[StormX]

Alright here's the next lesson.

First, a little more general songwriting/construction advice:

While you can write anything first, I highly reccomend writing lyrics or guitar first. Bass usually backs the rhythm guitar, and doesn't really give you any melody. And writing drums first is probably the worst. They don't give you any kind of melody to write the lyrics or guitar to. You can if you want, but like I said, I strongly suggest you do lyrics or guitar first.

BUT, bass doesn't just have to back the rhythm guitar, playing roots of powerchords. Hell, you could have an entirely seperate bass line, and it can sound totally awesome. Just make sure that it goes with the rest of the song. You don't want a bass line that conflicts with everything else. And the same goes for lead guitar. At least when your starting out, don't just wank it and do whatever. Have something thats pretty close to the rest of the song. I'm not talking solos, I'm talking the lead during the verse/chorus. And yes, there IS such a thing as lead during the verse and chorus. A lot of bands starting out overlook that fact. They have the lead and rhythm do the same thing during the verse/chorus/rest of song, then have the lead player wank some solo. A great lead guitar melody during the verse and/or chorus can turn an ok song into a kick *** song. Keep that in mind when writing guitar parts.

Ok, anyway, here's my ending part of writing lyrics. I may come back to this later, but for the next few posts, this is it.

Lyrics

Ok, so say you get an idea in your head for a line or two, that doesn't really match the song you guys are working on. There are a few things to do about this. I'll approach it two different ways.

A) You don't want to have it mess up the song

So you get an idea for an awesome line, but you're already working on one song with the band. The line you have in your head doesn't really relate to the song you're currently on, so, what do you do? You can't just throw it in and screw up the song. Really the only thing to do here is write it in your notebook, on a new page, and keep it for another song.

B) You wanna stick it in

There's a few things to do here. One is, depending on the kind of music, use it as a backing scream. A lot of people, depending on how it's screamed, won't be able to tell what he's actually saying, and will just think it's some cool thing that goes with the song.

But say you don't have screaming in your music, or don't want to scream it, or don't have anyone that can scream. Another thing to try is having someone else sing it for backing vocals. This works best with a deep voice, and sung quietly. For example. in Brand New's "Soco Amaretto Lime", during the chorus, if you listen close, you can hear another vocal track, sung softly in the background. But guess what, it doesn't have anything to do with the song. It's just random phrases. Try this with your lyric, in a quiet, or at least somewhat calm part of your song, and see if it sounds good.

A third option is to have it background sung, or sung by the lead vocalist, somewhere in the song where it fits in the best. Breakdowns are usually a good place to stick it in, as long as its not too far out. Again, this only works if it kinda is related to the song.

HELP! My song is repetative and boring!

So you write a song, and you find you keep using certain words, or phrases over and over. This usually happens with words, such as "you" and "i", and normally at the beginning of lines. To try to make it not so repetative, try either throwing a word before it, such as "but" or "cause", or cutting it out of a few lines. Most people will still get the point, even if theres not a "you" or "i". Or you can sing it differently than the rest of that part of the song. If it's screaming, sing the word, and part of the next word, then go into screaming. If it's singing, throw in a little scream, or sing it softer, or louder even.

If your song is boring, metaphors and similes work very well in song writing. Try replacing words with more colorful, cooler sounding words. A thesarus works very well for this. Yes, I know, your a badass and don't want to use a thesarus. Well tough. It'll help the song a lot. And it's not just words, try to replace some phrases, with something else that means the same or similar. There's always more than one way to say something.

A few final tips. Don't use other peoples lines, no matter how much you like them. And, don't take a line from a song, change a word or two, and use it either. One more thing, try to keep from mentioning your band, or your name in the song. Usually, at least to me, that comes off as cocky. And if your writing the song about a person, change the name. They'll still get the message it's about them, without telling everyone that hears it.

Starting with guitar parts

Today, I'll address guitar writing if you already have the lyrics written.

Alright, now that you have the lyrics down, it's time to get a kickass guitar part. Before you even start, make sure you think IN KEY. You can't have your singer singing in one key, then have the guitar in another key. Well actually, you can, it just won't go together. So, talk to the singer, if you aren't the singer, and see what key he's going to sing in. Now I can't exactly tell you what to write on the guitar, that's up to your creativity. But, I have a few tips.

Don't make a riff that is, is close to, or sounds like an already existing song. That just sucks. I'm sorry, but if you do that, then you really don't have talent. You need to write completely original material. I'm not saying you can't use those chords, or those notes, but make sure they sound entirely different. We don't need any more bands like the darkness.

Don't have every riff in the song be different. Or in different keys. try to keep it close. That doesn't mean everything has to be one riff. But for the verse and chorus, change up the order and rhythm that the chords are played. Give it some varity.

Sorry, that's really not that much for guitar, but I can't thing of much right now. Next time, I'll give a little more on guitar, and begin to touch on bass and drums.