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A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for , or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. A songwriter who mainly writes the lyrics for a song is referred to as a lyricist. Pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that commercial songwriting is often a collaborative process with tasks shared among multiple people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with another songwriter who specialises in creating original melodies. Pop songs may be composed by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own music publishers, while others have external publishers.
In recent decades, the traditional apprenticeship and self-taught approaches to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees, college diplomas and "rock schools". Knowledge of modern music technology (sequencers, synthesizers, computer sound editing), songwriting elements and business skills are significant for modern songwriters. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules. Since songwriting and publishing royalty payment can be substantial sources of income, particularly if a song becomes a hit record; legally, in the US, songs written after 1934 may be copied only by the authors. The legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyrights.
Songwriters can be employed in a variety of different ways. They may exclusively write lyrics or compose music alongside another artist. They could present songs to A&R teams, publishers, agents and managers for consideration to a range of artists. Song pitching can be done on a songwriter's behalf by their publisher or independently using like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with songwriting include entrepreneurism and creativity. The quaternary entrepreneur, The avant garde of non-material capitalism, Gian Paolo Prandstraller, 2009 Certain contractual scenarios result in staff writers and songwriters not receiving a public credit for their contributions to a song, similar to a ghostwriter in literary publishing.
In the Nashville country music scene, there is a strong staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal "9-to-5" hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary, says staff writer Gary Growden. This salary is in effect the writer's "draw", an advance on future earnings, which is paid monthly and enables them to live within a fixed budget. The publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up: "I was able to concentrate on writing the whole time and have always had enough money to live on."
Unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of these work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. Because the recapture provision of the United States Copyright Act of 1976 does not apply to "works made for hire", the rights to a song created under an employment contract cannot be "recaptured" by the writer after 35 years. In Nashville, young writers are often strongly encouraged to avoid these types of contracts.
Staff writers are common across the whole industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favoured in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract. Obtaining a staff writer contract with a publisher can be the first step for any professional songwriting career, with some writers with a desire for greater independence outgrowing this set-up once they achieve a degree of success. Songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company so that he could "keep as much publishing as possible and say how it's going to be done."
Some record producers are also beatmakers, and they will be involved in the entire process: generally receiving a songwriting and production credit. This is especially true for R&B and hip-hop producers in urban hip hop production. For example, producers such as Rodney Jerkins, Dr. Dre, Timbaland or Pharrell Williams, as opposed to a rock producer that may rarely contribute as a co-writer of a song.
In modern commercial writing, it is a common practice for the musical track to be produced first without any vocal melody or lyrics. This is partially due to the rise of portable music production equipment and digital audio workstations that are designed for the swift arrangement of electronic music, such as Steinberg Cubase and Ableton Live.
The top-liner is usually a proficient singer, and will sing over the Music track as the demo singer. If the song is for a particular artist, the top-liner may sing the demo in that artist's style or hire a session musician for that purpose. Top-liners often work in groups to co-write. Sometimes producers send out tracks to more than one top-line writer so that the producer or singer can choose their preferred option. Since the track is the same, melodies by different writer can be edited and combined. Occasionally, the producer might choose a few lines of melodic or lyrical ideas from one top-liner without properly crediting or paying them. These situations sometimes result in legal battles over ownership of the melodies or lyrics.
There is a way to prevent such legal battles. A songwriter can commit their "intent to make a song", which prevents any of the parties ripping the song apart. Some artists send out a legal disclaimer making clear that if their melody is not used after creating a topline, it reverts to them, and the track reverts back to the track writer.
Traditionally, a songwriter would prepare a lead sheet for a song, which consists of one or more pieces of music notation with the melody notes and chord progression indicated on it. This could be used to publish, promote and register the copyright of a song in an archive.
However, some songwriters rely entirely on digital audio workstations (DAWs) for composition, foregoing playing a traditional harmony instrument. They may only have rudimentary performance skills, using a MIDI interface to play their ideas or drawing the notation using a digital piano roll.
The songwriter may expand upon the main vocal melody and chord progression by adding additional instrumental melodies, hooks, Riff and licks. These may occur before or after the vocal melody, or alongside the vocal melody) and add variety to the song and its structure. An instrumental solo section could also be written by the songwriter, although it is common to allow other musicians to improvise and add their own solos to a song.
In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, many songwriter-musicians create songs to perform themselves, either solo or with a band.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys is one of the earliest and most widely known examples of a songwriter turned music producer. Within two years of the band's commercial breakthrough, Wilson had taken over from his father Murry Wilson, and he was the sole producer of all their recordings between 1963 and 1967. A more recent example is the singer-songwriter Beyoncé, who is credited as a producer credits for many of her songs.
Lionel Richie and Diane Warren are the only songwriters with at least 8 number-one singles written solely by themselves. A very few artists solely wrote, produced, and performed a Hot 100 number-one song such as Prince ("When Doves Cry"), Debbie Gibson ("Foolish Beat" and "Lost in Your Eyes"), Lauryn Hill ("Doo Wop (That Thing)"), Alicia Keys ("Fallin'"), and Pharrell Williams ("Happy").
Co-writing sessions can be very deliberate and involve parties bringing clearly stated ideas for the genre, theme, mood and structure of the song they wish to right. In contrast to this, writers may use a "stream of consciousness" approach in which ideas are improvised by all parties and the song gradually takes form. This is commonly known as Jam session by musicians.
According to Billboard, the songwriting partnership between John Lennon and Paul McCartney remains the most successful one of all time, resulting over 180 songs and a record 20 number ones for the Beatles on the Billboard Hot 100. The sibling songwriting partnership between Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell has generated multiple wins at the Academy Awards for Best Original Song as well as the Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
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