Learning How Hits Are Made
To learn how hits are made…Recreate your favorite song. It will teach you about song structure, instrumentation, how to construct a melody and some other key concepts in songwriting.
When I teach my music composition class I have my students showcase an artist they like and break down the elements of music that make up the song.
The elements of music are:
- Rhythm
- Harmony
- Melody
- TImbre
- Texture
- Form
All you need to do is analyze your favorite song using these elements to figure out how it was made, sort of like back engineering the tune.
You can do this for the lyrics as well. Study the rhyme scheme, subject matter and arc of the lyric.
If you are writing a storytelling song, use the Hero’s Journey concept by Joseph Campbell. Every movie, book, fairy tale and story follows this concept in some way. The hero leaves the known, goes into the unknown, meets a wise person to guide him, has a symbolic death and resurrects as a new person and returns home again.
If you study your favorite song you may find this structure.
One way to really practice getting good at lyric writing is to write new lyrics to the song. This will give you practice in rhyming and developing your own story.
Check my article on overcoming writer’s block for ideas if you are having trouble getting started.
I hope this brief article gave you some ideas to help you write your own hit song.
If you need inspiration go on over my beat store and search for a genre you like to get you started.