50 Songwriting Tips: Essential PRO Advice

If you already compose songs or are just starting to compose, you’ve probably encountered some creative block that leads to frustration and prevents you from achieving the desired result. To help you, in this new tutorial from GuitarRec Online Recording Studio, we’ve put together a collection of 50 tips for composing songs, with some essential tips and resources that will inspire you to approach different parts of music creation from a fresh perspective.

If you’re already an experienced composer, some of these tips might seem obvious, as they’re perfect for combining with the learning of basic chords to compose with an instrument like guitar or piano. But surely, more than one of these tips will encourage you to try new things or remind you of a technique you had forgotten and can use to improve your routine when writing lyrics or simply letting yourself go when you start to create.

If you want an organized view and a step-by-step guide to each phase, we recommend you also check out our tutorial on how to compose a song: complete guide. Below, we’ve compiled all the composition tips we’ve been gathering over time.

Tips for Composing (Basic Advice)

1. Study songs by others. Play them, sing them, and analyze them. Nothing is created from scratch.
2. Find a place where you feel comfortable composing, singing, and that inspires you.
3. Improvise. A kind of musical brainstorming. Let yourself go. Let’s see what comes out.
4. Move. Get up from the chair, go outside. Sometimes the best ideas come when you’re in motion.
5. Record everything. Today it’s easy not to let ideas slip away, since we always have our phones and voice recorders.
6. Lower the bar. Not every part of the song, nor every song you compose, has to be the best you’ve ever made. (Though we all know that the last one will ALWAYS be the best…)
7. Save that great melody or phrase for the chorus. Remember the wedding protocol: only the bride can wear white.
8. Interpret. Sing or play your song imitating another artist’s style. It will give you an objective point of view and might take you to a new place to keep creating.
9. Simplify. Maybe your song doesn’t need those 6 verses or the 5 chord progressions you wrote. Stick to the best parts.
10. Organize the sections. Make sure the chorus doesn’t take too long to arrive, and try to keep the structure of your song (or the musical arrangement if you’re producing) interesting for the listener.
11. Recycle. Maybe that new part you created that’s great but doesn’t quite fit in the song could be used in another one. Remember, you don’t have to show everything you know in every song.
12. Repeat that melody, chord progression, or phrase throughout the song. Don’t be afraid. Repetition is one of the most important aspects or techniques in musical composition.
13. Break the rules. However, it won’t hurt to know a minimum of music theory (especially harmony and structure), so you have something to break.
14. Visualize the arrangement. Imagine the instrumentation recorded. Make the drum rhythm with your voice or sing the instrumental melody of the hook. This will help you better situate yourself in the musical direction of the song.
15. Learn to use a recording program (DAW) in your home studio to create a drum pattern or a base or beat with some instrumentation. Doing this will take your song to another level, give you new ideas when composing the music of your song, and prepare the groundwork if you decide in the future to record your song online or professionally in a studio.

Tips for Composing Songs with an Instrument

16. Expand your chord vocabulary. (Tensions, sevenths, diminished, add9, sus4…)
17. Modulate. Changing keys during the song is a very common resource.
18. Transpose. Try playing the song in a different key. Changing the vocal range will surely take the melody in different directions (or chords).
19. Play the same chord progression in a different position. For example, on guitar you can use a capo to play the same chords in different positions. This will take you down different paths.
20. Substitute a chord for another one that works well with the same melody if the song’s harmony feels too repetitive.
21. Invert. An inversion is when the lowest note of a chord is not its root or tonic. Try having one of the chords support another note to create a slightly different sound.
22. Change instruments. Try playing those chords on a different instrument, like a piano or MIDI controller keyboard, and you’ll likely discover something new.

Tips for Composing a Melody

23. Land on the chords. The notes of the chords are your friends. They are usually the strong points where you can end or begin the phrases of the melody.
24. Hum the melody while composing and then write the lyrics. Some people use the famous “Spanglish” accent, imitating English to see how the song would sound sung by a famous Anglo-Saxon band. 🙂
25. Try to create the vocal melody by playing an instrument. This can help you discover new ideas and paths that don’t come to you naturally with just the voice.
26. Vary the rhythm of the melody. A common technique is to make the verse and chorus rhythmically opposite. For example, a verse with short, rhythmic notes, and a chorus with longer notes.
27. Raise the pitch in the choruses. It doesn’t always have to be this way, but it usually works well if the voice in the most important part of the song is in a higher (or sharper) pitch than in the verses or stanzas.
28. Anticipate. Try starting the vocal phrase before the first beat of the first chord (anacrusis).
29. Delay. Try the opposite of the previous tip, start the chord first and then begin the vocal phrase.
30. Stay on time. Start the vocal phrase exactly on the first beat of the bar.
31. Combine the previous types of entry in different parts of the song. In fact, combine everything that comes to your mind. 😉

Tips for Writing Song Lyrics

32. Find the key word or phrase that will make your song stand out and help the listener remember the title or the message of the lyrics.
33. Observe your everyday life. That phrase or word can appear in any conversation, movie, book…
34. Intrigue. Don’t give everything away in the first verse. Prepare the listener and make them surprised when the main message or the end of the story arrives.
35. Define. By the end of the first chorus, it should be clear what your song is about.
36. Rhyme, but in moderation. Not every phrase needs to end with the same vowel. If it does and it’s not intentional, try to vary throughout the song. Here is some theory on the subject.
37. Write the lyrics first and then create the music. This isn’t the most common approach for those who compose from the musical side, but give it a try! There’s nothing like stepping out of your comfort zone to find your personal style and your own tips or techniques for composing music.
38. Recite. Read the lyrics without singing them, you might come up with new phrases or even discard some.
39. Try to be positive. Nothing like a happy ending (or a positive conclusion and learning from a negative situation) to connect with the listener and leave them with a good impression.
40. Get inspired by a very joyful or very sad memory from your life. They say these are the two emotional states where the best inspiration comes from.
41. Read. It’s clear that reading will expand your vocabulary and improve your writing.
42. Apply the famous journalistic 5 “W” technique: Who? (Who?), What? (What?), When? (When?), Where? (Where?), and Why? (Why?).

• Decide who or who the protagonists of the story will be. It doesn’t have to be about you.
• Define what events or actions will happen in your song.
• Travel in time. When did it all happen?
• Localize. Where did the events happen? Describe the place.
• Explain why it happened. What event triggered the situation you’re describing?

43. Review the lyrics. Remember, you have time until you’re in front of the studio microphone while recording the final vocal take to fine-tune and improve the written parts of your song.

Also check out our tutorial with more tips on how to write song lyrics.

Final Tips and Techniques for Composing Songs

44. Finish. Make the effort to give your song a basic structure and finish the lyrics. You can improve them later, but take advantage of the connection with the initial idea to reach an end, even if it’s provisional.
45. Play it again, over and over, the song. Once finished, it’s the best way to mature it. If you have the opportunity to perform it live, or at least in front of someone you trust, it’s the best way to see how it works. However, take external feedback with caution.
46. Put it away. Record it and let it rest for a while. Time will tell you how good (or not) it was, and you’ll be able to objectively spot areas to improve, continuing to learn how to write a song.
47. Collaborate. You probably know a friend who can help you compose a song, or you could collaborate with a professional online music producer who can offer a fresh perspective on your song or one you haven’t finished yet.
48. Create your style. The sooner you start doing things your way (chords, rhythms, melodies, pronunciation, lyrics…), the sooner you’ll reach your main goal: being yourself. When you find a technique that works for you, apply it to other compositions.
49. Work. Some say that some songs come from inspiration and others from hard work. But we dare say that even the ones that come from inspiration are a result of prior work and consistency.
50. Trust. Composition is a long and exciting journey that requires time and dedication. The magic will eventually appear along the way. Don’t stop!

Expand your knowledge and composition techniques with our detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to compose a song.