SONGWRITER THEORY PODCAST: LEARN SONGWRITING AND WRITE MEANINGFUL LYRICS AND SONGSHOSTED BYJOSEPH VADALA
Let's learn songwriting! Learn to write impactful and meaningful songs by writing great melodies, lyrics that move your listeners, and arrangements and chord progressions that evoke the right emotions.Do you want to write emotional and powerful melodies? Learn to write incredible melodies, regardless of your musical background.Do you wish you could write incredible lyrics that move your listeners? Learn how to write great lyrics that are worthy of being framed and hung up on your wall.Want to make full, rich arrangements that sound fully professional? Learn how to arrange in a way that makes your song shine.Do you sometimes have trouble finding inspiration or staying productive? Learn how to find, maintain and regain inspiration as well as remain productive in your creative processes.Do you ever get overwhelmed by songwriting?Do you find yourself getting into creative ruts?Do you wish your songwriting efficiency was better?If you want asimpleguide to learn to get past the overwhelm of songwriting, thisshow is for you!So let's learn how to songwrite with music theory, lyric writing, creative productivity, inspiration, and more!Anyone who's ever had feelings or thoughts can become a songwriter, so let's dive deep into our inner creator and learn how to write songs!If you want to dive even deeper, gograb my free guide on 10 proven ways to start writing a song in under an hour here: http://songwritertheory.com/free-guide/
Me from my job said Joseph does the bare minimum on my review. I probably wouldn't be getting a raise or much of a raise because that is never a compliment. Right? It's never a compliment to say the people who built my house did the bare minimum. Right? Technically, my house stands, but there's barely enough plugs to get by. The kitchen is barely big enough to get by. The the walls were built just well enough but it's all bare minimum. Right? That's never a compliment. That's never a good thing. People who care about what they're doing never do the bare minimum. In fact, if if your, you know, your boss at work accused you of doing the bare minimum or your teacher in school accused you of doing the bare minimum, that is never a compliment Right? It never comes with a recommendation. I recommend this person because they consistently do the bare minimum to have success. And yet, I think this is an attitude that sometimes we accidentally find ourselves having when it comes to songwriting. So we're gonna talk about three forms that I see it take really often. There are 3 different things that I hear over and over and over again that I think the root of these things is really this idea of cutting corners and doing the bare minimum. The first one, which I sympathize with the frustration part of this, but I do think the underlying attitude of this is cutting corners and doing the bare minimum. And that is when people say nobody pays attention to lyrics lyrics don't matter or some version of that. So lots of people don't care about anything in a song, but some vague idea of when I sort of allowed a song to passively enter my eardrums, Did I find myself in a better mood because I had hurt it, or did my feet actually start tapping Or did I notice that I started started to slap my knee, or did I bob my head? And therefore, I like the song. So so just to start,
Fake. It's it's meant to be a continuation of what my band in college would have been, but it it's fake in the sense that, like, it's literally just me now. So, like, really both acts are just me, but one is, like, breaking Benjamin star set ish, like, post grunge stuff. And the other one is singer songwriter that is, like, I don't know, 5 for fighting, but with more guitars. And less falsetto and more belting. And it's it's more than that. But, like, if I were to be, like, super reductionist about more or less the sound I go for. I think there's a power to that because it stretched you the songwriter. The way I write those different songs is radically different. Right? There are some songs too that I have right now, they're sitting in a sort of nebulous space where, like, is it really a Joseph single, like, my my own artist kind of stuff? Or is this like a 3rd pop act type thing? I I don't know. I I just I I think it stretches you as a songwriter, and it's it's fun. And it's a great creative avenue, right, because there are some days that I just don't feel like working on sort of the singer song writer side of what I do. And I just love the, like, Thai distortion, harder rock side of what I do. And then there are days I feel the opposite. Right? I'm kinda like, breaking benchmarks for twenty year olds, and I'm in my thirties now. I don't actually agree with that. Right? But there are some days that maybe I feel like, oh, I'm getting too old for this rock stuff. Again, I don't overall agree with that, but there are just some days I've I might feel some version of that way, and it's nice to work on the other stuff. So I don't know if that touches at all on what you're talking about with the 2 channels and that, but for what it's worth, I do think it's a good exercise. To write for different acts, even if the acts are completely made up in your head, where you're like, okay. If I were to write this song for, like, a a a pop artist, even though I don't do pop, as
Listening to this podcast saying, I just wanna write my first song. I wanna get that first win. I don't know these things. I don't wanna take the, I don't know, couple hours maybe to learn what I'm talking about. Maybe, honestly, probably not even that long. And I think most people already kinda know what verses and choruses are and bridges. Maybe not, but I do think it's worth tie the time to dive into that just a little bit before you start writing. But if you wanna write a song first and then dive into this before your second song, that could be a great way to go as well. So at a super high level, a chorus is usually a song section that is the highlight of the song musically. It often is more thematic than it is story driven, but not always. But if there's one part of the song that's not story driven, it's more just about a theme or an idea, it usually is the chorus because the chorus usually contains the main theme. The main theme is very often indicated by the song title, and the song title very often is taken directly from the chorus. It's like the first line of the chorus, the last line of the chorus, probably the 2 most common. Sometimes it's like the second to last line of the chorus. And I think I said this already, but usually the highlight of the song or the climax of the song musically. And, also, usually, the lyrics are the same every time. So a chorus is a song section that repeats both musically and lyrically. Once you write the chorus, it's sort of like copy paste across. Not always. Some choruses change lyrics. I personally kinda like that sometimes. I think it can be a great way to go. But this early on, we're just treating a chorus in its most basic state, which is the lyrics and the music repeated. A verse is a song section that every time it comes back, which it will come back almost always at least a second time, sometimes a third time, once in a while, a 4th or 5th time.
Riff or chord progression. Regardless, it's a great way to mix things up. Songwritertheory.com/freeguide. Let's dive into question or feedback, I guess. Response is the word. Number 1. Lately, I've been having trouble getting into the flow and starting a project and or staying focused. It's a big problem in today's society. Yes. Yes. It is. Also, I have trouble finishing projects and following through and letting them out into the world. I'm not very experienced at the mixing process, but I know what sounds good, at least to me. And I know I can figure out how to use the mixing tools in Ableton Live 11 Suite, which I recently acquired. I'm not an EDM artist. However, Ableton is perfect for the kind of music I want to play, and I'm playing with all of its tweakable sounds and effects and features. But I feel like my music is so far removed from the mainstream that there's no point in putting it out there because, a, no one is going to like it or listen to it, and, b, I want people to hear it, but that's not the most important thing. I like I I make music because it's what I've always done. I'm originally a singer songwriter and trying new things with Ableton on keyboard, guitars, bass drums. Do I need an attitude adjustment? Should I go back to busking on ninth Street with my classical guitar and harmonica? What do you think? There's a lot in that one. Let's start with the first main thing that I get from that, which is having trouble getting into the flow and starting a project and or staying focused. And I'll give you the what has become one of my favorite phrases for this that helps keep me accountable, and I think is is just a a very short way to say what I think encapsulates what the combination of inspiration, flow, what to do when not inspired, and that's ride the wave when it comes. Ride the waves.
Form of the time where everybody tends to know some of these core movies, whereas that's probably not true for paintings or sculptures or even books, but it's a wonderful life. So George, the main character, in the end, does not get what he wants. You might have watched that movie every year of your life, and you could be 70 years old and never picked up on that because it doesn't make a point of it. But he doesn't get the thing that he spent basically the whole movie wanting. He wants to get out of that darned town of, whatever it's called, Bedford Falls, and he wants to go be an architect and do amazing things building huge, impressive buildings. That's what he wants to do. I'm pretty sure that's right. He wants to be an architect. Right? But, so he wants to go out and do great things in that sense. He wants to get out of bed if he falls. But his whole life, they show us how he puts other people before himself, and we could go through all the different things. Right? He risks his life to save his brother, loses his hearing, which, by the way, even right there is getting at, like, a core truth. It's not a Hallmark movie where he saves his brother and pays no consequence for his sacrifice. He actually sacrifices something, hearing out of one ear. That's pretty significant. I don't know about you. I've actually, for a variety of reasons, I've I've had, like, this ear blocked for the last couple of days. It's the worst. It's the I hate it. It's the worst. That guy lived his whole life like that because of his sacrifice for his brother. Now, of course, any decent person would still do that all all over again to save their brother's life, but still. Right? He he actually suffered a realistic consequence of doing the right thing. And the same things happens with his boss when he's a kid at the at the drugstore or whatever he works at, where he saves
