First of all, we have to agree on the definition of a song. For our purposes in Samurai Songwriting, a song is an art-form and a form of communication made up of melody, harmony, rhythm, lyrics, and form — the form of which includes a title, chorus, verse, and potentially a prechorus and/or bridge.
We can say a song is good when it achieves its purpose as defined by the artist.
Let’s also discuss what a song is not. A song is not the instruments used, that is called the arrangement. A song is not the sound of the recording, that is called the production. A song is not the vibe or mood of the final performance or recording, that is called the song’s style. These tools, arrangement, production, and style, are important to the communication of the art-form but they do not make up the core of the art of songwriting. If you write a good song, it will most likely be able to sound good using many different arrangements, productions, and styles.
A good songwriter is willing to let go of the song and allow a producer or arranger to cut it up, polish it, and change it in whatever way the producer or arranger sees fit. While it is true that a good songwriter may have a final vision or sound in mind, it is also true that unexpected alterations or directions could actually make the song better. So a Samurai Songwriter knows when to let go. A Samurai Songwriter neither holds a song too tight nor too loose.
Central to the idea of a good song is the song’s purpose. A song is meant to be listened to. Therefore, the mind of the listener is taken into consideration and used as inspiration while writing and making final decisions. Songs do not exist in a vacuum. If, when your song is listened to, the proper listener response is elicited, then you can say you have written a good song.
Sometimes, a song is meant for one listener. Other times, a song is meant for many listeners. How you write each of these songs will be different. A Samurai Songwriter knows this. A Samurai Songwriter knows how to craft a message that will be heard and understood by an audience of a specific age, sex, or other demographic.
Rather than define strict rules for how to create a good song, a Samurai Songwriter writes, gathers feedback, and adjusts until the desired result is achieved. This is the way of the Samurai Songwriter.
ric bonnell says
“We can say a song is good when it achieves its purpose as defined by the artist.”
i think we can also say a song can be good when it doesn’t achieve the original purpose as defined by the artist. there are plenty of good songs that are intened to reach the masses as originally intentioned by the artist and yet never do because of the nature of the music industry.
Graham English says
Thanks for your comment, Ric. You are correct that a song can be good if it doesn’t reach the masses.
Let me make two points. One, reaching the masses isn’t a very good purpose for a song and that isn’t what I meant when I wrote that. A song’s purpose has to do with what you want to communicate to the listener. Writing a hit can be a desired outcome, but that’s not the same as the song’s purpose as I have defined it.
Second, for the purposes of Samurai Songwriting, we are dealing with “the art and precision of writing hit songs.” That should help us clear up our intention from the start. We will be focusing our direction on what makes a song a hit and how we can model our songwriting after other hit songwriters.
I hope that clarifies things.
ric bonnell says
hello graham. all things in music are one of the most subjective topics around and are probably the most intellectually stimulating topics too. 🙂 especially with, what is a ‘good’ song? what is a ‘hit’ song?
“One, reaching the masses isn’t a very good purpose for a song”
“Second, for the purposes of Samurai Songwriting, we are dealing with “the art and precision of writing hit songs.â€
i don’t mean to be argumentative graham, but aren’t the above statements opposing views? how can you write a hit song without it’s very purpose being to reach the masses?
in the light of dealing with the ‘art and precision of writing a HIT song’ as you say this group is about, any HIT song is 100% gauged by the masses of people that BUY THAT SONG and make it commercially successful. it is also gauged by the amount of industry people that want to license and use that song. which means the MASSES have to agree that the song is somewhat ‘GOOD’ (according to somebody’s definition) as they have bought it and made it a commercial ‘hit.’ which, i would think, reaching the masses is the ONLY purpose for a hit song, because without it getting before THEM, the masses, then there is NO HIT.
“One, reaching the masses isn’t a very good purpose for a song”
in my understanding, reaching the masses is the ONLY purpose of a hit song, because WITHOUT THEM, there is NO HIT. (and yet, those MASSES are manipulated by the music industry.)
HIT songs don’t necessarily mean they are GOOD songs.
GOOD songs don’t necessarily mean they are HIT songs.
To me, there are many HIT songs that are not good songs, and there are many GOOD songs that are not HITS.
graham, how do you define a ‘HIT’ song?
ric bonnell says
please don’t take my comments and view points as being a prick.
my purpose is to make sure i am going in the same direction as everyone else…understanding the ‘monster’ the same way.
that way, the ‘monster’ can be attacked methodically and with precision within the realm of music.
Graham English says
No worries, Ric. You’re being very respectful. Let’s see if I can respond to all of your comments.
“all things in music are one of the most subjective topics around”
Not everything musical is subjective. Music theory is rule-based and very objective. So we can agree on musical conventions that are considered to be true. Where subjectivity comes in is usually to one’s response to music. That’s where we, as musicians, have to be very flexible and tolerant. What I like is different from what you like. And believe me, I have plenty of “guilty pleasures” – songs that I listen to that break all the rules. 🙂 But we can still agree that a 7th chord is a 7th chord.
“how can you write a hit song without it’s very purpose being to reach the masses?”
As I define the song’s purpose, it is the message you wish to communicate with your song. Therefore, writing a hit song isn’t a purpose, it’s an objective. Let’s break it down. If your song’s purpose is to be a hit, then you might start with a song title, “Please Buy Me!” The verse might go, “All I ever wanted is for you to like me.” 🙂 Make sense?
Now, as a ground rule and a focusing intention of Samurai Songwriting, one of our objectives is to write a hit song. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it will actually be a hit. The odds are stacked against us there. But we are still using some of the hits of past and present to model when we teach and write here at Samurai Songwriting.
I’m sure you’ll find that many of these songwriting techniques will be useful for songs that aren’t intended to be hits. As I said before, you might be writing a song that is intended only to be heard by one person. You can still use hit songwriting principles to write that song.
Also, every rule or principle that we learn or teach will be broken at some time. That’s just the world of paradox that we live in. Everything I say can be true in one situation and false in another. That being said, we operate by the principle learn the rules before you break them. The rules, or fundamentals of music, are only there to help.
So to make things clear, there is a difference between a song’s purpose and a song’s objective. For the purpose of focus only, we will be concentrating on songwriting principles that have been gleaned from hit songs of the past and present. It’s true that not every song on the charts can be considered good by these standards. These are the exceptions to the rules. Which is why, again, we learn the rules before we break them.
I hope this clarifies things. I really do appreciate your comments and hope you continue to contribute to the discussion.
David Niall Wilson says
As more of a fiction writer than a songwriter, I’m struck by the parallels of this discussion to dialogues we’ve had on writing at places like http://www.storytellersunplugged.com.
Art,I think, in whatever form, is meant to take some concept or idea and make it concrete – to display it in a fashion that will evoke similar reactions in a variety of viewers, listeners, or readers.
The “hit” idea is very much like bestsellerdom for authors…two schools are prevalent in most discussions, those who believe you need to write to the big audience and try to get a “hit” and those who believe if you achieve the actual purpose of your art – to bring a concept to life and share it – that the “hit” status should follow, or that at least the work will be more enduring.
Interesting to see it applied to song writing. I have written some lyrics, and a few basic songs … but as it was when I started writing books, I’m not familiar enough with what to do with that work to get it out to the world to pursue it much..
DNW
sha says
hello Graham, i just came accross your Blog page.
and i found it interesting.
I am a student with SAE institute of sound engineering London.
and i am working on my essay project.
Its about ” the defination of Good music”.
i am looking for some personal views from different Music engineers, song writers and Enthusiast like you to include in My project.
I will be highly delighted if you could write me
on my email address Mailshagwom@gmail.com.
Thanks for everything.
Kind regards.
sha
Cody Joe says
I would like to know more on the “rules of songwriting”
wayne stacey says
not sure what to say ,apart from what ever we discover it has to be real in order to touch the soul, there are no rules to songwriting only influences
Graham English says
“apart from what ever we discover it has to be real in order to touch the soul” sounds a lot like a rule to me. I don’t have a problem with the word rule and I like to use it for clarity, to draw a line in the sand. Obviously, rules are man-made and can be broken any time and rules can be made up as you go. And I rather like the one you made up.
Anyway, thanks for the comment.
Matt Searles says
I’m not totally sure how the definitions sit with me.
Some of this comes down to the type of artist I am.. I have a background in.. well painting and graphic design, which somehow fundamentally effects how I think about music making.. where I’m making music on this blank canvas, and its all about that canvas..
In painting there are roughly 2 directions.. realism and formalism.. in formalism we call attention to the medium it’s self.. in realism we try and make you forget the medium.. this same kinda thing repeats in other art forms..
In music I think of the ultimate realism.. well in terms of recording, where the days when it was all done by how you positioned performers in relationship to the microphone.. The recording was then “a record” of an actual sonic event.. and formalism is probably electronic music.. and today production is pretty far on a formalist direction at least in so far as we tend to search for the perfect sonics, and all the rest of it… its a very manufactured thing.. though we don’t often think of it as calling attention to the medium.. so maybe that’s a kinda complicated subject but…
I don’t approach composition in a traditional way. I have that Brain Eno esk attitude “but the studio is an instrument” or.. the sound and the composition are tightly interwoven for me… and I feel like if I should attempt song writing in a manner that was like.. attempting to really make something like a hit song.. I would certain approach it from that direction.. Which.. I think is at least ought to be a valid approach? But doesn’t seem to be from the point of few of how you’re talking about this stuff.
I wonder what your take on that is?
My feeling is that it’s all about the creative process, and there’s really no right or wrong.. that you can go in any direction, and if you travel long enough along that path you’ll get some place interesting. Secondly, there are ramifications to the conceptual models we use in our creative processes…
Like.. “what should be the roll of music theory in song writing?” Clearly many great songs have been written by people who don’t have any kind of traditional background in traditional theory.. and there are people whom.. are so attached to a certain way of dealing with theory that.. well lets say “all there notes are perfect” but.. perfect can be boring.. So.. in a way.. you could say my approach was wrong, but maybe wrong is good?
And still.. well I’m attempting to write a song now.. which might be my first real swing at song writing at least 10 years.. and when its done.. it might be that we could look at it and go “ok, here’s the song, here’s the production, and someone could produce / realize it in an entirely different way” so that.. at the end of the day.. it maybe it’s just a different path between the same two points.. that you and I are sorta talking about the same thing.
I will say that.. to my mind.. one of the important parts to consider of if a song is successful or not is, at least to me is “is it great?” If its not great, who cares. To me greatness is the highest aim one can have in anything.. and I think it’s really all about commitment to that aim.
My sense of the notion of greatness is that it’s transcendent.. transcendent of our categories and how we define stuff.. Its in a certain way resonant with the mysteries of being.. if we where to speak with a language.. sorta pre Nietzschian twilight of the idols.. sorta aesthetic thinking.. all our values would be thought of as having there foundations in the church.. of monochords and music of the spheres.. and philosophical / theologically speaking.. its the same transcendence.. or I’m sorta talking about the same thing… and then that’s the big thing with God.. that “he” is transcendent of our definitions.. both being and non-being.. or that that is part of a definition of God.. not that we have to believers to wrestle with the concept
Err, that was a bizzar rat hole..
Anyway.. so our definitions and categories serve pragmatic aims.. it is by them, after all, that we have our reality concepts (in a Freudian sense), and has everything to do with how we can interact with reality.. ( I hope you can excuse my high-fluetent sorta way of trying to articulate myself here ) So that.. they dominate our destiny in the same sorta way that our pathology does.. the two being highly intertwined. ( I think “the secret” was sorta a budget way of trying to get at this )
In the most ideal sorta situations.. our categories and definitions ought to be alined with our aims and goals.. and I also think the question of “what are the right aims and goals for us” is an important one to be asking here somewhere.
I think about this in a kinda Nietzschean / Jungian sense.. where in our wills.. are sorta many in life. In terms of the phenomenology of our experience of these wills, they have a kind of independence from our conscious self. That is.. our wills take on a hierarchical way of relating to each other and whatever is driving us at any given moment is an effect of how they are constituted in that moment..
If our categories and definitions are to serve a set of aim that are by there nature in constant flux.. well.. that presents certain challenges.. which is why making trying to make the foundations of all values in something transcendent sorta makes a certain pragmatic sense.
To give this a more obvious relationship to song writing.. we will often speak of “the song that writes it’s self.” Psychologically this is like a dialectical conversation between the will constellation and the association complex at the center of whatever it is you’re trying to make your song about.
Err, I’m reading over what I’ve written and realizing it might be incredibly difficult to fully follow.. and that it might be a little on the crazy dense side..
Umm.. ok.. well I guess I’ll just leave it here.. and hope it was an interesting contribution to the conversation? ( I was recently told “when attempting to hit on a young women in a bar I should not bring up Nietzsche” though in point of fact I wasn’t actually trying to hit on anyone, and the women I was talking to was actually like 47 but um.. I think the person telling me this might have had a point none the less LOL )
Graham English says
Eno tried to bring the process that you talk about and the result of pop music together. He said, “As a listener who grew up listening to pop music I am interested in results. Pop is totally results-oriented and there is a very strong feedback loop. Did it work? No. We’ll do it differently then. Did it sell? No. We’ll do it differently then. So I wanted to bring the two sides together. I liked the processes and systems in the experimental world and the attitude to effect that there was in the pop, I wanted the ideas to be seductive but also the results.”
This post made a clear definition of what a song is but it’s really only one definition of many. But I believe we have to put some lines in the sand once in a while just to get to a common starting point. Which was another great function of Eno’s Oblique Strategies: to create limits and help with artist direction.
You bring up transcendence and I think that’s an important part. Rules are conventional. But the artistic drive is very trans-conventional. This post is mainly to help people go from pre-conventional to conventional. I’ve always believed that if you don’t know the rules, it’s harder to transcend them.
But thanks for the comment that’s long enough to be worthy of its own post! 🙂
alley cook says
hi graham, um i want to write a song but i can’t get any good idea’s for a title I see all these singers and i want to be a singer. Do you think you can help?I want like a love bright romantic song about falling hard for a guy.I hope you can help me.
Graham English says
Start here: Writing from the title.
Naomi Mendlesohn says
I have some songs I have written and i am wondering how do I get them to be used?
Graham English says
Start here: Music Publishing 101