How To Be A Rock Songwriter: Lesson One
HOW TO COMPOSE AN EARLY BEATLES SONG:
- Choose three chords to repeat over and over.
- Let George do a 15-second solo if he's having a good day.
- Sing about love.
- Play a bunch of pretty chords on the piano.
- Let George do some guitar stuff in the background, but on low volume.
- Pretend your lyrics make sense.
- Make a slow or mid-tempo guitar piece.
- Let George do a 60-second solo if he's having a good day.
- Don't even bother pretending your lyrics make sense.
- Convince John and Paul to let you record something.
- Make a complex guitar piece and a catchy riff.
- Throw in a sitar if you feel like it.
- Compose lyrics with six words or less.
- Start with ten minutes of silence.
- Allow some background noise or dialogue to set the mood.
- Come in slowly with a quiet keyboard, guitar, or bass riff.
- Pick up the tempo a bit and add the rest of the instruments.
- Don't forget all the sound effects!
- Add depressing lyrics.
- Add a guitar solo that traverses the entire fretboard.
- End with ten more minutes of silence.
HOW TO COMPOSE A 1970s QUEEN SONG:
- Alternate between complex grand piano parts and complex guitar parts.
- Add a melodious bassline.
- Layer a few million different vocal harmonies, rerecording yourself for each part. Be sure to hit both really high and really low octaves at different parts of the song.
- Pretend Brian May doesn't exist.
- Grow forty more fingers on each hand.
- Use this to your advantage on keyboards and guitar. Make sure that every note is at least three octaves above or below the previous note.
- Play at Mach 3.
- Make up lyrics as you go.
- Make a simple repeating riff. Play during all the verses.
- Make a second simple reapeating riff. Play during all the choruses.
- Go into a lengthy guitar solo near the song's end.
- Sing lyrics about women and alcohol. Don't forget to stick a bottle-brush down your throat first.
- Make a catchy guitar riff. Play it at the intro and bridge.
- Just hit a bunch of random chords during the verses and hit the whammy bar every twenty seconds.
- Midway through the song, tear off into an unpredictable solo using lots if fingertapping. Stop when your bandmates kick you in the shins.
- Take a traditional or classical piece.
- Add electric guitars.
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