Guitar and Notepad - Songwriting schedule

An Incomplete Song Is Not a Failure

As a songwriter, when the song you’re working on seems to be going nowhere, it’s a source of great discouragement. You find yourself facing a day of reckoning: Do you keep going with it, or do you declare it a dud and toss it? There is another option: put it aside, and revisit it at some […]

Guitar and paper for songwriting

Got Great Lyric Ideas, But No Story?

Let’s say you find yourself in a situation where some catchy lines of lyric, or some great word combinations, have been rolling about your mind, but you don’t have a story or song topic that helps knit those lines or words together. “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” shows you several ways to […]

Guitar, paper & pencil, smartphone

Dealing With “I Can’t Finish a Song” Syndrome

We tend to think that the only people with any measure of musical ability are the ones that have a special gift for it. And while being a good musician requires a bit more than a passing understanding of how music works, musicianship is something that comes with being human. It’s in our DNA. The kind […]

Synthesizer keyboard - songwriting

Why Saving Failed Songs Is So Important

It may seem illogical to save bits of songs that you’ve determined are failures. After all, if you’re trying to write a song and it’s not working out, surely that means that the ideas you’re creating are simply bad ones, and you should toss them and try new ideas. It really depends on what you […]