanted to transfer millions of dollars into my account.
If (s)he comes back and gives sensible answers I'd still try to help, but I'm not holding my breath.

FWIW, I believe we've started using the word 'troll' and 'trolling' wrongly, though it may well be correct in this case. I believe it originally referred to the fishing method of trailing some bait in the water behind a slow-moving boat to see of you can get a bit or few.

What? You wonder if being his lawyer you want to transfer millions into your account?
I don't get this.

"Nigerian scam"

And you, dear Dickens, demonstrate a breathtaking ignorance of the value of ignorance.
So much so that I 1st thought "What the Dickens!"

Children open software and start - fearless and buoyed by the knowledge that almost everything digital is easily replaced if a stuff up, crash or delete happens or if they're not pleased with the result of their endeavours. They do similar with almost everything they start, unless closely supervised and directed, explore in ignorance and discover in delight.

Most could sing before they could talk, could draw before they could write, could dance before they could march. All of these things are moved to the background when adults perceive the need for a child to replace the creative with more easily understood/measurable/quantifiable communication.
You sir are an oppressor at heart.

If the OP wants to work in an established style and meet established expectations I invited them to respond accordingly.

Since this is a forum, the odds are good that someone else who has a similar question could come wandering by later and find the posts.

So perhaps people aren't just posting for the OP.

Wow.

I'm "an oppressor at heart." That's rich, buddy. I must have really struck a nerve telling you how off base you are. What's the matter? Still trying to recover from the trauma of some nun whacking your knuckles with a ruler because you weren't paying attention during choir practice?

Suggesting that wilful ignorance is a virtue and that knowledge is undesirable is absolutely ludicrous. Ignorance is Strength. How very Orwellian of you.

First of all, music theory is a description, not a prescription.

Music theory is not a set of "rules" that one must "obey" in order to write "proper" music. Music theory is a a description of how the composer did what he did and how a piece of music works.

Music theory is much like grammar. Despite the impression that ruler-wielding nuns may have left upon you, the language comes first. The grammar comes later and it's proper role is to describe how that language is used in actual practice.

Music is a language and just like a spoken language the fact is that one has to use it similar to the way others do if one wishes to be comprehensible.

Furthermore, your statement about the "western musical tradition" being "really only based on a couple of centuries of music that was controlled by the very rich and very powerful" is pure Bovine Excrement.

The formal study of music theory in the Western world started at least as far back as Pythagoras and has continued through 12-tone serialism, Giant Steps and beyond.

And that is to say nothing of the music of other cultures.

Finally, knowledge is power. Knowledge engenders freedom, not "oppression."

One can not create music (or anything else, for that matter) in a vacuum, without reference to anything else.

Let's say I want to write a Jazz tune. First off, I have to know what Jazz even sounds like. Now, I could stab around blindly in the dark until I hopefully stumble upon something. But it will really help if I know that much of Jazz is based on a ii-V-I progression. However, for that to even make sense I kinda have to know what a ii, a V and a I even are.

Knowing how to get the sound I want is a lot less oppressive than wilful ignorance.

But let's say I want to create something new. Well, nothing can be created ex nihilo. It has to reference something, somehow and use materials that already exist. That's just the way the universe works. At least for mortals like me.

If I want it to be comprehensible in any way, it has to be familiar enough for someone else to understand it while still being unique enough to be novel. If it is too unique, however, comprehensibility goes out the window.

More knowledge about how music works can only help in that endeavor. Making one's burden lighter is freeing, not oppressing.

If you think that knowing music theory is a " trap," that's your fault, not Music Theory's.

Nicely done Bryon Dickens.
You make my point for me.
You seem "wilfully" ignorant of the contents of my posts.
Much of your new post is about working within a system and it's "rules".
Again, you make my point for me.
I suggested that someone might begin to create without reference to a set of rules.
"...one has to use it similar to the way others do if one wishes to be comprehensible."
Again you make my point for me.
I didn't restrict musical history to a couple of centuries. I was writing of the rules, and that'd be the rules of harmony specifically, that are in fact based on a particular period of western musical history.
Oral communication isn't as restricted as you seem to make out: communication can be informal utterances as well as crafted sentences or expressive noise.
You don't see your self as an oppressor but by maintaining a myopic frame of reference it is what you, and many of us if we can't accommodate alternatives to a language, a culture or an history, become.
If the O.P. hears microtonality in his mind and wants to express it...ace!
If the O.P. hears big band swing and wants to make it...ace!
If the O.Pressor wants to limit expression to their concept of communication or language or expression...if their criteria for success is that they understand what is being communicated then blah!
If you lack the self awareness then it's not my part to lead you to the mirror.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJHaDMMqdJA

*sigh*

And here I was under the impression that Australia is an English speaking country....

Actually, what we speak is rather closer to English than your own version.
You can assert your exasperation and "free spiritedness" all you care to.
Look at the time line of our particular strand of the thread, at who wrote and what promoted what response.
I'm sure many folk with comprehend your communication, agree with your position and provide the confirmation bias you seek.
For my part: I'm not attempting to disabuse you of your opinion. I'll attempt to enjoy the same privilege.

Music is a man-made art. Just the act of making music is to conform to musical form/structure, comfortable progressions, conventional melodies & harmonies.

Suggesting the OP just "make stuff up that sounds good to you" is stunningly handicapping. One can only create from one's own understanding. If you don't understand what music is, you can't create anything that can be called music.

Knowledge is never wasted. Do you tell your kids to not bother learning grammar and vocabulary, that they can learn to speak and commuicate better by being creative and making up their own language? I wonder how you'd feel if your doctor felt this way concerning his area of expertise?

Where's the "like" button?

Most of the time, the bar and beat pattern is going to go 4 bars to the line, 4 lines of the verse, 4 lines of the chorus. Pretty much just as Band in a Box is set up to receive. The chord changes will be some variation of the 1-4-5. Go to Chordie to see how your favorites are structured in terms of chord progressions. The root (1) is the home base. (2) induces what some call tension. (5) acts to resolve back to the base (1) This is a simplified outline, meant to steer the writer in the right direction. Working with it, find loads of technical information under the category of "How Popular Songs are Structured."

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/exploring-common-chord-progressions/

Nora Jones and Chris Thile

That's distinctly moot. There is a good argument that American English has in many ways diverged less from the English of the early settlers than 'English' English has, the latter strongly influenced by imported language from other cultures, notably from India, but also from America and Australia and African Caribbean and so on.

Australian English was quite strongly influenced by Irish migrants.

The consequence is that it's hard so say which of those dialects is closest to 'true' English, whatever that might be.

We should celebrate both the differences and the similarities.

Good video.

I'm reminded rather of that saying "Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the adherence of fools".

And a quote from Seal from Rick Beato's analysis of "Kiss From A Rose":
"Nobody told me I couldn't do that".

Just on the East Coast of the USA... you have the New England accent, the Boston accent, the New York City accent, the South Jersey accent, the southern accent, and the Georgia southern accent just for starters.... wait, I forgot the Outter Banks High tiders accent.... if you know English, there's no guarantee that you will be able to converse with some of those.... The High tiders are probably the hardest of the bunch to understand as it comes from the Irish or Scottish roots mixed into English.....

There are dialects just in England to which my ears take a short while to adapt.

Here in the UK you travel a short distance and you will find a very different dialect.

Really handy tutorials, thanks