In the first part of this little series on starting a song I shared the noodling method of songwriting.
As a part of this method I also used to write a lot of songs starting with lyrics. I was especially drawn to lyric writing and most of my earlier songs were driven by this and the guitar noodling method. Keep a lyric book, write a lyrics type poem, go to the book when you find a suitable guitar noodle and insert lyrics.
Looking back it was a crude affair and really I don’t think it yielded the most musically adept songs. This was because I was letting the lyric medium drive a vital part of the music. The main melody.
Who Does The Main Melody Serve?
There is nothing wrong with this method but you’re making the primary medium, music, subservient to the non-musical medium, lyrics. (Yes poetry has musical underpinnings but that’s another discussion).
In more recent years, especially while learning to write congregational church music, the lyric is vital BUT so is a singable, memorable but with a simple yet sophisticated melody. This means the melody and lyrics become more like a puzzle. Each lyric is like the image on the puzzle piece and the melody is the edge of the piece. Getting the right fit is key.
Music producer and songwriter Max Martin has made a career out of solving these puzzles with what he calls melodic maths. Whilst it’s not the “right way” to write melodies it’s an interesting idea that has worked well for him in the pop genre. I’d say it’d work well in most genres as it seems to deal with the fundamental way melody connects with listeners and helps him to write melodies which just work.
Takeaways: If you’re a lyricist and songwriter, you have to decide which medium is going to predominantly drive the writing of the main melody. It’s not right or wrong, it will just yield different results.
Try different methods and variations of methods. Use pre-written lyrics but be open to adjusting them to fit better musically whilst retaining their lyric integrity.
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