Help with beginning to write a song

Question

Most of my life ive been very talented with my music, ive been told about gifts and blahblahblah won awards and stuff.. but ive been having so much trouble with beginning to write a song. I dont know where to start and its been hard to just think of things when i just play random notes

Answer 1

It was a dark and stormy night.....

Answer 2

My Gran always started with the lyrics (aka poetry) and then fiddled with different tunes to see which seemed to click.

Not very scientific, but it worked for her.

Best of luck!!

Answer 3

Start with basic music theory, musictheory.net will get you started with that.

As far as where to start, try whistling a pretty melody, if you have a piano, try to tinker around a scale. Come up with a rock-solid melody, then add the accompaniment. There are several books and websites out there to aid in composition, just simply search for them and see what you can discover

Answer 4

I would start by thinking about why you are writing a song.  If you are expressing feelings, the advice to start with the lyric (words...) may work out.  Here's a trick:  pick an existing song and use the rhythm and melody.  Yep, just steal it!  Write words that express your feelings and fit the rhythm and music of the song you are borrowing.  Like this, for the song "Row, row, row your boat:

I love Jenny Smith

Love her yes I do

If I 'm not near Jenny Smith,

Then I feel like poo.

Rubbish, right?  Not really - I have started the exercise of writing to the rhythm of "Row, row..." and I even found a rhyme.  More serious versions of this exercise are used by professional songwriters.  Like Robert Zimmerman.

That is, Bob Dylan.  Does it all the time.  Give the exercise a try.

And best of luck.  Songwriting is huge fun, once you get rolling.

Answer 5

Whenever I write songs, I always begin with the rhythm section, such as bass or drums. This is very similar to what the legendary band Iron Maiden did (their bass player, Steve Harris, wrote most of their songs). Starting with bass, and then translating to guitar should give your songs a different sound, almost as there is an extra guitar player. After getting the entire song down musically, then I would write the lyrics.

Answer 6

Just as music flows from your soul so to let the lyrics, put yourself in that place where you go when you make the music, writing is magical and can be a fine line between realisim and escapism, try to think of things that mean something to you something real and then destort it with fantasy...... playing around with words is just as much fun as playing around with notes... hope this was able to help you if not you may consider getting somone else to do the songwritting this is not uncomman in the music industry.

Good Luck....