How to Write Great Choruses: 3 Practical Tips That Work!

🌏 Join the HTWS Songwriters Community for Weekly Feedback Sessions, Live Workshops and Collaboration with other songwriters from around the world: https://howtowritesongs.org/community/ In this video, I want to show you 3 radically practical tips to help you shortcut to great chorus-writing, to hopefully open the creative gates so you don’t get derailed by a chorus that falls flat, or having no idea how to approach it. Want 20% Off 'Tape It' Pro? - Click here: https://tape.it/for/howtowritesongs 00:00 Introduction 00:47 Tip #1 - Find The Title 05:46 Tip #2 - Build The Scaffold 10:58 Tip #3 - Save The Tonic ⚡ Want Free Weekly Songwriting Tips and Insights? Join our Newsletter: https://howtowritesongs.org/subscribe-to-the-newsletter/ #1 - Find the TITLE FIRST Sounds obvious, but many choruses fall flat because we misunderstand what a chorus is in the first place. It’s not just the section that repeats. It’s the part that delivers the central message. And even within the chorus, the central message has a pointy end, in the title. Rather than writing a song and then trying to figure out the title when you get there - find the title first (or at your earliest possible convenience). Simply saying, “I want to write a song about yearning for the comfort, and safety, and simplicity of childhood, contrasting it to the complexity of life once you’ve left home. It will focus on the image of my childhood house”...good concept, but is made even stronger as a song idea if you can say, “and it will be called ‘Home is Where the Heart Lives’”. It gives the song a target, and makes the rest of the song so much easier to write. When all the pieces tie together, the chorus has so much more impact. A title that is inherently interesting will also stick in the memory of a listener. #2 - Build A Scaffold We don’t need all the words - and often the words will come out of the melody, if the melody is expressing the feeling or the musical journey we want to take. Use the very fancy technique called the mumbles. Gives you the scaffolding, to then fill in the details Especially useful when you have a verse section written - so common to keep writing in the same way - same melodic shapes, pace, structure…we need to switch out of lyric mode to really enter the musical/emotional journey sometimes. It can also help us figure out where the title goes. #3 - Save the tonic chord for the chorus Chords are like the film score for the melody. The average listener doesn’t know what chords you’re playing - only how they make them feel. As songwriters, it’s our job to know how chords and chord combination do make people feel - which film score to put behind our words and melody. ##other chord vids/playlist - check this out to learn about chord relationships, how to create mood, story, emotion with chords. Here’s one ‘film score’ tip: in every key, whether it’s major or minor, or some kind of mode, or even mixed modes…there is always ONE chord that makes a listener feel a sense of profound resolution, and that is the tonic chord - the chord of the key. So many songwriters will miss out the opportunity to use this in the chorus, by having the tonic chord splashing about in the verse and pre-chorus - using chord loops is a great to way to prevent chords from having any storytelling potential or acting like the film score. Its the same film score the whole way. Avoid the tonic chord in the 4-8 bars before the Chorus, then bring it in, and watch it shine. __________________________________________ Who Are We? HTWS is Keppie Coutts, and Benny Romalis, two professional songwriters, performing artists and teachers with over 40 years of collective experience in the music industry. We have studied and taught at some of the best contemporary music colleges in the world including Berklee College of Music, Sydney Conservatorium, the Australian College of the Arts, the Australian Institute of Music, the LA School of Songwriting and JMC Academy. Our goal is to help people write better songs! Our experience, having worked with thousands of songwriters (many going on to find careers and success in music), is that your songwriting, like all things, can get better with meaningful and deliberate practice. Our intention is to share the skills, knowledge and ideas that we've had the privilege of gathering with others who embrace the art and craft of songwriting. You can find more information at: www.howtowritesongs.org #howtowritesongs #howtowriteasong #songwriting #lyricwriting #songlyrics #songwritingtips