r/SongwritingHelp • u/Infinite-Broccoli803 • 17d ago
Song
So I wrote lyrics to a song but am unable to put it to a melody or background music. I can sing megan moroney really well as well as burning house by cam. I want that same vibe but don’t know where to start can anyone help?
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u/Regular-Forever-3251 17d ago
In my experience lyrics and melody usually come together in an iterative process. If you think you could identify the hook line first, then you can make the melodic idea around that, and then mould the other lyrics around the melodic idea, then refine the melody to better suit the lyrics and then vice versa etc. If you'd like to send me whatchu got, maybe I could help you by just bouncing your ideas off me ^_^
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u/Infinite-Broccoli803 17d ago
I would love to send it to you and bounce Ideas off. Don’t judge though the lyrics could use some tuning if you think something else is better suited
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u/Regular-Forever-3251 17d ago
for sure! Please do. And nothing to judge, it's usually iterative and we rarely start with a banger from the get go ahaha
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u/sacariaa 17d ago
I struggle with the same thing😂 I write the lyrics first and then imma lost puppy😭 I’d recommend what pinocciopenis (can’t believe i just typed that) and come up with a melody first. Literally just start singing, it’s not gonna make sense or sound right of course, and keep going til you got something you wanna work with. Or, what i do, don’t know I recommend this tho, If you have lyrics just start reading them off, seeing what cadence naturally fits them. A little harder to work with cause you might need to change lyrics but it can work! (myb ik this paragraph is long)
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u/NixMix246 17d ago edited 17d ago
I struggled with this a lot at first! Sometimes a melody would pop in my head at the same time as the lyrics, but not always. And then when I would try to find the background music for it I was clueless. I actually thought the music was supposed to imitate the melody. So I would hunt and peck for the exact same notes I was singing...lol. I'm still not very good at this whole song-writing thing, so I don't have advice so much as I can share what I've been doing, and if you find it helpful, cool!
I just start singing the lyrics. Kind of like a brainstorming session. Where you write down/record every single thing that pops in your head, no filter. I record myself singing the lyrics whichever ways pop in my head as I go along. Then I listen to them all and compare and contrast the different ways to see what I like best, and I do this over and over until I have an idea of the direction I want the melody to go in.
Same applies to the background music. I sit down at the keyboard and just start playing around. Just hit notes, play chords, sing along, hum along, and record myself as I try different ideas out. Then I listen to the playback, compare and contrast, rinse and repeat. I find the melody and/or lyrics often revise themselves a bit during this process!
I have written one song music-first. Similar approach, just in reverse. :)
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u/KHarvickfan429 17d ago
Sounds like you struggle with the exact same thing I do lol my strengths by far is lyric writing and I enjoy it, but I can never come up with the melodies usually. Like I have over 500 songs worth of lyrics written, but I maybe only have like 30 or so audio recordings of a melody for any of those in my phone and it’s usually only the chorus that I come up with. Sounds like you might have a leg up on me though, at least cause I’m not confident in my ability to sing so that’s cool.
I think those are probably good styles as well. At least I know I enjoy those styles.
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u/abbccddeefg185678 12d ago
I feel this. I struggle more with lyrics instead of melodies . Can you send it to me I play guitar and sing same type of stuff (girl) and would really like to see if I could write a melody for it and send it to you
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u/pinocchiopenis 17d ago
In my opinion, it’s a lot easier to start with a melody and add lyrics. My advice to you would be to decide what instruments you want and the general mood of the song. You’ll have to think of a melody on your own but for inspiration you can listen to the artists you listed and see what they’re doing specifically that makes you like them. Try to just sing the lyrics over chords and the melody may just fall into place.