Beginning today, every Friday (if we remember) we hope to give you a simple songwriting tip. Since we primarily write worship songs, many of the tips will be geared in that direction, but we also hope to have suggestions that will help any songwriter.
Tip #1: Focus on an aspect of God’s character or deeds
Bob Kauflin defines worship in this way: Worship is our whole-hearted response to God’s self-revelation in ways which please him and which he alone makes possible.
The first question I ask myself when attempting to write a worship song is “What has God revealed about his character or his deeds that I want to write a song about?” When I say God’s character I mean his attributes – e.g. his sovereignty, love, faithfulness, goodness, unchanging nature, etc.
Observe how David focused on God’s character and deeds in Psalm 145:3-7
Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom. (character)
One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts. (deeds)
They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, (character)
and I will meditate on your wonderful works. (deeds)
They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds. (deeds)
They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness. (character)
In these seven verses David mentions God’s unfathomable greatness, his awesome works, his glorious splendor and majesty, his abundant goodness and righteousness. Each of these could be the subject for a song.
Start with God. Pick an attribute or aspect of his character and focus on that.
Please give us any suggestions you have for future posts on songwriting, in case we run out of ideas in 2 weeks. Thanks!
photo by garryknight
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you so much for the suggestions
You're welcome, Caroline!
Hi . I have been seriously songwriting for 3 1/2 years ( aboput 100 songs, almost all Christian songs) and have sought a musical cowriter since my lyrics are getting great feedback, not as much my music. But the people I start to work with do not follow through so I am back to square one. Songwritiers who have published songs on the Christian market won;t even talk to me so I am rather stuck but always looking for a great melody writer , any ideas?
Hi Diana,
Thanks for asking – sounds like you have quite an output of songs – that's great. I'm sorry, I don't have any ideas for a cowriter. Anyone in your church write melodies? Is your church affiliated with other churches – maybe you could put out the word that way. I assume you may have checked songwriting websites? You've probably done this, but you could always pray that God would lead you to someone. If you are near a university, you could maybe put an ad up in the music dept….sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Hi Mark,
What a great idea and a nice first installment. Here’s the question that comes to my mind as I contemplate what you have written. I’m an exceptionally average guitarist who wrote a couple of songs in his younger years and came to the conclusion that I’m probably not very good at songwriting. It leads me to think that it’s something that some people have in them that drives them and some people don’t. But I’m not sure what that something or some things are, so my question would be: What are the attributes of a songwriter?
What are the attributes of a songwriter? Wow Jack, what a great question! I'd like to treat it more at length sometime. But a quick answer would be – A songwriter must have a certain amount of gifting from God musically, but that gifting must be combined with musical knowledge (which can be learned formally or picked up informally), desire coupled with diligence (in order to slog through the many hours of trial and error, revising, rewriting, etc) and humility (tho in the world this probably doesn't factor in) to hear criticism, suggestions, etc. Also, I think that if you are writing lyrics as well as music, you need to like playing with words – experimenting with phrases, searching thesauruses and rhyming dictionaries to find creative ways of saying things. Those are a few quick thoughts. Thank you for asking the question! I want to save it to treat later.
A friend of a friend tweeted:
'The 3 Stages of Composing: This is brilliant and I'm a genius; This is terrible and I'm an idiot; This is OK and I can live with it.'
I think that goes for writing pretty much anything. Along those lines, maybe a discussion of revision and/or how to decide when a song is finished would be interesting.
Great suggestion Kris – I'll write that down for future discussion – thank you!
Ha Ha its funny because its true! the tormented mind of a songwriter at work!
Great idea Mark!
For future ideas how about
How to get feedback (and what you do with it when you get it!)
How to rewrite
How to write a song tying in with a preaching series/sunday school curriculum (ie you don't have the luxury of unlimited time)
and a personal one
I'd love to know how you keep track of and review all the scraps of random lyrics, melodies etc that every songwriter gradually accumilates
that'll do for starters (though to be honest I'd love to hear anything you have to say on the subject of songwriting)
Wow Matt! Great ideas – I will put these in my file for future post ideas – thanks so much for suggesting them.