I've always loved writing songs. I haven’t posted any of my current best songs on TeenInk because they haven’t been copyrighted yet. But for those of you who like to write songs and post them, I thought I’d share my favorite tips on songwriting. Feel free to add yours in the comments!

1.
Repetition is good, but don’t overuse it. Choruses are great, but I don’t like to put more than 3-4 in a song.
2.
Try to be more symbolic than literal. For example, instead of “You dumped me the next day, and I felt so bad”, try “I stood at your doorstep, but you never came home. You left me, all broken, when I needed you most.”
3.
Filler words like “yeah”, “oh”, “whoa”, and “ooh,” can add oomph, but when used a lot it can really make a song sound cheesy.
4.
You don’t always have to rhyme. Take the song “Black Horse & Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall. It doesn’t rhyme a lot, but still the song is very catchy and well-written. (BTW, it’s another example of being symbolic!)
5.
Listen to all kinds of music. If you only listen to pop singers (Selena Gomez, Ke$ha, Rihanna) then all your songs will probably have a pop sound to it. I listen to everything from pop to oldies to jazz to techno to choral to hip hop. Pop best suits my voice, but all my songs have a blend of sounds to them now.
6.
Write down ANY ideas you have. They might sound weird now, but later you can edit them and make them work!
7.
I like to use this site www.lyricideas.com they have daily lyric suggestions that I use often.
8.
If you can’t play an instrument, use Apple’s Garageband or this site: www.jamstudio.com.
9.
Certain words and phrases are waaayyy overused, like ‘I love you’, ‘you make the sun shine’, ‘I’m down’, ‘come on, let’s go,’ etc. Try to be original!
10.
Certain rhymes are overused also. Like ‘fly’, ‘try’, ‘goodbye’, and ‘down’, ‘around’, ‘ground’, and ‘me,’ ‘be’, and ‘see’. Try to use other ones. Like, instead of ‘when I’m with you, I can fly. I can do anything if I try,’ how about ‘when you’re around me, anything’s possible. you’re always there to catch me when I fall’ it’s still a little cheesy, but better than the first one.
11. When you're done with a song, record it with a desktop microphone. I started doing that when I was eleven.
12. Copyright it. It's not too expensive if you copyright all your songs at once. Once again, I did that when I was eleven.
13. Burn CDs and give them to friends and family... but make sure they're copyrighted first, and they don't go out to the wrong people! (I learned that the hard way in sixth grade)
14. If you're not too shy, and if your teachers are okay with it, try writing a song for a project! I've written songs about everything from the immune system to pioneers, and got good grades from it! Plus it's entertaining to the class!
15. If serious songs aren't your thing, try parodies (think Weird Al, Venetian Princess from youtube, and Adam Sandler)! Instead of 'Tik Tok' by Ke$ha, write a parody called 'Tic Tac' about the breathmints! (Sry, i tried to but then found out it's already been done =P)

Hope these tips help! don’t forget to share yours in the comments! ?