How to Stop Forcing Creativity and Write More
Here’s the scenario: you want to write the next song, but you can’t. You’re sitting down every day but nothing good is coming out. You’re really trying but nothing sounds right, you cycle through ideas just to get frustrated with each of them, you get yourself to write lines and hate every one of them.…
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Write a Song When You’re Not “Supposed” To
There are a lot of guidelines out there on how to write songs: books, courses, famous songwriters, podcasts, teachers and—of course—blogs like this one. Every single one will suggest what makes a song really great and the best ways to write. There are many suggestions from morning pages, object writing, setting a timer, co-writing or…
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Write a Song Without Actually Writing a Song
Life can be pretty tiring. Sometimes you want to write the next song, but honestly? There are only so many hours in a day. You really do want to prioritize writing, but between a job, errands, trying to eat healthy foods, exercise and have some much-needed down time… songwriting might take a back seat for…
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How to Get Back on Track After a Writing Break
Call it a break, call it a slump—everyone gets those periods of time when they don’t feel as productive. Breaks are essential, but at some point, we might want to get back to writing. Sometimes the answer isn’t as simple as forcing ourselves to do the work; that might mean we write once, but the…
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The Paradox of Doing Everything in a Music Career
Having a career in music is different than it used to be. I might be giving away my age here, but when I idolized being a songwriter and musician, the world was working in our favour. Big record labels were the only way to have a sustainable career in the business, the only open door…
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Is it Important to be a “Good” Songwriter?
If you’re reading this, you most likely have an interest in trying to improve your songwriting skills. I believe this is an important goal; partly what gets me motivated to write is trying to use new techniques or studying my favourite songs. I think most songwriters do enjoy learning about their craft, but unfortunately, it…
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Study Your Favourite Songs
There are two sides of the coin when it comes to songwriters: the side where songwriters claim it is impossible to teach songwriting, and the other side of songwriters that will read every songwriting book they can get their hands on. It’s pretty clear that I believe the latter, that any aspiring songwriter can learn…
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Why You Should Just Write the Next Song (and when you shouldn’t)
If you’ve been poking around this blog (or just read the name for the website), you understand that we are big advocates of writing the next song. We could ruminate forever on one song, but there are a lot of advantages of just moving forward and writing another one. Here are a few key reasons…
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The Case for Writing Multiple Songs at Once
When I first started writing songs, I wrote one song at a time until it was finished. This process was so delicate for me that I convinced myself that I had to write the entire song in one sitting or it would be forgotten forever. As a result, my writing sessions were sporadic bursts, going…
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Song Ideas You Can Do This Weekend
(Some links lead to songwriting exercises!) 1. Write a song based on a book title 2. Write a Chorus with the hook line in the beginning and end of the Chorus 3. Write a song that counts up or down (a list, weekdays, months, time, etc.) 4. Write a seasonal or holiday song (Christmas, Halloween,…
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