Songwriters are very familiar with the chorus hook, but there are other kinds to experiment with, and you will want to discover the power of layering various kinds of hooks in the same song. “Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make Songs Memorable, and Build Your Fan Base“ shows you how it’s done.
When a song is unfinished it can make you feel frustrated. That’s especially true if it stays in that unfinished state for a long time. Your best way forward is to develop a positive attitude to that song that simply won’t finish: think of it as material for some future song, leave it alone, and get to work on a new one.
Having several songs that you’re working on simultaneously is a great way to keep frustration levels low, and writer’s block from setting in.
For each of those songs, the musical elements you’re trying to put together are a collection of ideas. Each song, until you finish it, is musical material. That means you can rearrange those ideas, take some out, put new ones in, and keep working and reworking your song until you get something that clicks.
You can even take the ideas that you thought were going to be part of a separate song and combine them with another. The material for one gets pulled into a second one, and instead of two songs that are causing you grief, you get one great song.
Too often, songwriters think of a song as a musical “event” that requires your full and undivided attention until it’s complete. In songwriting, the expression “a change is as good as a rest” is very applicable, and very true.
So the best thing you can do to keep yourself feeling creative and positive is to allow yourself the freedom of working on several songs at the same time. And don’t be afraid to put songs on the back burner for a long time if the ideas aren’t happening.
Once you’ve got a song finished, how long it took to write it becomes very irrelevant. And become a much happier songwriter.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.
“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle comes with a free copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process,” along with a Study Guide. Learn how to make the writing of a good lyric the starting point for your own songwriting method.