There
are many different ways to write a song. On our
site, you will see the way Dr. Cool and Pride do it! At
first, we are going to teach you how to write the words
to a song or the lyrics. Later, we'll teach you
how to write the music for a song.
REMEMBER: The most important thing is that we want you to have fun!
1.
PICK YOUR SUBJECT
What do you want to write your song
about? There
are no rules here so you can write a song about anything. On
our first CD, we wrote songs about:
Action- Waking
Up, Dancing, Making Smart Decisions, Reading Feelings- Feeling
Good, Proud, One of a Kind Places- The Beach, The World People- Sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers,
and friends
2.
PICK A STYLE Note:
this is only important if you want to write your lyrics to
music. That is what Dr. Cool and Pride do most of the
time.
If you don't want to write your music to lyrics, skip to
Step 3.
If
you have a drum machine or keyboard, you can pick a beat
to play in the background while you write your lyrics.
Here
is how Dr. Cool and Pride really do it! Dr.
Cool comes up with a subject and sometimes a melody. He
hums the melody to Pride who then starts thinking of ideas
for the beat or style of the song. This sometimes
can take up to an hour to find a beat Dr. Cool and Pride
both agree on.
To
help you, we have created the tabs below so you can not only
hear samples of different styles of music, you can also write
and test your lyrics to them! 3.
WRITE YOUR CHORUS
The Chorus
is the part of the song that usually gets your main idea across.
It also contains the only lyrics that are repeated throughout the song. To
see an example of a chorus and to see how it is repeated CLICK
HERE.
Most
of our choruses have 4 lines. Most of them have
words that rhyme at the end of lines one and two and
also three and four. Sometimes, all four lines
end in a rhyming word.
When
we wrote Readers Are Leaders, Dr. Cool knew he wanted
to say that readers are leaders. Next, he
went through the alphabet looking for other words that
rhymed with leaders (you
can buy rhyming books now that are an amazing help).
Here is what he came up with.
List
of words that rhyme with last word (leaders) of first
line: • Achievers
• Believers
• Creatures
• Feeders
• Greeters
• Heaters
• Meters
• Peters
Dr.
Cool decided to try using the word achievers. So
over and over he said "Readers Are Leaders, something
something Achievers" until
he came up with:
"Readers Are Leaders the world's greatest achievers".
In summary: Write the first line of the chorus Make a list of words that rhyme with the last word of the
first line
Think of something you want to say that contains a word
from the list
Then repeat the process and you have a chorus
Readers
are Leaders
The
worlds greatest achievers
They
learn about the world
The
smartest boys and girls
Finally,
if you are writing to music, test it to your beat.
You might have to adjust it a little but that's okay! Go
with the flow and have fun.
4.
WRITE YOUR VERSES
Sometimes songs start with the Chorus. CLICK
HERE to hear the chorus of the Wake Up song.
And
sometimes they start with a verse. A verse
is usually 8 to 16 lines that usually rhyme one way
or another. The verses tell the story that support
the main message in the chorus.
Look
at the song "I Feel Good". The chorus
is "I'm one of a kind"! The message is that
everyone is unique and special. If we are all
unique and special, what can we say that supports that?
The following ideas went into our verses:
Ideas
for Verses on "I Feel Good" • We
can do anything
• We can be what we want to be
• We have to live in harmony
• Everyone should share their special smile
• Choose to feel good
• Believe in yourself
Now CLICK
HERE to hear how we took the ideas we wanted
to say and put them into verses that rhyme.
How
do you know when a song is done? When
you've said everything you've wanted to say.
5.
HAVE FUN!
The whole point of our songwriting
section is to teach you how Dr. Cool and Pride write songs.
Try our way and you might love to write songs of your own. You
can even take some of what we do and use it and add it
to your own way of songwriting. All Dr. Cool and
Pride care about is that you enjoy the process. It's
rewarding to think of ideas, put them on paper, and sing
a song you wrote to your friends.
We
hope you have a blast like we do writing songs and we hope
you join or songwriting contest!
