When it comes to storytelling and composing, good lyrics can help us immensely!
When you hear a song that stays in your ears for a long time and you cannot get enough of it, one of the most common reasons is, especially in popular music, lyrics. A melody going well with a phrase can have such a strong effect on us that we might not be able to imagine the same sentence without the accompanying melody for a long time.
Which one comes first: words or melody?
So do we need to write good poems to be able to write good lyrics as well? Well, there are a lot of songs that are composed particularly to fit well-known, marvelous poems and they can still give a slight sense of disagreement. And there are many examples of songs with much simpler lyrical dimensions but with great integrity between melody and words. I personally think that this is more about the ability to tailor lyrics and melody well enough to sound like they were born together, regardless of the order of their creation.
Listen to the best!
There are many great lyricists you can check out! Some of them are also the composers of the music and some of them are famous for writing great lyrics to existing pieces or solos. My personal favorites include: Paul Simon, Jon Hendricks, Joni Mitchell, Billy Strayhorn and Cole Porter.
Especially if you are a singer like me, you might realize that with good lyrics a melody sometimes becomes much easier to sing. Occasionally you have the chance to hear the lyricists themselves performing the piece. Then you can get a better insight about what they were imagining as they were writing.
Here is one brilliant example from Billy Strayhorn where he sings his own composition Lush Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7bGtR_ETJE
Especially in the verse you can notice many details: one example is that the repetitive parts in the melody are carefully used to show a different attribute of the same thing: “…very gay places……Those come what may places” and “…had sad and sullen gray faces… With distingué traces”.
Try using words for your own benefit
You can enhance a melody you composed with words that fit it. Or you can use lyrics as your starting point to find a musical form for a new piece.
Try coming up with exercises for yourself where you:
- Compose a simple melody that lasts maximum four measures.
- Try to sing your own melody and record yourself while singing.
- Note down your own choices of sounds and syllables for each note.
- Try coming up with words that resemble those sounds and keep either a storyline or a semantic integrity
In many good examples lyrics tell you great stories that can belong to many topics. This is a very helpful tool if you are not sure what part of your song needs to be accented, repeated or emphasized. Look at the words, they will show you the way to go!
Learn more about using lyrics as your tool for better expression, musicality and storytelling with singing lessons in MyMusicSchool.com!