ldubs246

I also don't really see how you can make the observation that a complete story is actually being told with just an example verse, either...

Correct, rhyme schemes don't tell stories, they comment on the feelings and emotions the imagery of the story is supposed to present, much like film score. True, if your lyrics suck you need to work on them first and not their structure, but I pulled those lyrics off the top of my head in about ten seconds; they're not supposed to be Grammy award winning, they're only used as an example.

There's nothing arrogant about what I just taught you, and maybe you should re-read the initial comment that you posted. Maybe if you worded your criticism differently, you wouldn't have come off as arrogant in the first place, and if anything, you're the one being arrogant here. Hypocritism and arrogance lead to lack of substance, which you have obviously shown here. I'm not going to waste my time with you anymore.

Thank you for your kind comment sir! Allow me to educate you. Lets analyze John Mayer's first album, Room For Squares, as opposed to his third album that Gravity's on, Continuum. Both albums not only contain songs of entirely different genres, but of structure and depth. Almost all the songs on Room For Squares are very complex and contain visual imagery, even more so than those of his third album. Some examples are his hits, Why Georgia, Your Body is a Wonderland, My Stupid Mouth and No Such Thing, along with every other song on the album. All these songs show stories, and don't just tell them, through extensive and unique use of, wait for it, visual imagery. You get images in your head that keep you attached to the song in every one of those songs and beyond. Writing for your first record is a completely different style of writing from writing for your third, but you obviously don't know that, so allow me to educate you further. That part about that verse? It contains a fundamental rhyme scheme that's used to best represent unstable, unresolved and lost lyrical concepts, such as not understanding why his lover just left him. It's a much better way to illustrate those lyrics concepts than just the extremely boring A-A-B-B rhyme scheme that you pitch here. The rhyme scheme I used, A-B-B-A, ends in an unstable way that catches you off guard by resolving the first rhyme last, therefore keeping you wanting more, whereas A-A-B-B is used for stable concepts. Not understanding why his lover just trashed his place and left him is a very unstable concept that A-A-B-B does not work well for. You want your listeners to feel the same way you did when that happened, and the best way to do that is to, almost like film score within a song, comment on the images being shown by using the correct rhyme scheme. That's why John Mayer has seven Grammys. John can get away with writing a song like Gravity that's more about a feeling than an experience because he's already three albums in, and isn't trying to prove himself anymore, and so can relate on a feeling-to-feeling basis with his audience thats not so unheard of rather than pitch unique concepts full of imagery that say, "Hey, check this out, bet you haven't heard anything like this before." I hope you understand. Thats song is also 10x more of a showcase of guitar skills than a lyrical masterpiece anyway.

You got it man! Thanks for checking it out.

It all depends on where I'm going, and how long it takes me to find the absolute best way to say what I want to say. Then I have to sugar coat it too to make it appetizing to the listeners, as well as fit it to my music so it depends. The shortest time period it took me to write a song was four hours; the longest a couple weeks. I don't take years to write songs because, if everything is there, then it makes no sense to wait that long. Just my .02

Blog post from my blog at ldubsmusic.blogspot.com about the importance of visual imagery. Check it out! I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise, Enjoy! ONE OF THE worst things you could possibly do when writing a song is write in a selfish fashion, or a fashion that doesn't engage or provoke thought from your listeners at all. It's not enough to just write relatable content about your feelings during a specific relationship; you gotta provide vivid descriptions, speechless moments and eye-opening images to your audience, else your song's string of mortality will be cut by the fates of boredom, causing it to plunge into the depths of the ever-so-crowded underworld of genericness, and that's exactly what you want to avoid. Too many aspiring songwriters have fallen victim to image-less songs, pouring their hearts out into their verses but not even bothering to develop them into an outsider's standpoint because they're so taken back by how well they think they just expressed themselves. Nobody knows how you felt during that time except you, so it's imperative to make it interesting to those who, quite simply, aren't you. Let's jump into a few examples to demonstrate how this works. Take a look at these orphaned lyrics: I don't understand What happened when You turned to stone And left me on my own Not a lot of visual imagery there huh? Other than a possible image of a statue due to a decent metaphor, there's not that much else to it. Broad verses like this one have their places in songs, but when 90% of your lyrics are like this, your songs will generally suck. Sorry to be so frank, but it's the truth, especially if you're trying to draw in new fans or get the attention of labels. In other words, if you take your songwriting seriously and plan to get things out of it in return, you need to be unique. Seriousness and uniqueness make a killer combination when they're forced together in the same room because they both lead to dedicated, quality work that fosters ideas and concepts that are 100% your own, therefore saving you from genericness. Those are the kinds of songs you want to write. Let's take a look at how we can better these lyrics, but first we have to place the verse. Let's say this verse is the opening verse of the song, the very first lines of lyrics that you hear. In that case, this verse is terrible. Why? Because the first verse of every song should always be one of the best, if not the best, verses in the song because it's job is to instantly grab the listener's attention and make them want more. This verse is too cliche, generic and boring to do that job even remotely well, and it presents a normally unstable concept of confused love loss in a stable way, so let's see how we can change that. Take a look at the revised edition: These pictures don't hang the same When their frames are gone And I sit here alone Watching you drive away Definitely a trillion times better than the first one, giving you an infinite amount of different interpretations to draw from, but the most important reason why it's better is because it's how I chose to specifically visualize and express the idea of love loss. Regardless of how you interpret it, a unique concept is presented to you and therefore gives you unique mental imagery, keeping you attached and wondering how I may present other concepts to you throughout the song's future. See that? It's important to see the differences between the generic, sucky version and the revised, unique version I presented; one presents a unique concept and way of expressing the topic, while the other one has more-than-likely been used a billion times before in some similar manner. The importance of these differences? These words will give people an entire basis on how to judge your work, and if it's something they're used to hearing thousands of times over in all the popular love songs of today, they're not even gonna bother. Just think of it like this: each verse that you write holds your songwriting future in its hands, and it's up to you to decide whether or not you value that future enough to put the time and effort into putting the best possible content you can in them. What's a great way to ensure that you do this? Visual imagery.

Hey everyone. I thought I'd share this with people on here since Songwriting is what this pertains to the most. I've been a musician/songwriter for almost 10 years, and have decided to start a Songwriting/Musical blog to share my knowledge with the world. I do Song Analysis where I analyze the lyrical and musical components of songs down to the tee, as well as Artist Analysis and posts about any random musical ideas, theories or expressions that come to mind. You can find it over at ldubsmusic.blogspot.com. I'd really appreciate it if you checked it out! It's still relatively young, so I need as many viewers and readers as I can get. I'm sure you'll find something of use over there. Anyway, that's it for this post. I hate to make it purely Self-Promo, but I know people on here will find it of good use. Thanks!