How Big Is Your Onion?

Many years ago, when I finally left my corporate day job to become a full-time songwriter, I realized a truth about myself: 

The more I knew, the more I knew how much I didn’t know.

It was fun but, to be honest, a little scarier than I was expecting. 

It’s a little like when I first started driving. I remember as a child, I used to watch my father driving, and he made it look easy. Safe and secure. But when I started driving myself, it wasn’t quite as simple as I thought. 

Well, being a full-time songwriter was also way more difficult than I thought. So, just like I needed a course of driving lessons, I had to go back to school to write songs. Berklee College of Music.

The Onion

Sure, before I left my day job, there were many years I’d already enjoyed: the incredible journey of harmony, melody, bass, and rhythm. This was one of the most beautiful journeys ever. But for me, there was another journey I needed to embark on - lyrics. And becoming a full-time songwriter, I had to figure out how to write lyrics. This was the onion.

Here’s what happened:

• When I started on day 1 of my songwriting career, I thought I needed to learn the skills the size of an onion, one I thought I could hold in my hand. 

• Right now, as I look at the size of the world of songwriting, it’s the size of a giant onion I can’t even get my arms around. And I continue to learn more things every time I co-write with my wonderful co-writing friends. 

To give you a feel of what it looks like, in terms of the world of onions, day 1 of my journey with Song Maps looked like this. And it’s still growing now:

Even now, it’s humbling when I still realize how much I don’t know about my craft, but it’s lovely to still be on a journey. 

How can songwriting be like an onion?

Here’s what I’m thinking:

1. There are many layers to learn how to write songs. Just when you feel like you’ve found the top layer, there’s another, more significant layer out there. Each book I consume or course I finish, there is still yet another layer that I needed to understand.

2. Sometimes, when you get to the core of your writing, it can be a painful process to find out what you are writing about. Just like cutting up an onion.

3. For me, songwriting has given my life so much greater richness. Imagine how bland life would be without songs! Imagine how bland life would be like without onions!!

Question

Here are a few questions: Where are you on your journey? How big is your onion? Is it still a bigger onion than you thought?

Berklee Music Online courses are generally 12 weeks. Just sayin’.

Simon Hawkins 

www.simonhawkins.com

Where to find new song title ideas?

I hope you and your family are doing OK through this nasty season of COVID-19, but I’ve been getting to the end of box series on the TV and films. Whatever you’re doing in lockdown, here’s something you might find useful.

After reading my book Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics, someone recently emailed to ask me, 

“Where do song title ideas come from?”

Well, there are many different ways to start writing a new song. And titles are an excellent place to start. So I took a look at my Idea Bank and here’s my top 25 techniques to find new song titles to write -

My top 25 techniques for generating song titles

In alphabetical order:

1. Adages titles

2. Alliteration titles

3. Altering the adage titles

4. Antonyms titles

5. Cause & effect titles

6. Colloquialisms titles

7. Colors titles

8. Conversations titles

9. Dates titles

10. Epigrams titles

11. Evolving situation titles

12. Literal & figurative titles

13. Maxim titles

14. Multi character titles

15. Multi meaning titles

16. Multi time frame titles

17. Neutralized chorus titles

18. One word titles

19. Physical & emotional titles

20. Places titles

21. Realization titles

22. Situation & reason titles

23. Times titles 

24. Verses show, chorus tells titles

25. Word switches titles

How to use these techniques?

Here’s what I do:

1. Scan the list of 25 techniques until I find something I think sounds fun to try

2. Come up with a few words or phrases with that technique 

3. Figure out how to develop through the song (i.e., a Song Map)

4. Jot that down ready for writing as a draft lyric

Every now and then, when I think I want something completely new to write about, I tend to spend an hour or two generating a whole LOAD of ideas to be written later. It’s a bit like binge-watching but for songwriters! 

Question

Here are a few questions: 

• How about trying a few?

• Is one that works better than any others on the list?

• Maybe try TWO different techniques together? These are sometimes the best titles to write!

Maybe there’s something you use not on this list? Let me know if you’ve got a moment! simon@simonhawkins.com

Enjoy!

Simon Hawkins 

www.simonhawkins.com

Rhyming with Coronavirus

Looks like co-writing songs online might become even more popular over the next few weeks, especially for any co-writers who are stuck in Europe.

So, I wondered if there’s anything that might rhyme with the word “Coronavirus”, a new word for most of us?

There are many rhyme dictionaries out there but my favorite online one right now is this:

www.rhymebrain.com

Here’s what I found:

• Sinus (nice, maybe for a fun song?)

• Guidance?

• Shyness?

• Science?

Not a lot more, really. And I was looking for phrases, rather than simply rhyming with “virus” on its own.

So I coded the whole thing “Coronavirus” into my own rhyming database, SongTools, and here’s what it came up with:

• Your love and kindness

• And people like us

• Guilt behind us

• Find your brightness

• Hands of kindness

• Striking likeness

With smaller phrases:

• God designed us

• Sometimes childish

• Kill with kindness

• The righteous

• By wireless (that’s where we’re going to work soon!)

• Glory in the highest

If we’re all staying at home for a month to get through Coronavirus, feel free to have a crack with any of these!

God bless and look after yourself!

Simon Hawkins

www.simonhawkins.com

What is the Songwriter’s Secret Weapon?

When I was researching my last book, Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics, I discovered a fundamental truth. Now please note, I don’t try to make people cry. That’s not a nice thing to do. But I realized that sometimes there are things that move people to tears in a most profound way. That’s if people are generally open to that kind of thing.

This idea is very much linked to the whole point of the book I wrote, Song Maps, because they affect the flow of ideas. And, for those who are songwriters, this is the secret weapon for many genres of songs. For example, this is why Country songs are all about dogs dying, lovers leaving or running away with best friends. It’s the reason there are so many love songs at all. It's why the Gospel story is such a rich source of songs that deeply move people.

The Songwriter’s Secret Weapon

So, here it is: People are deeply moved by:

LOVE IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

If you think back to all the songs that slew you, that turned you from a happy, carefree person to a blubbering, shaking wreck, it will probably be, on some level or another, because you have been confronted with love in the face of adversity.

Examples

Look at classic lyrics like the lyric to “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston/Dolly Parton or “Leaving On A Jet Plane” by John Denver.

The most potent example I discovered is a song written by songwriting icon, Phil Coulter, sung by Sinead O'Connor called “Scorn Not His Simplicity.” It's not a love song. It's not even a Country song. When I discovered it, I played it to some friends who'd come for a dinner party, and before Sinead had got to the second Verse, one of my friends was in tears (sorry, it wasn’t what I had in mind!).

When I finally got to talk to the songwriter, Phil, I congratulated him on writing such an incredible song, and even he (with his Irish modesty) admitted that he was very happy with the way it turned out. Without a doubt, it's a powerful song, and it demonstrates, almost flawlessly, the power of this principle to move people. I challenge you to listen to it and not be moved.

So, where we place ideas in our lyrics counts. If we place them in a way that shows love in the face of adversity, it counts big time. This is also why writing in 3D is so powerful. This is why we will only develop titles to their full potential if we organize ideas into their most powerful order (a writable idea) and then turn them into amazing lyrics that genuinely touch people when they hear the finished song. This is why we use Song Maps.

Question

Have you tried to use this in your writing? If not, maybe have a go. But be careful with your listeners!

S.

Prayers

Prayers for these people from England.

Dazzled

Sometimes, songwriting can be a little like driving.

Tonight I drove the short trip to pick up my daughter, Poppy, from her school bus. It was a beautiful evening, deep dark blue skies with a few waking up stars, and a thin sliver of moon. Then, all of a sudden, in front of me a car came hurtling around the corner with its main beam shining full up, ice white, piercing through the night. Yes, I was:

DAZZLED

Why am I writing about this? Well, sometimes it’s just like this when you are songwriting. Here’s why:

1. Trust – Sometimes, you need to trust that you’re driving to the right place. Like when you are dazzled from the main beam in front of you, there are moments when you’re not totally clear about where the road is going. Sometimes you can only see and it’s the same thing when you’re writing a song - the reason for dazzling can be from a number of main lights:

• The dazzle of your co-writers

• The dazzle of your co-writers craft, which you hope will LOVE your ideas

• The dazzle of your publisher, hoping they will LOVE the song you’ve just written

• The dazzle of the artist, you hope will LOVE your song demo.

If or when you’re dazzled, just keep writing.

2. Tools – Sometimes, all we can see is the dashboard to make sure you’re driving at the right speed. And the same way as songwriters we have our dashboard ourselves:

• Rhyme schemes

• Structures

• Title placement

• Unity emotion

• The lyrical Map

There are hundreds of similar tools, which all become part of our own songwriting dashboard when we are dazzled.

3. Waiting – Sometimes you need to wait until you see a signpost, something like a 30 mph speed sign or a 'welcome' to your own town. You just hope you’ll get there by simply waiting. And it’s the same thing with songwriting – sometimes you need to chase an idea until you’ve written all verses, the chorus, and the bridge before you KNOW that the song has been written.

Being dazzled by the million things that can worry you about your craft. Just trust. Do your best. And before you know it you will be home.

S.

What is Scansion?

As songwriters, every now and again, we hear people saying the phrase “Scansion”. But what exactly is it talking about?

Scansion is another general lyric tool and is particularly important. It’s the principle of preserving the natural shape of language and has a lot to do with getting the marriage of words to music right.

While there are few rules in songwriting – only tools – squeezing in an unnatural rhyme or a set meaning into a line can often undermine the emotional impact of your writing. Conversely, getting the scansion or words to music right will result in a much stronger emotional impact of your song. This might be particularly important if you are writing in a lyric-driven genre.

How scansion works

Each word in the dictionary has a natural rhythm comprised of stressed and unstressed syllables. When you combine words into a line this has a natural rhythm or 'shape'. This means that finding the best line for your song isn't just a matter of figuring out the “rhyme scheme”, but also the “rhythm scheme” of your song. It impacts what happens when we reach for the rhyming dictionary, what choices we make with the possible words we find.

Similarly, each melody has a natural rhythm comprised of stressed and unstressed beats according to where they sit in the bar. Stressed beats are (in a 4/4 signature) beats 1 and 3. Unstressed beats are beats 2 and 4.

When the shape of our words perfectly matches the shape of our melody we have the best chance to communicate the full emotional impact of our lyrics.

How to get the scansion right

I suggest the following three-step process:

1. Figure out the rhythm of the melody

2. Figure out the rhythm of a possible lyric

3. Do they match? If no, try another line or melody. If they match your scansion is good.

Note: step 1 and 2 can be switched.

Example

If we have a melody with a rhythm of:

"da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM"

where:

da = an unstressed beat in the melody

DUM = a stressed beat in the melody

And the lyric we are thinking about using is:

"I know that love can bring changes", which has a natural rhythm of:

"da DUM da DUM da DUM DUM da"

This works well for the first six syllables of the line, but falls apart when we get to the word "Changes". Try saying it with the stressed and unstressed syllables switched around i.e. "da DUM" rather than its natural shape, "DUM da". This is what setting it to our existing melody would want us to do.

So we now have three choices:

1. Live with the imperfect match - this is clearly my least favored option.

2. Rewrite the melody to match our lyric - this can be done by simply adding a note or two or nudging the syllables of our line to land on the right stressed/unstressed beats of our (slightly modified) new melody.

3. Find another lyric that matches the melody - for example:

"A love that turned my life around" has a natural rhythm of:

"da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM"

Perfect.

Questions

Are there lyrics in your catalogue that you feel would benefit from getting better scansion? If you fix it, how does this affect the overall emotional impact of the song?

S.