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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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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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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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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Another Way to Think About Writer’s Block
Writer’s block is something that all songwriters will face at some point in their journey. Every person is different and might need varying ways of getting back into writing music. It can be a personal process that you can’t work though the same way every single time. Writer’s block can sound like a scary, daunting…
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Overcoming Self-Doubt in Songwriting
Like everyone, I experience self-doubt when it comes to songwriting. Along with music having a brutal, messy industry, it was pretty early on when I realized just how many other songwriters are out there. Part of being a musician is getting passed on and rejected, and after many of those instances, I can feel pretty…
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Why I Write Songs When I’m Sleepy
When I’m sleepy, probably the last thing I want to do is write a song. As much as I love writing, I can admit that it requires a lot of effort and brainpower. Like most things worth doing, songwriting can get pretty difficult when your focus has to be squeezing a story into short lines…
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How to Start: The Hardest Part of Songwriting
Songwriting isn’t easy, and one of the most difficult parts of the process is starting. One could argue that activities like writing, art, music, exercise, etc. can sometimes feel like more work than fun. Songwriting requires a lot more effort than simply tuning into Netflix, but I definitely think the former is much more satisfying.…
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Write the Next Song 