Wordsounds -Vowelsounds - Endoflinesounds

A lot of people write poetry and then wonder why it doesn't work as a song. That's probably because they haven't tried to sing it themselves.

Each human voice has it own range, and the human voice in itself has limitations.

1. Humans find it very hard to read tounge-twisters
2. Humans must breathe occasionally to talk or sing
3. Humans can't sing long notes which end on a consonant without sounding very strange

One thing that writing poetry doesn't take into consideration is the greatly stretched out words that work so well when sung.

'Somewhere over the rainbow' doesn't look like great poetry, but sing it and it's a different story. No wonder the word 'Somewhere' has been so used in modern songwriting.

There is a rhythm to open and closed sounds in many great songs, either in lines or in the entire rhythm of a verse/chorus.

This is going to look very silly but:

doo beeee do be de doooby
dooooo beeeee doooo
doo beeee do be de doooby
doo bee di doo me flooo

has something going on as a shape even though its all nonsense.

Ok, I know you've usually got to rhyme every other line and all that, but what I'm talking about here is the KIND of rhyme and the TYPE of word which is best to use AND THE NICEST TO SING.

Even if you're not a singer, try and at least imagine how it's going to be for someone else to sing the song.

This would be difficult as a shape:

gugga goo ba bribble fiz
duddle burra gorga brap
fiddle pipple diddle brine
baddle biggie grope ***

- not forgetting that in this song, the words 'brap' and 'grope' are both very long sung words which hang around over two bars. Yes, I thought I'd really give the singer something to get his/her teeth into, so I left them singing 'apppppp' and 'ope.....' very high in their range and as you can tell they didn't thank me for it.

The problem with not thinking these things ahead or being aware of them is that you may end up writing some beautiful prose which you are very happy with, but as a song it's unworkable. And then you waste time trying to bash it into shape when its too late and you've started recording the song but realized at the last minute that it really is unperformable in its present state.

Keep checking the singability of your lyrics and make sure that more often than not you are ending rhyming lines or critical words on an open vowel sound or something close...


*** Of course, I had a huge hit in Lithuania with this song, so obviously your mileage may vary depending on your nationality!