Songwriting Software – How To Write Better Songs

I am releasing Song Sharpener tomorrow all across the United States & Canada to anyone who is willing to take the 5 minutes to download it (provided you have high-speed). You can download the software for free, 100% absolutely free! This is extremely important to me because I’ve been thinking about it, planning it, trying to decide what I should include, what I shouldn’t include, and what the point should be.

Song Sharpener has four (4) primary features that would benefit a singer/songwriter. Check it out.

Notebook:

When you are starting out with songwriting, or you are not an idea machine… you will probably want to write your lyrics down or you save them into the computer, in Microsoft Word or something of the sort. Well not only is Microsoft Word bulky, but it’s not cool for songwriters, plus you can’t get instant help you need. The Notebook feature in SongSharpener will allow you to write, save, edit, print your lyrics out in a quick an easy fashion.

It has the same features as Windows notepad – it’s simple, it’s quick and it’s easy. I would like to add more functions that would allow you to separate and organize the lyrics of different sections (verse,chorus,bridge) of your song. I’d also like to add a function in the notebook that allows you to Tag lyrics – by a certain kind of idea or theme. I think with these kind of options, saving your songs on the computer is much better than writing them in a notebook because you can use other 3rd party software to find certain lyrics and sort find songs by ideas or words.

Power Writing Tips

Links directly to the Music Industry School blog, which you are currently reading…I may change this to a back-end (hidden) page. Power writing tips will be the#2 best thing the program offers because as time passes it will feature face to face interviews, case studies, and more hard earned, street action theories, tips, and techniques about songwriting and the music industry at large.

As much as anyone loves music, the fact is that writing is more than writing, singing is more than singing, and performing is more than performing. There is the other side of business, of managing relationships, of managing doubts, of managing fears, of feeling rejected, of feeling powerful, of feeling successful, of feeling isolated, of building confidence, of knowing where to find the best lyrics. When you reach the point where you realize you can not do it alone, you hit a major milestone in your music career.

Power Writing Tips shares the insights from top notch songwriters, producers, and up&coming singer/songwriters who are on their way to being superstars. How should you submit your music to a record label that doesn’t accept unsolicited material? How should you write a song to spec? How much should you expect to get paid if it’s your first writing gig? Where can you go to pitch your songs? These are all things that are covered in the Power Writing Tips section.

500 Most Popular Words

There are trends in the Music Industry and regardless of whether they are good or bad; some trends must be followed in order to achieve commercial success. That does not at all suggest or imply that you are a copycat, but the commercial music industry is governed by people who are copy-machines and can only make decisions based on what’s previously been done. Their idea is to make the most success with minimal risk; so that means straight hair is in, light-weight pop is in… soulful curly haired artists are out. (Melinda Doolittle / Jordin Sparks)

This section lists 500 of the most popular words used in songwriting today, this list is frequently updated and is compiled from:

1. Pulling the Top 100 songs from Billboard
2. The top selling albums – Nielsen
3. Accessing the lyrics for each song, one by one
4. Taking a word count for each song
5. Taking the calculated sum of repeated words combined from the songs
6. Compiling those words in a list sorted by individual popularity

Song Vault

The #1 feature of the Song Sharpener at the moment is the song vault which features 10 instrument tracks that can be used to practice lyric writing. The instrumentals range from ROCK to Hip-Hop, and includes quick tips on writing to the selected track. Lyrics, notes, and ideas entered in this section can be copied over to the Notebook section by just clicking on the copy to notebook button.

The idea behind the song vault is that if you practice writing to Rock songs, it will also strengthen your speed and ability to write to a R&B song. The elements and ideas from different genres of music can easily be transferred to other genres. Usually what separates a country song from a R&B song is the structure, (minor) instrumentation, and vocal style and vocal production that’s used.

Overall

At first glance it’s a simple program with simple features…but I know that if you really want to write better songs, it’s all a matter of practice and studying what works, trends, and being creative and witty. The fastest way to do that, is to try your hand at writing with other styles. Plus, that’s going to be the best way to keep money in your pocket!!!

I talk to songwriters all over the world on a daily basis and most of them are good, but it’s rare that I meet songwriters who are flawless and dynamic from word to word. With most bands & artists, the whole song might contain only one good line of lyrics in a song that’s approximately four (4) minutes long.

I don’t think Song Sharpener is an end-all solution because we’re still working on it – there are a few things I am going to add to the software version, some I won’t comment on… you’ll have to wait. But this is version 1 – Have fun with it, and please let me know what you’d like to see in future versions. To download the application go to http://www.musicindustryschool.com/song-sharpener

One of the things that I will add soon is a rhyme feature. If you have other features, requests that you’d like to see or features you want eliminated, please let me know.

IE if you want to get more tips about copywriting, let me know. If you want to have a rhyme feature, let me know. What would help you most.