How to Write Songs Other Artists Will Want to Record

Writing a song for yourself and writing a song for someone else to record use the same tools, but the second job comes with a different listener in mind. The question changes from 'does this express what I feel?' to 'could someone else make this theirs?'

Here is what experienced writers and teachers say about writing songs that travel.

Write for the singer you haven't met

Hit songwriter Jason Blume, writing for BMI, points out that even songs written for a specific artist often end up with someone else. He and a co-writer wrote 'Why Don't You Kiss Her' for the Backstreet Boys; after the group passed, Jesse McCartney recorded it. A song, he writes, 'might be pitched to twenty, thirty, or even more artists on its way to finding a home.'

That is the licensing situation exactly. You are writing for whoever finds the song, so the song has to work in voices that are not yours.

Range: keep the middle comfortable

Blume learned this the hard way. A song of his went on hold with a major country artist whose hits 'had never required her to sing more than an octave and a half', but his melody needed two octaves and a whole step. No key worked, and the song was dropped. He had written it partly in falsetto without checking the range.

The vocal coaches he interviewed offer useful guidelines. Lis Lewis said 'a comfortable range for men would be an octave and a half unless they are singing R&B', with wider ranges expected from R&B singers. Renee Grant-Williams separated range, the lowest to highest note, from tessitura, where most of the notes sit. She noted 'the average country singer has a tessitura (general range) of about an octave' and advised: 'if you want your songs to appeal to lots of singers, concentrate on the mid-range that almost everyone can reach.'

Big range is not required for big songs. Blume notes that Taylor Swift's 'Blank Space' spans 'only an octave and one-and-a-half steps.'

• Map your melody's lowest and highest notes before you finish the song.
• Keep most of the melody in the middle, where the singer sounds best.
• Save the highest note for one moment that earns it.
• Blume observes that the lowest note is typically in the verse and the highest in the chorus, so raising a low verse note is often the easiest fix.
• If a song is still too wide, he suggests making an alternate, less demanding version and demoing both.
• If you cannot sing the high notes yourself, write them anyway. Blume suggests playing them on an instrument or singing them an octave lower for the demo singer.

Lyrics someone else can own

In Berklee's Music Licensing 101 roundup, one industry speaker described what does not get placed: 'We're probably not gonna sync your avant-garde opus about, like, your great uncle who is a taxidermist.' The point applies to artist cuts as well. Personal details that only fit your life make the song harder for anyone else to sing as their own.

Aim for emotion that feels specific, in images any singer could stand inside. A doorway, a kitchen light, a car at the end of the street all work. A friend's name, your hometown's diner or a date only you remember tend to close the door. Our earlier piece on what makes a song license well has more examples.

Prosody: everything serves one idea

Pat Pattison, who teaches lyric writing for Berklee Online, says songwriting has only one rule, prosody, which he defines as 'when all elements work together to support the central message of the song.' In his words: 'Everything in your song should be there for the same reason: to express the central emotion, the central idea, and the central purpose of your lyrics.'

For a song meant for other singers, prosody is what makes the emotion clear on first listen. A hopeful lyric on a melody that lifts, a restless verse with a rhythm that pushes forward. When the music and words agree, the singer does not have to explain the song. It explains itself.

Structure, and space for the artist

An artist deciding whether to license a song is often listening quickly. A familiar structure, with verses that set up a chorus that arrives on time, lets them hear the whole song on the first pass. It also makes the song easier to rearrange into their own sound. Get to the first vocal line quickly, and make sure the chorus carries the title and the song's main idea.

Leave room, too. Give phrases space to breathe. Avoid locking the melody to one singer's vocal tricks. Where it suits the story, consider pronouns and situations that work for singers of different genders and ages.

Starchild produces every accepted song in multiple styles around the original vocal, so artists can hear the same song as country, acoustic, rock, electronic, Latin and more. That is a practical test of how well a song travels. If the hook still lands with one instrument, and the melody and lyric hold up across styles, artists can more easily imagine the song in their own sound.

A writing checklist

• Does most of the melody sit in a comfortable middle range?
• Could a stranger sing every line as if it were their own story?
• Does the chorus arrive on time and carry the title?
• Does every element support one central idea?
• Does the hook still work with just one instrument?
• Have you documented writers and splits while the session is fresh?

Sources

• BMI: Are Your Songs Too 'Rangy' for Today's Singers? by Jason Blume
• Berklee Online Take Note: Prosody in Music and Songwriting, by Pat Pattison
• Berklee: Music Licensing 101, How to Sync Your Music