Songwriting essentials: Putting the groove on your music

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Professional musician songwriters have different ideas on how to write creative music for existing lyrics or the other way around. Some composers write the lyrics first and then compose the music after. Others find it easier to scribble the lyrics only when the notes have been ironed out. No matter how they do it, for experienced composers, creating music is relatively easy.

However, if you are a budding songwriter, writing words for the music or fitting music to those words can be a challenging take … at first. You may have to painstakingly extract those creative juices to make music that will sell, sooner or later. So as a rookie composer, do what many professionals do nowadays: look for inspiration from a variety of sources. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the form of a horrendous experience, a personal nightmare, a happy memory, a website, another song, or a dead dog.

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Steve Hillier, of Dubstar, has written numerous songwriting guides. You will find more helpful ideas from him in this BBC article.

There is no exact formula for a guaranteed hit song, but one thing’s certain—every song has its own life and origin to tell. Each arose from a unique process from scratch. As how the singer-songwriter, film score composer, and record producer Mark Knopfler puts it:

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“Each song has its own secret that's different from another song, and each has its own life. Sometimes it has to be teased out, whereas other times it might come fast. There are no laws about songwriting or producing. It depends on what you're doing, not just who you're doing.”


Mark Begelman is co-founder of Markee Music, which offers facilities and services for your songwriting needs. For more advice about songwriting and making music, visit this website.