# What are the best resources for learning songwriting?



## Coriolis (Jun 23, 2019)

I've made orchestral arrangements of non-orchestral pieces, and a couple mockups of cool movie themes. I'd rather learn how to write my own stuff, but I've never had much of a knack for "painting a picture" from scratch, and I'm pretty useless at concocting a compelling melody.

I don't mind spending money, but I don't want to blindly throw money at online courses (especially since some videos are focused on film scoring, and have a lot of instruction on social networking and politics, which I don't need at the moment. I just wanna learn songwriting, and maybe learn film-scoring and navigating the business down the road, in the future).

Where should I start, for studying composing from home? I'm gonna take some music courses with I activate my college veteran's benefits, but I want to learn what I can now.
[edit] I didn't mean songwriting, in case there's some confusion. I meant composition. A song has words, a tune doesn't.


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## d.healey (Jun 23, 2019)

Songwriting is poetry and may or may not have anything to do with writing music. My advice is to listen to your favourite songwriters and figure out what it is you like about their writing and try and imitate it in your own writing. 

For composing I think the best video resources are Mike Verta and Scoreclub.


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## SchnookyPants (Jun 23, 2019)

What kind of songs? How's your ear? Can you figure out chord changes to songs you like?

Start simply, perhaps learning some tunes that you like. Learn their chord progressions, study how they are 'assembled' (verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, etc.). Then, for starters, try and write your own in the same manner.

If you're still 'with it' by then, you'll naturally start to try out your own, unique twists.

It ain't easy.


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## Leon Portelance (Jun 25, 2019)

Write a hundred songs. Then do it again and again . . .


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## labornvain (Jun 26, 2019)

There are no resources. Good melodies are accidents that you happen to remember.

The methods people try to use to analyze, teach and learn composition are a path to ruin. Which is why people who teach composition suck at it.

Not that it's all that hard. The trick is just to start jamming and lose yourself in it and then suddenly an accident will happen. And you think, oh I like that. And so you keep it.

And if that doesn't happen for you, then try smoking pot.


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## ProfoundSilence (Jun 26, 2019)

that's actually wrong, good melodies are crafted with intent far more often than they are with chance. The idea that anyone is naïve enough to think that some of these great composers shell out classic after classic is purely chance + "smoking pot" has to be the biggest self defeating ignorance I've ever heard pondered about the art of composition. 

In reality it's simply creating patterns, enforcing them - and deviating enough to keep them interesting while being familiar and digestible.

I second the courses from Verta and Scoreclub. Infact if you're that lost - scoreclub's motivic mastery course is probably the best one to start on.


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## Synetos (Jun 26, 2019)

Well...I tend to agree with _labornvain_. None of my best songs ever started with a rule template. They came out of me alone with my guitar or piano. 

There is nothing "wrong" when it comes to songwriting. I think the great composers just wrote a ton, and you only know the ones that were good because they became popular. The story goes Mozart heard the songs in his head, and he just wrote them down. Bach...well his music was hated until about 100 years after he was dead...etc.

I wrote a bunch of songs, and had concerts when I was in high school (singer-songwriter stuff). Instead of going to Nashville, I went to college. I studied classical vocal performance and composition, and started learning music theory and writing baroque counterpoint, it totally killed my creativity, and my ability to sing pop music. Started to sound like an opera singer. It was weird, but that is what they "made' me do. I could sight read just about anything for vocal performance. I did all the ear training stuff and all the classical training things they taught back then. Yuck! Hated it and ended up getting my degree in Philosophy...which has been great for lyrics...haha.

I do not care about theory, rules, of what "should" be done. I write what I hear in my head and what moves me emotionally. I no longer read music, and do everything purely with my ears. Not saying that the way I went is the right way, just what ended up allowing me to be creative again. 

I think my only useful advice would be, just write! And don't worry about how it sounds to anyone but you. Family members telling you they like it doesn't really count, cause they like you and will like everything you write...generally. So, forget about everyone else, and just write, write, write. And like others said, analyze what you like about songs you hear. 

Now, maybe because I was exposed to formal music training, I have internal things happening that I am overlooking. For me, rules are just how to copy someone elses musical style or structure. I dont want a mold for my creativity, but there are industry structures and they are expected to some extent, if you want to do anything commercially. Song format being one of them.

Dont write thinking you are gonna make money. Assume no-one will pay you for anything you create. So then...just capture the music in you, because only you can capture what is in you and share it with the world. 

Final thought ~ Whatever you write someone will love, someone will hate, and a whole bunch in between. Ignore all that, and write what speaks to you...leave who else it touches to God, the wind, chance, or whatever. You are unique, so what you write...you write. No-one can do that for you.


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