Song Writing

What makes a good songs? The answers can be whatever you thought it to be. Beautiful melody, heart touching lyrics, beating rhymes? As this article deals with how to write a good song, it will answer the question from an academic perspective.We’ll just begin by examining the 3 essential components of a song.

All song address the problem of:

• Who’s talking
• To whom
• Why

together with these components, there are also 3 forms of narrative. Provided I am the composer, the 3 narrative will go like this:

• Direct address : eg. I love you!
• 1st Person Narrative: I talk to you about a third person.
• 2st Person Narrative: I talk to you about you and a third person
• 3rd Person Narrative: I talk to you about a third person and another third person

Besides, there also exists a theory called the Development Engine that says the development of a story can be divided into 3 boxes but the ideas of former boxes can never be larger than the latter ones.

 

Also, there are six best friends as to a song, they are:

 

• who
• what
• when
• where
• why
• how

To better present the above 6 friends, there are verses to deliver information, bridge to connect sections, pre-chorus to support as the link between verse and chorus, last but not least chorus to state the central idea of a song.

 

After completing the structure of a song, we have a number of tools used to express the emotions of a song. Theprosody of a song can be stable/unstable, balance/unbalanced, feeling like it’s telling a fact/feeling sth is missing.The overall prosody of a song can be expressed through the following 5 composing elements

• Number of lines
• Matched or unmatched lines lengths
• Rhymes scheme
• Rhyme types
• Rhythm of lines

Now let’s examine these 6 elements in detail

 

There can be even number of lines and odd number of lines.Even number creates a sense of stability,balance and resolution, while odd number seems unstable, unbalanced and unresolved. Even number spotlight an idea, odd number stops or creates a forward motion.

 

All in all, the number of lines can be used to stop or suggest a forward motion, spotlight an idea and create a contrast.

Matched or unmatched lines lengths can also create prosody.
xxxxxxxxx                 and           xxxxxxxxxxxxxx         while                xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       xxxxxxxxxxxxxx                                 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                   creates a sense of stability                                                 Creates a sense of instability

As to Rhyme scheme, rhymes can be a/b/b/a (unbalanced) which seems to be waiting for a few more lines, a/b/a/b (balanced), or a/a/b/b (balanced), in this pattern, the second a seems like a pause that brought about another idea.

As to the prosody of a song, there are 5 schemes of rhymes that can be arranged from the most resolved to the least resolved (stable-stable-stable/unstable-unstable-unstable).

The most stable rhyme scheme is sth like a couplet
xxxxxxxxxxxxx moe
xxxxxxxxxxxxx toe
It must fulfills the following 3 requirements to be a perfect rhyme:

• Identical vowels sounds
• Consonants following the vowels are identical (if any)
• The rhyming syllables begin differently

Perfect rhymes creates more acceleration and brings full closure to a song.

 

Family Rhyme differs from perfect rhyme only in the consonant sounds that follows vowels.It doesn’t have to be identical.Falling into related phonetics would simply form a family rhyme.

Plosive sounds, fricative sounds and nasal sounds form their own groups, any consonants from their respective groups can be selected to form a family rhyme cause they are phonetically related.

 

Plosive:
Mud: Cut/glut/shut/cup/truck

Fricative:
Love: buzz/grudge/rough/crutch

Additive and Subtractive Rhymes adds or subtracts consonants after the same vowels
cry:bribe/ride     free/speed      fine/resigned 
Additive rhyme creates a sense of stability while subtractive rhymes creates instability.

Assonance rhyme is unstable and it seems to be diminishing……… It ends with a consonants from a different phonetic family following the same vowels.
life/tide     blood/rush     fool/rude

Consonant rhyme is rhyme scheme that rhymes with similar consonants, different vowels
limp/lump   bit/bet

To review a little, we can see that

To summaruze:
S              u               n
            ——— ——— perfect
            ——— ******* family (consonant from the same group)
            ——— ^^^^^^^ assonance  (consonant from different group)
                          ——— consonant (different vowel, same consonant)