Song Writing with Guitar: an example

Example of songwriting part 1

Songwriting by topic:

The song idea

Before writing this song I knew what I wanted to be my motivation for it. The wedding of my friend, Kevin, to his wife, Kathy. So the first thing I did was try to remember what it was like to feel all the emotions swirling right before the wedding. The name of the song is named for Kathy because Kev's last name means Flowers in Spanish.

But I also wanted to write something that could represent the events leading up to the wedding. So that's where I started. So I wanted to write something that could apply, I guess, to the seven stages of their relationship:

The song elements by theme

This page covers parts 1 and 2 of the song

1. song intro: the meeting and new excitement
2. part 1: the fun they started having together and learning who the other person was
3. part 2:new love
4. part 3:the decision to get married
5. part 4:the excitement leading up to the wedding
6. part 1: flash back
7. part 5 (climax and resolution):the wedding

Determining tuning

I really like alternate tunings and I had just heard an Adrian Legg song I really like and had figured out it's tuning. The tuning is DGDGBD and that lends itself to kind of upbeat songs so I knew I wanted to use that.

You don't have to go through this whole process for every song you write. But like I said before, it's much easier to write when there is inspiration there.

You can get the entire TAB file and the entire song as an MP3 on my Guitar pdfs section.

I'm not going to talk about theory or anything like that about this song. Completely right brained here. Just the ideas behind the song.

Elements of the song

Song intro: meeting and new excitement

This had to be an endearing, yet upbeat and uptempo section of the song. You know when you first meet someone that just totally strikes a chord with you. Everything seems energized. I wanted some kind of energy but not in a rocking sort of way. So this is what I came up with ...

Main melody: getting to know each other

This is the driving phrase of the song. This is the main crux of the relationship, getting to know one another. Maybe coincidentally, this being the main part of the song will also be the main part of married life, getting to know each other's nuances and all that.

Anyway, it had to be kind of uplifting but still fast paced for 3 reasons:

1. to not break the mood of the previous section and
2. when you meet someone you end up falling in love with things just seem to flow in life. (sorry about the sappiness but it's true)
3. Also, I wanted this song to be dynamic as well just because of the nature of its theme.

So here is the first opportunity to introduce that. This phrase is not as even-keeled as many of my typical melodies.