{ Lick That Riff! }

Wow! Nearly the weekend again! Good times! How are you all? Good?

Anyway, now on to part three of the Beginners Guide to Songwriting, and we’re now moving onto four topics; Arranging, Middle Eight, The Riff , The Solo.

So without further ado lets crack on with it.

Arranging

Now for a bit of arranging. Are you going to take the traditional verse, chorus, middle eight route? Or try for something a bit more modal? There’s nothing wrong with the traditional route – it’s and all-time design classic. But, you see, there’s the rub. How are you going to avoid your song sounding and feeling like a thousand others? Try to include some variation. Perhaps you could start with the chorus, or cut a verse in half. Try not to let the listener get to the end of the song before you, simply because they know where you’re going with it.

Middle Eight

Middle eights are something of a hangover from the Tin Pan Alley days. To provide their song with a touch of variety, songwriters would drop in eight bars of a different melody, usually just after the second chorus or first solo.

Nowadays, the middle eight just refers to the bit where the song changes, also known as the bridge. If you do include one, make sure it’s a cracker. There’s nothing more dull than a middle eight that just drops down four keys – say, D to Bm – then wanders around in confusion like a drunk looking for a toilet door.

But let’s say you don’t want to do that verse/chorus thing and prefer the modal style favoured by bands like Janes Addiction and The Music…

The Riff

…Then you’ll be on the lookout for the riff! Essentially, the riff is a rhythmic improvisation, often located inside a single chord that makes long hair shake and usually gets the guitarist shagged. The use of this technique was perfected by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, and it derives from swing era bass arrangements.

Getting started on creating your own riff is pretty easy. Just finger the root chord of your song and move your fingers up, down and all around until you hit a groovy sequence that you can play with your eyes closed. In fact, closing your eyes is compulsory.

The Solo

The riff leads straight to the solo. Guitar songs should have guitar solos. Saxophone and piano solos are for those with mullets, bass solos are for John Entwhistle only and drum solos aren’t due back in fashion until 2011 at least. So fire up the riff and let the solos emerge to bolster the rhythm and re-energise the song through syncopation. Check out Thin Lizzy’s. Don’t Believe A Word or The Boys Are Back In Town to see how this is done to maximum effect.

Anyway thats the post. Thanks for reading it. next week will be about Vocal Melody and Lyrics. Enjoy

Other Posts in the Series:

• Key and Time Signature
• Melody, rhythm and tempo

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