John Braheny's Quick Exercise in Collaboration
Here is a helpful and simple exercise suggested by Mentor John Braheny in his
book "The Craft and Business of Songwriting."
Exercise in Collaboration:
You can practice collaborating with the world's best writers before you
approach your friend next door. How? Take any song that has been a hit or that
you simply admire. If you want some lyric writing practice, write new lyrics to
that melody. If you want to try out your melody writing, put a new melody to
those lyrics. Now, you can take what YOU'VE created to another writer without
telling them how you did it, and they'll write the new missing part. The
advantage of this trick is that while you're writing, you learn about how
successful songs are structured, where rhymes go, where the title is placed,
how long the song is, how many bars to each section, where the melody rises and
falls, and you know your finished product is based on a successful structure.
Give it a try!
