Writing With Parameters - Week 1

Random Word Generator, chord progressions by numbers and the joy of limitations

It’s Monday morning and I am sitting on my balcony celebrating the small win of having finished a song. As usual, I’m not sure how I feel about it. My impulse is to criticise (and not in the constructive way) but I’m learning to ignore that voice for at least a few weeks while I give the song some space.

This week I did also manage to learn most of Crayon Angels and unsurprisingly I think my own song ended up feeling slightly Judee coded (the word “angels” even snuck it’s way into my song without me joining the dots until this morning lol). 

I wrote using some fairly rigid parameters as starting points which I’ll elaborate on below for anyone interested.

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Lyrics

This week I used a lyric writing exercise that has become a go-to of mine in recent years. It involves going to Random Word Generator, choosing ten random words, setting a timer for 10 minutes and trying to write as much as possible (using those words) in that time. I started doing this exercise as a bit of an experiment with my high school students when they would try to convince me that they couldn’t write lyrics. I got into the habit of doing the exercise with them (partly to pass the time and partly to force myself to practice) and when I first started doing this in lessons I was pleasantly surprised by what it brought out in my own writing. The random words force you to think outside the square and the time limit allows you get out of your own way for ten minutes. I find that even though the lyrics can start off feeling random, the subconscious tends to come to the party at some stage and make meaning of things. I always step away after ten minutes and then return to flesh things out later on. 

These were my words - there were quite a few verses that ended up in the bin so I didn’t actually end up using that many of the original words.

A couple of examples of songs that have come from this exercise are All I Know For Sure (this one actually came from one of those high school lessons) and Contract, Expand (the song I posted here last week). 

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Music 

For the music, I used another well-worn exercise of mine which involves writing a chord progression by numbers. If music theory is not your bag, please feel free to scroll on, but for those who are interested:

*Brief diatonic harmony crash course*

The major scale consists of 7 notes which can be stacked in thirds to make triads/chords. This forms what is knows as “diatonic harmony” (basically major scale harmony). 

The rule, which applies to all keys is as follows:

1maj 2minor 3minor 4major 5major 6minor 7diminshed 

Eg. 

C Major = C D E F G A B (these are the notes in a C major scale)

              = Cmaj Dmin Emin Fmaj Gmaj Amin Bdim

G Major = G A B C D E F# (these are the notes in a G major scale)

  = Gmaj Amin Bmin Cmaj Dmaj Emin F#dim

So for this exercise, I choose random numbers between 1 and 7 (away from an instrument) and assign them to a key signature (it’s worth noting that the 7, being a diminished chord can be harder to make work for this exercise for reasons I can elaborate on if anyone is interested). I then take these chords to the guitar or piano and they form the starting point of the verse or chorus (or both).

This week I started writing in G and my numbers were 3 4 5 1 4 which equated to Emin, Cmaj, Dmaj, Gmaj, Cmaj. Sometimes I’ll choose another set of numbers for the chorus and the bridge but this week I just used these chords as a launchpad and let my ear lead the way once I started singing lyrics over the chords.

I find that, as with using random words, writing a chord progression by numbers sometimes help me avoid falling into old habits on the instrument. It’s also just a quick way to get started, which is definitely what I needed this week.

(Okay, theory talk over)

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This process probably sounds kind of sterile and unromantic. Maybe it will make you feel differently about the song (I’d be interested to know). But what I have come to find is that when I give myself strict parameters, I begin to feel more creative. My ears prick up and work harder my brain starts to draw connections and make meaning out of the abstract. I get rebellious and push back against the limitations and this generally leads me to more interesting places.  I may not always know what I’m writing about when I start the exercise but I almost always do by the time I’ve finished. 

Anyway, here is the song. Working title is We Take What We Can 

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I didn’t really nail this video of Crayon Angels (classic fumble at the bridge) but I ran out of time to record again so this is where we’re at this week:

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This week I’m prioritising practicing for a show so to be honest I’m not sure how successful my writing ventures will be. But I’m going to at least try to finish an existing half-written song (of which there are many). We’ll see how that goes…

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Since I said I’d continue to share older demos, here’s another one from the vault. This one was written during a School of Song course with Courtney Marie Andrews back in 2021, it’s called Seeking For Something.

Okay if you’ve made it this far then thank you again for being here. I would absolutely not have written a song this week were it not for this Substack and the people reading it (many of you are people who’s opinion I hold in very high regard which is equally intimidating and motivating). If you have any questions or thoughts regarding this week’s content please feel free to share in the comments :)

Hannah x

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Ps. a few of you have very kindly offered pledges to this page which was an unexpected surprise. I wasn’t planning on doing paid subscriptions because, as mentioned in my last post, I see this as a largely self serving pursuit (and also I don’t really fully understand how Substack works ha). But if you would like a paid subscription I have now turned on that option and any subscription income will go towards album #4 (this is totally optional and I will be posting the same content to paid and unpaid subscriptions at this stage). Thank you again x