Four Chords and Lies

The truth is that most songs employ more than a few chords, and contain plenty of fictional information in their lyrics.  I understand the general idea of the quote “3 chords and the truth” by some old country songwriter is a charming way to describe a successful approach to writing songs.  Harlan Howard, the Dean of Nashville songwriters, was describing what he thought was the essence of country music.  “Keep it simple and honest” would be another way to sum it up.  

It makes for a great t-shirt, no doubt.  It’s what you buy as a gift for the songwriter in your life.  As a matter of fact, I own one, and my wife bought it for me for my birthday last year.  I’ll get into more matters of fact later in this post, as well as the opposite of those types of matters as this post’s title implies.  Even if you’re not a country fan, you’ve heard it before.  It’s been used as the title of books, movies, and albums.

As a songwriter, and music fan, I get it.  If a song’s lyric has some truth in it, it means you can relate.  And if its music doesn’t have too many changes, it resonates.

I’ve written my share of 3-chord songs, and many of them contained what I believed to be the truth at the time, but I’m here to argue that if all songs followed this formula, we’d be bored.  I’d like to think I offer some variety in my music.  Some of the lyrics were inspired by real events and experiences that happened to me in my life.  At the same time, I know that you can only take so much Scott Cooley in one sitting, despite that variety.

I’m like that myself as a music fan.  Even though I love the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, for example, no matter how simple or truthful the music seems to be, there’s a limit to how long I can put up with any band’s music in a single listening session.  They each offered considerable variety in their catalogs, ranging from the easily understood to the complex with gibberish, and any of it can be highly appealing.

The Beatles could craft amazing melodies without many chords and deliver them with addictive harmony vocals and straightforward love subject matter.  They transitioned to some nonsense lyrics with long progressions later in their career.  Led Zeppelin’s extended jams and awesome riffs were delivered with virtuosity while borrowing lyrical concepts and cold hard truth from the blues masters.  Sprinkled in were some short and simple songs fictional fantasy content.  As great as these two bands were, despite the variety they offered, after a couple hours of listening to either, you’re ready for something different.

Isn’t it great we can move on to other artists and other types of music experiences, then return with renewed appreciation after a break?  I also love Bob Dylan, but my tolerance threshold is a little lower.  His harsh vocals and long stream-of-bs lyrics, which surely contain countless outright lies, wear me out faster despite the music not containing many chords, and are quicker to grate on the nerves.

Even with complex classical or jazz that is purely instrumental, I get sick of it in approximately the same amount of time.  Maybe we all tend to crave simplicity and believability, and maybe as a songwriter, combining the two is a worthy recipe for success.

The Chords

I’ll tackle my thoughts on the chords part first to get it out of the way.  Although I love some Mozart and Miles Davis, I generally don’t care for overly complex music.  One of my guilty pleasures is the song “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies – a fictional cartoon band – 3-chord bubblegum pop at its finest if you ask me.

With complex instrumental, classical, jazz or even prog rock, the music isn’t memorable in the same way as a 3-chord country tune.  You remember being moved by it, how it kept you engaged, how you maybe got lost in your own thoughts, and how you felt entertained by it, but you don’t necessarily come away feeling like you could hum or whistle all of it from memory.

On the other hand, if you listen to “I Fall To Pieces” by Patsy Cline, you’ll have the melody and hook in your head afterward.  It’s not only simple chords-wise, it’s also simple from a structural perspective:  just two verses, no pre-chorus, no chorus, no bridge.  Harlan went for a plain composition, for sure, but it worked (albeit from someone who could sing the phone book and make it interesting).

You might want to believe that the more unique chords a song has, or the more complex chords a song has, the better it would be.  Logically you might conclude that progressive rock is more impressive than other types of rock and roll because it’s more challenging to write or to play on guitars or whatever, but sometimes you’re more impressed with how a short and simple song can be so satisfying to listen to.  In my way of thinking, doing more with less is harder.

Most of my songs have at least 4 chords, although quite a few only use 3, come to think of it.  I don’t think I’ve ever written one with only 2.  A few could have as many as 7, maybe even as many as 8, but I pay no attention.  The average, off the top of my head, might be 4 point something, like 4.5 maybe, without any calculations, I guess.

You can google popular songs with only 1 or 2 chords, and there a surprising number of them.  To name a few, “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles, “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin, and “Jambalaya” by Hank Williams have 2 each; while “Run Through the Jungle” by CCR and “Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley only have 1 each.  I think.  Not sure about any of them though.

The number of chords in a song has little impact on how good a song is.  When I was first teaching myself how to play guitar back in the early 90s, I knew other guitar players who had sheet music and guitar books they let me take a look at.  I remember “American Pie” by Don McLean, “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen all seemed to have an overwhelming number of chords, like more than 10 each.

Of course, anything in the realm of jazz typically has a ton of chords as well, like a lot of songs by Steely Dan, for example.  Chords aside, music with very static melodies can make for a fun listen, and just because a melody is dynamic and soaring and complex, doesn’t necessarily make it more pleasing to the ears.  I’ve read that recently, songs have become simpler over time, and with the data available via technology, I can’t refute that.  The point is that the number of chords or melody notes has hardly any bearing on a song’s popularity over time.

The Lies

Now onto the good stuff.  Write what you know, they say.  I’ve done some of that, to be sure.  I write about skiing and sailing, for example, in part because I have direct personal experience with each.  However, I also like to just make things up purely from my imagination.  In a way, this is the essence of creativity.  You’re writing something new, inventing things that haven’t actually happened in real life, pretending to be someone else.  In another way, art is supposed to imitate life.  But that imitation can be in the form of straight-up outright lies about things you have no first-hand knowledge of.

On a related note, read also this other post I wrote about 8 years ago that I just remembered:  https://blog.scottcooley.com/2017/11/creative-writing-about-ones-own.html entitled “Creative Writing about One’s Own Creative Writing Habit (Lying about Lying in Songs),” in which you can compare this one with how I felt about a similar topic back that long ago.

Tons of songs, including tons of my own, are about love and relationships.  I’ve been happily married for almost a quarter century, but you might not be able to guess that from just listening to my songs.  I write lyrics from the perspective of other people quite often, stepping in to a character.  Although most of my songs are not story songs, I have written quite a few.

One of my favorite quotes ever is Mark Twain’s “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”  A lot of my lyrics are brutally honest and I’ve been told people can relate to them easily.  On the other hand, a lot of the content is just completely made up.  One can’t always write historically accurate songs, or only write songs based on actual news events.  I mean, one can, but none do.

There’s no question that lying seems to be on the upswing in our society, and one could argue it’s becoming more acceptable, which is scary.  Wrong direction in my opinion.  Back when I was single, I admit I enjoyed lying about myself to sound more impressive, in the context of pick-up scenes in bars in my 20s.

Trying to impress people by stretching the truth can actually work.  Insecure people do it.  I’ve been guilty of it, and it tore me up inside.  For other people, however, it doesn’t bother them at all.  Some people can sense bullshit more easily than others, but it’s surprising how many people out there in the world will just believe what you tell them about yourself.  This is dangerous, and bad form.  Politicians are known for having this tendency, and people like that Alex Jones guy took it to the extreme and made a lucrative career out of it for years.  You don’t want to become like him.

You could re-frame how you think about people who make up fake news, and chalk it up to a form of entertainment, but when it becomes harmful, it’s not cool.  Yes, I used to lie more than I do now, and I try to limit my fibbing to the white variety now, and only on a rare occasion.  In a job interview, or simply when marketing yourself as a solo artist, it can be hard to resist the temptation to represent yourself in the most favorable light.  I know I’ve significantly curbed taking that much creative license as I’ve gotten older, and I’m proud of that, but outside of my real life with family and friends, I still allow some leniency in my pursuit of writing songs.

In this day and age, truth has little impact on what people believe.  Unfortunately, fact-checking and moderation are increasingly no longer deemed important priorities, while claiming something is fake news without any fact verification is an acceptable excuse in response to criticism.  Lying can become a terrible and devastating habit.  Our president is a compulsive liar who started a social media platform called truth social that is full of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation.  More than half of us think there’s nothing wrong with any of that.  (I’m not saying I’m one of them.)

An important aspect of a good performance is that it is believable.  A great singer can make you believe a song even though they didn’t write it.  They make you feel what they feel as if they wrote it, as if they really mean it, as if they are singing from experience, and you sense it’s from a place of honesty.  Great actors are no different.  I know you know what I mean.  If you didn’t know Otis Redding wrote RESPECT, you would never imagine Aretha Franklin didn’t write it herself upon hearing her cover version of it for the first time.

So being fooled is good entertainment.  Getting caught up in a fantasy is appealing, whether by reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a song.  We all have the need for an escape from reality from time to time.  You can allow yourself to be easily manipulated for enjoyment while being smart enough to know it.  You can adopt the words of others, get behind them as if they are your own.  Greeting cards are popular in society for a reason.

Not everyone can write songs, and most who can are way better at it than me, but nonetheless it’s become a primary hobby in my life.  It’s fun, and if you’re like me, “4 chords and lies” would be a more accurate way to describe it.  It’s an honest hobby, there’s nothing illegal happening, and some people have told me they find some of my songs to be entertaining.  Some of those entertaining songs contain lies, and although not to the extreme of Randy Newman, some are from the perspective of me pretending to be someone different than who I really am.

I’ve previously blogged about how the use of music recording technology can be on the verge of feeling like cheating, and just because it’s become commonplace, doesn’t mean it’s all good.  I don’t want to achieve anything in my life that involves cheating or dishonesty.  I’ve had some advantages, but the accomplishments I’m most happy about are those that were the result of my own hard work, often “doing it the hard way”.  The beauty of writing anything creative, on the other hand, is the ability to be original and convincing, but not necessarily factual.

There’s also a lot of heartfelt, real, true, authentic stuff in my songs that express my actual thoughts and feelings about things that have actually happened to me, and that involve real people in my life I’ve run across.  There’s some degree of truth I suppose in any song.  Completely made-up stories can still be revealing of some truth about the author.  Until my tell-all autobiography comes out, of course, I’ll never reveal who the songs were really about!  Better to keep people guessing.

Even more actual songwriting advice from Scott Cooley

My most recent post before this one contained some songwriting advice that I thought people might like to read, and like we bloggers sometimes do, I re-read my own published post recently and then thought of a couple more pieces.  Since more tips have now occurred to me since that previous advice post, I thought it warranted a follow-up, so welcome to part two of what I’m now calling my “experiences with the craft” series in which I impart some wisdom.  In other words, and to paraphrase Lebowski-esque words from movie character The Dude, new shit has come to light, man, that you’re not privy to…yet, but that’s what you pay me for.  These are just, like, my opinions, man.

I’ve been informed by some readers that some of my similar posts have inspired them in the past.  With limited natural talent (or acquired singing or instrumental skill), and no music-related education or formal training of any kind, my “figure-it-all-out-on-your-own,” self-taught perspective has been helpful and interesting to those approaching creative musical pursuits from a similar background, so I’ve been told.  Further, my understanding is that I can explain what I do in a way that makes others less intimidated about giving it a try or not giving up.  

You have to want to do it, and for mysterious reasons, soon after I started teaching myself how to play guitar in 1989, I wanted to write a song, so I did.  I’ve been doing it ever since.  I’ve always found it to be more enjoyable than just learning to play other people’s songs.  The writing of songs is a mysterious thing to do, especially for the self-taught musicians out there, but hopefully something you read here will make it seem less mysterious for those wanting to do it and/or get better at it.

Way back in 2013, I posted this somewhat related one simply entitled “How To Write Songs” https://blog.scottcooley.com/2013/09/how-to-write-songs.html that might also be of interest.

In my last post - https://blog.scottcooley.com/2025/02/actual-songwriting-advice-from-scott.html, I emphasized the following “tips to keep in mind”, re-summarized for you here in a handy takeaway list:

1. Listen intently to what makes great songs by others great
2. Buy the basics – acoustic guitar, computer, audio interface, microphone, MIDI keyboard, etc.
3. Google “song parts” or “song structure” and learn what each is
4. Google “common song forms” and attempt each type
5. Google “song rhyme schemes” and attempt each type
6. Use a free, online rhyming dictionary, regular dictionary, & thesaurus as needed
7. Google “chord families” and refer to table for writing progressions in a key
8. Strum a guitar progression while you whistle/hum/nonsense-sing a “dummy” melody
9. Replace dummy melody with the singing of your lyrics
10. Record your own songs and covers to learn how to improve writing
11. Use a word processing app like Word for editing efficiency
12. The idea for the song (if a song with lyrics) is important
13. Don’t get bummed when only 2 out of 10 songs you write are “keepers”

Another important tip that just occurred to me is:

Live with your songs for a while.  Forget about them, then revisit them.  Give them time before you make a hasty judgement call on their “keeper” status.  Here’s why:

When you just finish writing a song, and you get a bit of that feeling that it magically came together somehow, you’re amazed and proud.  It’s a great feeling if and when it happens.  It can be a rare occurrence (see #13 above).

Inevitably, you think the song you just wrote is a lot better than it turns out to be later on.  It’s not a bad idea to just shelve it, set it aside, and move on to writing other new songs.  It’s good to have several you think are pretty good now, and keep revising that list.  New ones you write will knock others off your top five list, or whatever.

So, in other words, if you have some to compare it to, it may not be as great as you originally thought.  I’ve finished songs that I self-graded in my mind with a B+ or some rating, and a few months later after listening back, realize that compared to the others in the recent batch of new songs, it’s really only a B-.

The opposite can be true as well!  Sometimes you can surprise yourself three months down the road when you re-listen back to one you only gave a B+ to and realize it’s one of your best-ever and bump it up to an A- or A.

It’s a good idea to finish writing a song, think it’s awesome and everything, then wait until you even play it again.  Maybe do a first take on your phone, wait three months, then get out your guitar and play it again.  I rarely do this, but it’s probably good advice to play your song several times before you actually record a studio multi-track version of it too.  You want to sound comfortable with it when you record it, but you also want it to sound fresh, which is a conundrum.  

Then, give it even more time after recording a proper version of it.  It may be one of your top contenders for release now, but you may change your mind later.  Again, it’s hard to do, but you may even realize you can re-record it and make it even better.  I never do this, but probably should.  The problem is you sink so much time and effort into the multi-track version that you dread having to start over from scratch and throw away all those parts of tracks that you nailed.  Even more reason to get comfortable with it via practice before ever recording it in the first place.

Get a stockpile built up of contenders for release on your next album, and keep writing more.  It’s way easier said than done, but it’s a great strategy.  Some that don’t make the cut may see the light of day on a subsequent release, possibly after further revision, when the muse is on vacation.

Songs are like your babies, your creations, you made them, and out of pride you want others to hear them, even the ones you didn’t rate that highly.  It’s hard to make the judgement call.  You need some quality control.  On the other hand, in this day and age of the self-releasing independent artist, why not release your Cs and let the world be the judge?

It’s so tempting in the excitement of a song being new to get carried away and prematurely release everything as a single upon completion.  I’m just saying give it time to breathe, decant that wine before you pour the world a sip.

Yet another tip I’m introducing in this post is:  

Like I said in my last one when I said “singing matters,” I’m also now advising that melody matters.  The two are somewhat related.  Whether you start with a melody, then find a supporting chord progression for it, or start with a chord progression, then write a melody over the top of it, it’s often one of the most important things you do as a songwriter.

You can write some lyrics that, when read alone, are maybe not that interesting on the paper or electronic document.  Singing them with the right melody, however, can transform those words into things of beauty.  It can really bring out the emotion and power in them.

Rules.  There are some arguable rules around this aspect of writing songs.  If you have a chord progression first, the melody notes you might choose are likely to exist within the chords being played at the time, so there’s that.  Generally having verses with more static melodies and choruses with more soaring, dynamic melodies is a combo that can be pleasing to the ear.  There is a thought that minor is sad, major is happy, etc.  “They” say you “should” always include humor, detail and irony, for example, and on and on.  I won’t get into these, but there are tons of them online available for free that you can check out at your leisure.

I said “arguable” because these can all be broken with success.  Countless examples out there.  Still, these are good to take into consideration.  You can google many more such tips from the supposed expert advice-givers out there.

• There are wildly popular songs with lyrics that don’t have much melody at all.  Hip-hop and Rap come to mind here.
• There are wildly popular songs with lyrics that have great melodies despite not having many chords at all.
• There are wildly popular songs with lyrics that no one understands, often because the melodies are great.

Melodies, hooks, beats, grooves, riffs, etc. can all make songs awesome whether the lyrics are intelligible or not.  One could argue the lyrics are the least important part of a good song and not really be wrong.  

You can bend your singing of lyrics to fit a melody, you can change the syllabic emphasis until it works within the time/space available, sometimes editing the lyrics along the way to make it happen.  Or, you can craft a melody based on how you read the lyrics to yourself in your head, which I do a lot, then build everything else around it.  Just reading them can conjure a “dummy” melody in your mind that you can translate with your voice or instrument.

With all that having been typed, set it all aside in your mind for a moment.  File it away as two more pieces of songwriting advice from Scott Cooley:  Patience.  Melody.  Both important.  Lyrics, maybe not so much…arguably.  They are to me though.  I have to like them to finish a song.

Now I’ll tell you my alternate opinion on melody and my lyrics-first approach.  The wrong melody can wreck a great lyric. Absolutely.  Been there, done that.  That said, I almost always like to start with a complete song, lyrics-wise, before I set the melody in stone.  It’s just my preferred method to my madness.  Some necessary tweaks – to either the words or music – will inevitably present themselves, and as I’ve said, it’s always a little bit of both in no particular order as a back-and-forth, give-and-take process between lyrics and melody until you finalize a song anyway.  

I’ve done it every which way, but I really need the lyrics to be good first.  Who is to say what makes a good lyric or melody?  You is (are).  All songs have a melody.  Music scholars can probably explain why some melodies and lyrics and songs are better than others.  Popularity can tell you something, as can ranking lists from reputable sources.  God Only Knows by the Beach Boys, Imagine by John Lennon, Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke, Respect by Aretha Franklin – most agree these are great songs. It's not possible to listen to all the music in the world in your lifetime, so you need curation.  Ultimately, it’s only your opinion that matters.

And my alternate opinion on patience is that sometimes you just know a song is and will always be one of your best, immediately after you write it, so go ahead and put that instant keeper on the top of your list, record it, place as the first track on your next album, make it a single, get it out there ASAP.  Don’t die with the music in you, as they say.  Congratulate yourself, because as aforementioned, it’s a rare treat to have this happen and it’s why you try in the first place!  

The you that just wrote what seems like a masterpiece shouldn’t be discouraged by the you that just listened to it again with a lower opinion three months later when experiencing déjà vu.  Enjoy the highs, and don’t forget to stay patient during the low points of your creative journey.  You might be right to seek progress over perfection, but no one just keeps besting themselves with each new song they write until they die.  

A third and final (for this post anyway) piece of advice from me, a totally unqualified non-expert giver, would be this:  Don’t compare yourself to others.  That song you just decided was an A+ for you might not have ever made the cut on a Beatles album, but it doesn’t matter.  As so many have said, comparison is the thief of joy.  Write and release songs that made you happy.  Chances are they will make some other people happy too.

So add these to the numbered list above that comprise Scott Cooley’s songwriting advice tips:

14. Finish a song, forget it for a while, then re-listen to avoid overenthusiasm when fresh
15. Melodies are more important than you might think, likely more important than words
16. Instead of comparing and competing, please yourself first, if you like it, others will too

In case you’re a newcomer to this blog, I’ll get the disclaimer out of the way:  I’m not an expert, not a pro in the traditional sense.  I don’t claim to be so good at writing songs that people seek out my advice about how to do it, but I offer it anyway, because this is America, dammit, and I can.  

This is what blogging is about.  You pick a topic you know something about.  I don’t consider myself an authority or an educator, but the content I create herein is sometimes instructional or at least informative, despite the fact that it’s offered in a stream-of-consciousness journal entry style like that of a personal online diary.  

I don’t care for the prevalence of people with few qualifications who pretend to be experts on subjects, or fake news writers, or influencers, or self-proclaimed gurus who self-publish books, but such are the times.  My complaints about the changes in the music business in posts in this blog might be on the verge of spewing conspiracy theories, so I should be careful.  I shouldn’t complain because the whole self-publishing online thing has made my music “career” possible.

When I started writing songs in the 1990s, blogs didn’t exist yet.  I’ve found I sort of like this type of writing as well, and I did study journalism, newswriting and expository writing in college.  Frequency-wise, I can only muster about one long post every two months on average or maybe about a minimum of six posts per year but rarely kick one out monthly for very long.  Like the songs, the blogs tend to come in spurts and are prone to considerable droughts in between.  My posts are usually about my hobby of writing songs and recording them and then distributing them for streaming.  

The music biz establishment let amateurs like me in for several years, but now they’re increasingly trying to limit those who don’t meet some popularity threshold and justify pushing us back out so they can make more profit, which I’ve griped about in the past musings herein.

Lots of them deal with my struggles to understand how I feel about making my music public knowing that in decades prior, it would not likely have been possible, and how the struggle of wanting more popularity but not easily getting it has made me wonder if my music should be made public in the first place.  

This phenomenon brought about by technological change is not unlike that of blogging, where technology changed to allow amateur writers to act as if they are professionals.  The lines have gotten blurry between amateur and pro.

Each post of mine typically gets a minimum of 30 reads, but some are surprisingly over 100 for unknown reasons – the readership not dissimilar from the stream counts for my songs.  The only advertising I do on my blog is for my own music.  Anyone can leave comments, but hardly anyone ever does.

I’ll reiterate my musical background info quickly here.  I took Intro to Guitar as a blow-off class my Senior year at Albion College, got a B, and that’s it.  Also took Intro to Poetry.  Also briefly sung in a choir in junior high.  Also took a handful of piano lessons at about age 10, then convinced my parents to let me quit.  The family had a stereo with turntable and a few albums.  Started buying my own at some point with money earned from odd jobs as a kid.  Listened to local FM radio who played rock before it became classic rock, which the same stations still play now.  Checked out some live concerts at Pine Knob and lesser-known acts who played at my college.  Open mic nights there were my first experience with amateurs with acoustic guitars getting up in front of people to play live.  It made me want to be like them some day.  Eventually, I got up the courage in 1989.  In the early 90s, I played in some duos and bands and solo, some actual paying gigs, a few as the headlining act.  Realizing shortcomings as a performer, and dislike for playing covers, gravitated toward originals.  Then cassette recording experimentation, buying more instruments, getting a computer, releasing my own CDs & downloads, digital aggregator distribution, etc., on through to being what I am now.

I do, however, claim to have a few minor qualifications for giving advice about writing songs.  Who am I to be giving people advice on how to write songs?  I am a self-releasing, independent solo artist with 12 albums of original material.  There are over 150 songs I’ve written, recorded and released worldwide that you can listen to right now on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, Bandcamp and most other music streaming services.  The most popular is one called “Mackinac Island” which people have played enough that I actually make a little bit of money from it every year.  One really great solo artist – Ultimate Rick Jones - recorded and released a really great cover version of another song I wrote called “Used To Be Good Looking”.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, I also won an honorable mention t-shirt in a songwriting competition once.  That’s about it.

I wrote my first in 1990, so for the last 35 years, I figure I’ve averaged writing approximately one song per month, which should bring the total over 400 songs at least since taking on the hobby.  So, by my old math, that’s around 30% I’ve released, meaning my keeper ratio is approximately 3 out of every 10 songs being release worthy in my own mind.  In retrospect, I could now pick a few from each album I could’ve done without releasing at all.  I’ve stopped caring about counting the volume, and there’s probably more than 500 first takes by now on old cassettes and in my phone, but many of the early attempts might not even qualify as being actual songs, depending on how you define them.  Anyhow, this further backs up tip #13 above.

Thankfully, I’m not a famous celebrity, yet I’d like it if the music became more popular of course.  So, I’m not well known or critically acclaimed in any way (no critics have ever written about my music to my knowledge), but in an attempt to help my music reach a larger audience, I followed advice to create a web site and blog so people could learn more about my musical pursuits with the hope it might result in more streams.  

Since I’m mostly a non-performing songwriter and solo artist, I don’t have much to blog about except to occasionally announce the availability of new music.  Lately, however, I thought that beyond that, out of all the music-related things I do, the songwriting part is probably what I’m best at, hence a couple more posts about the craft.  Hope you’ve enjoyed them.  

In closing, for you actual fans of my music who happen to be reading my actual songwriting advice, I’m happy to report that more new songs are currently in progress.  Actual songs too – no artificial intelligence being used.  Check back for updates, and as always, thanks for reading (and listening)!

Actual Songwriting Advice from Scott Cooley

I'll start with a simple, short answer:  Do it.  It's fun.

If you've come to this blog looking for advice about songwriting, this is the post for you.  The About page of my blog states that it is about my "experiences with the craft," but because it's such a mysterious and personal thing, I've rarely blogged about it.  I think I can make it seem more accessible and less daunting, despite not really being a traditionally qualified expert, so here goes...

Presumably you read this blog because you've heard some of my songs and appreciate them.  Also presumably, you know it isn't easy to explain or teach.  Like most things, if you have the desire, then do it a lot, you learn along the way and get better.  Presumably.  I think I have, but it's hard to know for sure.

I guess I think of the blog as being more than just me being a solo artist.  I've always considered myself more of a songwriter than anything else, and I've always envisioned writing songs for other artists as my ideal place in the music business.  Turns out I've also become a solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, engineer, etc., but out of all the ways I get involved with music, just making up songs is my favorite aspect.  I have maybe written, recorded and released more original songs than most people, but that's maybe my only qualification.  I have no formal training, nor do I have any major awards to brag about.

If there’s anything I can offer, it would be that my songwriting “career” is an example of what you can do as an average joe, regular guy type of person who never took lessons or learned to read music notation.  You, too, can learn a few chords on a guitar, make up some words to sing, put them together, and call them songs – and do it as a completely self-taught person without much skill or talent as a vocalist or instrumentalist.

For starters, being able to record yourself playing a song on a guitar and singing some lyrics really helps.  Just hearing yourself perform a song you wrote helps.  I used to teach people how to ski, and when video on the hill became a thing (Vail pioneered this in the early 90s with something they called “cybervision”), it made people get better faster to be able to see themselves ski.  It's very similar to playing back a recording of yourself.  Knowing what you sound like is important in evaluating songs you write.  Hearing a recording of yourself makes you think about instrumentation and arrangement ideas as well as the overall impression a song has and what could be improved.

I think I started with a jam box that recorded cassettes.  After a while, I bought a Tascam 4-track recorder, and that allowed you to record 4 different tracks and blend them together, which made me want to get a bass and some percussion.  Later on, a computer with audio interface and multi-track recording software made the number of possible tracks limitless.  

One thing I can say about my experience with the craft is that it has evolved with both time and technology.  A digital audio interface with digital audio workstation software is overwhelming, but gives you a satisfying mad scientist experience.  At first, you're excited to make yourself sound like a full band, and fairly quickly thereafter, you realize that adding too much instrumentation or too many vocal parts can make a song worse.

Recording helps, but so does using a word processor.  Legal pad with pen was how I jotted down the words with chord letters above the word where the chord is to be strummed.  Then you truly have a written song, along with the ability to have a recording of it on which you made all the sounds.  Progressing on from paper was again spurred on by me getting my first computer and using Wordperfect, and then later on, Word, as my lyric/chord documenting tool of choice.  It's way more efficient to rearrange sections, cut and paste lines, delete stuff, make edits, etc. than revising by crossing out and writing over or rewriting your revisions on a fresh paper page.

I was shaped by the circumstance of having a computer to use as part of my day job.  This allowed me to take breaks and type lyrics in the office, then email them home to myself.  Later when home and near my guitar again, I'd put them to music.  This was the reason I’m more of a lyrics-first writer, but I’ve also written plenty by writing the music first too.  I probably wrote more lyrics for songs than I would have otherwise, and once they exist, you look forward to completing the music part.  

The more you learn, the more you are able to hear.  When enjoying music by other artists you like, you can try to figure out what are the characteristics of the songs that made you like them.  The more you know about music and songwriting and recording, the more likely you are to be able to hear song forms and structure, for example.  You can find a lot of free information about writing songs on the web, so I highly recommend doing so.  I don't ever co-write with anyone at all, but I do also advise doing it, because you can always learn from others.  I've noticed that just talking about the craft with other craftsmen or listening to people who are better than you can no doubt help.  Not everyone can be a Lennon or McCartney, but everyone can learn from listening to them.

These two figured it out pretty well by doing it a lot too!

Ideas matter.  Sometimes, when I sort of luck out, a song will just flow out as if it’s writing itself, and when this happens, it’s usually because the core idea of the song was really good to start with.  You need a spark of a good idea first.  Listening to other music, people's conversations, and even reading books can give you inspiration, usually to write a song that includes some aspect you wanted to hear, or some aspect it reminded you of, or some aspect you misheard.  New original melodies, concepts, titles, and lyrics can pop into your head while listening to existing music.  Maybe you hear where you would've gone if you were the artist, and maybe it just makes you think of something totally different.

My absolute best piece of advice I have is to just do it a lot.  Write songs a lot.  Most will suck.  You may improve the more you try, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way.  Maybe I haven't improved because for every batch of new songs I write, say 10 new songs, usually only a couple of them really stand out.  2/10 ain't a bad keeper ratio.  Sometimes it's 0/10, sometimes 5/10, despite me learning a few things over the years.  

That's really two pieces of advice:  write songs often, and accept a low keeper ratio without getting discouraged.  Those are the top two most important things.

Secondarily, it is really important to listen to a lot of music.  I remember being surprised when reading Stephen King's 'On Writing' about how important he thought it was to read other writer's books, and to do it frequently.  A first reaction is that it seems contrary to writing something fresh and new, and that it would put you at risk of being perceived as copying someone else's style, or worse, being a plagiarist.  My initial thought was that you don't want to be clouded by others' work and that to be truly original/authentic/creative, you want to avoid any influence whatsoever.

This one can also be broken down into two pieces of advice:  listen to a lot of music, but also  listen intently for what worked well.

I'll elaborate a little on this last one.  The more you listen to music you like, as a songwriter, you're constantly focusing on why you like it, asking yourself what it is about the song that makes it good.  The more you attempt writing songs (and recording them), the more you notice little details in the music of other songwriters and artists.  You start to be able to at least hear things like the song forms and the arrangement choices and the rhyme schemes, whereas before you wrote songs you just liked what you liked from a music consumer perspective and didn't notice all these other things.

Therefore, the more you write/record, and the more you listen to the work of others, the more you notice, the more you pick up on various devices, tips, tricks and techniques you can use for your own songwriting work.  As your experience increases, the greater your focus becomes.  You hear things in songs you like that you never noticed before.  Similarly, you also begin to notice what didn't work, why songs are not good, or how they could've been better.

Another piece of advice that has just emerged in my mind from explaining all this so far is you need to record in addition to write.  In particular, I'm thinking of multi-track recording.  Yes, a good song can be conveyed with one instrument and a vocal and should be able to stand on its own that way.  However, most of what I enjoy has more than two tracks.  The more you attempt recording multiple instrument and vocal tracks and blending them together, you start paying more attention to the instrumentation and mixing of your favorite songs by others.

To sum that up, I would also add a fifth piece of advice:  record your own songs...with multiple tracks.

Expanding on that, it's never a bad thing to try to re-create a song someone else wrote by recording your own cover version of it.  Fire up your DAW and try to record a famous song that stays true to the original, and you'll learn a lot about what made the song and record so good in the first place that you didn't notice when you were merely a fan.

To clarify further then, record songs in a multi-track environment;  including covers.  With all of the virtual instruments and MIDI sounds available in software, you don't have to know how to actually play instruments to record tracks using the tools. 

Even if you're only wanting to write, recording demos is a part of presenting your songs to artists, and demos these days are typically more than just a guitar/vocal or piano/vocal.

And I guess elaborating on that point would be to have DAW software, an audio interface, a computer, a microphone, and a MIDI keyboard.  At minimum, these are the basic tools every songwriter should have.  If you don't play piano or bass or drums, you can use the keyboard for a simple snare hit track or a simple root note bass track to fill out a demo.

Adding to that would be an obvious one:  have an acoustic guitar.  They are the most commonly-used instrument for songwriters, easy to just pick up and start using without any setup when inspiration strikes.

Summarizing those last few might be to say have an instrument - which almost goes without saying, and have some recording equipment, and a MIDI keyboard is highly recommended even if you don't play piano.

I got by with a 4-track tape recorder for years, but today's digital electronic recording tools are amazing by comparison.  Again, when attempting to record a demo of your own song or a cover of someone else's great song, you learn things about what makes songs and recordings of songs great.  This in turn trains you to listen more intently to songs you like to hear what they did that worked (or didn't).  It makes you become a producer, or at least be able to think like one.

Lastly, I might advise listening for the structure of songs.  As a kid, I could sing songs I liked, but never paid any attention to which parts were a verse, chorus or bridge, intros/outros, etc.  Along with this is the advice to learn a little about the common song forms that exist, and the common rhyme schemes that are used in great songs.  Learn the rules, break them, listen for how others followed or broke them, etc.  It makes you become an "arranger" of sorts.

Concluding about those last two might be learn the popular song forms - there are only a handful, and learn a little about types of rhyme options.

Another big one in the same vein would be to learn a little bit about chord families - that is, which chords go well together for a song in a particular key.  Again, these are good to know because it's a matter of knowing the rules in order to break them.  There are all sorts of confusing charts and diagrams out there to be found like the circle of fifths, but chord families gets you started with theory.

So the advice piece here is:  learn chord "families" for each song key.  I mean, you don't have to actually learn them, just google it and refer to the table that lists what they are.  Simple as that.

There are a ton of other subtleties to learn about and pay attention to as you get deeper into understanding what works.  Things about tension/release, contrast, subject matter, and the details go on and on.  You will learn how certain chords tend to resolve to other chords in a key, stuff like that.

I'm mainly talking about songs that have lyrics, so if you're aspiring to "compose" classical music or chamber music or instrumental music or background music for movies or television, some of these things may not apply as much.  Something to never lose sight of is that songs with words meant to be sung require great singing for the best impact.  Guitar riffs, drum beats, melodies, etc. can all be hooks that contribute to great songs, but great singers can transform songs into things of beauty.

It seems to be more true for guitarists than keyboardists, but while playing chords, you start singing the words in a way that sounds good to you.  This is the melody.  So, I guess I would recommend that you write the melody with your voice.  You could do it with your right hand on a piano, or with a harmonica, but I do it vocally.  I rarely just write a melody on a guitar first.  It sort of naturally feels like the right notes to sing while strumming those chords in that order.  

You can start with whistling or humming or just singing nonsensical “na-na’s” before you have the lyrics, then when you have the lyrics, sing them in place of those same notes that sound good to you.  So, the singing, while playing some progression, for guitar players usually, is the creation of the melody.  It’s a vocal melody that could theoretically later be notated on a staff.  Later on, you can match what you sang with an instrument – such as playing the melody on individual notes either while singing or during an instrumental break.

I’ve done lyrics-first a lot, but I’ve also done music first.  Inevitably, there’s a little back-and-forth editing until you get it all to gel.  Sometimes you can just hear it all coming together in your head, and your fingers and voice have to translate it simultaneously.  Attempting it a lot makes it less daunting, like anything.

Final piece:  don't underestimate the power of great singing.  Be a great singer or find one.

Someone like me who is not much of a singer should theoretically be on the lookout for great singers to interpret my songs - whether by me pitching my songs to artists, or finding a great singer to be in a band with.  Instead of pursuing either of those, I record my own versions of my own songs as a solo artist by myself, and hope some great singers take notice and want to record them.

As an artist myself with a small-but-growing cult following, I am fortunate that singing isn't the only thing people enjoy about music and artistry, or I'd have no interest in my music at all.  People appreciate the songwriting, I'm told.

Some of the pros in Nashville will spend a couple grand on a single demo of a single song, sometimes more.  It seems almost insane.  That takes a great amount of confidence in addition to capital.  Then they pitch them to artists, and often get rejected.  I'm all for people going for it, but my current situation is to just keep doing what I do, keep trying to write better songs, keep trying to record better songs.  

As I've blogged before, I know I'm not the type of solo artist who would be likely to get signed by a major record label.  I might have enough skill with songwriting to do it as full-time staff member for a publisher, but I live in Michigan and have no plans to move to a music hub and network.  Luckily, it's a hobby that is a blast and can be made public from the privacy of my home - which is weird but true.  Thankfully, I've had enough confidence to put my songs and recordings out there.

My songwriting and recording have evolved, my knowledge of each has evolved, and so has the advice list.  I have no reason to think these trends won't continue.  

So, re-skim the things I made bold above, but here's an abbreviated list for you impatient scrollers as blogged about in detail above:

• Do it often
• Accept bad songs
• Listen to great songs
• Listen intently
• Buy an instrument
• Learn song forms
• Learn rhyme schemes
• Learn chord families
• Buy recording equipment
• Get a MIDI keyboard
• Record multi-track songs
• Record covers
• Focus on singing
• Don't give up

So, there you go.  Write on.  I don't claim to have ever written any really good songs.  I'm still trying to write a good one, and that's what's fun.  There's a drive there, but the motivation is enjoying the trying part, knowing it would be rare and unrealistic to ever think you'll actually write a great one.

When I run in to people who know I like to write songs and they ask if I’m still doing it, I usually say I’m still trying to write a good one, and then I usually throw in a “haven’t given up yet” part too.  I say these things with a smile on my face because I have so much fun with it.  It’s a great way to pass the time.  I know some of them might think to themselves “okay, I guess he really likes something he’s not very good at” and then might wonder “why make them available for streaming though?”.  I do it anyway, because I can.

We all know someone who retires with a hobby, then they attempt to go pro with it.  I’ve worked with guys who liked to take pictures with a camera and then retire and launch a “photography studio” website, or guys who are into woodworking and then retire and launch a website to try to sell their creations online.  You check it out, make a quick judgement in your mind, compliment them, and wish them well.  You always think to yourself “dude, you’re not as good as you think you are, but good luck,” but you’d never tell them your thoughts out loud to their face.  

Those sites don’t seem to stay up for very long.  Is this kind of thing sad?  Yeah, maybe a little, but I’m one of them, and I’m a supporter.  Depends how you look at it.  Did they need someone to tell them they weren’t as good as they thought they were, or that their ambition outweighed their talent?  I’m not sure about that.  

Trying and failing is better than not trying.  Not giving up despite remaining conventionally unsuccessful would be another way to say it.  Following a passion isn’t about mainstream success, it’s about the enjoyment of a creative pursuit.  Keep at it, that’s how you get better at anything.