Say you have been listening to a song written by another writer and recognize within it a structure of ABA. Believe it or not, this discovery of an ABA song structure has now become a part of your craft. All you will have to do is use this ABA structure in a song that you are writing. True, it may be a bit difficult/clunky at first, because you haven’t actually written a song that contains this song structure before, but you know that it works because you have heard it used in a song by another songwriter.
This ‘copy the technical aspects of a song’ process is a pretty simple and a very useful way to improve your songwriting skills. By listening for the technical elements of a song, you absorb them and then start to use them. Some aspects of songs that you can listen for are: structure, rhyme patterns, story lines, point of view, tempo, genre, et al. The technical parts of songwriting are easy to hear and learn. The heart and soul you put into a song is innate and earned.
The more you listen and examine songs and how they work or don’t work, the better songwriter you will be.
The art of writing is rewriting. Randy Klein