Originally Posted by: Markus_StoneI find that there are some general guidelines that work for me.

For a start, don't write poetry and try to set it to music. Sing your lyrics as you write them so they start in the musical domain. Poetry is usually longwinded and too regular in beat, leading to cluttered, "wordy" songs that have no space for the music to go. Go ahead look in the liner notes of your favourite CD's. Most of the lyrics when read outloud sound irregular and flat, even ridiculous. Poetry and Lyrics are not the same thing.

Secondly, try to use shorter words with harder, rythmic syllables, especially on accented notes. As I said above, these are guidelines, and there are many ecxeptions to this. But when I'm writing and there's a word that I want to put in there, but it just doesn't "sing" well, it's usually either a word that's too long, or doesn't accent the right beats properly.

Thirdly, Listen to some of your favourite tracks. Notice how the singer doesn't sing all the time? If you count out the beats, I'll bet there's at least one per line where the singer is silent (if he or she breathes like the rest of us). There needs to be space for the music, for a GTR riff, something. Same goes for other solo instruments. Rests are good.

Fourthly, Even if the song doesn't have a bridge, per-se, most songs have some kind of a build-up to the chorus that says "we're going somewhere different now", It can be vocal or musical, but there's almost always a little line that builds up the tension to be released at the 'hook'.

That's all from me.

Good Luck.

-Markus