Tip #3 for Writing Worship Songs: Turning Text into Melody

Tip #3: Turning text into melody.
Read your poetry over and over. Look for the natural meter and beat of the phrases. Look for the natural cadences, and punctuations. Is it a minor key sound or major? Try both and see how your own sense of aesthetics responds. It helps to be able to play the guitar or piano and find some chords, but it's not necessary to writing a melody. Sing your song in the shower or while you're driving. I've actually gotten a lot of good ideas while washing dishes. Get a tape recorder or digital voice recorder and capture your ideas even if you don't know if you like it or not. I rarely complete a song in one sitting, and recording it can be a form of musical journaling. Sometimes going back to old tapes, I find an idea that forgot about and it inspires more more on the idea that would have been lost in shuffle of life.