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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 >>


How to Copyright a Song or Lyric: Affordable Protection and Authorship Proof with Songbay

Songwriter reviewing original lyrics beside a secure digital authorship archive

You have finished a lyric, completed a song or developed an original idea for a new production. The work feels unmistakably yours. But if somebody copies it, uses it without permission or later disputes who created it first, what evidence will you have? Copyright normally begins automatically when an original work is created and recorded in a sufficiently permanent form. The practical difficulty is often not whether copyright exists, but whether a creator can produce a clear, credible record showing Continue