Writing Lyrics and/or Melody (continued)
Here’s how I approach songwriting. It’s in a similar way.
I start in my ‘safe space’, which happens to be a room in my house. Excluding co-writing, songwriting is a lonely and solitary endeavor. It’s just me with a blank sheet of paper and a guitar in my hands. I usually warm up by maybe playing a cover of one of my favorite songs, or I might play one of my older compositions. It usually takes around 15 to 20 minutes to get in a creative frame of mind. I then start playing. Having played guitar for over 40 years, I know what will ‘work’ together and which won’t. (Don’t concern yourself at this point if you’re concerned about your own ability to put chords together that work. I’ll have some suggestions soon for you that should help!)
I then stumble around a bit. It’s during this time that I start to find a rhythmic feel to what I’m going to write. Is it going to be an up-tempo rocker, or will it have a more of a mid-tempo feel? Will it be a slow ballad or maybe a waltz? How about a Reggae or Ska influence? It can go in any number of directions.
After settling on a feel and assembling enough chords to have either a verse or chorus or part of either, I start working on the melody and the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll have a theme that I’d like write about. It could be anything from an idea I had the other day, or something I read in the paper that morning. More often than not, I start creating the melody with no idea what subject I’m going to write about.
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Jim Bruno's Songwriting Class 