How To Become A Songwriter And Write Cool Songs Fast On Guitar

And when we’re done, you’ll have more songwriting ideas pouring out of you than you know what to do with.

How can I make such a bold promise about your songwriting?

Simple:

To write cool songs fast...

...you don’t need to know any complex music theory or to be an advanced guitar player.

Yes, you read correctly!

That said, you need to follow a few basic principles that enable you to become a songwriter.

When you understand them, it becomes easy to write songs quickly (and have them sound great).

Ready to start?

Watch this video on how to become a songwriter and get ready to apply the ideas in it to develop your songwriting:

Here are a few more songwriting tips that help you to write cool songs fast:
 

Contrary to popular belief – music theory is not a “set of rules” you must follow. Instead, it is a tool to explain and predict musical emotion. And being able to predict the emotion your songwriting will have on your listeners is a pretty useful skill if you want to become a songwriter, agreed?

Here are some of the ways music theory helps you to explain emotion in music (and how to use this knowledge in your songwriting sessions):

Here are 3 of my favorite music theory concepts that have helped me to write cool songs fast:

- Memorizing the’ feeling’ of each note within a key. Letter names (A F Bb, etc.) mean nothing when it comes to musical emotion (that’s why knowing letter names doesn’t help you to write songs on guitar). The letter names (of notes) change their emotions when you change keys. But the ‘function’ of each note stays the same across all 12 keys.

This is an extremely powerful songwriting insight.

Knowing this allows you to know – in advance – what you (and your listeners) will feel before you play a note. As a result of that, you become better able to write cool songs fast.

Watch this video to see this technique in action:

- Understanding modulating pitch function – the A note over an A major chord functions and feels like the root. But what about the A note over a D major chord? Now it functions (and feels) like the 5^th. And guess what? You can use this knowledge to your songwriting advantage when you want to write songs quickly.

Simply write a chord progression where you play several chords over the same melodic note (and the function of the melodic note changes over each chord). Example: your melody plays the E note and the chords you play under it could be:

C major (the E note functions as the 3^rd).

E major (the E note functions as the root).

F# minor 7^th (the E note functions as the b7^th).

Want to hear what this sounds like in music?

Check out this video:

- Voice leading. Voice leading is the art of how the notes move from chord to chord. When you use this technique to write songs on guitar, your songwriting ideas will instantly sound more “classical” (and more advanced), even though this songwriting technique is quite simple.

Watch this video to understand how voice leading works and use this technique to help you write songs quickly.
 

The better you know your fretboard, the easier it becomes to translate your songwriting ideas (that you hear in your head)  into actual music you can play on guitar.

Here are 2 of the most important tips I have for learning your way around the fretboard that will also help you to write cool songs fast:

- When you learn any scale – practice playing it all over the fretboard. This will not just help you become a songwriter and write songs quickly, but will help your improvising as well.

(By the way, “improvising” is just another (much more advanced) form of songwriting. Since when you are improvising, you are still creating music (i.e. doing “songwriting”), except you are doing it on the spot.)

This means: anytime you learn a scale –  keep practicing it until you have memorized it in all of its positions. Then - and only then – you can learn new guitar scales and apply them to your songwriting.

Watch this video to see how to best practice scales all over the guitar (and improve your songwriting skills as a result):




- Practice finding multiple ways to play the same chord on guitar.

When you learn a new chord, spend some practice time learning to play it all over the guitar. This will dramatically expand your songwriting options and help you become a songwriter faster.

For example: take the simple C major chord. If we remove the basic open fingering everyone learns as a beginner and the C major barre chord - how many ways can you play it on guitar? Could you play it in 1^st inversion? 2^nd inversion? Could you play it on strings 6 4 and 3? Could you play it on strings 4 2 and 1?

The more ways you can play each chord, the easier it becomes to write songs quickly (and to use the voice leading ideas I described above).

Watch this video to get help with memorizing chords all over the guitar:

 

Ear training is one skill that most guitar players who want to write songs on guitar don’t have. Yet you’ll never become a songwriter (much less be able to write songs quickly) if you can’t identify the sounds you hear in your head.

So, how do you practice training your ear and how do you use this skill to write songs quickly?

Here are some great ear training drills that translate very well into songwriting ability and make it easier to write cool songs fast:

1. Transcribing (figuring out by ear) songs, chords, melodies, solos, etc. using your guitar. This is what you’ll be doing when you write songs on guitar anyway – so it is a super useful songwriting-related skill to work on.

2. Sing scales out loud. And not just the major scale either (although you can start there). Also sing the minor scales, pentatonic scales, the chromatic scale, etc.

3. Sing arpeggios (chords - one note at a time). Start with major triads and then move on to minor triads, diminished and augmented triads, 7^th chords, etc.

4. Transcribe music rhythms. This is just like transcribing a melody, but the focus here is on writing down on paper the rhythm only.

The beauty of this training?

You may well come up with songwriting ideas that you wouldn’t have created any other way. Win-Win!

Question: “Tom Hess, I understand the benefit of training my ear if I want to become a songwriter, but my practice time is very limited! How am I supposed to cram ear training into my schedule?”

Answer: Practice training your ear to write songs quickly away from the guitar. For example: do it while driving your car, while taking a shower, while washing dishes, etc. I used to practice ear training in my car while commuting to and from the music college I attended (while I was studying to become a songwriter). Those car ear training sessions paid off BIG time and helped develop my ability to write cool songs fast.

 

One of the biggest songwriting challenges you’ll have is writer’s block that comes from the instinct to judge your songwriting ideas too severely and talk down to yourself.

The solution?

Tell yourself you’ll write songs on guitar that are “for the songwriting trash can”.

In other words: you’ll write songs on guitar (and write songs quickly) focusing entirely on the QUANTITY (not the quality) of your songwriting ideas.

This songwriting advice does 3 things:

1. It makes it impossible to get writer’s block as you try to write songs on guitar.

2. it helps you come up with new songwriting ideas you’d never get any other way. (And every so often, you’ll come up with a songwriting idea you’ll actually like. That’s a bonus.)

3. It helps you focus on a specific element of your songwriting skillset and sharpen it (so in the future you can write cool songs fast and be happy with how they sound).

This advice works surprisingly well for beating writer’s block when writing songs and helps you get unstuck if/when you DO get songwriting block.

The irony is:

When you lower the bar for the quality of your songwriting ideas (as you practice to write songs on guitar) – you often come up with more and better ideas than you would if you tried to force “perfect” songwriting ideas out of yourself.

To be clear:

There is a BIG difference between “songwriting” and practicing to become a songwriter.

Songwriting is something you do when you are coming up with the final product. (e.g. You’re trying to write songs on guitar that will end up on your next album.)

And practicing to become a songwriter?

This is where you work to refine your songwriting skills one a time (same way you practice to refine you guitar technique on a challenging part of a guitar solo).

You practice creating songwriting ideas (even if all of them suck) – hence the name “writing for the songwriting trash can”.

All of this is simply training your songwriting muscle. Just like any other muscle – your songwriting ability will get stronger over time.

And when you’re actually writing songs (vs. practicing your songwriting) – the time you spent writing for the trash can will pay big dividends.




 

Your average guitar player who wants to become a songwriter only has one way to write songs on guitar:

Pick up the guitar and come up with songwriting ideas.

And while you can certainly write great songs on guitar this way, this songwriting approach is very limiting.

A better idea?

Write songs on guitar by stating with the other elements of music.

Like this, for example:

Write Songs On Guitar By Beginning With Melody First

• Consider the melodic contour (shape and direction) of your melodies.
   
• Is there a clear climax (high point)? Where should it be in the melody?

See an example of this approach to writing music in this video:
 

Write Songs On Guitar By Beginning With Harmony (Chords) First

• Choose a tonal center (key) to begin with. You don't have to stay in that key for the entire song, but choose a key to start with.
   
• Think about the progression of chords (how chords change). Where are the moments of tension and resolution? Are these moments placed in the best order?

See this video for an example of how to use chords to build and resolve tension when writing music:

Write Songs On Guitar By Beginning With Rhythm First

• Experiment with variations on your favorite rhythmic patterns.
   
• Take a common rhythm pattern and play it backwards.
   
• Create something totally new. Force yourself to disallow any of your favorite rhythmic patterns to creep into your new song idea.  

The more songwriting processes you have at your disposal, the easier it is to become a songwriter and write cool songs fast

Now that you know how to become a songwriter, the next step is to develop your general guitar playing and musical skills, so you find it even easier to write songs on guitar and become the musician you’ve always wanted to be.

I can help you with this in my personalized Breakthrough Guitar Lessons. I'm going to show you how to transform your playing from being just “ok” to being really awesome (even if you are stuck right now).

Imagine just how much better your guitar playing will become when you know exactly what to do to reach your goals and have almost unlimited feedback from me on your journey.

Hundreds of my guitar students are experiencing nearly lifechanging breakthroughs in their playing as we speak. You can be next. To begin, click the button on the banner below to learn more.

---

About Tom Hess: Tom Hess is a guitar teacher, music career mentor and guitar teacher trainer. He teaches rock guitar lessons online to students from all over the world and conducts instructional live guitar training events attended by musicians from over 50 countries.

Ready to finally reach your musical goals? Take online lessons for rock guitar players.

Forward this article to your friends