by Filmgirl37

Created on: February 19, 2007   Last Updated: March 04, 2007

Songwriting is probably the most difficult type of writing to do. This is because you have to not only come up with the lyrics and hear the melody for the song, but you have to get the melody to fit with the lyrics and ideally, you should be able to both hear the music behind the melody as well and make everything fit into a pleasing, harmonic balance. This is MUCH more difficult that you realize. And, it is highly advisable that you have some prior musical background on a musical instrument before undertaking the writing of a song. This will allow you to use whatever instrument you have the background in to experiment with appropriate notes and chords that will go into your song.

When it comes to the song's lyrics, the first thing to do is to come up with an inspiration for them. And since music itself is such an emotional experience, a lot of times songwriters draw from emotional experiences or particular events that cause those experiences to create their songs.

The next thing to do is to realize that just like every other form of writing, songwriting has a form and a structure and particular guidelines that you can follow that might make the writing process easier. And, just like any other writer, you also have a degree of poetic license (or leeway) with the forms and structures that should appear in your song.

And so the writing process begins. First, think of your lyrics like a poem, but remember that the "poem" or song has to fit into music. Next, think of the elements that need to be in the song itself. These are:

A musical introduction
The Verses
The Chorus
A Bridge or Bridges
Musical Interludes

This all sounds complicated, so let me explain. As I do, imagine yourself listening to one of your favorite songs. The first element is the musical introduction. This is not necessarily the first thing that you will write, but it is the first part of the song that you hear. It is a short snippet of music without lyrics in the beginning of a song that introduces the tone, the mood, and the melody of the song.

The verses, the chorus and the bridges are all lyrics. That means that they are "the words" of the song that are put to the melody. The verses of a song are different and are usually (but not always) separated by the chorus. The chorus is either the same or has a very minor variation throughout the song. A lot of songwriting workshops SUGGEST that you start with writing the chorus because it is like the main artery of the song. But, if you come up with one of the

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