I thought it would be a good idea to give a a little practical example of song-writing. Have a listen to the attached mp3 and have a read of the below

'Your grace is sufficient for me'

For about the last 10 months I've been playing around with a song idea about God's grace. There are lots of songs about God's love, God's kindness, God's holiness etc. However I've been challenged to try and look at some of the other themes we read about in the bible and God's grace is one particular example.

To start off with I had a verse idea but didn't really know where to go with it

'Your grace is sufficient for me
Your power is made perfect whenever I'm weak'
Bringing me strength
Bringing me peace
Your grace is sufficient for me'

So, I wrote it all down and left it.

I think it's quite important to give song ideas time to breathe. I say this with some reservations as this can be very frustrating. I'm not sure about you but there have been quite a few times where I've really tried to finish a song idea but deep down I know that it's not ready. This can be frustrating especially if you're working to a deadline etc. However looking back you won't regret giving time for your song to mature. Matt Redman uses the analogy of making a cup of tea. You leave the tea bag in for a while before taking it out. If you take it out too quickly the tea is pretty weak and disgusting. This is true with the songs we're writing for the church. Give them time and space to breathe, to take shape, to grow and develop.

A few months later I remembered my little idea and started playing around with it. I started writing a second verse and ideas for a third verse and chorus. This is what it started to look like:

Verse 1
Your grace is sufficient for me
Your power is made perfect whenever i'm weak
Bringing me strength
Bringing me peace
Your grace is sufficient for me

Verse 2
Your grace is sufficient for me
And though I may stumble, it's You that I see
Cheering me on
Paths that are steep
Your grace is sufficient for me

Chorus
I know that You are all I need
I know, I know Your grace is sufficient for me

Verse 3
Your grace is sufficient for me
Flowing so vast like the waves of the sea
Keeping my life
In perfect peace
Your grace is sufficient for me

So, as you can see, the song started taking shape and was looking promising (I thought anyway). I find it helpful typing out lyrics to songs on the computer, so that I can see all the words in one glance. I find this useful as you start to notice little things that perhaps you could tweak or change. One thing I noticed with the above was that I was using the first line 'Your grace is sufficient for me' a lot. It didn't bother me at first as I thought it was the theme of the song and the message I wanted to sing about. However I started to think that perhaps I should tweak the lyrics slightly and to think of slightly different phrases for the last line of the verses. I also asked some my friends Phil & Laura Le Cheminant and they agreed that I was repeating the line too many times.

So I made some changes and replaced the last lines of the verse to the following:

Verse 1
Your grace is the song that I sing

Verse 2
You call my soul to believe

Verse 3
Because of Your grace I am free

The song was coming along nicely. At this point I was pretty happy with the verses to the song and the melody. However I had some doubts about the chorus. I wanted to write a chorus that was quite simple after a particularly 'wordy' verse 1 and 2. However what i came up with didn't quite feel right. The melody at one point also reached a high F, which is a bit of a 'no no' in terms of 'church friendly' songs. I played the song a lot to my wife and we both agreed that we liked it but perhaps it still needed some work.

Very frustrating! The song at this point was in my opinion 95% finished. However things can change very quickly...

Last weekend I went back home to Romsey to see Mum & Dad but also to spend time with my best mates Phil & Laura. As i've mentioned in previous blogs i try and get together with Phil & Laura every now and then to play new ideas and to get their critique and feedback. I think most of my songs have passed through the 'Le Cheminant Test'. Some ideas have made it through triumphantly to the other side, some have failed miserably and have never left my notebook.

Anyway, I travelled down after work and met up with Phil & Laura on the Friday evening. The first song I played to them was this one. They both agreed that the chorus was weak and wasn't very 'user friendly'. I expressed however that I really wanted to keep the last line of the chorus if possible as I liked the melody and the chords used. So the next 30 minutes were spent thinking about a possible chorus and what we wanted to say. Phil suddenly suggested a melody idea and Laura and myself began thinking over some lyrics. The problem lay in the last line of the verse. For a while we couldn't get back there melodically or lyrically. Finally we finalised a chorus

'You are all I need, You're all I want
You are my desire, my strength, my song
You've opened my eyes to Your majesty
Your grace, Your grace is sufficient for me'

I was really exited at this point. The song now had a strong chorus that felt catchy and singable. The new chorus also seemed to change the idea from what I thought would become a slow reflective worship song to a bigger, more anthemic song.

At this point Phil also came up with a great intro idea which again helped change the shape of the song, but for the better.

But just when I thought it was over and finished.....

Laura got me to read out the verses. We realised that some of the lyrics didn't quite work. 'Cheering me on paths that are steep' didn't feel quite right. We liked the idea but then thought that this might imply that God only cheers us on steep paths and doesn't actually come down to help us up the paths that are steep. So we changed this to 'Cheering me on, strengthening me'.

Verse 3 also had a mini crisis. The lyric 'Flowing so vast like the waves of the sea' I thought was fine but was soon pointed out as 'not making sense'. Things don't tend to 'flow vastly'. So, we changed it to 'Endlessly flows like the waves of the sea'.

Finally the song felt completed:

Verse 1
Your grace is sufficient for me
Your power is made perfect whenever i'm weak
Bringing me strength
In times of need
Your grace is the song that I sing

Verse 2
Your grace is sufficient for me
And though I may stumble it's You that I see
Cheering me on
Strengthening me
You call my soul to believe

Chorus
You are all I need, You're all I want
You are my desire, my strength, my song
You've opened my eyes to Your majesty
Your grace, Your grace is sufficient for me

Verse 3
Your grace is sufficient for me
Endlessly flows like the waves of the sea
Keeping my life
In perfect peace
Because of Your grace I am free

It was about Midnight at this stage and Laura had gone to bed, but Phil and myself wanted to record a quick demo (check out Phil on the keys). I mentioned that perhaps the song needed a little tag at the end, but when it came to laying the vocals down nothing seemed to come. That's not to say something might not come when singing this song at church or in future months.




And from starting this little blog I have infact led this song once and I speeded it up a tad (from what you hear on the mp3). Also I'm thinking of ways to connect the chorus a little more.

I hope this has been helpful to any song writers out there. The one thing I've learnt is that you've got to be patient with your ideas

God Bless,
Tim

/Your%20grace%20is%20sufficient.mp3