Songwriting Strategies

by Mark Simos

  FIG. 4.8. Rhythmic Phrase to Be Set to Lyric

  Energy Contour of a Rhythmic Phrase

  As you vocalize the rhythm, hear it in your mind’s ear, or tap it out, you can start to sense an implied energy contour. In any given rhythmic phrase, any articulated beat or “strike” can be felt to receive a relative weight or “energy”: through interactions of pulse, its metric position and duration (or, in the case of a durationless “woodblock” pattern, the amount of space before and after it), and emergent figures and patterns surrounding it in the phrase. In a sense, this technique reverses the process by which we obtained a “dry” rhythmic phrase, which required suppressing dynamic information. We’re now listening specifically for dynamics of a kind, in order to move toward a lyric setting.

  What does your ear tell you about the relative strengths or weights of the individual hits? This is not a formula or an objective mapping; different writers might interpret a given rhythmic phrase with different contours. In figure 4.9, we see two successive refinements of an energy contour for the rhythmic phrase of figure 4.8.

  FIG. 4.9. Rhythmic Phrase with Two Energy Contours

  It’s easier to hear relative weight differences of adjacent rhythmic hits, which tend to cluster into units. In version 1 (drawn on a five-line “differential energy staff”!), the first two hits are clearly in a “weak-strong” relationship; the next two hits are felt at the same level; the next hit is felt as “as strong” as the final hit. Version 2 refines the contour, and the “staff” now has a line for each hit in the phrase. Now the last hit is felt as strongest, the hit before it no longer the weakest. With each iteration, you might shift relative weights. Continue refining the contour until you can discern contrasts in energy between any two rhythmic events in the phrase.

  The energy contour might imitate or echo performance aspects of the rhythm, if you’re working from a fully realized rhythmic track or beat as your inspiration. But it’s not determined by such extra-compositional aspects. If you do your songwriter’s work well, creative information flows the other way: rhythm, lyric, melody, and chords can shape performance aspects, providing cues for arranger, player, vocalist, engineer, and producer to bring out the essence of the phrase—and of the song.

  Vowel and Consonant Contours

  The energy contour technique can be used for different setting pathways: mapping to lyric sounds, or leading to pitch contour and thence to melody. Here, we’ll continue working from rhythm to lyric, mapping the energy contour specifically to lyric sounds: including the vowel and consonant contours described previously, as well as potential match or “chiming” points for assonance, consonance, and rhyme.

  Let the energy contour, the pattern of longer and shorter, heavier and lighter stresses, begin to blur in your mind and suggest verbal sounds—a kind of songwriter’s scat singing or mouth music. Approach this with purposeful use of “peripheral attention.” Get the rhythm set, recite it to yourself a number of times; then go off and do something else, letting it percolate and simmer in your mind. When you next pay attention, you’ll find that—like pale mushrooms in your mind’s basement—little lyrical buds will have attached themselves to the rhythmic hits.

  As in working from a model lyric line to a new line, you can work via either vowel or consonant sounds, or combine them. Here, we demonstrate a “vowel-led” approach. Picture yourself as a toothless old man or woman trying to order food in a restaurant, or a gagged hostage trying to tell a rescuer where the keys to the handcuffs are.

  FIG. 4.10. Mapping a Rhythmic Phrase to a Vowel Contour

  Unlike lyric-to-lyric transformations, here you’re doing an arguably more difficult or more abstract creative task: letting differentials in the energy contour suggest contrasts between long and short, open and closed vowels—to create a vowel contour. Again, while this is not an arbitrary process, it’s also not a deterministic “word painting by numbers.” There are no definitively “right” or “wrong” transformations. That said, certain transformations should sound “righter” to you than others. In general, shorter vowel sounds (ih, eh, uh) flow better on quicker beats; longer vowel sounds (ay, oo, oh) work better on longer held syllables. Listen for quick passages that feel rushed or crowded, slower sections that feel less natural, less singable. Spend time experiencing these effects for a given rhythm and vowel contour. You’ll know you have developed the skill when you can distinguish vowel settings that work for you from ones that don’t.

  Vowel Buds, Consonant Buds

  If howling toothlessly is a little intense for you, put a leading consonant in front of the vowels—turning the vowel contour into vowel buds. Buds are more than a contour, less than full syllables. Our vowel contour in figure 4.10 would

  become: doo-dow-doo-dah-dih, etc. Voiced plosive sounds like “d” or “b” are helpful here. Being plosive (unlike “r” for example), they’re percussive and provide rhythmic definition. Being voiced (unlike “t” or “p” for example), they’re softer and flow better. Nevertheless, these are placeholders only, helping to articulate the rhythm as you listen to the vowels: the sequence is still a vowel contour, with “helper” consonants.

  You can also work the other way, from a consonant contour to consonant buds. Syllables can have consonants at both start and end, but it’s helpful to think of your consonant contour as uniformly leading consonants, vocalized again with a single helper or placeholder vowel like “ah” following each consonant. Again, let the energy contour of the rhythm suggest differences in the consonants. In the example in figure 4.11, I let plosive sounds match higher points of energy (ta, da) and choose contrasting sounds at match points (ta, la; ga, da).

  FIG. 4.11. Consonant “Bud” Contour. Consonants with “helper” vowel.

  Syllable Buds to Words to Lyrics

  By generating vowel and consonant contours, then buds, independently, we’re again applying the strategy of triangulation (first introduced in chapter 2, “The Songwriter’s Compass”). We can now coalesce or synthesize separate vowel and consonant contours and buds toward more complete syllable buds. These are still nonsense sounds rather than sensible words, much less phrases. You can work from one contour or the other, or mix and match. You can refine sounds directly repeated in a contour (perhaps in analogous rather than adjacent spots) with subtly contrasting sounds (dih – dih -> dih – dee). You can alternate helper sounds in the vowel contour (doo dow doo dah dih -> doo bow doo bah dih …) or consonant contour (ba da ga – bah dee gah). As this experimenting proceeds, you start clustering the flow of vowels and consonants into full syllables—syllable buds.

  Good songwriters, like detectives, think backwards, surprising themselves into drawing from an infinite pool of possibilities. You’re still not trying for meaningful words, but sounds that sound like words. We’re heading towards lyrics. The words are already there; we just don’t know what they are yet! One advantage of all “by sound” techniques—dummy lyrics, placeholders, vowel and consonant contours, syllable buds, nonsense words—is that you get less attached to sonic experiments than to hastily extemporized lyrics.

  Coming down the homestretch.… It’s time to replace our studiously built nonsense sounds with real words:

  Goo dow doo mah bit

  Duh suh kee sit

  Go now to mud pit!

  Dumbstruck he spit

  At each stage, listen for how well the line sits rhythmically, and beware of preemptive intrusions from “by-sense” lyrical instincts. In the line above, “mud…” sounds unnaturally crowded on a weak stress, especially with the juncture “d / p” that follows. Where did I get “mud pit”? Likely, from free association by sense instead of sound. Fix it: Go now to the pit!

  Checking for rhythmic and sonic fit at each point, you can progress in incremental stages or faster, intuitive leaps: from syllable buds, to syllables, to word buds, to words, to nonsense lines, to lyric lines that reveal an unexpected kind of sense or story:

  Nonsense words: slow down choodaw
glit; some sub fah git

  Nonsense phrases (real rather than made-up words, but not in grammatical sentences): slow down chew law fit; some shrug to set

  Ambiguous lines: Grammatically correct phrases that still don’t necessarily make sense: slow down to forget; some hover yet

  Throughout this process, you may desperately want the comfort of a content frame, to know “what the song is about.” But if you are willing to go out of your comfort zone and stay with the “by sound” process, you may wind up with sonically compelling, rhythmically well set, singable and surprising meaningful lines you’d never find via a “by sense” strategy. For example, the following line was quite unexpected to me until I wrote it:

  FIG. 4.12. Lyric Line “By Sound.” Discovered from a rhythmic phrase.

  A Few Small Repairs

  Once you’ve worked to a complete real lyric line, there will always be adjusting to do. You may need to adjust the lyric to make better sense: in the last transformation above I changed “some” to “thoughts.” As I reach for words I need to change to make the line make a new kind of sense, I change the sounds; that may in turn change the line’s fit to the source beats. The new line might ask me to change the original rhythm, e.g., to shift a beat forward or backward. The rhythmic shift we need to better express the meaning and emotion of this line (especially to set the word “hover”) is indicated with the bracketed passage in figure 4.13.

  FIG. 4.13. Lyric Line Reshaping the Rhythmic Phrase

  By shifting the rhythm after all, haven’t we just broken the rules of the rhythm-to-lyric “game” we set out to play? In the world of songwriting strategies, breaking rules is always an option—at the right point in the process, and for the right reasons. This is an example of a pivoting strategy: i.e., we work from a rhythm to a lyric, then work our way back to an altered rhythm. Paradoxically, for this transformation to be effective, we need to maintain focus by holding the rhythm firm in our minds in the first part of the work. Once we have a result we like, we can let that result reshape our starting material in turn.

  Such back-and-forth adjustments are part of the natural ebb and flow of real songwriting or other creative work. Especially in solo writing—where “you alone control the rhythmical, you control the lyrical…”—you’re free to adjust material on either side as you go. By practicing “massaging” rhythmic patterns on their own, and exactly matching lyrics to a given rhythm, you’ll develop the skills to make these adjustments more confidently, rapidly, and to better expressive effect. This greater control of rhythmic and lyric interactions will also stand you in good stead in co-writing or project writing, where you will not necessarily control all aspects of the creative work. In the words of my editor (which I immediately grabbed as a song seed), sometimes we’re called to do our best work when “we’re not in charge.” Trust the sounds of the lyrics, and meaning will come. Slow down to forget—the thoughts will hover yet.

  CHAPTER 5

  Melody

  Finding a great melody is like Harry Potter catching the Golden Snitch—the big win, enticing yet elusive. It’s easy to throw together an off-the-cuff “filler” melody for a lyric, but surprisingly hard to find a melody that’s memorable yet novel, fresh yet accessible, satisfying to sing and to hear. Music theorists have confidently systematized many aspects of harmony. Yet melody has often been treated with superstitious reverence, as somehow the province of divine inspiration. There is a rich tradition of pedagogy for melodic writing in the discipline of counterpoint, as well as in newer fields such as jazz improvisation. We’re concerned here with melody from the songwriter’s perspective, a context that offers particular challenges.

  Since songwriters are writing vocal, not instrumental melodies, interactions with lyrics in the musical texture and qualities of the human vocal range shape the melodies we write. In this chapter, we’ll focus first on techniques for working with melodic material in isolation, with some degree of independence from harmonic, rhythmic, and lyric aspects. This includes working with melody as shape and contour; and exercises in melodic memory and transformation. Then, we’ll explore strategies for melody writing in relation to the facets we’ve already examined: rhythm and lyric. After the chapter on chords, we’ll look more deeply at melody–harmony connections.

  Exercise 5.1: A Cappella, Rubato Melody (A Slow Air)

  Working away from an instrument, write a vocal melody for a single song

  section (lyrics to come later). Beyond the initial absence of lyrics, don’t worry about what the song will be “about”—theme or content, or even emotional quality. To minimize sectional structure concerns, think of the melody as destined for a verse/refrain song with no chorus—that is, a single repeating musical section to be set to successive through-written lyric sections. Write the melody without using notation or recording as an aid to memory.

  The melody should have a tonal center (you can write over a tonic drone as a reference point). But do your best not to think of (or hear in your mind’s ear) specific chords, or to build the melody around expected chord movement. Similarly, you can strive to make the melody arhythmic: not locked to a defined metric pulse, or even, necessarily, a definite time signature. It will help to make the melody fairly slow (so you can think carefully and distinctly about each note), and rubato or rhythmically free in feel. As much as possible, let the melody do all the work.

  Challenges in Melody Writing

  As you work on this a cappella melody exercise, you may discover that it’s hard to hold a melody distinctly in mind, absent lyrics, chords, or rhythmic accompaniment. In fact, when we write songs we’re usually blending these elements.

  Most of us can easily sing a melody without lyrics—that’s why we have “la la la.” You can put “dry lyrics” on the page before committing to a melody. Still, songwriters usually try to develop lyrics and melody together. Similarly, even when we claim a song begins as a “melodic” idea, the genesis is often a riff or chord progression, over which we improvise melodic phrases until a few stick. For many writers, melodies also need the support of embedded rhythmic effects to generate sufficient interest.

  Curiously, in writing strong melodies, vocal or instrumental chops can work both for you and against you—helping but also possibly hindering your melodic skills. Vocalists can often readily invent and sing a cappella melodies, yet their melodies often also depend on melodic idioms characteristic of their genre, or on vocal performance effects. They may be great vocal improvisers and yet struggle to zero in on a stable, memorable core melody. Strong instrumentalists have other advantages in hearing and composing melodies. You get a very specific sense of a melody by playing it on your instrument. Even writing away from your instrument, in your mind’s ear, you can imagine playing the melody in a tactile, embodied way. You feel the melody move. But an instrumental orientation can also limit your melody writing. Songwriters aim to create great vocal melodies; vocal melodies move differently from instrumental melodies. Your melodies may have detailed angles and curlicues that vocalists would be hard-pressed to invent. Vocalists may also find them hard or unintuitive to sing. You’ll encounter these differences if you try to set words to a previously written instrumental melody.

  Thinking Melody

  Even if you’re not a diva vocalist or a blazing melodic soloist, you can learn to write great song melodies, by developing a compositional sense of melody. This means focusing on the essential melody of the song—separate from improvisatory flourishes, or even from too close a bond to your own voice, with its characteristic range, tone, strengths, and limitations (which can hold back both weak and strong vocalists). We can learn to “think melody.”

  Once you can hold a melody distinctly in your mind’s ear, and transform it in flexible ways, it’s easier to not settle for the first melody that pops into mind, but sketch, refine, and polish until the melody matches the song’s desired meaning and emotion, and interweaves in compelling ways with lyric, rhythm, and chords.

  Your g
oal need not be the ability to write every conceivable kind of melody. By spending time on melodic seed catching—both original melodic seeds, and magic melodic moments you catch in other peoples’ songs—you’ll begin to develop a distinctive melodic vocabulary: a sense for the kinds of melodic shapes and movements that delight your unique listener’s and songwriter’s ear, and the emotions, imagery, and stories they evoke. Over time, you’ll expand this melodic “signature style,” cultivating skills to move melodies in more mobile ways. But the goal is always to find your melodic “voice” (not just your singing voice!). Along the shores of melody’s infinite ocean of possibilities, we all have our own harbors to fish.

  Melodic Memory

  As you get more attuned to the nature of melodic ideas, you can begin to work explicitly on melodic memory: your ability to recreate and retain a melody in your mind without changing it inadvertently. In addition, you want to be able to conceive or catch a melody away from an instrument, without words or chords to reinforce memory of the melody.