►► Download the 20 Ways To Start Writing A Song Cheat Sheet here: http://songwritertheory.com/freeguide/

In this Bonus episode of the Songwriter Theory Podcast, we're continuing to address your biggest songwriting struggles directly by responding to more of your responses to my survey. We'll be discussing struggles such as:

- I Can't Get My Rhythm + Rhyme Right!

- I Struggle To Write Lyrics That All Work Together

- Opinion: Songs Shouldn't Have A "Message" - I Struggle To Connect Verses + Choruses

- I Struggle To Pick The Right Chords For The Right Feels

- How Do I Start A Song?

- How Do Intentionally Write Songs With Certain Emotions?

- What Kind of Songs Should I Write First?

Transcript:

This is part seven of responding to your answer to my question of what your number one biggest songwriting struggle or challenge is. Let's talk about it. Hello friend, welcome to another episode of the Songwriter Theory Podcast. I'm your host as always, Joseph Galla. Honored that you would take some time out of your busy day, your busy week to talk songwriting with me. And welcome again to another bonus episode of the Songwriter Theory Podcast where we are talking about your answers to the question of what your biggest songwriting struggle is. If you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide, 20 Different Ways to Start Writing a Song. This is a struggle that comes up. We might get to this question today actually, but somebody asks about, "Hey, I struggled figuring out where to start with songs." Not sure if we'll get to it in today's episode or not, but whether you're just somebody that sometimes wants to get out of your creative box a little bit more or you're somebody who struggles to actually start writing songs and not even just being original with starting songs but just starting in general, this is the guide for you to kick writer's block to the curb because writer's block sometimes comes from staring at a blank page, staring at your instrument and just being like, "I don't know. I don't know what to do next." But starting our songs in different ways can be a great way to overcome that, and this free cheat sheet gives you 20 different ways to start writing a song. SongwriterTheory.com slash free guide. First response for this bonus episode. Dear Joseph, songwriting is a very excellent form of literature and philosophy. I agree. As a result, I enjoy English literature such as short stories and memoirs. Songwriting is very special to me and my friends. The tricky part is the rhythm and rhyme. So let's address that first. So when it comes to...so with rhythm and rhyme, because you paired them together, I'm mostly going to assume that you're talking about the rhythm specifically of words and or the melody, aka meter. So the tricky part is meter and rhyme. First thing on that, because I've seen enough lyrics and had enough questions where I know that I think I need to say this, probably more often than I do, but your lyrics should not exist or not be made to serve an arbitrary rhyme scheme. Your lyrics do not serve a rhyme. Your rhyming or lack of rhyming should service and serve your lyrics. So you should never be, for instance, let's say you decide on a rhyme scheme that is A-B-A-B. You should never be significantly altering your lyrics or using corny words you don't really want to use. I'll pick on Night and Light. I've used it in one of my songs. There's nothing wrong with Night and Light. I've used it at some point, but you don't want that to be a constant go-to. If every single one of your songs has Night and Light, it's like, all right, come on. So if you've picked that as a rhyme scheme, A-B-A-B, and you're significantly changing what you actually want to say just in order to fit that arbitrary rhyme scheme, I think we've lost the plot when that happens. Because ultimately, nobody gives a rip whether your song rhymes or not. Just in general. I would argue in the scheme of all things lyrics, rhyme is towards the bottom of what's important. So to your tricky part is the rhythm and rhyme. Worry way more about rhythm, aka meter, than rhyme. Because to take it to the extreme, which is a good way to test any form of logic, but to take it to the extreme, if you had a song where every single, you did not rhyme at all, or a poem where you did not rhyme at all, not a single thing rhymes, not even family rhymes, or consonants rhymes, no rhymes at all, but you paid attention to meter, you could have a great lyric. You could have great lyrics. But if you reverse that and pay no attention at all to meter, your meter is just all over the place. But your rhyme scheme is perfect. Nobody will notice or care that your rhyme scheme is perfect because nobody will be able to see past or hear past the fact that your meter is all over the place. Now when I say meter is all over the place, I don't mean that you have some slight alterations in places. I don't mean that your syllable counts aren't exact, even though your emphases counts are exact so just for instance, take common meter, has four emphases three, four, three, which often comes with a syllable count of eight, six, eight, six, but doesn't have to. We talked about this in a previous podcast. I think the example I used was I have to go to school has the same meter as I have to go to the school. Now I tucked another word in there that's unemphasized to the school instead of to school, but that's the same meter because the emphases are still the same. They're on the same syllables, the same number of emphases. There's just one unemphasized syllable tucked in, which in the scheme of a song, totally fine, totally fine. It happens all the time. It's not imperfect. It's great. It can work marvelously, especially if it needs to be there. If your meter is all over the place, you might as well be speaking the way I am in basic prose where there's no real sense of meter at all, then your lyrics, they're not even lyrics. They're not even lyrics. I guess my first recommendation is don't pay attention to those two things equally. Get your meter right and if you can, use rhyme as a supplemental part to your lyrics where you make your lyrics even better because of rhyme, great. Because rhyme, I think should be viewed that way. Number one is say what you mean to say in your lyrics and get the meter right. And again, meter right does not mean exact with syllables and everything, but try to be as exact as possible with emphases or at least really close and you're good. And then for rhymes, to actually find rhymes, especially if you're looking for perfect rhymes, which would be like night and light where both the consonants and the assonance or the vowel sound and the consonant sound both match, rhymezone.com is a great way to go. If you're looking for lasso-vert rhyming, like family rhymes or things like that, I don't have a website recommendation that's going to just be on you. Although my recommendation is lean, for the most part, I would argue that ABAB rhyme scheme, especially if it's throughout a song, is too much. If maybe in the chorus of your song, one of the main points of your song, you have an ABAB rhyme scheme, great. The rest of your song, do like XA, XA at most because if there's too much perfect rhyming going on in a song, that's usually where it starts to get cringe and feel like everything is just serving the rhyme. So get the meter right. Worry less about rhyme. Moreover another problem is chaos, such as theorizing and being absent-minded. The challenge is that there are a lot of romantic lyrics and there's pain and sadness. However, rock and roll and blues are archaic. That's interesting. Rock and roll and blues are archaic. I don't think any musical genre is archaic and even if it is, you can bring it back. There's that new movement of like, Bardcore, which is like Bard style music. I don't even know what era that's from. 1500s, 1400s, 1200s, I don't know. Really old style music. Old European style music. But they do it for like, Down With The Sickness. It sounds like that. So any genre that gets archaic just comes back. So don't let that, I don't know if this is what you're saying, but don't ever let, "Oh, that genre's played out." Or, "That genre's heyday was 30 years ago." So bring it back. I mean, right now, seemingly half of pop music is just 80s round two. I mean, a lot of Dua Lipa stuff is like that. A lot of the weekend stuff is like that. We're getting towards the end of my pop knowledge here. But I've heard so many songs when I do have the, unfortunately I'm subjected to what is now pop radio. So much of it is, even, I like the 1975. They're a guilty pleasure of mine. And a lot of their songs are very 80s inspired. So anything that you think is archaic, it all comes back. You can breathe new life into something that maybe is actually archaic. But anyway, as a result, the time of day and such saliences as, wow saliences, big word, as country and folk music make poetry pretty. The melodies are always the fun part, but the saying is valid that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, for sure. Nevertheless, these forms from the 1980s forwards are very popular. Making money has been new investments. Moreover, I think new songwriters are cool. Yeah, okay. So I think that was the end of the question, implied question part. So Rhythm and Wrath. Yes, get the meter right, get the rhythm right. Mostly paying attention to emphasize syllables. Easy example again is forever. If you just listen to the word forever, you can hear which syllables are emphasized and which ones aren't. It's forever, not forever. It's hard to even say that. Or forever, it's forever. So the emphasized syllables, that middle one is the ee, ee, right? It's for, not emphasized, ee, emphasized, and ver, not emphasized. So just listen f