The Process of Songwriting

Everyone wants to be a writer. Everyone who has any desire to play music, rather than just listen to it, has some kind of desire to create. Why then do so many potentially great musicians end up as carbon copies of their greats?-- or even worse, carbon copies of other wannabe musicians.

Most people shy away from writing because they simply don't know how to go about the process of songwriting. They feel strange and awkward writing because things don't necessarily come out right at first. Then people just never write, and as a result their writing isn't very good. So what's the best songwriting method? How can you write good songs? And how do you find out if you have "songwriting talent"?

Well, there is only one method to songwriting (just go with me for a minute and you will see what I mean). But let me answer another question before I delve into more detail on that...how do you know if you have songwriting talent? Easy! I'll tell you right now. You do! Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you write good songs yet, but you definitely have the talent for doing it. Everyone does.

The Only Songwriting Method is to sit down, and just make music somehow. You don't even need an instrument, you can clap your hands, make funny noises, bang on a guitar. The reason that so many untrained musicians (Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, etc. etc.) become great songwriters despite lack of "proper" technique is because learning an instrument yourself forces you to utilize your creative process much more.

Creative Process vs. Learning Process

In music, you are always doing one of two things: creating or emulating. When you have a music teacher "directing you" with what to learn, it can be faster, but some things might not necessarily click the way they should. When you allow yourself to explore music freely, you will have certain "aha!" moments that serve as milestones to look back upon. Ideally, you want to have the best of both worlds-- you want to be able to have a constant source feeding you information so you can understand what you are creating and how to better it, however at the same time you must find yourself constantly creating.

Take time every day to just sit with your instrument, not looking at any music, and just play. Be creative-- in writing there are no limits, just do what comes naturally. You don't necessarily need to worry about writing full "songs" at this point, instead you may find it easier to write song-fragments. Sometimes I will write a 10 second fragment, play it about 30 times to get it in my head, and a few weeks later it will bloom into a full song, so don't take those little snippets for granted! Start small and don't expect to write a full-blown song in your first sitting.

You will go through a lot of bad songs before you hit the good ones. My old hard drive has about 300 terrible song-snippets from my first year of guitar playing. The best approach you can take as a beginner is the volume approach. Write as much as possible, and record as much of your writing as possible as well!

...Well, what are you waiting for?

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