How To Write A Worship Song (Explained by GRAMMY® Winning Songwriter)

[Music] hey I'm Seth Mosley coming to you from our recording studio in Nashville Tennessee and we are here to answer any and all of your questions about the music industry so you want to know how to write a worship song well they appeared to be very simple but when you dissect really well written worship songs there is a craftsmanship that goes into them artists like Chris Tomlin like Matt Redman like Hillsong like Jesus Culture like Bethel all of them know this and when I first started music I was a worship leader and I started writing worship songs I thought they were easy to write just because they're simple on the surface but actually what can be hard is writing worship songs that kind of sing about the same subject matter that's been saying time and time again but does it in a new fresh accessible way so really I'm just gonna give you kind of some key takeaways that I've learned from writing worship songs and from having songs on the CC Li charts and from having written with people like Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin and some of the names that I mentioned now these are by no means the comprehensive exhaustive list of everything you need to know about worship songs these are just a few key takeaways so number one you want to focus on keeping your melodies accessible if you're writing songs to be sung by a male book voice you probably don't want to write your chorus to go over a high F if you're writing a song for a girl to lead or sing don't go any higher than an A so keep your melodies in a singable range you don't want them to be too low and you don't want em to be too high the second thing I'd bring up is repetition is a really big thing in worship songs some songs even sing the same verse twice you know just to drive the point home or the chorus line or the chorus is maybe just one line that's repeated over and over again like the classic I could sing of Your love forever it just says that over and over again or King of my heart is you are good good Oh like that's just repeated over and over again so don't be afraid to use repetition and lean in when you find a line that's powerful and needs said and guys remember with repetition the key with repetition is that the line has to feel better each new time that you sing it if you feel like you're singing it and it's just getting stale or old like it probably isn't a line that needs repeated so that is another key so knowing what the traditional song structure is and worship songs is really key typically you're gonna start out with an intro a verse chorus verse a chorus and a bridge that maybe repeats like three or sometimes even four times and then end with a big last chorus and sometimes you can even end with a bridge again they're kind of just interchangeable sections that you can kind of flow in and out of and and they all just feel good to do so don't be afraid to stay inside the box and also remember there's some tried-and-true chord progressions that work because they evoke a certain emotion for example if you're in the key of C you might try a minor F CG that's a six four one five progression or one that's really popular nowadays is like let's say you're in the key of G it'd be G a minor E minor C that's a 1 minor 2 minor 6 and a for those ones get used a lot and they evoke emotion now just remember just to not be afraid to go back to the stuff that works time and time again you know that old saying if it ain't broke don't fix it that absolutely applies here and really the focus in trying to write worship songs is just writing a song that a lot of people can sing along with so don't try to get too fancy just make sure that what you're saying reflects biblical truth that's the big thing is when you set out to write a worship song you're taking on a high responsibility because you're putting words in people's mouths to sing putting prayers in people's mouths to pray and so make sure that you enter into that from a real genuine place of not just setting up because you want to have a song that a ton of people sing and you want to get your name out there that's really not the place you want to approach approach worship songwriting from you want to approach it from a place of what does the church need to sing and a big part of that is just staying rooted in the local church so if you achieve any level of traction with any of your worship songs you're gonna want to make sure they're registered with CC Li which is an entity that attracts performances and thus can then pay out royalties on performances so if you're interested in learning more about CCL I click the link in the description below we've actually got a whole podcast with CC Li that you need to check out hey if this video was helpful for you be sure to hit that like button and also if you haven't subscribed to our channel yet make sure you do so so you don't miss out on any other awesome videos on popular music industry questions if you have additional questions about the music industry make sure you leave them in a comment below we would love to answer them at full circle music we have a free training class that teaches you exactly what to do if you want a career in the music business so if you want access to that video click down here and for another awesome video about the music industry click up here [Music]

Channel: Full Circle Music

Views: 23,727

Keywords: Independent artist, Full Circle Music, Full Circle, Seth Mosley, Recording Studio, Songwriting, Songwriters, Music Production, Producers, Record Label, Record Deal, Music Career, Music Industry, Music Industry Career, Recording Artist, Nashville, Music Business, Questions, How To, Musicians, 100 Questions, Publisher, Artist Development, Music, Worship song, Write worship song, How to write a worship song, how to write

Id: MobE1uzkbXQ

Length: 5min 37sec (337 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 11 2019