Using All Your Senses
If we’re fortunate enough to have all of them, we find our way through life using all five of our senses. Every scene that plays out in our daily drama called ‘life’ consists of all five but too often songwriters think in terms of only one or two of the senses.
In our previous discussion regarding detail please note that I listed the details in four out of my five senses. I wasn’t ‘tasting’ anything at the time.
Let’s say the singer in your song is confessing undying love on a summer evening. It’s likely you’ve mentioned how beautiful or handsome your love interest is. You may have mentioned the moon or the stars. Have you mentioned the sound of the cicadas? Have you sung of the aroma of honeysuckle in the air or the way the wind rustles the trees or the way the sand feels beneath the two of you? It’s important to make your lyrics as real as you can to establish the world your song lives in and one of the best ways is to use all of your senses in your lyrics.
More on Melody
Can writing a great melody even be taught? Many people say ‘no’, and I tend to agree with them. One thing that can be taught is identifying what great melodies aspire to, and what our goals should be as songwriters.
In John Braheny’s excellent book, The Craft and Business of Songwriting, he has Cat Cohen write a chapter on melody writing. Cat says that melody writing is based on using the techniques of repetition, variation, contrast, and development. All of these aspects work together in unison to create a great melody.
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Jim Bruno's Songwriting Class 