What you need to do have use Spotify for your own
music promotion is a “Spotify For Artists” account,
which independent artists like most of us can only
acquire when we release our music through a
distribution service such as CD Baby, Distrokid,
Tunecore, and others. It’s the same thing we need
to get on places like iTunes.

Once your music is on Spotify, the absolute best
way to promote it is by getting added to playlists
that either Spotify or other users create.

Getting your songs added to the playlists that
Spotify creates can be VERY challenging.

The best way to get on the playlists that other
users create is by finding playlists that fit the
style of music that you do, and tracking down the
playlist owner on social media to ask them to add
you to their playlist. It’s a good idea to let
them know why a certain song of yours would be a
good fit for their playlist.

This all might seem like a lot of work, but
getting on a number Spotify playlists can often be
a GAME CHANGER for your music career. And, I would
like to help you by giving you an early Christmas
present to get you started.

I just created the new Songwriting Planet Spotify
Playlist, and I am inviting Songwriting Planet
members ONLY (if you have requested our free e-book
“21 Ways to Write Better Songs” then you are a member),
to jump in early and be the first to get on board.

Get on the Songwriting Planet Spotify playlist!
Here’s how!

Go to the playlist here:
Songwriting Planet Spotify Playlist

Click “Follow” or “save to your library” to
follow the playlist,

Next, navigate back to your own song
(only submit ONE SONG)
Click the “…” and select “Add To Playlist” and
you should see the Songwriting Planet Playlist!

As this playlist grows bigger, and Bigger,
you will see more, and More, and MORE plays!

To Your Awesome Songwriting Success!
Kevin

P.S. If you don’t have your music on Spotify yet,
go ahead and follow this playlist now, so that
when you do get your “Spotify For Artists” account
you will be all set up to be added to our playlist:
Songwriting Planet Spotify Playlist

P.P.S. If you don’t even have a Spotify account
yet, you really should, it’s free, and it’s
Awesome! Go here: https://www.spotify.com

Here is a step-by-step breakdown. Saint Patrick’s Day song example

First, the secret is in the list. These occasions usually
have a number of concrete images that we associate with
them. For a holiday, for instance, we could list all the
things that we associate with that holiday.

For a Saint Patrick’s Day song, for example, I began with a
list of every image I could find related to this holiday and
Irish cultural, and expanded upon it with some Google
searches:

limericks
green land
folk music
Irish stew
Beer (Guinness)
shamrocks
Irish dance
leprechauns (pot of gold, rainbow, 3 wishes, etc.)
luck of the Irish (Irish saying)
Blarney Stone
red hair
shillelagh
cobblestones
The fighting Irish (Notre Dame football)
Top of the morning to you (Irish saying)
May the road rise up to meet you… (Irish prayer)
Galway bay
Parade
etc.

The next task was to choose between specific or general
approaches.

Specific: Pick just one item, a shamrock, for instance, and
find a unique angle to describe it. This would work well for
a Christmas song because there are so many of them to
compete with you need to find a unique niche, like in the
song “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”

General: Weave as many of the items as you can into a story.
Since there are not a lot of Saint Patrick’s Day songs, I
chose the the general approach.

Then, I wrote as many verses as I could, weaving these
images together with some rhymes. I ended up with about
twelve verses.

After that, I condensed them down to six verses and a
bridge, sometimes combining several verses into one while
keeping stronger lines and deleting weaker ones. (Note:
never completely delete the lines, you may need them later
somewhere else in the song.)

Finally, I had to make sure the story developed from verse
to verse, which took some more shifting around of lines.

I just posted the final Saint Patrick’s Day song on a new
Youtube channel. You can check it out here to get ideas for
your own special occasion songs. And feel free to SUBSCRIBE
to this channel, as I will be posting more songwriting examples here:

Saint Patrick’s Day song

Note: I also had to write a catchy melody, create a hook for
the chorus, consider chords and song structure, etc. but
those are whole other topics for next time.

Also, this song happened to come out good, with a lot of
work, which is why I recorded it, but typically I expect
only about one out of four or five songs I work on to end up
being keepers, so don’t get disappointed if you try this and
you don’t get a great song out of it. Just write four or
five more and you will!

Here is the link again: Saint Patrick’s Day song

To Your Awesome Songs!
Kevin

And that’s all there is to it.

Just kidding!

But hopefully the above paragraph provided an example (although overly dense) of how to write using metaphors and the senses, which can greatly enhance your lyric writing. Dylan Thomas is a wonderful poet and author to check out to help incorporate this type of writing into your lyrics.

So now, how to write a really good song, for real. This ONLY requires two things:

Inspirations and Craft.

Click here to download your FREE songwriting e-book: “21 Ways to Write Better Songs”

1) Inspiration: We all know that inspiration is the starting point of how to write a really good song. But here is a great tip for so many of us who suffer from “not being inspired every second of the day.” Inspiration will come to those who are writing, 10x more frequently than to those who are not!

So, the cure for lack of inspiration for how to write a really good song is to write; write as an exercise, write in a journal, write on napkins in restaurants when the music in the overhead speakers start spinning words and phrases through your mind that are not even in the song, write and record melodies into a voice recorder that pop in your head that pop in your head throughout the day, or force new melodies into existence on the piano or guitar as an exercise. You will get more flashes of inspiration while you are working on music and lyrics than while you are waiting.

2) Craft: how to write a really good song needs to go beyond inspiration into actual craft and technique. Songwriting, for most of us, is not just channeling ideas from GOD, although that can be a significant part of it, but that is channelling; songwriting is what you do with those magical gifts afterwords.

It is the work of weaving together the inspired ideas of melody, lyrics, chords, songs structure, and arrangement, into a final product that holds together with the beauty and symmetry of a Michelangelo sculpture or painting. Where the rubber meets the road with how to write a really good song will always be how well crafted the  inspired idea is. How beautifully patterned is the rhyme scheme, metaphors, story development, melodic development, chord progressions, how does the song structure enhance the emotional impact of the hook, and paying close attention to many more specifics is what the craft is all about.

How to write a really good song requires skills that can be learned, just like someone who is naturally gifted at cooking and creating new recipes will become 10x better after nine months of chef school in Paris, you too will become 10x better as a songwriter the more you learn the tools of the trade.

Songwriting Sparks is a great way to get started in that direction,

Click Here Now: https://songwritingplanet.com/sparks
 

Add Below Any Cool Experiences You Have Had While Songwriting

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To Your Awesome Songs, Kevin

If you have ever been interested in knowing how to compose songs with key changes in them, you are going to love this. Most songs stay in one musical key only, and have melodies and chord progressions that are derived from the scale of that key. Key changes, also referred to as music modulation, create mood shifts which can often be quite dramatic, can sometimes be sneaky and subtle, but will almost always add an air of sophistication to your song.

In any major key, there will be 11 possible key changes. I will first show you the most common, and then, the most extreme!

Click here to download your FREE songwriting e-book: “21 Ways to Write Better Songs”

Whole-Step Modulations: This is the most common method that has been used over the last 60 years or so to add energy to the last chorus of a song. In the key of C major, the chords built from the scale are C Dm Em F G Am Bdim. When we move a whole-step higher to the key of D major the chords will be D Em F#m G A Bm C#dim (note: the symbol for sharp in music is #, which means higher in pitch).

Considering the melody with how to compose songs with key changes: if you only look at the letters above, not the chord quality, you can see that there are a lot of common pitches between the two scales, five to be exact, and two different ones F# and C# in the key of D. This means that any melody will be able to utilize a lot of the same pitches in the new key, and as a result will sound somewhat related. Yet, raising the F to F#, and the C to a C# can add energy to the song.

The most important factor of how to compose songs with key changes is: How many different pitches are in the new key? This determines how closely related the key change will be, and how subtle or dramatic of an effect it will have on your song.

Considering the chords with how to compose songs with key changes: if we create a chord progression using the I, vi, IV, and V chords in the key of C (C Am F G) , This modulates to (D Bm G A) in the key of D. (Note that Roman numerals are the standard method of labeling chords, with lower case ones indicating minor chords.)

A great recent example of how to compose songs with these types of key changes is the song “Black Parade” by the band My Chemical Romance. The last double chorus changes keys right in the middle from the key of G major up a whole step to the key of A major.

Half-Step Modulations: If we create a closer key change, from the key of C major to D^b major for instance, the key will actually, and surprisingly, be moving further away. (note: the symbol for flat in music is b, which means lower in pitch).

One would assume that a half-step key change would be closer than a whole-step key change, but if we compare the scales we see a very different scenario. Again, just comparing letters of the scale and not the chord qualities, the key of C major will have a C D E F G A B C pitches in its scales, whereas the key of D flat will have a Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db. The only common tones in the two scales are C and F, with five notes that are completely different between the two keys.

Therefore, the melody and chord progressions for a half-step modulation will almost always sound extremely different due to all the new pitches that come out in the melody and chords in the new key.

A great example of how to compose songs with these types of key changes is the song “Man in the Mirror” by Micheal Jackson. After the second chorus, as he says the word “Change,” the entire song moves up a half-step, from the key of G major to the key of A flat major (same as G#). This change sounds very dramatic, almost shocking, yet energizing at the same time, which fits perfectly with the lyrics. The song lyrics are about making a major change in oneself from the inside out, and when that key change comes you can feel that inspiring change happening in the music very strongly. Matching the musical techniques to the meaning of the lyrics is will almost always adds cohesiveness to your song.

Exercise) If you have never thought of how to compose songs with key changes before, the first one I would experiment with would be the whole-step modulation in the last chorus of your song. This is a little cliché because it has been used so much, but this is the easiest one to try first to get your feet wet with changing keys.

But keep in mind that there are 10 more types of key changes than the two mentioned above, and there are a variety of ways to use them in your songs. I will have more in-depth training on how to compose songs with key changes using the 10 other possible keys, the different moods they create, and the various ways to transition from one key to another, coming soon.

For now, if there are any songs that you are familiar with that use key changes, feel free to comment below and I will try to use songs that you mention in the upcoming lessons.

Thanks, Kevin

Feel Free to and add any songs with key changes in the comments below.

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Did you ever notice that the majority of songs in our culture have a four-beat rhythm? This is referred to as Common Time, which translates into four beats per measure. And when songwriters in western cultures start thinking about how to write a song, it is usually the first, and often the only, time feel that comes to mind.

But this was not always the case. In certain earlier periods in history, three beat rhythms were the most popular. The waltz is a good example of what was once a very popular dance constructed from three beat rhythms. And there is an enormous amount of folk music from many cultures that is written in, what is technically termed, Triple Meter.

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The next time you find yourself asking how to write a song, consider that there is a large list of other styles from the past that are constructed from three beat rhythms: swing, country & western ballads, marches, circus music, minuets, scherzi, double jigs, polkas, sega, tarantella, barcarolles, loures, and the list goes on.

But that is not nearly as important as the fact that triple meter is alive and well, although underrepresented, in most forms of popular music today. Therefore, learning how to write a song in these time feels can open up huge doors of creativity for your songwriting.

But first let’s take a quick look at the difference between the two most common time signatures that use groups of three: 3/4 and 6/8.

In 3/4, there are three pulses per measure, each of which can be subdivided into two 8th notes (1 and 2 and 3 and) with a strong beat felt on the downbeat of 1 every measure. In 6/8 we have the opposite, there are two pulses per measure, each of which can be subdivided into three 8th note triplets (1 and a 2 and a), with the accented beat 1 being stronger then the accented beat on 2. Try counting these a few times and you will quickly begin to feel the difference.

To put it another way, in 3/4 time we feel a strong accent as the first of every three beats, (1 2 3 1 2 3) but in 6/8 time we feel a strong accent on beat one of the first group of three, and weaker accent on beat one of the next group of three (1 2 3 4 5 6), with beat four having a weaker accent than beat one. And 6/8 time can also be counted in twos as (1 and a 2 and a).

Another way to depict how to write a song in triple meter is that 3/4 would sound like 3 solid beats per measure (ONE and TWO and THREE and), while 6/8 would sound more like 2 solid beats (ONE-2-3-FOUR-5-6-). Try counting it this way.

And to really hear the difference between these two, I suggest listening to the song America from West Side Story, which is a quite bizarre, yet very famous song that alternates a measures of 6/8 and 3/4. It can be counted like (1 and a 2 and a; 1 and 2 and 3 and) with the lyrics “I like to be in America” counted as (6/8): I like to be in A – (3/4) me – ri – ca.

So what is the difference between the bottom note, the 4 or the 8, and how does that effect how to write a song? This is a technical point for music notation, a process which modern songwriters use infrequently, so for our purposes it is not that important. But for the curious, the 4 stands for quarter notes, and the 8 stands for eight notes, and it simply means that when notating 6/8 time we think of an eight note instead of a quarter note as what is counted as one beat.

Many of us songwriters get trapped inside four musical walls of 4/4 time and become blindfolded to the possibilities of different time feels. Let’s take those blindfolds off for a moment with an exercise about how to write a song in triple meter.

Exercise: Start writing a section of a new song with any kind of three feel, with chords and rhythm only. Don’t worry about which type of triple meter time feel you are precisely using, you can figure that out later. After you have established the triple feel, add a melody as a second and step. Next, set lyrics to the melody as a third step. Then build out the next song section, and continue in this manner until a rough draft of a song emerges.

And remember, when you experiment with how to write a song in new ways, you might have to do it a few times to gain mastery over the new language, but the new ability of how to write a song in triple meter will make it all worthwhile.

Below are some familiar songs that are based on different kinds of triple meter (groups of three, six, nine, or twelve). Please add to this list in the comments section; I can let you know which feel the song is in if you are not sure.

Songs in Three: 3/4

Manic Depression – Jimi Hendrix

My Favorite Things – Rodgers and Hammerstein (from “the Sound of Music”)

Songs in Six: 6/8

(6/8 can be felt as two groups of 3, the first group with a stronger accent: 1-and-a-2-and-a)

Breaking the Girl – Red Hot Chili Peppers

You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away – the Beatles

Songs in Nine: 9/8

(9/8 can be felt as be felt as three groups of 3, the first group with a stronger accent: 1-and-a-2-and-a-3-and-a)

Morning Has Broken- Cat Stevens

‘Jesu Joy Of Man’s Desiring’ – J.S. Bach

Songs in Twelve: 12/8

(12/8 can be felt as be felt as four groups of 3, the first group with a stronger accent: 1-and-a-2-and-a-3-and-a-4-and-a)

Stormy Monday – Almond Brother’s version

Norwegian Wood – The Beatles

Schism – Tool (12/8 felt as a group of 7/8 + a group of 5/8)

Songs in Six: 6/4

(Felt as six beats with only one strong beat on 1)

Fell on Black Days – Soundgarden

Please add to this list above in the comments section below

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Do Songwriters Really Need to Know the Music Business?

In the old days, a songwriter would network and perform everywhere he or she could to try to get discovered. The goal was usually securing a publishing deal, or if also a performer, to get a record deal as well. Once discovered, music industry executives would handle the rest: management, expense planning, recordings, radio promotion, distribution, marketing, publicity, booking shows, entertainment lawyers, and quite a few other business tasks that most creative people tend to be clueless about, not to mention completely uninterested in.

But the problem back then was…

you were either discovered, or you were NOT. You either made it, or you DIDN’T. And there was very little you could do about it except perform more, send out more demos, and hope that your music would fall upon compassionate executive ears who would do all that boring and tedious stuff for you.

Additionally, there was no way back then for the little guy to tackle the monolithic tasks that only the music industry corporations could handle. Furthermore, recording a demo of your songs that sounded even remotely close to radio quality was priced over the moon; it was not even an option.

But all of a sudden, new technology emerged. Home-recording studios became capable of competing with the big guys at an affordable price. And as the Internet emerged, an aspiring songwriter could make his or her music available worldwide with just a little bit of computer literacy and hard work. And now, only very recently, it has finally become possible to do virtually all of the tasks that music corporations did for superstars, from your own home!

However, in addition to the obvious hard work involved, there is one BIG step required for you to take advantage of the giant shift that has taken place for independent musicians over the last twenty years: EDUCATION.

An ambitious songwriter needs to have PRACTICAL knowledge about managing, recordings, budgets, radio promotion, distribution, marketing, publicity, booking shows, entertainment legalities, and a few other big business topics. A passionate songwriter also needs to be willing to do all the WORK involved until profits are large enough to allow for hiring and assembling a team. And then, a visionary songwriter, perhaps like yourself, needs to have the best GUIDANCE of how to put that team together that could take your music to the top!

But thinking like a businessperson, and performing music business tasks, is on the far side of Saturn for most of us creative and inspired songwriters. Even managing a team to do it all for us is a skill we need to learn. And if we don’t, this window of opportunity, a short time in history right now when songwriters can take their fates into their own hands and move mountains with their passion, could sadly crumble to into silent hills of dirt.

We’ve glanced under the greasy hood of our times and seen the potential. So where do we now begin to make that bright shinny new engine of music possibilities run at SUPER HIGH SPEED for us, and take our songwriting careers into our own hands?

Dave Kusak, the founder of Berklee Online and the New Artist Model, has created a a video series for us at Songwriting Planet that explains EXACTLY how to do it! Right Now can truly be the most magical time in history for you as an independent songwriter! Click to learn Dave’s Secret Blueprint

Click HERE Now and Discover How

Have You Struggled to Wrap Your Head Around the Music Business?
Please Leave a Comment

There are Possibilities that Might Surprise You!

Kevin

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P.S. If I could recommend just one course that could completely change your
songwriting from Average to Awesome it would be this one:
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Once you start placing phrases together the way they might appear in a verse or chorus of a song, there are a few really important steps that, if overlooked, can cause both writers block and poorly written lyrics.

While there are many equally valid ways to write, here are a few tips about how to write lyrics to get you started in a fruitful direction:

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Define your concept.

When writing creatively, don’t forget that eventually you will want to define a specific topic for your song. Ask yourself “What is this song about?” and see if you can clearly answer that in one sentence. Then ask yourself if the answer is a specific enough topic to be interesting.

For instance, if it is a love song about a relationship, what kind of love are you writing about? Love you both share, unrequited love, new love, comparing a past love to the present one and hoping you can let go, co-dependent love or an addition to the wrong person. If it is simply honest love for a partner try about narrowing it down. How about “loving the way he or she gets dressed in the morning,” and having each section about a different piece of clothing.

Choose your title.

How to use the title can be the best tips on how to write lyrics to a song. If it is catchy, that can be a great starting point for a chorus with a strong melodic hook that people will remember and want to sing along with. Don’t just go with the first thing that comes to mind, make a list and chose the best one.

Watching you get dressed
I love the way you dress
Undressing you with my eyes
Underneath that hat
You glow beneath those clothes
I want to tie you up with that purple tie
etc.

Develop your lyrics.

Make sure each section of the story develops. For example, verse one could be about “the shoes you wear make me feel strong when we walk together,” verse two, “your pants make me blush and smile,” verse three, “your shirt makes me sparkle when you grab me with your arms,” and the chorus could sum everything up with “I just want to take them all off.” Another type of development could be chronological, A happened first, which led to B happening, which finally created C, the entangled mess we are now in. And when developing the story sequence there are other ways to think about how to write lyrics to a song as well.

Create a pattern for song sections.

How to write lyrics is much more about patterns than in free form creative writing. Without over complicating the process, a simple way to get started is by creating relatively equal lengths of lines, and a limited number of lines per a section. Four line sections using three or four stressed syllables per line are quite common. For instance:

I like the buttoned shirt you wear
The silky slippery sound
That tingles through my knotted hair
When curves are slid around

Stress Patterns and Rhyme Scheme considerations are some of the most important tips on how to write lyrics to a song.

Above, the stress pattern is:

First line 4 stresses, second line 3 stresses, third line 4 stresses, fourth line 3 stresses.
And the rhyme scheme is: a b a b

Let’s change it around and see how it comes out:

I love the shirts you wear
They tingle through my knotted hair
That silky slippery sound
When sweaty hands are slid around

Now the pattern is:

First line 3 stresses, second line 4 stresses, third line 3 stresses, fourth line 4 stresses.
And the rhyme scheme is: a a b b

When you have a pattern for verses it is a really good idea to use it as a template for your other verses, keep the stress and rhyming patterns but fill it up with new words that develop the story in the next verses. In songwriting, it is this pattern recognition from verse to verse that keep listeners engaged in your story as it develops.

Use imagery to enhance your lyrics:

Notice the images in the verses above that add so much color to the phrases: buttoned shirt, silky slippery sound, knotted hair, sweaty hands, etc. Going back line by line to add imagery where it is missing is one of the best tips on how to write lyrics to a song.

Put the Title in the Chorus and repeat it:

Underneath that hat
Your sunshine eyes fill moonbeam nights
Underneath that hat
Our hearts will rise as embers light

And feel free to change the placement of the titles to lines 2 and 4 instead, or the many other possibilities that exist, especially when you use more than 4 lines for your chorus.

Map out a lyric structure

Some very useful tips on how to write lyrics for a song in verse-chorus structure (note that there are other types of song structures) deal with how to structure your lyrics. For a basic a basic verse-chorus structure try – verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2, chorus 2, vary structure with a solo or bridge section, verse 3, chorus 3 and 4. But feel free to get creative with the many possible variations to this.

These quick tips on how to write lyrics to a song will get you started, but keep in mind that there is a lot more to the craft. I suggest grabbing a FREE copy of “21 Ways to Write Better Songs,” to help you become a really great songwriter.

If this was helpful I would greatly appreciate it if you shared and re-tweeted and commented below.

Thanks, Kevin Thomas

P.S. If You Are Struggling to Learn How to Write Really Good Songs, Click Here, This is the Course You Should Get

What Are Your Experiences Writing Lyrics? Please Comment Below.

Even though you could apply a funk feel to any type of chord progression, the majority of funk music is played over one single chord. This usually occurs as a part of a balancing act. If one component of the music is extremely active, it is common to balance that by having other components remain less active, otherwise a song runs the risk of sounding too busy and chaotic. And since funk rhythms tend to be quite active, this is often brought into balance with the rest of the music by simplifying the chord progressions, often down to just one chord for a song section, and sometimes for the entire song.

Another feature of Funk music is the use of dominant seventh chords, often simply referred to as seventh chords, which are different from major seventh chords. And it is common to add the ninth or thirteenth as upper extensions to the these chords (but not the eleventh because it will clash with the major third of the chord, which lies a half-step below it). Sex Machine, by James Brown, utilizes an Eb7 chord within the guitar part, which adds the 9 as an upper extension, and also interjects the 13 periodically.

The rhythmic component of Funk music is a sixteenth-note feel. Where a quarter-note feel in 4/4 time is counted 1-2-3-4 (4 beats per measure in 4/4 time), and an eight-note feel is counted 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and (8 beats per measure in 4/4 time), a sixteenth-note feel will be counted as 1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a-3-e-and-a-4-e-and-a (16 beats per measure in 4/4 time). The Sixteenth-Note feel adds a lot of rhythmic complexity to the music.

But the key to making this sixteenth-note feel sound funky lies in the art of syncopation. Where a straight feel might accent the instruments and vocals on the numbered beats and the “ands,” a syncopated feel will more commonly accent the off-beat subdivisions such as the “e” or the “a.” This is the primary way to create that funk feel. You can write out your rhythms with numbers or music notation, which is not a bad idea, but it is often just as effective to get a feel for these grooves in the same way a dancer might feel the music. Funk music is essentially a form of dance music.

Sparseness is the next step. Leave a lot of space and rests within the instrumental parts. Non-stop sixteenth notes, or any type of notes, will kill your groove. It is often the notes that you don’t hear that bring out the notes that you do hear in Funk music.

And last but not least, complex bass lines that outline a single chord and employ the rhythmic concepts mentioned above are an essential component of a funk feel. The best bass players I have seen and performed with were masters of the Funk style. And the biggest tip to making your bass lines sound funky does not have to do with slapping. That can be an impressive technique, but it is not the key to this style. The trick is to add a lot of percussive muted notes in between the notes with pitches and the rests. This can be accomplished whether slapping or playing standard finger style with the plucking hand. But if you are writing on the guitar or piano you can often wait on creating the bass ideas until later when you are with a full band.

Beginning a new song with the Funk style in mind will surely inspire a unique and different type of song than if you began with a straight feel using basic major and minor chords, and then tried to funkify the arrangement after the song was written. I suggest starting a new song and applying some of these concepts to just how funky you can get, you might surprise yourself!

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