Getting started with songwriting using backing tracks

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There are many different ways to get started with songwriting and as the diagram above, taken from our free guide to songwriting suggests these could be words, words and music or music. 

A great way to help students grow in confidence to try out their ideas is to provide them with backing tracks to sing along to. The advantages of this are:

• The backing tracks can be in any style of music such as reggae, rock, hip hop that students recognise.
• The associations they have with these styles and familiarity with songs they have heard before often helps them to feel more confident to sing along, try out ideas and take inspiration from music they already know
• They don't need to know too much about chords, keys, instrumentation or harmony as this is done for them, however they do need to demonstrate some understanding of how to add a melody and make it fit and the only way to do this is to sing or play along!
• They can take the energy and feel of the backing track and put that into their performance
• A good quality backing track with a strong groove or swing means that moving as they sing comes naturally
• If they are struggling with lyrics they can repeat one line or word and experiment with just the melody keeping in time and in the style of the backing track and it can still sound like a 'real' song!
•  The backing tracks can already be arranged into song structure which can help students to start to recognise how to develop verse, chorus and other sections, preparing them for when they create their own music

A selection of backing tracks and play along videos are available in our free e-book which you will receive if you join Musical Futures. Already a member? Drop us an email and we can send it to you! 

click for a free guide to songwriting

What better way to demonstrate this in action than in the following video examples which were recorded in Dalian, Northern China in 2017. The teachers were given a selection of backing tracks on their phones, asked to choose one, then add and perform a vocal line.

​Singing in another language made no difference to the overall shapes of the melodies and the delivery of the performances and it was a fun way to end our workshops because very little explanation was needed, once they heard the backing tracks they quickly started to write and experiment with the lyrics with no help at all from the workshop leaders.

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