Music Blog

Why do great songwriters keep coming up with great ideas? How is it that they can connect deeply to us with the simplest of lines? Where do they even begin to start? What songwriting tricks have they used along the way?

Usually, the best songwriters achieve this by using common topics such as love, then taking a different, fresh angle on the subject. By doing this, their listener is interested and entertained by having new light shed on a old but familiar subject. This strategy also includes the listener by talking about familiar things which are easily related to.

How exactly do they do this? What particular practices do these songwriters follow in order to keep their creative juices flowing? Each songwriter is different, but there are a number of things that can certainly help to keep the creative process fresh and vibrant. If you are a budding songwriter burning to try your hand, some of these songwriting tricks might help:

1. Keep a digital recorder and/or notebook with you at all times. It’s impossible to predict when inspiration will strike, or a new melody might come to you.

2. Make time to jam with others. Getting songs ready for a jam session can help creativity and song fluency.

3. Practice singing harmony. As a songwriter, one of the best skills that you can develop is to sing harmony on the fly. By singing harmony on the fly you are really “composing”.

4. Listen to lots of different music. Listening to other writers’ music can give creativity a real jump start. The subconscious can pick up riffs, nuances and tone which can help a writer to write much more fluently.

5. Don’t censor yourself. If you have a strange or unusual idea for a song, use it and keep going with the song. You can change it later if you still don’t like it.

6. Get inspiration from everywhere. Many writers have been inspired by great works of fiction or art. (remember Mona Lisa and Wuthering Heights?). Another source of inspiration for starting songs can be the titles used in magazine articles, which are often short and snappy.

7. Find supporters. Writing music is very personal and difficult to produce without positive feedback. Having friends who really enjoy your music and provide encouragement helps to keep you motivated and inspired.

8. Use poetry. Challenging yourself to produce poetry can really help with writing lyrics for your songs. Take existing poems or bible verses and write melodies for them. Tuning in to others’ imagination through reading can also assist with imagination and so improve lyric writing ability.

9. Think in multiple lines of instrumentation. When music is going through your head, try to stretch your composition ability by thinking in multiple lines of music. This is not easy, but the more lines of instrumentation you can hold in your mind, the better you will be able to compose.

10. Practice writing music on the fly. Improvise melodies while alternating between two chords of accompaniment. Use the left hand to alternate between two chords, and the right hand to improvise melodies.

It is easy to discount a popular and easily understood song as “not creatively sound”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Music and lyrics are a very subjective thing, and everyone is different. Your least favorite song could be somebody else’s all time favorite.

So the moral of this story is, don’t ever suppress your artistic and creative instinct. Perhaps some of the songwriting tricks you are reading today could just make the difference. And never forget that there are people out there waiting to hear your songs!