Nashville-based Krissy Nordhoff is a professional songwriter and author.
Krissy is the creator of The Writing Worship Course and the Worship Songwriter Mentorship. Her songs have been recorded by a variety of artists including Natalie Grant, Jenn Johnson (Bethel Music), Darlene Zschech and many more! Passionate about training and encouraging the next generation of songwriters, Krissy now mentors, teaches and creates resources, including informative podcasts and her popular 'Songwriter Personality Test'. She has also penned a new book, Writing Worship: How To Craft Heartfelt Songs for the Church that offers spiritual and practical insights for aspiring songwriters and worship teams that want to write original songs for their congregations.
WRITING WORSHIP - FIND OUT MORE
Song Mapping
I wanted to share with you today a concept called Song Mapping. I first learned this when I started writing songs. In general, a lot of times as creatives, we have to allow the flow to happen. But what I've noticed is that if we keep stopping mid-flow for one reason or another, it will make the write much, much harder. So what I want to encourage you to do, is to let the flow happen right in the beginning of the write! Sometimes that's musically, but we're gonna talk more specifically about lyrics in this blog.
So how do I 'let it flow'?
When we use this concept called song mapping, you first want to brainstorm. So maybe, if I was writing a song called 'Umbrella', you take that concept and write every word you can think of related to that word. Or you ask questions about that word or phrase or concept, or you think about adjectives or adverbs that describe that word - but let yourself get all of your thoughts out regarding that one thing.
Then I will put the concept in the very center of my page. So for my song, where the concept was umbrella, that's in the centre of the page. I have all kinds of ideas that will then spoke outwards from that center idea. When we look at it in relation to our song, that center would become our chorus. We want everything to support that center idea in the chorus.
From that center, you then want to make connecting lines and little family bubbles. So in my example, where umbrella is the center concept, maybe you put rain under that, and maybe under rain, you have different kinds of rain. So when those little bubbles/families that are related are finished, they could be possible verses, or they can possibly be a bridge idea. Remember though, you want everything to point back to that center concept/bubble!
Overall, this is a great way to get started writing songs. It helps you to be able to structure songs correctly and to make sure that everything stays on target for what you originally intend. You can learn more about song mapping in my book called Writing Worship. We have a chapter in there (I believe it's chapter eight!) that talks a lot more detail about song mapping. You can check it out below.
And again, we wanna see what songs you write from the song maps. You can upload your songs to SongShare, and share your songs with your church, your city and your world!
If you don't know where to start with writing songs, or if you're an old hand in need of some fresh new tips then Krissy has some amazing resources on her site writingworship.co. A great place to start is by taking the Songwriter Personality Test, which will help you to understand where your personal strengths are with songwriting, and who you need to team up with! If you want to dig deeper with others in your church then have a look at Krissy's book Writing Worship, and her online course.
WRITING WORSHIP - FIND OUT MORE