“How to Write a Song” is a brand new series where we take a look at how specific artists create songs. From just having an idea all the way to the final product. I wanted to take a deeper look at how different everyone’s process truly is. There is no ONE RIGHT WAY to write a song, or create any art for that matter.
In this series we’ll discover the actual step by step song-writing processes of artists in various genres.
What better place to start than a pop song? And who better to do that than our friend Kyle Ekstrom?
*photo by @KelleyCurran
“There’s so many ways to write a song. All art is different. Also art is art and doesn’t have to be perfect. As long as you like it and express yourself the way you want. A song’s main components are a verse, a chorus and a bridge. Most songs have the structure of intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus and finally outro.
It depends what I feel the song needs or doesn’t. I don’t finish songs in one day. I sometimes will come back to it with a fresh perspective and add, take away or tweak things. So let’s take a simple look at how I liked to write some of my songs.”
Step 1: Open DAW:
“When I have a melody or progression stuck in my head I like to lay it down on the piano roll. I like to keep everything very basic on the beginning of writing a song. I open up my digital audio workshop (I use Reaper) and set my BPM first. I usually like something between 130 and 90.”
Step 2: Piano Chords:
“I use The Gentleman Piano in Kontakt to sketch it out. I try to sound it out and use my ear to capture what I want using some root notes. I lay out basic chords for a chorus and start with that. I like to use seven chords or a suspended chords here and there to give it some personality. Then ill turn off the piano. I’ll add Serum and pick maybe a light synth pad sound for those chords. I love light sounding pads. I’ll keep messing with the synth to get it just right to what I want. When I write the verse section I keep it grounded so the chorus can really shine. When I write a lead synth part or something I try to find something that feels like it belongs there too. Something that feels like the right voice to say what the song is saying. The more interesting and weird or detuned a synth sounds the cooler it sounds in my opinion.”
Step 3: Drums
“I like to make a kick and snare progression first and choose sounds I think vibes with what I’m imagining I want this to be like. For the chorus maybe make the pattern different with a bigger presence if that makes sense? I think its important to introduce a new world every few measures. It keeps things interesting. My engineer Joe Scaletta taught me that. I feel that can be achieved by adding or subtracting something.”
Step 4: Bass
“I like to again use the piano I used earlier to pencil in a cool progression for bass. Then I’ll again take it off and put on Serum. I like using a distorted fuzzy bass sound. Then I have a sub bass that will compliment it.”
Step 5: Guitar
“For a big atmospheric song I like open chords with some chorus and a bit of delay. Seven chords or suspended chords give it that nice big atmosphere. I listen to the song a bit. Sometimes a simple strumming pattern is fine enough. When I come up with chords on piano or guitar my guitarist Romel Panganiban will usually lay down a way more intricate or awesome sounding guitar parts to my songs.”
Step 6: Lyrics and Melody
“When I hear the instrumental done, I keep listening to it for a period of time. I make a note on my phone and keep adding lyrics or lines I think of. When a melody is stuck in my head and I have a gut feeling about it I know that’s the one. Always trust your gut on melody and lyrics.
So I’ll keep scribbling in that notepad on my phone until something jumps at me. I’ll usually think about a time or experience and how I was feeling then and base the lyrics off of that.
I like being cryptic in my lyrics a bit. I guess that’s the introverted part of me playing a role in such an expressive art.
In my choruses I like to play off of other words in the chorus and make things come full circle to each other. Make them relate to each other as words. In the end my choruses look like very short poems most of the time. When they look like that and it feels right I know I’ve made a good chorus. I feel like verses are the road to the message too.
I like the listener to drive down that road. They know they’re going one way but they don’t know there’s a big fucking ramp ahead. So I like writing verses that have some mystery to them. The bridge I think is always something of a space to push the ceiling too a little bit.
I try to do that a bit when I can. When I have all my lyrics and melodies I go and record them and that’s how I write a song.”
Check out Kyle Ekstrom’s newest video, “Sad Girls”
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