How to Be a Successful Songwriter When You Can’t Sing

Head into any venue in Nashville, Tennessee and you will hear songwriters in the round belting out great songs with varying degrees of vocal talent or ability. This town is a great example of how a song can surpass its vocal, because so much emphasis is put on what the song is saying rather than how the song is being performed. So to draw the conclusion that our own songs won’t be received well because we can’t “sing” as technically trained singers can, is to sell ourselves short.

There are some things we can do to make sure our vocal abilities strengthen our melodies rather than hold them back. We can observe our vocal range, and consider whether are melodies are limited by them. Maybe we only feel comfortable singing within a perfect fifth, and so the melodies rewrite tend to be clustered around those scale tones. This can certainly become a hallmark of our sound. But we might also notice that this produces a lot of the same sounding melodies, and so knowing this, we can push the range a bit when we want to add dynamic or contrast. A simple way to expand our melodic range is to try starting our melody of our verse lower in pitch so that we have more room to sing higher in the chorus.

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Other vocal insecurities we have can determine the shapes of our melodies. Maybe we always connect notes by whole or half steps, rarely jumping larger intervals because they’re harder to sing. When we’re aware of this tendency, we can try to write outside of that limitation by consciously jumping intervals. Maybe we never really hold notes out because we find it difficult to hold a constant pitch while singing. Become aware of this too, and force yourself to use a long note in a prominent position, such as the first line of your chorus.

It might be a good idea to try singing alone, without resting on your strength on your instrument. Snap your fingers, clap, or try writing the melody to a track you’ve already recorded. This way you are isolating your melody, and can focus on it to create something you love.

Becoming aware of our tendencies, we can choose to do something different. Taking a look at our insecurities, whether they are instrumental, vocal, lyrical, or otherwise, can point us towards our tendencies. Don’t be afraid to look in the areas of where you feel weakest as a songwriter. These areas just help us understand how we are using other strengths to support them, and can provide valuable information about what makes our sound ours.

Happy writing,
Andrea

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