How often does sketching become part of your songwriting process? And what does that term mean to you? In most of the creative art forms, sketching is vital. Whether you’re a novelist creating character sketches, a choreographer sketching out a dance routine, or an artist getting ideas for a new painting, sketching has two main purposes: […]
Nothing slows the songwriting process down as much as second guessing every idea you get. Silencing your inner critic, at least temporarily, is a good way of making sure that you give yourself a fair chance to get something written. You need to give yourself the opportunity to hear what different song components sound like […]
You’re sitting in your room with a blank piece of paper and a guitar. How do you get the songwriting process started? Where do your ideas come from? And how do you maintain a fresh supply of ideas so that songwriting can be a daily activity? I think if you’re using the same process every […]
Most of the time, inspiration gets far too much credit. At least, inspiration as the term is usually used. We commonly think of inspiration as that thing or event that targets our emotional soul and makes us want to express our emotions by writing music. So we feel most like expressing ourselves when we encounter […]
Though everyone has a favourite way of starting songs, I think it’s fair to say that most people will use many different processes, depending on what musical idea pops into their head at the start of a session. Some typical ways of starting: Setting up a percussion loop and improvise over it, using the mood […]
Practically every songwriter confronts this nagging problem at some point, and sometimes very often: You start writing, and right away you notice that it’s similar to some other song you’ve heard before. There’s nothing like noticing that your new song sounds like an already-existing one to kill your songwriting process in its tracks. So then […]
