Writers: How To Turn Your Lyrics Into Songs

By Eric L. Mims J.d.


This is a story about what I learned from my 60 year old aunt, who has been an unsuccessful song writer for 40 years. The point of this article is not to put her down(I love her), but to bring the light some of the pitfalls to avoid as a beginning song writer.

Shortly after I opened my studio doors, my relative began to indoctrinate me with lyrics and request for me to record them. The problem was that the lyrics were not formatted like songs, they were formatted like poems.

I could barely work my ASR-10, when my relative begin bringing lyrics in hopes that I could help her record her songs. I agreed and was all ready to start, and I asked her "ok..so how does it go?" The answer was "I don't have a melody yet". So there we were, two non-singers with no melody for her lyrics. No progress was made and the lyrics were just filed.

Tip: Most parties who are interested in buying songs, are interested in just that, buying songs, not just lyrics.

Before long, this relative began to format her lyrics better, and even began to come to me with melodies in mind.

Speaking of formats, there are many to choose from (google "song formats"), or you could not abide by any format...as long as it sounds good to you.

So, my aunt has melodies now to her lyrics. The problem was that, as I mentioned before, she couldn't sing, so all her melodies sounded the same, and they sounded like country western, and eventually, as she got older, her songs began to sound dated lyrically.

So, we tried and tried to turn these lyrics into good songs, but they were trash. I told her to find a singer, and find a singer she did.....she found multiple singers but most of them had never recorded and were just very inexperienced in general. So the songs still didn't come out well. I'm sure this process frustrated my aunt and caused her to almost give up on music......So how do you stop this from happening to you?

Tip: To be a writer, you do not have to be a singer, but you do need to find or have access to someone who can perform you lyrics.

When it comes to writing styles, writers are different. There are some that don't write with music at all. Those writers can just peruse instrumentals until they find one that fits their lyrics. Then there are some that have an idea about what they want their music to sound like. In that case, those writers can find a producer who can create exactly what the writer is hearing.

I usually go with picking the music and letting the music inspire my lyrics. (You can find inspiring music at www.freshoffabreakup.com) Sometimes I attempt to sing melodies, just for timing guidelines for whoever is going to end up demo-ing the song. I also don't literally write my words down, I record them onto a little tape recorder so that I can make sure that I remember my lyrical pockets.

Now it is time to interview demo singers. You should be looking for a good demo singer that can sing the type of music that you are attempting to record. A good idea in your initial meeting with a demo singer is to have them sing your lyrics over the music you have chosen. That will allow you to really hear whether or not you want to use them, before you have rented studio time. This is important because you are the one who is going to have to pay for extended studio time for a bad or slow demo singer.

After the song is recorded and it sounds like you want it to, you have to have it mixed. Sometimes, the engineer that recorded it can mix it, and sometimes you may have to go to another studio for mixing. An important thing know is that need to know what you want mixing wise. If you do not know the correct terminology to describe to a producer or engineer what you want, then you can just bring different songs that have aspects of what you want your song to sound like, so that whoever is mixing your song can hear what you want. If you don't do this, most mixing engineers will just do a bland generic mix of your song (they don't care, they're getting paid either way, and I'm an engineer telling you this).

The last step is mastering. There are mastering houses that you can go to, but they may be expensive. At the beginning of your career, a less expensive route should suffice. That route would be asking the mixing engineer to master the song.

After your hit song is mastered, copyrighted, and registered with ascap, bmi, or sesac, then you are ready to submit!

If you follow the simple steps above, you'll be ahead of the game!




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