How Songwriting Inspiration Really Works

“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” Songwriting BundleAre you waiting for inspiration? You’re probably wasting time! “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle covers every aspect of songwriting, from creating chord progressions, to writing melodies and lyrics, and much more. Now with a 7th FREE eBook. Read more…
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Songwriting FrustrationYou’ve all felt this before: you sit down, guitar in hand, ready to start your next tune, and… nothing. You just can’t come up with a good idea. Sometimes this can go on for several days or longer, and you know that you’re in the grip of writer’s block. And it’s normal at those times to think: If only I could get inspired!

In Chapter 1 of my book “Beating Songwriter’s Block: Jump-Start Your Words and Music,” I show that inspiration, at least the kind that contributes to strong, healthy songwriting, comes from within, and there is scientific research that proves it. Your best solution to a creative block is to work through it. The worst thing you can do is to sit around waiting for inspiration to hit.

In fact, though, there are two different kinds of inspiration. One is the kind I just described. When you conjure up a musical idea, and then join it onto another musical idea (i.e., when you play a couple of chords, and then improvise a short melody to go with it), your creative mind experiences a little shot of excitement, and it causes you to want to generate more ideas. That’s how the normal songwriting process works. In other words, the very act of creation causes you to feel inspired.

That kind of inspiration – inspiration from within – is crucial to a good songwriting process. But every once in a while (rarely, hopefully), everything comes to a grinding halt. New, good ideas are hard to come by. It’s for that reason that I devote Chapter 3 of my book to melody and lyrical exercises that can help you generate good quality musical fragments that can jump-start the creative process again.

But once in a while, you just need a shot of musical excitement to start writing again. That’s the second type of inspiration that I talk about in the book: externally-sourced inspiration.

That’s the kind of inspiration that comes from emotionally-stimulating events in our lives. The birth of a child, the death of a loved-one, a family wedding, the witnessing of a beautiful scene in nature like a waterfall… these are all things that can stimulate our creative mind, requiring us to express our emotions through music.

There’s a problem with that kind of inspiration: it’s fleeting. It lasts as long as the intense emotions of the event last, and then it’s gone. If you haven’t solved the deeper reasons for your block, you’re back to where you were mere days ago.

When songwriters tell you that they’re “waiting for inspiration”, they’re waiting for something emotional to happen, something that can cause that kind of excitement that will get them writing again. But that’s a lousy way to live your creative life: always waiting for something to inspire you.

Externally-sourced inspiration is like tossing paper on top of a smouldering pile of embers. It will flare up, and give you all sorts of reasons to believe that your fire is well and truly burning on its own. But seconds later, that paper is burned up, and you’re back to your smouldering embers once more.

The best inspiration comes from inside your own creative brain. Every time you imagine something musical, it’s a normal human response to wonder, “What can I do with that idea?” You then imagine something else that will work well with that first idea, and then you feel a small shot of excitement. Then you conjure up something to go with that, and your excitement grows. And on and on…

If you find that you just can’t create anything worthwhile, and that goes on for more than just a few days, you’re in the grip of writer’s block. The best thing you can do is to work through the block. But you may also need to look at how you’re putting your songs together. It’s possible that your compositional process itself is contributing to your block. Chapters 5 – 9 of my book deal with the structure of music, and helps you make sure that you’re not inadvertently stunting your own creative process.

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Gary Ewer is the author of “Beating Songwriter’s Block: Jump-Start Your Words and Music”, available through Amazon.comBarnes & Noble, and Hal Leonard Books. He has also written “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle. Read more..

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