There’s a songwriter lurking somewhere inside you, peeking around corners, wondering if it’s safe to come out. Now it is. This course is an invitation to let your inner songwriter step into the sunlight. All it takes is a simple “yes” and you’ll be climbing that windy hill, marveling at the view. If you haven’t written any or many songs, this course will show you an efficient, effective process for tailoring songs to express your ideas and emotions. If you have, you’ll look at your process differently, taking control of aspects of the process you may have not noticed. The course will start by examining the tools available to you, all revolving around the essential concept of prosody. You’ll learn to use your tools to enhance your message—to work compositionally at the same time you’re developing your ideas. You’ll be working both lyrically and musically, though musically it’s not necessary that you either read music or play an instrument. If you play, great, and you’ll be encouraged to play and record your musical responses to the assignments. If you don’t play, the course offers you a number of musical loops to work with. All you’ll have to do is sing your melodies over the loops. Assignments will ask you to post something for peer review—sometimes lyric lines or sections, sometimes melodies, sometimes both. None of it has to be polished. The course is about writing, not performing. Most important, you’ll have a lot of fun.
Boxes: Your Development Engine
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From the course by Berklee College of Music
Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics
338 ratings
From the lesson
The Journey of the Song
By the end of this lesson, you will see how to develop your song idea so it creates an interesting journey from start to finish. You’ll understand your options developing the point of view of your song and will be introduced to the songwriter’s six best friends.
Meet the Instructors
Pat PattisonProfessor
Of course, one of your jobs,
maybe even your main job as a songwriter,
maybe not your main job,
but one of your jobs is to keep your listener
interested in the beginning of the song all the way through the end,
and it takes timing.
You don't have to say everything in your first verse.
In fact, you shouldn't say everything in
your first verse because if you do, then guess what?
The song is over. And then the rest of it is
simply going to be repetition of that same idea.
So you pace yourself as you're developing the song,
and you create a journey for your listener.
Keep your listener interested all the way through the song.
Now, that's what a producer tries to do.
When the producer is in the studio creating the flow of the song,
you have this kind of energy graph that producers are fond of,
where the first verse comes in,
and there's not very many instruments.
And it's kind of low key,
and then you move up to the first chorus,
and there's more energy there.
And then maybe a background vocal comes in,
maybe a cello comes in or something.
And then the second verse,
which moves down a little from the energy of the chorus,
but it's still up higher than the energy of the first verse.
And then the second chorus,
that's when the timpani come in and four background vocalists and so on.
And the chorus rises,
and then you move into the bridge,
which now starts rising,
rising, rising, rising, rising,
and right at the climax of the bridge,
when it enters the chorus,
the London Philharmonic Orchestra,
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, everybody comes out.
Bam! And that's the climax of the song.
Now, that's the producer's job.
But if your song,
if your lyric has everything you have to say in the first part of the song,
then the rest of it is simply going to be propped up by the producer,
where you're saying the same thing over and over again,
the same idea over and over again,
and yet there is nothing that the idea is
adding that's going to match the way that the song is climaxing.
Now, the producer's going to do that no matter what.
The producer's job is to create that journey.
Wouldn't it be nice if the song did the same thing?
So let's talk about the sort of development of that journey,
the creation of a journey in your song.
Let's take a look at these boxes.
This is actually the way I think about developing an idea.
Note, that the first box is small.
It's connected to the second box,
and the second box is bigger.
The second box is bigger because it has the whole room for
the first box plus whatever else I have to say in that second box.
And note that the third box is the biggest of them all,
it weighs the most.
Because it not only contains its own information,
but the first two boxes fold into that.
So here's my first box.
Are you really happy?
I'd just like to know.
That's the song idea.
So, now, we move into the second box.
When you left me, did you know
that that you were going to move in with him and do it so fast?
When I was out on the road,
did you invite him over to your place?
And I'd just like to know.
And so, now, the second,
I'd just like to know means more than the first one,
which was simply "Hey, you look happy."
So that we can say that the second one has gained weight.
And I like that metaphor,
the second time you hear that idea that it means more,
that it gains weight.
And so you can see that the first box, "Hey, you look happy",
has folded into the second box saying,
"Did you cheat on me?", "So, what's up?
Did you cheat?". I just like to know.
And so the idea,
the journey has moved us forward now.
And then into the third box could be something like,
when we first got together, I said it to you.
I said I just want to be able to tell you everything,
and I want you to tell me everything.
I really want this to be an open and honest relationship.
You could have told me about him.
It's not like I would have tried to stop you.
I'd just like to know.
I just like to know.
And so, now, we've moved through this journey of the song with,
I think, at least in my opinion,
the biggest idea of this whole thing about honest relationships et cetera,
being sort of the why of the song,
being the big idea,
being the place that I want to arrive at.
So think about that.
This whole notion of finding ideas is that can gain weight.
How do they gain weight?
Well, sometimes they can gain weight by
moving forward in time.
So let's say that I write my first verse.
My first verse is something like,
I used to be so lonely then I met you,
and, now, things are wonderful.
Love, love, love, love, love,
love, yeah, love, love, love.
Now, I'm not really sure
where that second box is going to be now after I've gone through that.
And so perhaps you can separate them out,
and write your first verse about when I was younger or before I met you,
I was so lonely.
I spent my days and my nights thinking, wishing,
longing, hoping for love,
love, love, love, love, love.
Yes, love, love, love.
And, now, I've met you,
and here we are together,
blissful, sitting under the willow tree, having a picnic,
watching the ducks on the lake,
in love, love, love.
The ducks and us, in love, love, love.
Yes, love, love, love.
We can do this forever.
We'll go through our lives, always,
always in the brilliance of love,
love, love, love, love,
love, love, love, love.
And so there we go, past, present,
future as the development engine of the song,
rather than, as the first version of it,
I was so alone before I met you.
Now, you're here, and we'll be happy forever in love, love, love, love, love.
No place on that song can go,
at least, not easily.
So past, present, future,
an engine for developing ideas.
Or it could be something like,
you are so amazing.
I really love you.
We're going to be so good together in love,
love, love, love, love, love.
Yes, love, love, love.
And so, now, I,
again, really don't know where to go.
But note that in that first verse,
I've talked about you.
I've talked about me, and I've talked about us.
What if we separate those perspectives?
And I start with, you are so beautiful.
Your blonde hair pours over your milky white complexion,
like chicken gravy over mashed potatoes.
Love, love, love, love, love, love.
Yes, love, love, love.
I, I've been looking for so long for
a codependent relationship in which I can do whatever I choose to do.
And yet you will always remain in love,
love, love, love, love, love.
Yes, love, love, love.
Everyone I've ever loved is still with me in the freezer down stairs.
Let us always be together in love, love, love,
love, love, love, love, love, love.
And so here, the perspectives have moved the idea forward.
You, I, we.
So there is an engine for developing ideas
so that don't try to say everything right at the outset.
When you're developing your idea,
take it through the boxes.
How can this develop?
How can this move forward?
And then we're going to be able to work inside the boxes.
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