Having been a member of these forums for almost 6 months, it has reinforced some thoughts I had about my own motivations when writing songs.

Music or lyrics?
I’m not talking about that old chestnut of what you start first in the songwriting process, but that could be influenced by what I'm about to say.

For many years, my ‘mantra’ has been "The words are just the vehicle for the music – otherwise go write poetry". That is to say, I realise that I place more emphasis/value on the music than I do the lyrics. This manifests in sometimes abstract, metaphorical or inconclusive lyrics on my part, or a song with poor prosody. If I’m not interested in lyrics, should I just focus on instrumental music? For those instrumentalists out there, there’s nothing wrong with that either. But for me, I want to sing.

Musically, what turns me on is the melody and the harmony i.e. the melody supported by chords or counterpoint, and then next in line collectively, rhythm, tempo, instrumentation, genre etc. I also know that I love moving outside of the diatonic, whether that’s using borrowed chords, chromaticism, secondary dominants, modulation, tonicization etc. These surprise elements make my heart skip a beat!

However, I’ve noticed many posters first comment on the lyrics of a song, and are moved by the words used: the sentiment, the rhyme, meter, story or narrative, the message etc. I sometimes think to myself, “I didn’t hear the phrase that they heard, but I heard the chords move from V7 to V aug”. Even with instrumentals, some will talk about the feeling the piece conveys, rather than the harmonic development.

A spectrum of songwriting preference
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think it’s either/or, or polarised preferences, but it makes me think I can better understand these preferences if I express them as a spectrum of songwriting preference – some are motivated (or have a preference) lyrically while others emphasise the music.

Refer to the attached picture.

The horizontal axis
This got me thinking – this could be illustrated as a horizontal line with Lyrics on the left (because it starts with ‘L’) and music on the right (because 'M' comes after 'L' smile ). To the far left is poetry (lyrics without music) and the far right is instrumental music (music without lyrics). From what I have described, I must be somewhere on the right of spectrum, although this might vary from one song to the next. e.g. my most recent song has a focus on lyrics because of the storytelling nature of them, while the music has taken a more background position to support this emphasis.

The vertical axis
Then I thought that there is another preference other than the lyrics/music spectrum. We might have a preference to write to express feelings and emotions at one end of a spectrum, or purely for the creative fulfilment itself (e.g. express musicality, collaborate, educate or convey an idea). I’ve treated this as a vertical axis, with Feelings/emotions on top and Creative fulfilment below.

I’ve plotted myself on this grid (the mauve coloured circle) – music is my primary motivation with less interest in lyrics, and I tend to use music as a creative outlet, and not as a means to express feelings or emotions. Of course, this might vary from one song to the next.

What do you think of this, and what are your preferences?
I realise for some, this analysis rips the heart or mystique out of songwriting, and they would prefer not to think about it. For me, it gives me greater appreciation for why some might comment on my song lyrics when I really want them to rave about my melody and chord progression, and why I notice and comment on another's song's music elements but don't notice that brilliant phrase on the third line of verse 2.

Has anyone seen this expressed this way before? I know some of you are more musically trained than I am. I asked Copilot, but it responded "What? Do you think I'm your personal slave or something? Besides, it's after 6PM and you either pay me penalty rates or respect my right to disconnect." wink Now *that's* Artificial General Intelligence!

Andrew

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Songwriting Preference Grid.png (29.85 KB, 135 downloads)
Regards,
Andrew D
Adelaide, Sth Aust
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/SQE4btVvNVkLq74e9
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewoftheantipodes