A craft exercise · next record
Derive One Song
You're not going to copy a song. You're going to take one apart and rebuild it into something only you would make.
↓ begin
You already know how to make a song feel true, and how to track it clean at home.
This drops a method on top of those instincts so you can start a song on a day when nothing's coming. The idea is simple: every song is built from other songs. Work small — one verse and one chorus finishes this. Don't chase perfect.
Pick your input
One song you love. Any genre. You're choosing it because there's something in it you want to take apart — not because you want to sound like it.
Write down the title and the one thing that pulls you in: a rhythm, a line, a chord move, a feeling.
Take it apart
Listen on repeat and map it. No opinions yet — just counting.
- Structure — name the sections in order and roughly how many bars each runs.
- Lines — count syllables per line in a verse, then in the chorus. Note the difference.
- Melody — mark where it climbs and where it drops.
- The peak — find the single highest emotional moment. One spot. Circle it.
- Story shape — in one sentence, what changes from start to finish?
This is the skeleton. You're about to break it on purpose.
Write your lock
Before you transform anything, set your own controlling idea:
[Character] wants [X] but [obstacle], therefore [action / cost], which proves [arguable truth about people].
This is not the source song's idea. The input gives you raw material; the lock gives the new song its spine. Everything you build has to serve this.
Run the five moves
Now rebuild toward your lock. Use each one at least once — write down which element you hit with each.
Conversion
Take an element and change its form or meaning. The source's chorus rhythm becomes your verse rhythm in a different mood.
Inversion
Reverse something. Open on the chorus. Flip the emotional arc. Turn a rising line into a falling one.
Modification
Take something away. Fewer chords. Drop an instrument. Cut a section the original leaned on.
Exaggeration
Push one element bigger. Stretch a phrase past where it's comfortable. Magnify the dynamic peak.
Distillation
Reduce the source to its one essential element, throw out the rest, and build around just that. This is where it stops being a copy and starts being yours.
You don't have to like all five results. The reps are the point.
Name what's yours
One sentence — the transformation in this song that no one else would have made.
Write it down before you second-guess it.
If your first instinct is "nothing, it's all borrowed" — that's the assignment talking back at you. The lock is yours. The five choices are yours. Find the strongest one and claim it.
Record it your way
- Lay an acapella scratch first — just voice, the way you sing most accurately.
- When you track to the part, mute everything non-essential in the headphones so you're not fighting competing inputs for pitch.
- Reach for the fuller register you found last session. It's there without straining. Let the take sit in it.
When you turn it in
Send me the source song, your lock, a note on which element each of the five moves landed on, your one-sentence claim from Step 5, and a rough recording of the verse and chorus. Scratchy is fine.
If an idea gets rejected — by me, by you, by the room — that's one idea, not the song. Keep the draft moving.
Hello, World!