Gary Cubberley Songwriter at Songbay Gary Cubberley is the head composer and producer at Songbay, directing their award winning ‘Lyric to Song Service‘. His work is in very high demand, having written many hundreds of songs for artists and record companies around the world. A multi instrumentalist, he writes in every genre of music, also for TV and film productions in Europe and America. Later this year he will be writing the song for the winning lyricist of the International Continue
Songwriting thought of the Day
Uneven Lyric Length
Have you thought about your lyric phrase lengths? The Golden rule- Keep things EVEN. Ninety percent of mainstream commercial pop music is written with four beats to each bar (4/4) time, meaning the music is divisible by 4. This needs to be considered when writing commercial pop lyrics. If you write consistent song sections-verses, chorus, bridges, etc, that are grouped into 4 or 8 lines, you are on the right track. If you write lyrics with sections containing odd phrase lengths, e.g., 3 lines, 5 lines, 7 lines, or phrases with notable uneven syllable lengths, etc, they will not work well rhythmically, and will almost always be overlooked by composers looking for lyrics. Here is a great article on this very subject >>
