A pro songwriter's workflow

8/6/2026

Will Hicks – Sony ATV songwriter, award-winning producer, and co-creator of Chorus – explains how he uses the different features to go from a simple melodic idea to completed song.

If you're writing your songs using Word, Google Docs, or TextEdit, there's a very good chance that writing your next song on Chorus will make it better, be more enjoyable, and will enable you to step out of any tired chord or lyric patterns, enhancing every aspect of the songwriting process.

Here's how I use Chorus.

Find a starting point

Most often I start with a title or a small lyric idea I think has potential. It could be a phrase that's been rattling around, or something I've jotted down that just feels like it wants to be a song.

I usually head straight to the CHORD PROGRESSIONS library to get some musical starting point that fits the mood of the song. Then I'll often use the chords pads to play around with variations.

While I'm noodling, I'm rarely quiet. I'll scat, sing vowel sounds, throw out tiny lyric fragments — whatever comes out — until something lands and sticks. Half my best melodies started as nonsense syllables over a chord sequence I'd just found.

Get lyric ideas

Once the music feels like I've got some chords and a bit of a melody, I drop a key word or title into TRIGGERS. It hands me the interesting, relatable, singable words I'm likely to need, and I use it on a few key words until I've built a proper vocabulary for the song. I save the best of it in NOTEPAD.

Then I head to GENIUS and type in the same key words or a lyric idea. It writes me a batch of custom lines to react to — much like writing with a co-writer, most won't work, but the odd one hands me language I'd never have thought of myself. I favourite the best and drop them in NOTEPAD too. It's a brilliant ice breaker — I often get my first line from it.

Fill in the gaps

Now I'll drop in the basic structure of the song as headings in the lyrics. Almost always that's verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. This helps me focus on getting the song to a complete first draft.

It's so important for me to get a completed first draft done as quickly as possible. They say the best songs aren't written, they're rewritten, and that's so true.

As the song develops, I'm mixig ideas from TRIGGERS with the best bits from GENIUS. As I go, I lean on RHYMES to tie it together, especially PHRASE RHYMES. These little two or three word phrases already carry their own imagery, so they're real creativity boosters when a plain rhyme feels flat.

But again, the most important thing is to get to a complete first draft, even if there are parts I don't like.

Tidying up

Finally I record a rough take with RECORDINGS and listen back — that's when the real problems show up. Words that don't sit right on the melody get moved. If a line isn't working, I'll go back through TRIGGERS, GENIUS and RHYMES again until it does.

Chorus doesn't write the song for me. It just makes sure I never have to stare at a blank page for very long, and I know if I get stuck, I've got somewhere to go.

That's really the whole point of a process like this — not a shortcut, just fewer excuses to stop. The song you're circling right now, the title you haven't done anything with yet, the chord sequence sitting half-finished — it's closer than you think!