There’s a saying in most artforms that you can’t break the rules until you know them. This is certainly true in the music industry, as you should first understand things like song structure (more on that soon), the pieces of a song, and genre before you embark on melding them together and crafting something completely original and brand new.
Genre isn’t as important these days as it used to be, but chances are if you’re just starting out as a Songwriter, a great tip is to study other tracks that fit under the style you’d like to make. If you’re planning on writing tunes for the dancefloor, you may not want to borrow lines and ideas from Norwegian death metal bands. You can certainly experiment, but make sure you explore lyrics and listen to lots of songs to create lists of tropes, typical words, structures, and even melodies that are commonly used.
To help find your sound, you can rewrite someone else’s song, according to songwriter Ben Johnson (Charlie Puth, Meek Mill, Justin Timberlake).
“A great way to start is to try to write a song that sounds like one of your favorite songs,” he said. “Then think about what you want to say, or what emotion you want to convey, and then just start singing.”
Goldmacher agrees that this approach can work.
“…I think analyzing songs that you like and that you respond to is a good place to begin, because you can kind of get a sense of what’s working,” he said. “If you’ve already become aware of a song, that means it’s been successful on some level commercially. So looking at a song like that and thinking about why it works may be a good place to start if you really are starting from scratch.”