I need help writing lyrics and stuff

[Ocular]

so yeah, I'm working on a nonpony collab that needs some vocals (it just sounds kinda empty without them) but both I and my collab partner are terrible at writing lyrics.

Here's a little clip of the song: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g5lgemxvdxoh5 ... %20WIP.mp3

(starlight is the title for now, at least until we get lyrics)

if you're interested in helping then hit me up, my skype is "theocularinvisible"

[Ocular]

kind of a euphoric feeling, I guess? like, something you'd hear in a Seven Lions song :P

[itroitnyah]

Find your rhyme pattern based on how many lines you want.

Do you want to have 4 lines? 6? Do you want the rhyme pattern to go ABABAB? ABBA? How you set up the lines will really help to add or release certain emotions or whatever.

Like, ok.

I loved her so
I loved her so
I loved her so

See how there are an uneven amount of lines in that verse/chorus thing? Try singing them. There seems to be a problem, and the problem is that this verse wants to continue. It doesn't feel resolved. Now try:

I loved her so
I loved her so
I loved her so
I loved her so

It feels much more resolved, almost like it's saying "Alright, let's stop here". Use this to your advantage.


Ok, now rhyming. There are many types of rhymes that you can use, and the way you use them can be incredibly helpful as well.

Perfect rhymes are perhaps the best known because reasons. Perfect rhymes are like "pack" and "stack". There are three requirements to make a perfect rhyme, and they are 1) Identical vowel sounds 2) Identical sounds following the vowel (if any) and 3) The rhyming syllables begin differently. It sounds elementary and it is.

The next set of rhymes that you need to know about are the family rhymes. They essentially work based on how we form consonants. There are three categories of family rhymes, the plosives, fricatives, and nasals. The plosives are the consonants that "explode" out of our mouths. "P" and "T" are good examples of this. there's a chart that goes along with this.

b -> p
d -> t
g -> k

You'll also notice that the consonants listed next to each other sound like each other (try "buh" and "puh"). The next group of family rhymes require us to create friction between our lips, teeth and/or tongue in order to form them. "th" is a good example of this. Obligatory chart:

v -> f
TH -> th
z -> s
zh -> sh
j -> ch
The "TH" and "th" are hard and weak

Just like the plosives, the fricatives next to each other also sound alike. Finally, the nasals. These are easy to guess, since they're the consonants that you use you nose to sound out. "mmmmm" is a good example. Another obligatory chart:

m
n
ng

You'll notice that the nasals don't have other consonants on the other side of them, and that is because they are all companions. In fact, with all three of the categories, all of the consonants on the same side of the arrows are companions, and if I am correct (not 100% sure about this), but they can be rhymed much like their matches on the other side of the arrow, so "z" can be rhymed with "TH".

Ok, before we wrap up rhymes, I should let you know that there are other forms of rhymes, but I don't know them because I stopped watching the Songwriting course videos before they explained the other rhymes (although I have them all downloaded. I'll get around to watching the rest of the class, I swear!). The point of learning the perfect and family rhymes is because the less perfect the rhymes are, the more unstable the rhyme becomes. This will be a big helper in pushing emotions. In a love song about a break up, you can use more family and other unstable rhymes to help subtly display emotional breakdown, which breakdowns are generally unstable, haha.


Ok, before you go, one more tip on composition.

There are 6 fundamental questions you need, or should answer in your song.

1. Who is it Is there a central character? A group of people? A "narrator"?
2. What do you have to say Is there a problem? A celebration?
3. Why are you saying it If the problem is a break up government shut down, why did it happen? Why did you win a car?
4. When is it Was this a while ago? Current? Going to happen in the near or far future?
5. Where is it At you house? In the city? At your girlfriend's house the White House? On a lake?
6. How does it all come together Pretty much put the puzzle together so that the lyrics form the story you're trying to tell.

With #6, you need to put the story together well. You can't talk about being in love with your girlfriend in the first verse, breaking up in the second, and the first time you met in the third.

Put all these things together and then your songs will hold some more emotion and get the message across better.

[Raddons]

middle school textbook response.

Can I see some of your lyric work in action?

[itroitnyah]

Sure thing:

I feel that I've been lost all my life
No reason to strive
Feeling useless every single day
Why can't I be
What everybody else can see in me (hold out "eeeeeee" until drop)

Chorus:
I can see into infinity, see into infinity
I can see into infinity, see into infinity
I can see into infinity, see into infinity

And I've been searching until now
When I realized
That this is what I'm meant to be
When I look into the mirror
This is whaaaat I should see

Chorus 2:
I can see into infinity, see into infinity
I can see into infinity, see into infinity
I can see into infinity, see into infinity
I can see into infinity, see into infinity

Now I've been following far behind
Got time to make up
Be the successor of what my dream can be
I Was lost before, but
Now I can see
In a thousand years my destiny

It's not some grammy winning piece, obviously. This was my first attempt at writing vocals (and when I posted a thread on here a while back I didn't receive much critique beyond somebody saying it was good), so here's a bit of a breakdown of my thinking while writing these:

With the first verse, the rhyming pattern isn't really apparent because this song wasn't really meant to be some typical pop song type of thing. The only lines that really rhyme in any of the verses are the last two. However, I set up the verse in an uneven number of lines with Long/Short/L/S/L* so that the verse would have both a finished and yearning to continue feeling (the * explains line lengths below, forgot to mention in my middle school textbook response, haha). The chorus isn't that complex, just repeats itself with an uneven amount of lines so that it has a feeling of continuing. The third verse follows the second verse (with the whaaaaat in the last line making the line seem longer than it is). Chorus 2 is of course the final chorus so it has an even number of lines so that it has a feeling of the song wrapping up. With the third verse, I made it 6 lines in a L/S/L/mid lengthI wrote this a bit ago, I don't quite remember what I was thinking with this line/S/L so that it has a more solid feeling of being finished. It was originally my intent to try and use family rhymes on all of the lines in each verse excluding the final two so that there would be a feeling of unstable, seeing as the whole emotion of the song that the lyrics portray is an unstable one.



* Ok, I forgot to explain in my original reply that line length also plays a role. Explaining it quickly, if you do a long line with a short line following it, the two lines will feel like it's supposed to move on:

There's something I see when I look back at you
Sets my heart aflutter

And then if you do a short to long line, it obviously feels more finished and complete:

And now I know
You are the one I will truly love forever

[Ocular]

I love you.

This is amazing.

[Bloo]

Yes but I wanna HEAR the lyrics D: SING FOR ME OTHER BLUE

[Injustrial]

I've been writing lyrics and poems for about as long as I can remember, and I recognize the need to learn the theories behind it. Itroitnyah did a great job of providing a summary of things to keep in mind.

My advice would be: Start somewhere. I prefer to do the chorus at first, since that's the part that's being repeated. The song should be based around the message in the chorus to feel "themed." Listen to the rhythm of the bassline or the lead, and try to write a simple sentence that follows that rhythm. Write the next sentence. Pull random nouns in and see how they sound in conjunction with the theme you're building. Wanna make rhymes? Do it. Don't want do rhymes? Go ahead, but beware that you're going to have to make the rhythms really stack up to compete against the catchiness of good rhymes.

Does line 3/4 not have enough syllables? Try to skip one, making it silent. Or drag a vowel out to cover the missing "word-beat" If used correctly, this can provide an interesting break and is mostly used to build up to a final line hammering the point home.

Next up, the verse. Keep your chorus in mind and use only the bassline as a rhythmic guideline. Try to keep all lines within a certain set of rules. Don't go ABAB Rhyme one half of the verse and ABBA on the second part, unless you've also changed the melodies in the second half.

Once every part of the lyrics have been written down and set up, we have a sketch and begin the polish-mode. Avoid overly repeating the same words and using the same rhymes. The start of verses can often begin with the same 1-2 words to provide a uniform feeling, but bear in mind that this mostly works in rhythmic-heavy music like Industrial, Metal and EBM.
Make sure you let the rhyming lines end on the same number of syllables. Otherwise it often feels like the song stutters. Try replacing "filler words" like "the, a, so" with something more interesting. Adjectives are almost always better use of a syllable.

EVERY SYLLABLE IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT, BUT THE START AND THE END COUNT EVEN MORE

Check sites like Rhymezone if you're completely stuck