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Find Out About: The Songwriter's Blueprint
A Practical Strategy for Building Songs
 Are you a person whose eyes glaze over during a lecture? Or, after reading a chapter in a book, you ask yourself, “What did I just read?” Maybe you’re someone who has read every book and article and attended every seminar about songwriting, but still you are having trouble translating what you’re reading and hearing onto a blank piece of paper. There is hope. It’s called The Songwriter's Blueprint: The Ultimate Tool for Writing Hit Songs!
Developed by pro songwriter and teacher Christine Anderson of Franklin, Tennessee, The Songwriter's Blueprint teaches you how to build a song in a very practical, hands-on matter. It is a large document, measuring 24” x 18”, and it looks just like a set of blueprints, printed with blue ink printed on actual blueprint paper. There are eight pages of individual “prints” that are organized as a flow chart to walk you through the songwriting process, from creating your hook/title to the final rewrite. The newest version is laminated, so that the document can be written on and used over and over again.
The process used to build a song in The Songwriter's Blueprint is similar to how many hit songwriters write: it uses the tried and true strategy of writing from the hook or song title.
On Page One, you’ll work on title development. From that title, you will brainstorm and plot your story.
On Page Two, you’ll create an outline of your story using the verse/chorus verse/chorus bridge/chorus song structure.
On Page Three, you’ll stretch your linguistic skills by developing character sketches, listing color words and phrases, creating images, delving into the action/reactions of your characters, bring in the five senses, and fine tune the emotions that your lyric will portray.
On Page Four, you’ll add lyric writing strategies, including synonyms/antonyms, simile/metaphor, assonance/alliteration, rhyme, lines & phrases, and dialogue.
On Page 5, you will craft your first draft of the actual lyrics, and focus on your opening line.
On Page 6, you will rewrite your first draft, cleaning up and clearing up problems in your lyric.
On Page 7, you will write a third draft of your lyric and check it against a hit song lyric checklist. And voila! A song.
Each page includes a set of instructions and workboxes where you actually do your writing. What’s great is that you can easily refer to the instructions as you work, because everything is on the same page. As you progress through the writing exercises, you carry your written material forward from the page you just worked on and place your completed material onto the top of the next page. Then, you begin the next set of exercises using the material you’ve already written. You repeat this process for each page. When you reach the last page, you have written and completed a third draft of your lyric that, by then, should be in pretty good shape!
Even if you’re not a person who needs a real hands-on approach to learning, The Songwriter's Blueprint is a great method for organizing your thoughts, developing a consistent strategy for brainstorming and rewriting, and for addressing many of the finer nuances of lyric writing that many aspiring songwriters miss or skip. Used consistently, it will help you to develop discipline and scope in your writing without sacrificing creativity. That is because The Songwriter's Blueprint provides plenty of opportunity for you to stretch your creative muscles, while conforming your song to the most common lyric model for today’s hit songs.
The Songwriter's Blueprint assumes that you already know the basics of songwriting. This is a tool best used by songwriters who have already read the books, who understand the sections of a song (like verse, chorus and bridge), and how these sections should relate to each other. If you don’t already understand songwriting basics, I recommend that you do some reading first, and then employ The Songwriters Blueprint to help you apply those concepts.
Who should use The Songwriter's Blueprint? If you are getting feedback about your songs along the lines of, “The second verse doesn’t move the story forward,” “You haven’t really supported your hook,” “Your character or story doesn’t move me,” “The lyrics are too general/too specific,” “The lyrics are clever, but I’m not moved by it,” “The chorus and the verses aren’t relating to each other,” “Your hook is great, but the song seems to wander,” and the like, then The Songwriters Blueprint will be a big help to you. It will help you to move your writing beyond the plateaus that are holding your back from the next step. Do you have a drawer full of incomplete lyrics? Or a song that you just can’t quite seem to “fix”? The Songwriters Blueprint will help you to find those trouble spots, and help you to “get the house built.”
As with any songwriting resource, The Songwriter's Blueprint works best when you use it effectively. That is, if you actually do the work, then the Songwriter's Blueprint will help you to achieve what it promises.
Join me next week for an interview of the creator of The Songwriter's Blueprint, pro songwriter and teacher Christine Anderson. To learn more, visit www.thesongwritersblueprint.com
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