Types of Songwriting
Solo From Scratch
This involves the songwriter using an instrument to write their songs. They come up with the chords, melody, and lyrics.
Songs like this will have only one songwriter listed. There will often be a demo made by the artist by themselves.
Examples:
Marina Diamandis
Hermit the Frog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVml7SpC_t8
Are You Satisfied https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4F2jAMb7XA
Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ryy0P-UXSg
Taylor Swift
Blank Space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSo2flkc9VA
Some songwriters with solo credits are Lady Gaga (You and I; Just Another Day), Taylor Swift.
Melody-first (co-writing sub-type)
The songwriter comes up with a melody first, and then work with a professional songwriter to find the chords for it or elaborate more parts on it.
Examples:
Lana Del Rey
Carmen (demo) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWPKcivbbKk
TV In Black & White (demo) - https://soundcloud.com/missconeyisland/tv-in-black-white-living
Our process has not changed over the years. Lana always comes in with a concept and often, a melody and lyrics on her iPhone. I listen to it acapella, find the exact key she’s singing in and start to create a chord progression around it. We start playing together and define the exact chords and melody. Then she finishes the lyrics. I’m always knocked out by how incredible her lyrics are and how effortlessly she seems to write them.
After that, we solidify the verse and chorus. We usually write the middle eight from scratch—that’s the section that comes after the second chorus. It is a construct of classic songwriting sometimes called the bridge. You don’t see a lot of middle eights in songs anymore. I love that we write them because I think they make the songs more timeless and satisfying (https://genius.com/a/songwriter-producer-rick-nowels-explains-how-lana-del-rey-s-lust-for-life-came-together)
Collaborative Writing
The songwriter works with another songwriter to create a song. This usually involves improvising in the studio, one of them playing chords on a piano, or one of them singing a song. If it is a band, multiple members play instruments and come up with their parts.
Examples:
tricot
writing a song in 3 hours challenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjC_RCDtIt0
Hiromi: Usually our lead guitarist starts playing some phrases, and the rest of us, in turn, comes up with our own parts, and then we all piece them together...
Ikkyu: More often than not, we develop our songs from guitar riffs. So we were waiting for what kind of riffs are coming out. And when they got supplemented by the drum and bass parts, the song was gradually settling into shape. We were thinking "How should we develop this?" all the way through.
Mariah Carey and Walter A. worked this way - he would play chords, she would sing something on top of it, and they would work like that back and forth to write songs. https://deadline.com/2022/12/mariah-careys-story-about-writing-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you-humbug-cowriter-claims-1235206394/
“So the writing of “All I Want For Christmas” is, I started playing a boogie-woogie, kind of a rock. Mariah chimed in and started singing “I don’t want a lot for Christmas.”
“So on and on, and it was like a game of ping-pong,” Afanasieff said. “I’d hit the ball to her, she hits it back to me.”
The two are credited as the sole writers and producers on the song, with Afanasieff crediting Carey with the lyrics and music, while he takes credit for the music and chords.
Also: https://lucascava.medium.com/mariah-carey-the-songwriter-with-a-music-box-7e1d730660ef
We worked together for a three-year period developing most of the songs on the first album. She had the ability just to hear things in the air and to start developing songs out of them. Often I would sit down and start playing something, and from the feel of a chord, she would start singing melody lines and coming up with a concept
Toplining
There is a pre-existing instrumental that the songwriter creates a melody for. This is one of the most common ways to write in pop music.
Lady Gaga - Aura (from Infected Mushroom), Stache (from Zedd)
Starting with lyrics, music, both?
Artists have different approaches.
Marina https://americansongwriter.com/writer-week-marina-diamonds/
Whenever I think of lyrics I write them down, whether I’m on a train or plane or walking to the supermarket. It always starts with lyrics first and hardly ever starts with music. I have to be inspired to write about something.
Allie X https://www.coupdemainmagazine.com/interviews/interview-2016-must-know-allie-x
It's different every time I write a song. I used to just write at the piano, but now that I know how to produce - well, somewhat - I often will start with a bass-line or a drumbeat. Sometimes I get an idea in my head melodically and I'll voice-memo it. It might be there for a year before I decide to pursue that. Sometimes I get a title. Sometimes I get a lyric to start from, but rarely.
Lady Gaga https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/how-lady-gaga-writes-a-song/
The creative process is approximately 15 minutes of vomiting my creative ideas in the forms of melodies usually… and some sort of a theme, lyric, idea… it all comes in approximately 15 minutes of this giant regurgitation of my thoughts and feelings – and then I spend days, weeks, months, years, fine tuning.
The idea is that you honour your vomit. You have to honour your vomit.
Tori Amos https://www.yessaid.com/int/1994-03_Performing_Songwriter.html
I'm pretty ruthless with lyrics. I don't let anything slide. The music is more stream of consciousness and it's always done first, with a line here and a line there. Again, a line of lyric will come for a verse, then I have to craft around what does this line mean?
Janis Ian https://www.songwritingmagazine.co.uk/songs/how-i-wrote/at-seventeen-janis-ian
The song started off then as ‘I learnt the truth at eighteen,’ and I had the guitar in my hand and I was playing this little figure in G with the capo on, I think I’d been listening to Astrid Gilberto that week. ’Eighteen’ didn’t scan so I changed it to, ‘I learned the truth at seventeen,’ and then it’s a logical thing to say, ‘That love was meant for beauty queens.’
Kelela https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/24/kelela-interview/
THC: Do you have a creative process that you follow when it comes to making your music?
K: I’m usually just listening to either chords or just sounds, and responding to them with melody. So it starts [out] being melodic, and then I go from there to start trying to fit lyric into the phrasing of my melody.
Erykah Badu https://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/erykah-badu-frother-of-the-month
I knew what I liked, how I wanted the music to sound, what I wanted to rock over. I knew what I wanted to write over, yeah. Because the music comes first for me. I don’t write lyrics and then write music, because to me that’s poetry. It’s music first and then I write to the music. I find a place in that music. I can’t write to any old music, it has to touch me in a very special way.
https://macdailynews.com/2008/10/01/erykah_badu_uses_apples_garageband_to_great_effect/
Badu: Garageband? Yes. Because he felt sorry for me. I would get my cell phone and try to remember a song, and he said: “Mom. You don’t have to do that. All you have to do is drag the music into this one track. And then create some tracks to sing on and you can record right now.” And I began to do that and to manipulate the system and to EQ, and add effects and instrumentation and I had an opportunity to write 72 songs in a very short span of time — a three month period, which led me to come in with New America Part One, and then Part Two … because of that freedom, of being able to record and just be wherever. Anywhere.
Other
Co-writing credits can also come from melody tweaks, writing a middle eight, or lyric changes, so it's difficult to know from a co-writing credit how much each artist contributed. Is this co-writing credit because the producer got credits despite the chords, lyrics, and melody coming from the songwriter? Some artists are very generous with songwriting credits, giving them to anyone who contributes anything at all (e.g. Lady Gaga) and some are more strict, only giving credits to themselves even if others contributed other instrumental parts (e.g. Benny and Bjorn from ABBA do not credit the instrumentalists for parts they come up or Agnetha and Frida for vocal harmonies they come up with). Every song is also different - some songs may be heavily co-written, some songs may be victims of 'change a word, get a third', from the same artist.
Many artists don't have professional training so they have to work with another songwriter to find the chords. Many artists also are required to cowrite by studio heads.