Within the next three month, I will give you a
little expertise of what makes a song in total good and give you some tactics
to write a good song. To the occasion of our record release, I make some
examples with a couple of our songs from the record.
In this section I want to talk about the
criterias which make a song to me actually good. To state clear, I always take
the perspective of a musician and not a customer.
To me a good song is a song I can hear all the
time and never get sick of hearing it over years. Of course there aren't a lot
of songs like that. But quite a few exists. For example one of my alltime
favorite songs are ”I'll be there for you” (Bon Jovi), ”Nothing else matters”
(Metallica) or ”Can't help fallin' in love with you” (Elvis Presley). But what
makes these songs to me so perfect.
First, they share all a lyrical message. Sure
these mentioned songs are all love songs. But their content of the message is
something I understand, I feel what is intended to say and know the feeling.
That means a good song needs to get you lyrical.
Second, the kind of how the song is
structured. Of course basics are always intro - vers - chorus - vers - chorus -
solo - chorus. But sometimes it is cool and a freshly diversification to
structure a song differently though the majority of songs you'll write will
have the basic structure. So the structure in these three songs are different
than the usual. ”I'll be there for you” for example has got three different
vers structures, ”Can't help fallin' in love with you” is totally different
than the basic structure. ”Nothing else matters” differs at the end with the
solo part and the outro. In sum, a variety of structures in song composition
makes a song compared to the majority unique and interesting.
Third, the melody is to me the core of a good
song. A melody should be easy to listen at, be recognized anytime and immediately,
and have the potential to want you to sing along with it. Well, compositing a beautiful
melody is not too difficult because mostly it's about for to six chords which
are arranged just differently for each part of the song. Take our Song ”Red
Roses” for example. The chords for the verses are C - Am- F - G. Instead the
chorus takes the same chords but just arranged else (C - G - Am - F). So the
melody is actually simple. The important factor though is how you arrange the
instrumental part around that simple melody. Take a clean or accoustic guitar
for vers, add drive for the chorus. As a singer, the most important instrument
is the vocal. To close the circle to the lyrical aspect, a good rock song
depends on how a singer matches its voice to the lyrics and of course the
melody.
This matching ist the fourth aspect. Out of a
song, you should be touched of what the words ment to the singer. The
instrumental part and the melody supply this feeling. So it's the part of ”I'll
be there for you” where Jon and Richie start to sing: Baby you know my hands
are dirty. That part gives me always creeps.
Sure, everyone has its personal view of a
perfect song. But the aspects of these good or even perfect songs are those I
tried to point out.
On the way to create a good rock song, in the
following sections I will show you some tricks and give some advices to get you
to write a good rock song.
To be prepared, check out our record on
Cheers to you and stay tuned
Enjoy Seasplash!
