~ lyric writing

Q: I’m a guitar player, I play different chord progressions but have a hard time coming up with melody and lyrics. I try to fit lyrics to what I've got but all I can come up with is bits and pieces. Is there a technique i could use to help develop the process?

A: here's two exercises I've done that gave me an intuitive lift:

a) each day for a week, take a hit song in your genre, and write out, longhand, the lyrics for that song. Just write them out. A different song, for 7 days. I tried this and it was very interesting how I began to appreciate the structure and storytelling abilities of the writer(s). At the end of the week, I wrote two of my best lyrics to date.

b) each day for a week, take a hit song in your genre, and write NEW lyrics (that are unique) for the existing melody. You must rhyme in the same place and use the same meter. At the end of the week, you'll have 7 new lyrics you can set to music.

And one comment from me, as a songwriter. I used to noodle around the guitar, improvising with scraps of lyric, but the songs I wrote that way tended to be long, meandering and unfocussed. So I decided to try writing the lyrics first. I work on structuring a good lyric, with contrast between sections, that pays off into a hook, etc. Once I have the lyrics in shape, then I work on putting them to music. Not that there is any right or wrong way to do this, but just a thought - if you do exercise b, then you can work on setting those lyrics to music.

In addition, you might think of joining in a songwriting challenge. 50 songs in 90 days is coming up (Jul - Sep). Nothing makes you focus and put something together than the challenge of having to write, record worktape, and move on.
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/50songs90days/