I'm sure some of you have heard of the term "topliner". Basically a topliner writes the vocal melody and lyrics over a music track.

My question is if you only do mainly vocal melodies and not lyrics, are u still considered a topliner?

 

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Hey that was really helpful thanks geeeez

 

I thinks so but i still consider it a grey area...here are some wise words

A song is made up of three parts; the music, the vocal tune and the lyrics.

A "Topline" writer is the word used to describe someone who writes the vocal tune and the lyrics. I'm not sure where that name originated but it seems to have stuck and is now a standard within the songwriting community.

There is a whole industry ready to match Topliners with producers (who only make instrumentals).
I remember hearing an instrumental produced by Bloodshy & Avant which was sent to a number of talented Topliners. The best melody and lyric (Topline) came from Cathy Dennis, who had demo'd up a song she called "Toxic". Her version was used by Britney Spears and later won a Grammy for Best Dance song.

So, how do you get into Topline writing?

There are music publishers and management companies which represents record producers and artists. If you get in contact with these companies, be sure to make clear that you are a Topline writer and available to work with producers. Good Topliners will be able to walk into a studio and come up with a song on the spot (taking a couple hours to write and record vocals).

But what if you can't sing but enjoy writing lyrics and vocal melodies? A great way to get your music developed is to ask a talented music producer to create a piece of music (in a suitable style) so that you can write your song to it.

The advantage of writing to an existing instrumental (or beat) is that it is often easier and cheaper for a producer to create a piece of music from scratch. Also, it's easier to write a vocal melody (and lyrics) to a completed instrumental because you have the final feel of the music to inspire you.

Source: http://www.applebeam.co.uk/blog/what-is-topline-writing

 

"Also, it's easier to write a vocal melody (and lyrics) to a completed instrumental because you have the final feel of the music to inspire you." Sorry, Guru, this statement seems way oversimplified to me. I never know which part of a song is going to get me started 1st. Sometimes it's the chicken, sometimes it's the egg. Original melody melded to unique and interesting lyrics is one of the harder things to come up with in music. An average song can be made to sound interesting with a good arrangement and production, but a song with good lyric and melody will shine through about anything.

 

i respect your opinion, but myself being in then entertainment business.. it's a different story, writer don't always get their spark for completed works or even easier for them to write to. I know a few Topliners who write music based on a emotion. If they want a song to cry to, they make it cry!!!!

 

Even if he expressed his opinion about chicken & eggs he also made a point in his last sentence, and it's not an opinion.

What you talk about is industry, which means nothing in a human perspective... we all know those songs hammered in your brain by the media and soon forgotten for the "new hit"...
Where being truly inspired... that's a whole different story. Some songs will never be forgotten!

 

Humm

Probabbly some concepts change here if someone really study counterpoint and serial music in university...
Remenbering: in counterpoint everything is a melody, so for shure is more complex.
Melody is real a profound conceipt to understand, and most of professional musicians of the popular music do not really know about.
For me is very hard to understand that music comes putting slices toguether, music must be coehrence, a unit, a developed idea...
Thats why I never use loops until some years ago, because it must have a structure. If its not a counterpoint like must be a hierarchy.
Obvoiuly I talk this because usually pop music is very poor, where bridges do not have relation with medodies, mainly with fx or drums and percussion that can work for any music.
Poor music is in the air, and lot of good musicians are out of the industry.
In a world that the composition is divided it becames richier because we have more heads?
I do not think so
Just because richier must be the develop of something, not the nonsense agregation
So, if someone like to write lyrics he must read a lot. At this point, if someone wants to pu lyrics in a song, obviosly he must to know how to sing too.
A real good musician must understand the history of form in music and at least write in every form.
But if you wanna make music and lyrics...thats a world that you learn by listening and exercising... Just because I never see this matter as a subject in the university...
Here in Brazil a lot o international hits were made a portuguese version, and I can say that almost everything is a shadow of the original song.
Another example of desaster are the english version of Ivan Lins from a couple of americans. Here they forget everything from the original lyrics and done something entire diferent... what a shit
So, all these words lead as to the real problem

ALIENATION

Learn history (and not only how to make a canned style of the moment), read a lot, improvise, break the rules (but learn how to work with before), write lyrics first, write music first, learn about yourself and about the world and really make this a religion!!!

 

Hey Thanks for offering your thoughts and the info on topline writing. So technically I can still tell people I'm a topliner despite me being not much of a lyric writer?

Well the thing is I really love writing topline melodies, with or without a pre existing track. As matter of fact, I prefer writing without a track, just from scratch, and I believe I'm very good at it. I've won songwriting competitions and it's large attributed to my topline melodies.

However, I'm not very fond of writing lyrics to melodies. Although sometimes with the melodies that I hum and record there are inevitably some words that may creep in here and there. I prefer to let a lyricist complete the job for me.

But sometimes I really wonder if I should up my game and take up the lyrics department as well, to become the complete topliner, sigh..........