A few weeks ago, I blogged about whether or not the church should be writing new material. In my mind, I decided yes, write new music with the focus being on Jesus and with a taste that your congregation enjoys and can engage in. If you come to the same decision that I did with this, then there's the next step: actually writing the song.
I mentioned that it's a great thing to have people that you can consult with. For me, that means getting with other people on lyrics. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no wordsmith and if I write something totally on my own, the words sound like something a 3rd grader would write. Actually, a 3rd grader would probably do better at this than me. With words being the area that I need help in, after I let a few people who are better at this than me make some changes, it can become something that's actually quite usable. I've found that some sort of group writing usually produces better results in most cases. However you want to approach group writing is totally up to you. When it comes to music, I'm a musician first and songwriter somewhere much further down on the list, so I have to utilize other people to start with something.
For others, they may be excellent at coming up with a great starting point for a new song, but have no idea what they want for a melody, or don't know where to start with adding music. In those cases, they may consult with other musicians to chord the song out or come up with hook lines and such. For me, that's the area I do well in. My gift in songwriting may not even include coming up with any words at all, but rather arranging something that someone else wrote and creating a finished product that can be presented.
No matter what your area of strength or weakness may be, there's one piece of advice that I've found to be extremely simple when you think about it, but so helpful and resourceful when used. That piece of advice is this: listen to good music. I know, simple. I was going through an online recording class when I heard a mix engineer say that. He was applying it to mixing final products, but when I thought about it, it can really be applied to the start, finish and anywhere in between of songwriting.
There's a great variety of modern worship music available to us now, so it certainly isn't hard to find songs that match a style you're after. Listen to those songs. Find out what is working and what isn't, then apply what you've learned. When recording and mixing, it's easy for me to get so involved in what I'm working on that I can't remember what other music sounds like. So, if I have trouble figuring out what I want a snare drum to sound like or how I want a rhythm guitar mixed, I'll stop what I'm doing and just go listen to good music. After doing so, I'll open my project back up, apply what I've learned, and see how it changes the sound. I'm confident in saying that this ALWAYS produces positive results.
So, if you're writing a song and somewhere along the line you get stumped, listen to good music. If you decide to write something, listen to good music before you begin. Good music that's already out there will be a great key to what is going to work and what people will enjoy. Happy writing!
Peace,
Justin
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