So. Writing. Do it.
I thought about leaving that up there as my only post, but I’ll expand. If you have trouble writing music, here are some tips that will help you get started. I hope. I recommend starting by writing new verses to old songs. Start simple. Write new verses to Amazing Grace. Write new verses to hymns, contemporary worship songs, secular songs, happy birthday, whatever has a tune with words. Once you start doing this, you’ll see that you start to recognize the way in which songs are written, and you’ll have an easier time making up your own.
After you become more comfortable with this style, try taking chord progressions of songs that have already been written, but write your own melody and words. Or do one at a time. Write a new melody with the old words, then add new words to the new melody. Suprise, you’ve just written your own original song. Another thing you can do is change the order of the chords. For instance, if the chord progression is GCDC, you can make it GDCD. Presto chango. There is only so much you can do to make a song original. Most chord progressions have already been used, so you’re relying on new words, order of chords, and melody used in a variety of combinations to make your song original.
What do I write about? Beats me, I’m not you. What’s on your mind? Nothing? Write music to a psalm. They were songs, right? What are you feeling? You don’t have to write happy songs everyday. You don’t even have to write good songs. Rich Mullins, in my opinion, was one of the best Chrisian lyricists ever. And he has some pretty terrible songs . . . that were recorded. You’re not going to write gold every time. Write ten songs, and if one of them is really good, then you’re about on track with the rest of the musical world.
So in conclusion, go write a song. Peace.
