How To: Write a Song

You wanna know how to write music!

I get it.

You’ve always dreamed of writing a full song, just for yourself.

If you were able to write a song with a melody that was truly great, even if you were the only one to hear it, you’d be satisfied. 

Truly.

So you’re sitting here and trying to consume as much content as you possibly can because you think that you can cram for the fictional music test and become good the way you can. Your college courses.

Maybe you play an instrument and you’re intermediate hell and you don’t know how to progress after the basics

Maybe you sing and love to be around music, but it's never quite good enough, always a vocal crack, the inability to sustain, a moment or two of key 

Maybe, you just want your own words repeated back to you. As a weird way of comforting and validating your feelings the way other artists have always done.

Well, you’ve come to the right place!

Now this video is really just about the basics, none of that extra fluffy stuff, it's your starter pack if you will

Step one: Always write at night 

You have comfort in your room that you will never get anywhere else. You might think that putting yourself out, being outside, and being in discomfort will somehow jolt your creativity in a newfound way, but don’t listen to that part of you, it’s wrong. You like being here, you’ve decorated just so for a reason

Take in what you see and become increasingly and scarily aware of the world around you. Of the movement beyond your walls, beyond your neighborhood. Wonder what people in the city are doing

Track their movements through the streets. Imagine their lives playing out and see through their eyes.

Look back at your page, your blinking text cursors, and your phone and wonder what the hell you’re doing.

The delirium of three am will hit you in a way it has never and through tears, you will burn through 13 songs in two hours. 

All of the things you’ve always wanted to talk about but never could come out in ways you never expected.

Step two: Always revise in the morning 

You’ll find that everything you wrote last night was absolutely incoherent chicken scratch. You still feel an essence of the passion from yesterday but it won’t be as potent. In the light of day, your words are less poetic and more scattered. 

The important part is that they have potential.

Root out the words and find the ones you like.

Figure out what you’re trying to say 

And then 

Step Three: Frankenstein everything 

After you’ve picked out all the good lines, fit them together.

Change a word or two to make a rhyme but keep the essence. 

In every song you wrote, there’s at least one good part. To create a song out of all the good parts and you’ll see where true innovation and creativity come from. You don’t need drafts of the same idea to make something great

 you just need many many first tries 

Step Four: Get a thesaurus. 

Trade out words like love for grander metaphors

A tree still burning admits a healthy forest 

A file forgot amongst your thousands of folders 

A small child waiting on the side of the road

Use words you never would use when you talk

You didn’t transform, or change, you alchemized 

You weren’t frozen in place, you were ossified in the wilderness 

You weren’t happy, you were unbridled and effervescent in the midst of your joy

These words will catch the ears of your listener 

Its something they have never heard before

They will love the way it rolls off your tongue and the way it draws their ears every time they listen

You wonder if they will look the word up and part yourself on the back for your excellent English skills 

Step Five: Hum

You have the lyrics

You just need a melody

Record yourself always and hum always.

One day, not soon, a melody will escape you that will make you scramble for your phone, afraid that it’ll slip away from your brain.

Whether or not you’ll be able to catch it is up to you, but I have full faith that you’ll get the last couple of notes, and you’ll be able to reconstruct it from there. 

Step Six: Start Over 

You wrote a song, and now you can't stop; you did it once and it becomes addicting, 

lacing words together, that moment of adrenaline where you finally catch the whole melody before it leaves your mind. You write every night, and you don’t need how-to videos or tutorials, or blogs. 

You don’t need me ( vid of me recording, very meta shot)

You are obsessed with writing, and it becomes your new love. If only you could record it! You’ve always dreamed of recording a full song, just for yourself and your friends. So that you can say that you did and become a true artist. If you could see your song on Spotify, even if you and your close circle are the only ones to hear it, you’ll be satisfied.

Truly.

Step Seven: Figure it out.

So maybe you do need tutorials. You go back to YouTube. You learn about recording and producing, and daws and doubling vocal tracks and 

How the hell does compression work?

What do you mean I can't put reverb on everything?

I thought it sounded really good on that 808 

And good lord the prices. 

Mic is 70 

The interface is at least 100

And goodness… so many wires.

But you do it. You shell it out

Whether or not you learn to produce is irrelevant. Maybe you pay someone to!

Either way, you must find a way to do it. 

And with all your knowledge, you’re finally in front of a mic 

Step 8: Record

You’re excited, you do so many tracks, and you know it's much, but you’re so pumped to start cutting and moving and editing vocals and when you’re finally done, the raw recordings are slightly rough around the edges, but it sounds really good. 

It's a perfect outline of what you wanted it to be 

Step 9: hate it.

You have the final version

It sounds dead, something is just slightly off compared to the raw recording. It sounds clean, it sounds technically good, but something...

Something is off. 

You can't communicate it, so you can't fix it

You wasted either time, money, or both

And because there’s just that //thing sucked out of it, you can’t fix it 

Step 10: Release it anyway

You’re scared. You’re not proud. But you figure that if you don’t release it, you won’t ever release anything. You can't tell if it's actually bad, or if your dissatisfaction made you hate it. Are you insecure or is it actually not good? It doesn’t matter because you made up your mind

You keep telling yourself, no matter what, someone will like it.

There’s always a fanbase behind the music you hate so there must be one for this song.

Step 11: Listen 

Listen to people's feedback, listen to the song again, and settle for appreciation. You decided that it has merit, people seem to like it, and there's something worthwhile. There may be some things wrong, but it makes you feel a bit better to know that you weren’t being insecure, you were being realistic. It makes you feel even better to hear about the ways you’ve succeeded, and the way that people consume it. You wonder how many people would find it. 

If only more people could get their hands on it, you’re sure that they’d love to watch you grow. If the right people started enjoying it, then you could get a fanbase, then you’ll be a true artist. If you could just see yourself get a certain amount of streams, even if you never blow up, you’ll be satisfied. 

Truly.

Step 12: Figure out (pt 2)

You do it again, all of it, you keep releasing and everytime the momentum gets higher and higher

You work at the criticism and lean into the confidence you get. 

You’re amazing according to strangers on the internet, and your heart wArms knowing you might have a place among them . Among talent and success. You have respect.

You release your next track, and it's quiet at first, but suddenly, the views start climbing alongside the streams. You’re getting success? This early? You finally got it, you’re finally an artist! More and more people are reaching out. You are special, you have made a difference, you cannot wait until the next one.

Step 13: The next one. 

One month

Two

You’re busy, you want a more stable kind of success. 

You’re officially an artist, but you’re already forgotten. 

It is most definitely your fault. 

Words are not easy anymore, when you write, it doesn’t flow out

Its work

And all you can think about is the next one. What is the next one? 

You force yourself out .

You had comfort in your room that you will never get anywhere else and it has made you complacent. You think that putting yourself out, being outside, being uncomfortable will somehow jolt your creativity in a newfound way, and you listen to that part of you because it's right.  You hate being here, you’ve decorated just so for a reason. To make you comfortable 

It gets more and more difficult to write, and you feel you’ve lost your touch

You’ll never make anything good again 

You dream of writing a full song, just for yourself.

If you’re able to write a song with a melody that was truly great, even if you were the only one to hear it, you’d be satisfied. 

Truly.