Edwin’s Top 50 Songwriting Tips

Edwin’s Top 50 Songwriting Tips

01 Boxify your titles
02 12 Box Your Album
03 Album Per Quarter
04 Moodboard
05 In Parallel, Several on the Boil
06 Partial Rhymes
07 Interesting Time Signature
08 Spotlights
09 Accidental Note
10 Accidental Chord
11 Sing! No Instrument or Chords
12 Speech-Derived Rhythm
13 Try a Mode
14 Improvisation from a standard
15 Write down the melody notes
16 Placeholder Nonsense Words
17 Minor
18 Same Chords Verse and Chorus
19 Octave Melody
20 Break
21 Pedal Tones / Drone
22 Penta No 2nd/6th m or no 4th/7thM
23 Rearrange Guitar / Volume whilst singing
24 Looping and NoodleComping
25 Dreams
26 Use a Cool Chord: mM7, mM9, 11, Slash
27 Use an Even Cooler Chord: 7b5, 7#9, 7+, 6/9
28 FEEL IT!
29 First Touch, First Word
30 Short Intro / Chorus First
31 Every 5 Seconds
32 Ditch a Verse or two / Over-write
33 No Chorus
34 Try a Key Change
35 Hybridise Two Styles / Change a Song’s Style
36 Ventilated Rhythm
37 Dynamics, Light and Shade
38 Make the Chorus a Verse
39 Alt Tuning
40 Children’s Song
41 Riff / Motif
42 Through-Composed
43 LandSong
44 Lyrics First
45 Poem
46 Instrumental Chorus
47 Congruency Test
48 Eyebrows / Ham it UP
49 Audience Participation
50 Object Writing / Object Poeming

Many of these are Edwin’s ideas but a bunch are adapted and adopted from the following great people whom you should check out, many thanks to them:
Boo Hewerdine http://www.boohewerdine.net/workshops.php
Joe Bennett http://www.uksongwritingfestival.com http://joebennett.net/
Pat Pattison https://www.coursera.org/course/songwriting
Gary Burton https://www.coursera.org/course/improvisation
Michael Garrick RIP http://www.jazzacademy.co.uk
Gary Ewer http://garyewer.wordpress.com
Chris Difford http://www.chrisdifford.com/
Karine Polwart http://www.karinepolwart.com
Juliet Russell http://www.londonsongcompany.com/courses-mentoring/#developing
http://www.fawm.org
http://www.napowrimo.net
http://www.landsong.org

Songs quoted:

Lonesome Woods sung by Andy Turner http://andyturner.bandcamp.com/track/through-lonesome-woods
Kiss from a Rose by Seal http://youtu.be/WstGYDZzH9g
Upside Down written by Nile Rodgers http://youtu.be/4GtyMeEcPPE
Georgie sung by Martin Carthy http://youtu.be/9Aj_cEP-PdA
Rather Be by Clean Bandit http://youtu.be/m-M1AtrxztU
Get Lucky played by George Barnett http://youtu.be/eohqIn6P-Yw
Happy by Pharrell Williams http://youtu.be/y6Sxv-sUYtM
Walk the Line by Johnny Cash http://youtu.be/k7K4jH7NqUw
Chop Suey by System of a Down http://youtu.be/CSvFpBOe8eY
Chop Suey by Richard Cheese http://youtu.be/hD0pjUwYIpU
Four Little Ants by Robyn Mackenzie https://soundcloud.com/robynmackenziemusic
Spoonman by Soundgarden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3P-tJb2pE
Your Backyard by Edwin Datschefski and Mari Kozlowski https://soundcloud.com/songsville/your-backyard-cowrite-with
Icky Thump by The White Stripes http://youtu.be/5roz5-wdjBg

source