Belmont Songwriters Guild

— Affirm one another —

Song Categories

• Impact
  1. Personal – unique and of interest to a individual or very small circle
  2. Local – works locally, some general interest, but needs a personal presentation to make it work
  3. National – universal appeal and travels without the need for personal presentation
• Intention
  1. Commercial / radio – goal is broad, commercial interest, to get cut and radio airplay
  2. Congregational – designed for group worship expression
  3. Creative expression – pretty much anything else

Journey

• Audience – who is your audience
• Communication – do you have their attention
• Musically interesting / originality / intro thru close
• Take me on a journey – blend of music and story
• Don’t lose me – rabbit trails / disjointed musically / poor presentation

Lyric

• Theme / Purpose – Is it clearly defined and supported throughout the song?
• Logic flow – can people follow it without getting lost or rabbit trailed?
• Cliché’s – To easy…is there a better way to say this?
• Poetry – “too clever by half” Balance
• Rhyming – good, poor?
• Real speak / yoda speak – would you talk to someone like this?
• Pictures vs statements – much stronger if they can vision it
• Prosody – do lyrics serve the music?

Musicality

• Intro – don’t lose them before you start the song
• Interesting – is it captivating to the ear?
• If worship – can a congregation sing it?
• Prosody – does the music serve the lyric?
• Flow – Disjointed music sections? Good blend from section to section? To much space / not enough space?
• Hook – that musical motif that everyone wants to hear again and again

Presentation

• Performance – does it matter for this song? If yes, how?
• Production (if recorded) / arrangement
• Energy – is it right for the song? Dynamics?
• Form – ABA, AAA, etc
• Setup / Follow-up – do you need to setup the song? Do you need to explain?

— Affirm one another —