Songwriting exercises are essential if you’re dealing with writer’s block. They’re also a great way of changing things up when you get bored of songwriting (it’ll happen eventually, trust me) or sharpening your songwriting tools.
Songwriting Exercise: Twisting Clichés
When we’re writing a new song, it’s common to start with the title, which may later become the hook line in the Chorus. If you’re trying a songwriting challenge, just not feeling the idea or looking for something new, try twisting a cliché title. This is a great way to put a fresh perspective on…
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How to Write a Happy Song
It seems that every single songwriter I’ve come across has a lot of difficulty in writing happy songs—myself included! There’s something about them that doesn’t always feel authentic to us. I was well along my songwriting journey until I started to feel comfortable with writing them. This is the key, if you really think about…
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Songwriting Exercise: Write a Song on a Loop
This exercise is for the very traditional songwriter. You might be a traditional songwriter if you write using an instrument, change the chords every song section, approach songwriting from a storytelling angle and tend to use a notebook to write things down. Being a traditional songwriter means you have a great songwriting process but sometimes,…
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Songwriting Exercise: Write a Melody Alongside a Riff
A riff in a song is usually a short section that tends to be ear-catching. It is a rhythmically-based melody that might appear in the Intro, underneath another song section or featured in a Post-Chorus. Sometimes it acts on its own, a unique part of the song that serves to catch a listener’s attention. Sometimes…
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How to Figure Out Your Writing Process
It can be very helpful for songwriters to understand themselves, especially their writing process. Some only start with lyrics, some can only write at night, some can only write when they’re falling asleep. Some will claim not to have a writing process, which in itself is also important to know. Songs or songwriting sessions can…
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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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Songwriting Exercise: Changing Perspectives
Often, when we get used to writing songs a particular way, we stop noticing which perspective we choose when we write. I remember when I first started songwriting, I would change up perspectives all the time, but now all my songs are almost exclusively in the first person. Here is an exercise I do when…
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Do All Your Songs Sound the Same?
If you’ve read a few posts here and there, you know that I love writing a little bit every day. But sometimes when I’m in the groove and finish many songs in succession, I listen back and realize they’re sounding similar. This especially happened when I’ve honed on writing in a particular genre. It’s great…
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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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Songwriting Exercise: Flip Your Melodies
A section’s melody is one of the most important elements of a song—as well as one of the most difficult. There are several ways to approach writing a melody, and when we use the same approach, we run the danger of writing similar melodies for every song we write. If you are looking for some…
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Write the Next Song 