Songwriting Tips: How To Make A Lyric Template
During class the other day I found a technique to break any form of writers block when writing from a title. I will reveal the technique as I found it to be very useful to cure that disease we sometimes have of writers block. This technique is very similar to a word association game but it’s all within the title. What you have to do is get your title (which you should all know, should be placed in the chorus of course.) So I’m going to arrange this in a simple step form to make it completely easy for you.
1. Come up with a title.
2. Get each syllable of the title and make a list of words that rhyme with each syllable.
(NOTE: Be sure that you research the different kinds of rhymes like perfect rhymes and family rhymes. Also, refer to your online rhyme dictionary by doing a google search and getting a list of rhyming words a whole lot faster than your outdated rhyming textbook.)
3. Review each word under each syllable and be sure to plug them in the end of each line and using a proper rhyme scheme where you’re not being too cliche (or as most people like to say, “kindergarten rhymes”). Not only does it help you use clever rhyme schemes but it also exercises your sense of wording in a sentence.
You see it’s very simple! Just three steps and you can already magnify a song! Have fun with this you’ll often think that your title revolve entirely on just a limited set of ideas, but this technique I just showed you will completely destroy that. You can even try to do more than one version of the song and maybe even use all the versions and just change the title to something else. Enjoy my friends this is what we call a lyric template!
June 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am
wow groovy tip! you inspired me to write a song for my Fiancee: “loving you is like a punch to the face”
*clears throat* “i didnt see you coming,i was busy baking a cake,
then BOOM, POW,SUCKATASH,
your love struck me like a god damned punch to the face,
i was knocked out cold street fighter style, like a sonic boom served up by guile” thats all i have so far! thanks, your tiips were awesome! feel free to critique my work!
October 27th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Really nice man. I love these pragmatic songwriting tips to combat the ivory tower / writers’ block thing.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:03 am
Thanks so much for this. It will be very helpful to me in the future.