Charlie Puth’s 5 BEST Songwriting Tips | Studio Deep Dive

that's really good in this studio Deep dive we're going to take a close look at Charlie pu's songwriting process and we're really going to zoom in on what he's doing and thinking and the choices he's making as he's crafting a brand new song number five is so important because it really shows how a songwriter of his level draws upon their deep knowledge and appreciation of music to come up with new ideas these five elements are actually practical and repeatable tips that can help any song writer get better and faster at coming up with great song ideas let's dive in I have this like melody in my head that I want to uh start with and then I'll put the chords under that Melody I I want to just get this down before I forget it so I'll just Loop that over oh here here's [Music] Loop maybe like a trumpet or something I don't know I'm not I I I'll worry about the sound later but then I'll take my phone and just kind of I'll just Loop that over here here's sidebar why does your voice always sound different when it's recorded [Music] probably just like repeat that over always like half has to be different I said it was I said it was going to be trumpet but now it's turned it [Music] to that's really good I'm G hold on so I don't forget it okay that's why it's always important to record whatever Melody you think is good right away because I'm in a completely different section and I would be freaking out thinking I forgot that Melody one of the things we can see here is that Charlie is so sensitive to the idea of catching ideas as they happen he is not resting on the assumption that if an idea is good enough that he's going to remember it later no he catches it immediately and what we can also see is that after he's captured the idea he immediately listens back to it and reviews it and really tries to get some perspective on it because listening back to it when you've recorded it is different than running it around in your head and he's using this process to really iterate on the idea he's using it to see what he could do with it whether or not he wants to take it forward or maybe come up with something else the most important thing for me is making like the rudimental sounds like like don't worry about the clicks later just make it super clean from the beginning because it'll actually uh inspire a Melody if what you hear sounds like a final product you know what I might end up doing what I said I wasn't going to do and using what I just recorded on the phone into but let's just look at a couple more sounds and if I can't find anything we'll do the no no uh like it's you should never like be I know there's guys and girls out there who can make like beats like super fast but it's like I go with the more methodical approach like I'll probably only put three sounds down right now and that's like totally okay you don't have to be like adding high hats and like doing all that crazy stuff like from the get-go it's like I just like to I have something in my head and I don't want to like rush [Music] it no no no no well that's actually kind of cool I could lay that I think that's the way one more thing I [Music] like no no okay I like that when I'm first coming up with a sound I never just use the soft synth because I I need like some thing of me on top of that so I will take we'll go back to my voice memo thing here I still haven't thought of like what I'm going to say or what the lyricss going to be or what the melody is even going to be I'm just focusing right now I'm making these little and I'm slowing down a little bit just to kind of make these sound perfect and then everything else will be just like oh yeah just put this kick in there put the snare in there but right now at the core of it we want to make sure that the is really [Music] good some songwriters love starting with chords they're really focused on getting the core progression right and using that as a platform for their song and some songwriters are very lyric driven so in a songwriting Community like Nashville there's so much focus on the lyrical concept like that's the thing that really drives the song forward but seeing Charlie work on this track it's clear that the sounds themselves are the sources of inspiration he's using the production as the platform that he wants to build this track upon and it's really not overly complicated he's building this melody out of just two layers but he's spending time up front to get those layers sounding just right but for songwriters the question really is how long do we spend shaping these sounds and how do we know when to move on and in tip three Charlie shows us exactly how he deals with this I'm going to print it to audio since I hate midi I've just never liked it I always work using audio and like trimming it and adjusting the attack and the sustain just feels so feels so final I don't know so the most important thing Max Martin always told me to do this because I used to leave a bunch of open tracks open just commit everything he was like you're not going to change anything just commit it it's so much more pleasant to look at when you render everything you did that's why I spent so much time like cross fading everything because now I'll have like one track to work with which is this one right here o I just had an idea I have a I have a high hat pattern in my head but I don't I there's one more thing that I wanted to add just let me work it [Music] up okay let's open a new track okay and it doesn't have to be the most groundbreaking sound either it just has to be something to give it a little body ooh ooh kind [Music] of o I don't like that I like I I want I wanted to do the reverse you have to play around with things [Music] and it doesn't need it I regret what I said it doesn't need it hold on let me delete it it's just trial and error I'm not going to be right all the [Music] time like maybe an organ on top of this [Music] part I don't know [Music] like kits oh dope that's nasty wasn't help [Music] o [Music] the [Music] [Music] of I simpler at the end uh [Music] uh a really important observation here is just how quickly Charlie is making creative decisions he's iterating through a few options and then making a decision and moving on and we can really see this thought process in action when he commits the midi to audio files and the beautiful thing about midi is that it's flexible the reason most compos ERS and songwriters work with mid cuz you can essentially trigger any kind of sound with it what Charlie's doing here is he's taking that option away he's committing to the sound that he thinks is working for the track and he's taking all of those options of going back and changing it off the table and this really drives forward the whole process I love this idea that making a decision actually allows the next decision to open up and be made yeah I know it's the beginning of the song but I start to think of like a picture in my head and it reminds me of me and my friend Mike in 2013 driving to a very Suburban town uh over going over the Tobin Bridge in Massachusetts in Boston and then going into like a Suburban kind of town I don't know why [Music] it's why you have to go and get my H why you have to go and get my hopes up like I won't write all the lyrics right now but something dope you could say [Music] that's why you have to go and get my hopes up and make me think you did want me from the boing in like bugging in like that's kind of dope like like why' you have to go and get my hopes up and make me think you wanted me from the beginning that's like I feel like people could relate to that I definitely caning in come on the one of the biggest questions for developing songwriters is whether the lyrics come first or the music comes first as if there is a right or a wrong way to do it and really there's not you can start anyway but what we definitely see here in this song with Charlie is that he's starting with the music and he's really attuned to the mood and emotion that it's evoking in him and what we see in this moment is that being connected to the emotion that's coming out of the music and the melody and the sound is triggering some really specific experiences and memories so we see the melody Inspire this visual memory for Charlie but the other thing we see is this phrase immerge from listening back to the track and riffing off it why you got to go and get my hopes up and this is really interesting because now he has two options he could go with the memory of his mate driving across the bridge or he could actually lean into this new lyrical phrase that's popped up from the melody and both are really good ways to develop lyrics out of the melody itself okay so weird example you know in Te teenage dream like you think I'm pretty without any makeup on it's you don't really know the chords yet it just sounds like it's in B flat major and then when the second half of the verse comes in you start to hear the E flat GF and you're like oh that's the chord progression it'd be cool if we did the reverse of that and I'm thinking if we started off with like these very like Breakfast Club chords and then at this section maybe this is the pre I don't know different chords so you have these chord the the typical [Music] chords um because those chords would work over so right now I [Music] have maybe the chorus could like no I won't say that yet because I want to get too ahead of myself no I like the pure d flat better sorry trial and error [Music] maybe push that note maybe I think I like that one of the things that we see in Charlie's full studio.com course which you can check out in the link below is that Charlie's musical references the dictionary in his mind is deep and Broad which is to say that he has references that span genre and span era and he's constantly referencing other artists and using those references to come up with inspiration and ideas but this is this critical moment that really demonstrates how someone like Charlie puth thinks and uses those references as a songwriter CU he's not just literally using the references he's not just saying hey that's a cool chord progression I'm going to use the same chord progression it's not imitation it's a totally different type of thinking which is that he's making a deliberate effort to change it in some way which is to say he's not just taking or borrowing the thing itself he's really seeking to borrow the thinking underneath the thing and the thing in this case is the chord movement in Teenage Dream he identifies how much he likes it but then Super importantly he says what happens if I flip it what happens if I do the opposite and that's really the big difference that's the thing that makes this a creative Choice rather than just copying something you've heard a really usable way that any songwriter can apply this kind of thinking to their creative process is firstly just by broadening our references listening to more genres and listening to different eras of music and as you're listening to this music identify songs that you love or parts of songs that you really love and think about how you might be able to take those moments and convert them change them flip them somehow for example taking a song that's really uptempo and playing it at half speed really slowing it down taking a lyrical idea or a title and saying what would the opposite sound like how can I invert the sentiment here this also becomes super productive when you start cross-pollinating ideas so if you hear some production sounds you love in one song rather than than just recreating the same beat use some of those sounds to create a Beat from a completely different genre and actually in that cross-pollination you will often find that something completely new and original emerges so the big idea here is how do I take something I like but change it in some way to really make it my own if you're interested in seeing a completely different method for coming up with a song ID one where the lyrics are really driving the boat make sure to check out this video right here driving the boat driving the boat [Music] right

Channel: Studio

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Keywords: charlie puth, studio, songwriting, tips, process, method, tricks, steps, production, pro tools, vocals, ableton, singing, melodies, write melodies, how to write a song, hit, charts, music production, voice notes, class, secrets, teaches, tutorial, hit song, how to write songs, billboard, breakdown, charlie, puth, see you again, attention, behind the scenes, in the studio, masterclass, pop, logic pro, songwriting for beginners, how to write melodies, how to make melodies, lyrics, how to write lyrics

Id: UsdPTA7p3WU

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2024